All Things Roman

It’s been another jam-packed week in Hawk Owl Class as we continue our learning about all things Roman.

In Maths, the children were introduced to Roman Numerals and finished off the week with a game of Roman Numeral bingo. The rest of the week was spent learning about rounding and then negative numbers and how to order them and how to count backwards and forwards through 0.

In English, the class have been thinking about different ways to start sentences in order to make their writing more interesting. We have also continued our work on the Romulus and Remus story, with the children planning and writing new endings to the story. Having come up with their original ideas, the children then played games such as ‘That didn’t happen’ to generate more ideas that they could use in their stories. They then had the chance to discuss their plans with their peers so that they could develop and improve their original ideas to create their final piece – just like real authors. We definitely have some budding Roald Dahls, Michael Rosens and Jaqueline Wilsons amongst us!

In Art and Design, the children have learnt about Roman shields and how they were designed. They looked at different examples and then designed their own shields incorporating the details they had noticed. We shall be making our own shields ready for our shield formation display that will make up part of our History off the Page day later this half term. We have also been learning about Roman mosaics and, after looking at some examples, the children designed their own patterns for a mosaic border.

 

The Romans are invading!!

This week as part of our Experience Outcome topic, we have learnt all about the Roman Empire and the countries that the Romans invaded. We used maps to colour in the countries that the Romans had invaded and, at the end, we could see just how far the Empire had spread. In Computing, we are covering the topic of E-Safety and the class have started to think about what to do if they receive unwanted communications.

In English, we looked at the key parts of our Romulus and Remus myth, to help us remember what we should include in our own. We created a toolkit of myth features. Then we looked at the parts of the story and decided which bits we could change in our own versions. Using this plan, the children then carried out a BIG WRITE, writing their own version of the myth and they came up with some very imaginative alterations to the story.

In Science, we were introduced to magnetism as a force and carried out tests to find out which materials are magnetic. Ask the children to tell you what they discovered. In Art, we learnt about the Roman ‘scutum’ (or shield) and looked at how the Romans designed their shields to intimidate their opponents and show them that they were invincible. This was in preparation for designing our own shields next week.

In Maths, the children have been continuing their work on place value by working out the scale on a number line and estimating where numbers should be placed along it and if you can practise this at home with the children, it would be very helpful.

 

 

Welcome to Hawk Owl Class 2019/2020

It has been lovely to see the children returning fresh faced and ready to learn after the summer and we have had a busy start to the term.

The children have been introduced to their new Experience Outcome topic – the Romans and began by investigating some Roman artefacts. We were very impressed with the reasoning skills that the children used to work out what the artefacts might have been used for – they came up with some very sensible and well-thought out ideas and could justify their ideas articulately.

The children have also learnt about different types of government, including that which was in place in Rome and they carried out a vote about which type of government they thought was best. We have also carried out our own class votes to decide on our School Council members, Eco Squad and Safety Ambassadors. Well done to all those elected.

In Maths, we have been learning about place value and ordering numbers up to, and even some beyond, 1000 and we even managed to honour Roald Dahl Day with a Maths lesson themed around The Twits.

In English, the children have been learning the story of Romulus and Remus, including role playing the story, retelling it in their own words and looking for language features used in the text. Next week, we will be inventing our own myths based on the structure of the Romulus and Remus tale.

In Science, we learnt about some Roman inventions and then pretended that we were Roman engineers investigating how air acts as a force on a windmill. We thought about how to make a windmill spin faster or for longer and how to stop it spinning. We also thought about the direction the windmill spins in and tried to find the best place for our windmills to work in a very windy playground!!

The children have been working really hard and we are excited to see what they can achieve this term.