English

This half term we have been reading the book 'How to train your dragon' by Cressida Cowell. As a class, we have loved this subject matter and enjoyed imagining a dragons lair and designing our own dragons. The creatures we created were eventually put together as a set of Top Trump cards for the class. 

We also designed our own ways of capturing a dragon. Some of which were ingenious! 

Finally, we wrote a persuasive letter to Gobber the Belch to try and convince him that we would make excellent students for his elite dragon training program.

Maths

Maths this half term has been focused on multiplication and division. As well as continuing to practise our quick recall of facts for the 2,3,4,5,8 and 10 times tables, we have also moved on to using an informal written method to multiply and divide 2 digit numbers by a single digit.

Religious Education

Bible reading: Matthew 4:18-22.  

During our spring 1 RE lessons, we started by sharing the story of the calling of the first disciples. We discussed what Jesus asks Peter and Andrew to do. The children explained that by following Jesus, Peter and Andrew they would be giving up a lot. We equated this to children symbolically giving up their own possessions and how it made them feel.

When we finished the reading the children were asked what James and John left behind.

Questions:

• Although they have given some things up, what special new job have the disciples gained once they follow Jesus?
• What might Jesus have meant by ‘fisher of people’?
• Why do you think Matthew chose to include this story in his Gospel?
• Why didn’t he choose to just give a list of qualities Jesus was looking for in a disciple?  

The children learnt that the reading is part of a Gospel, which means ‘good news’ and tells the story of the life and teachings of Jesus.

In our last few lessons, we put together a list of questions we wanted to ask a church leader. We then went to church and Kate and Katy very kindly answered everything the children asked.

On their return to school, the children took all their information and made it into a ‘Wanted’ poster. See our work in the pictures below:

Science

Science has seen us exploring the fascinating topic of forces. We have established that a force is a push or a pull and can act upon an object by speeding it up, slowing it down, changing its shape or its direction.

Investigations were carried out to see the effect that friction has on a moving object and how the force of friction can differ depending on the type of surface. The class also had lots of fun experimenting with magnets and finding out where they are used in everyday life.

Design Technology

To further support our work in our topic of 'Invaders', we decided to create models of Viking boats. 

We explored the traditional design of the Viking long boat and the use of struts to strengthen their structure. We also took into account the design of the sails, shields and shape of the boats to fit their purpose. 

The boats the children made looked incredible!

Topic

Who were the Vikings?

The children created a comic strip to tell the story of the Vikings landing at Lindisfarne and what happened with their arrival and the Monks and their monastery.

The children put together a Viking timeline in chronological order and were encouraged to use the historical vocabulary discussed within the lesson.

Next, they were encouraged to use their maps skills to find a range of different places and objects followed by atlas work to identify where the Vikings settled using their knowledge of suffixes.

To end the half term, we looked at two different recounts of the same event. This created a great deal of discussion about there always being two sides to every story. The children drew on real life experiences to explain their answers and knowledge from other subjects to give evidence for their opinion.

We look forward to continuing to build our knowledge over the next half term.