English

This half term we have been reading stories for Seasons of Splendour which is full of Indian tales. This links nicely with our history enquiry all about the silk road and early Islamic civilisation as well as our previous RE enquiry into Hinduism which is ongoing throughout the year. As part of this we have conducted character analysis, retold stories, created story maps and written a tale in the style of these stories.

Following this, we spent two weeks on cross-curricular writing, focussing on non-fiction style texts including an explanation and biography – read more about his in History and Science.

Our final unit was a seasonal mini-unit learning the story of The Nutcracker. We listened to the music to help us make a prediction, created an image of a sugarplum fairy and wrote a character description using different tools such as a descriptaurus, thesaurus and Word Hippo on the Chromebooks.

We have also listened to a story about the Titanic as part of Guided Reading, learning about Grace who was travelling from Ireland. The children were fantastic at making links to their Year 3 History enquiry about Delia who also travelled from Ireland on the titanic. As well as this, we have focused on Grammar, thinking about word classes, and using standard English, this will continue throughout the year.

Maths

This half term has focussed on the four operations. We spent the first two weeks learning the written strategies for column addition and subtraction, using concrete resources to support the idea of exchanging and regrouping. Our place value knowledge was super important for this and we have been learning to put our place value headings in every time to avoid mistakes! From this, we moved on to multiplication. We worked with Miss Rehman on squared, cubed and prime numbers as well as factors. We will continue to learn about these after Christmas to make sure we have embedded this knowledge and we are able to apply this to problem solving.

From here, we learnt about multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. We have learnt this by remembering which way the numbers ‘dance around Dave the Decimal!’ After Christmas, when we move on to decimals, we will revisit this for moving into decimal numbers. After this, we learnt how to use column multiplication for multiplying by a one digit and two-digit number, not forgetting when we need our place holder in. We use a different colour for this and our steps to success bookmark!

Science

This half term we have been learning about Forces. Our initial lesson was all about gravity, friction, and air resistance. We addressed misconceptions early on and thought about the theory of gravity. Miss Rehman taught our next lesson all about Sir Isaac Newton, the children read up on some facts about him and answered some questions. This set them up for writing a biography about him. The children applied their new knowledge to write a biography about him and his discoveries including that he was once an MP and the Master of the Mint!

Our next lesson was all about Air Resistance and getting our heads around Galileo’s theory of two objects of different masses, but of similar shape and size, hitting the ground at the same time. This also gave us an insight to space and how the moon has no air, therefore no Air Resistance and very little gravity. We applied our knowledge of this to design the perfect parachute. Mrs Staples was a little sneaky here and allowed us to choose our own variables and conduct our own fair tests. Some of us realised that our variable to change the height of the drop would lead to an unfair test and we addressed this in our conclusion. This linked back to remembering to also think about how to ensure our variables are conducive to a fair test!

We will continue this Science topic after Christmas before moving on to living things and their habitats.

History

Our enquiry this half term was ‘What was life like in Baghdad during the Golden Age of Islam?’ We began by learning about Abu Jafar Al-Mansur, the second caliph who designed Madina Al-Salam which translates to City of Peace. The modern day name of this city is Baghdad. Starting off, we listened to a description of the city written by Yaqubi, a geographer, and drew a diagram of the circular city. We also labelled this carefully. Then we looked at the countries around Madina Al-Salam and we recognised where this city was on a map and from our learning about the Silk Road, we realised it was part of this trade route.

Moving on from this, we answered the question ‘Why was Baghdad considered to be the crossroads to the universe in AD900?’ The children wrote an explanation text addressing all the reasons linked to this including the fact it was in the centre of the trade route, close to the River Tigris – allowing access across the world and that it was the capital of the Abbasid Dynasty, a powerful empire at the time. Our next question and one we will continue to investigate was ‘Why was the Bayt Al-Hikma so important in AD900?’ We have learnt that this translates to The House of Wisdom and that it attracted scholars from across the East.

Art and DT

This half term, we have been thinking about layered art linked to middle eastern and Asian patterns. Miss Rehman began this unit with us, looking at the different shapes we could use to create a canvas square. Moving on from this, we painted a base colour of a deep red and the children then used beads, buttons and thread to create these patterns – sewing directly on to the canvas, ready to make a class display for the corridor.  

In DT, we have continued to develop our sewing skills by designing and creating a felt hanging Christmas decoration. We have used three main designs including a reindeer, gingerbread man and Father Christmas. We have also focussed on our evaluative skills with this to ensure we can problem solve for next time, whether this is in DT or Art.

PE

We have continued with Swimming this half term, with most children being able to swim 5m. All children have met stage one and their Water Safety certificate. In PE lessons in school, Miss Rehman has taught us some skills of dribbling a ball with a hockey stick or feet. We have focussed on using the space we have effectively and watching one another to ensure we can peer review and offer advice on how to improve. We have also learnt how to successful pass in a game, again thinking about the space we have in the hall.

Computing

In computing, we have been developing our coding skills. We have learnt about algorithms and creating one of these thinking about a real-life scenario – traffic lights! Using Purple Mash, we have created a catching game and programmed traffic lights, knowing which order these go in and using an appropriate amount of time for the change. As well as this, we have learnt how to share our work to Seesaw using skills of, copy and paste as well saving our work on more than one platform.

Music

This half term we have been playing the descant recorder. We had the challenge to learn to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in D major playing F#. We remembered have our left hand on the top and our right hand below. Covering the holes is getting easier now but still tricky for some of us. We followed the formal notation, reading the crochets and minims on the treble stave.

We all enjoyed a Christmas Assembly with a brass band!

Play It Forward, conducted by Mr. David Warren. He taught at Towneley, now called Unity for 25 years as Head of Music. The band members played our Christingle Service Carols. We raised the school roof with our fabulous singing!

Merry Christmas and Season Greetings from Mrs. Lingard and Mr. Garrett.