We will be learning all about the Victorian era including the industrial revolution. In addition, we will be exploring the art work of William Morris in order to produce our own prints. The children will also be learning about a local landmark of ‘Cromford Mill’ and how it played a part in the industrial revolution.

Using Oliver Twist and Street Child as inspiration, we will be writing our own Rags to Riches story. We will be particularly focusing on dialogue: how to punctuate it correctly and when it is appropriate to use it. We will also look at how it represents character traits and actions.

For our non-fiction unit we will be writing a newspaper report about the strange happenings in London and Oliver Twist going missing.

This half term we will introduce dialogue by exploring famous characters. We will be matching quotes with characters from significant children’s literature.

As part of Frozen Kingdom, the children will be learning about how animals adapt to their environment, particularly in colder climates. They will also learn to locate and explain the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Using Shackleton’s Journey as inspiration, we will write our own biography on Dr. Barnardo.

We will particularly focus on writing multi-clause sentences and will identify/include simple, perfect and progressive/continuous tenses.

Throughout this topic, the children will be learning all about the circulatory system and the role of the heart within the body. Children will also learn how to find and count their pulse and explain what this tells you about the heart.

In Design and Technology, they will look at the nutritional values of foods in order to eat a balanced diet.

As part of our Talk for Writing sequence, we will be focussing on ‘Openings and Endings’ of stories. We will be using The Cobbler of Krakow and Beowulf as our model texts. We will be writing our own “Defeat the Monster” story.

For our non-fiction unit we will be writing an explanation text of why our beast/monster is dangers. We will then use our knowledge of our topic (Bloodheart) to write an explanation text of how the circulatory system works. We will use the book “Keeping Fit” to support us in ideas of how to structure and layout our text.

For our hook, we designed our own monsters and wrote a description about them. We had monsters that lived in space, under the sea, in a cave, in a forest and who lived in the sky!

As part of ‘Bloodheart’ we will get the opportunity to apply our learning about how the heart works and the different parts of the heart by getting to dissect a heart ourselves!

We will be learning all about Charles Darwin and his role in developing our understanding of evolution, selective breeding and adaptation. We will also begin to explain the changes through animals over time by comparing their skeletons/fossils. We will also begin to look at the work of Mary Anning.

For our non-fiction text we will focus on writing a non-chronological report about an animal we have made up! Our model text is ‘The Sprot Gozzler’ from ‘Flanimals’ by Ricky Gervais.

For fiction we will be writing a tale of fear.

For our hook, we created our own animals. We thought carefully about what habitat they would live in and what features they would need to live there.

Some of us made models and others used a website to create our mixed up creatures.

Coming soon!

The children will be using a range of sources to learn all about the Ancient Maya and how they used to live. They will also begin to understand how what the Maya invented has impacted our lives today.

For our Talk for Writing we will write our own ‘Warning Story’ using ‘The Canal’ as our model text.

We will be reading ‘Holes’ by Louis Sacher from Pie Corbett’s reading spine as our whole class story.

In English, for our non-fiction unit of writing, we will be creating a persuasive leaflet for Camp Green Lake (inspired by Holes) and then for our ‘Hot Write’ we will create a persuasive holiday leaflet for Mexico.

Coming soon….!

Memorable Experience

We will have a visit from “The Drama Hut.” Children will have the opportunity to:

• Play a fast-paced 10 second picture game,  depicting life and famous structures during this  period.
•  Re-create the story of “The Hero Twins” from the Popol Vuh.
•  Explore Maya religion and the specific roles the Gods, Kings and Priests played during this period by playing ‘Guess the God’.
• Prepare with music and dance, a ritual ceremony of a willing victim for human sacrifice!

https://thedramahut.com/portfolio-items/mysteries-of-the-maya/