Stop Press!

The children have completed their stop frame animations this week. They have also been busy creating soundscapes to demonstrate the build up to the eruption building up to the eruption itself.

In English, we have been journalists preparing for writing a newspaper report about the eruption, including interviewing eyewitnesses and gathering facts to include.

To mark the General Election, the children have also been involved in carrying out a mock election and enjoyed an Election themed Challenge Time in which they came up with their own parties, including a manifesto and campaign materials.

The calm before the storm!

In Art, this week the children finally got to apply all of their learning about how to create effects and moods in artwork when they made their volcano collages. First they created two different backgrounds using watercolour washes, one to show the calm before the eruption and the other to show the chaos of an eruption. The children were then challenged to choose the materials they would like to use to create their two collages from the range that was on offer, thinking about how they would use texture and colour to show the contrast between the dormant and erupting volcanoes. We were impressed to see the thought that the children put into choosing their materials and many could clearly explain their choices. The resulting collages were fantastic and it was really clear to see the contrast between the two pictures.

These collages were then used as the background to the children’s stop motion animations and on Wednesday the children used their knowledge of democracy to vote on whose collages each group would use to create the best effect. The children then went on to begin filming their final pieces and they all worked exceptionally well in their teams, realising as they went that constant editing was needed throughout the filming process to create the final film.

In Maths, we have been learning about the formal method of multiplication including carrying and have had a go at using all the methods we have learnt for multiplication to solve a range of word problems.

In English, the children have been introduced to the genre of newspaper reports. We have used copies of First News to explore the features of newspapers, written our own headlines and thought about the 5 Ws that should be included in a report to tell the reader the who, what , where, when and why about an event. Next week, the children will be using this knowledge to write their own reports about the eruption in Pompeii.