Summer Term 2

We have been designing our own buildings using CAD programs. These involved Sketch Up and Planner 5D.

We worked in conjunction with Peabody and North West Kent Countryside Partnership to create a circular walk to our local green space. On the way, we planted wildflower meadows and created mini-beast hotels.

We experimented with materials, soluble and insoluble and looked at reversible and irreversible reactions.

Summer Term 1

As part of our Queen's Jubilee celebration week we created our own portrait of the Queen. We incorporated our decade of dance (which was the 1950s) to make a 3D optical illusion portrait that showed the Queen in her past (1927) and a more modern image of her.

In English we looked at the spoken word poem 'Sorry', by Prince Ea.

In the poem he is surrounded by many images of animals and problems that are faced by our planet. We decided to create our own origami animal zoo. We also looked at the ways in which we could improve our patience and resilience when the origami animal instructions were not always the easiest to follow.

Through our Engagement Week in English and the video clip of 'Contre Temps' we made our own underwater cityscape. We used blue and the colours white and black to mix lighter and darker shades to create a scene with different light effects.

Spring Term 2

In our history lessons we have been learning about the ancient African civilisation of Benin. We created our own ancient Benin figurines based on the culture of the time.

We have been looking at 'The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind', and created our own wind turbine including facts from our own research to the finished piece.

We were fortunate enough to meet Ying and Yang. Giant African land snails.

We have been looking at various codes and code-breaking in computing. Here we were trying to send messages using semaphore. But we have also investigated, Morse code, looked at the Caesar cipher and learnt about how to make an effective and secure password.

SPRING TERM 1

A massive welcome back after the Christmas break! We have lots of fun things planned this term, which I know that the children will love. We endeavour each day to make the learning fun and provide a creative curriculum which is both broad and balanced. 

Thank you all in anticipation of your support for the forthcoming term.

Mr Kolseth

SPRING TERM TOPIC - AMAZING AFRICA!

In art we created an African village scene using geometric patterns.

After researching traditional African patterns on art and textiles we attempted to create our own.

As part of our Engagement week in English we chose and re-enacted a scene from our book Journey to Jo'burg.

In the same week we created a 3D orange tree imprisoned behind barbed wire, a major plot point in our book.

We have been investigating volume in maths. Here we were attempting to estimate the volume of the boxes we had been given.

We have been making our own compositions and learning different ways of playing the djembe drum - a traditional African instrument.

We moved from traditional African drums and the traditional way of playing to electronic media. We used online software to create our own drum-based compositions.

For NSPCC Number Day - we explored our heart rate and how exercise can affect it. We measured and recorded our results.

We have been looking at the life cycles of a variety of different animals and created a spinner showing the life cycle of a frog.

Autumn 1

Welcome to Helsinki.

I hope you had an enjoyable and restful summer holidays.

I am looking forward to getting to know all of you and achieve some incredible things over the course of the year.

We have lots of exciting activities planned and lots of interesting new topics to learn and explore.

Mr Kolseth

Autumn Term Topic - 'Equality Through the Ages'

In computing, we have been 'Game Developers'. We have been using the program 'Scratch' to design and create our own game using coding.

In English, we have been focussing on our equality foci, disability. We used the short animation Ian to focus our writing and write a persuasive letter to convince Principals around the country to make 'reasonable adjustments' for the access of disabled children into their schools. Here we were acting out the story of Ian.

We have focussed on percussion instruments in music this half term. We also looked at the famous movie composer Hans Zimmer and attempted to create our own 'Zimmer Shimmer'.

In gymnastics, we have been looking at balances and movements both on and off apparatus.

In science, we have been exploring the solar system. Here we were trying to find out why we see different phases of the moon and why the sun appears to travel across the sky.

Autumn 2

In geography we used atlases to find and label continents, oceans and countries and incorporated this knowledge into making our own globes!

In music we have been looking at body percussion and created our own body percussion piece of music in groups.

We have been very busy discovering facts about forces. We have investigated air resistance and attempted to design an efficient parachute using this knowledge. We also designed our own objects to be more streamlined in a way that would travel through the water more efficiently. Finally, we looked at friction and used Newton meters to measure how effective our shoes were on different surfaces.

In computing, we have been making a website to inform other children about how to stay safe online.

Linking our English, maths, DT and art we made some Christmas presents using 3D nets and designed the wrapping paper.

We have also been looking at biomes in geography and created our own biomes in class.

As part of our engagement aspect of our English lessons, we decided upon a topic that inspired us and motivated us enough to want to challenge it. We used different pieces of software to create an awareness ad before writing our poems.