Welcome to Badger Class
Welcome back to class. If you would like to see what your children are learning this term please look at the pathway below:
Badger Class Pathway Summer 2023
Here are our knowledge organisers for this term:
What lies in our hidden world- History
Summer Term Learning – Latest at the top
Moon Buggies- D&T
As part of our Science focus on Earth and Space, we have been looking at which methods of transport would work best on the moon. We have considered the surface of the moon and the requirements the vehicle needed to have before analysing current moon buggies, designing our own, building our own and then evaluating them.
BWMAT 10th Birthday Challenge
To celebrate the BWMAT’s birthday, we were set a ‘finding all the possibilities’ maths challenge. If the birthday cake had 10 candles of two different colours, how many different possibilities for the candle colours are there? As a class we worked collaboratively to list all the possibilities for if the birthday cake had two candles of two colours, three candles and then four candles, all with two colours. From this we noticed a pattern emerging. We predicted the number of possibilities for 5 candles and then proved it working in groups. We then were able to follow the pattern to say how many different possibilities there would be for 6,7,8,9 and (finally) 10 candles with two colours. Below are some photo’s of how we worked it out and our recording methods.
Science investigation
In our new science unit we are looking light. We begun by looking at what we already know. Some believed that the bigger you are, the bigger your shadow is. From this, we investigated how the size of shadows changes depending on the distance it is from the light source, this addressed the initial misconception and the children loved playing with the new school torches! We collected our results in a table and repeated it three times to ensure we have enough data to find the mean score for each distance, from this we could write our conclusion. We found that the further the light source is from the object the smaller the shadow- we will next look at why!
Mayan Pitz- History
We started our unit by looking at the Mayan game- Pitz. This ancient game is played between 2 teams trying to get the ball across the opponent’s line. You all have to be able to attack and defend. In Ancient Maya, the game often lasted 2 weeks, we played this for one lesson and found it very tricky. We found not being able to use our hands and feet the most challenging part, having to only use our heads, elbows, hips and knees! We did adapt some of the rules to make it more achievable to play.
Coronation activities
We celebrated the King’s coronation lots of different ways in the school. We all really enjoyed completing some art which together made a whole class art piece, as well as creating our own bunting and ‘nature crowns’. We spent some time thinking about what life is like for a child in 2023 and wrote this as a letter to put in the time capsule. We thought about what we have experienced so far in life and what we enjoy doing in our free time and at school.
Icarus- English
Our current writing unit is centred around the story of Icarus. The children have immersed themselves into the story, writing in the role of Daedalus after the terrible event, writing their own innovated version and inventing their own action=consequence story. As usual, there are many ways we learn our core text, the children loved using their acting skills for this story where they showed different stages of our text to each other and freeze framed how they felt at each point. As you can see, we had some wonderful acting of the scene where they jumped out the tower and when Icarus flew too close to the sun!
Time- Maths
We have had the clocks out in maths for our current unit- Time. We have looked at telling the time to the house, quarter past, to and half past, before then moving onto five minute intervals and mastering reading the time accurately to the minute. Our time unit has covered us converting time using our column multiplication methods and ensuring we breach 60 when needed and not 100. We have just begun to look at calculating time durations before finishing our unit looking at timetables.
Dunkirk house
We had a wonderful visit to Dunkirk house. The residents thoroughly enjoyed listening to the children share their songs from our recent Easter service and the children loved mingling with the resident, learning more about them and listening to some of their life stories. It was a lovely opportunity to get back out in to our local community, sharing songs and giving flags and bunting for the upcoming coronation celebrations.
Badger Spring Pathway 22-23
Here are our knowledge organisers for Geography and Science for this term:
Geography Knowledge Organiser- Spring Badger Class 22-23
Science Knowledge Organiser- Living things and their habitats- Spring Badger Class 22-23
Spring Term Learning – Latest at the top
Science week
We have immersed ourselves this week into Space exploration! All afternoon lessons were Science focussed. We investigated which material would be best suited for a space suit based on it’s insulation properties. We created some art linked to the planets and had lots of creative time making space rockets. We first looked at the key features needed in a rocket, drew annotated sketches of our designs before trying to bring them to life.
Geography
This term we have been learning about mountains, volcanoes, rivers, earthquakes and linking our learning to tectonic plates. We have used atlases and iPads to research places of interest around the world. Our learning culminated in creating our own knowledge organisers based on all our learning this term.
Snow day
What a great day we had, even if we were in school for it! We had great fun getting out in the snow and doing some hands on learning (sculpting techniques with snow!). We had lots of mini snowmen by the end of the morning- unfortunately they didn’t survive the day.
World book day
We had great fun immersing ourselves in the world of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. All activities in the day were linked to this book. In maths we completed bar graphs to show the classes favourite chocolate and sweets, in English we wrote acrostic poems and innovated the Oompa Loompa song, before then performing it to each other. We made popcorn and explored different toppings and ended the day with a nice warm hot chocolate whilst we shared our learning with you all!
Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm
We has a visit from Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm as part of our ‘Living things and their environment’ science module. We took part in a one-hour workshop where we learnt about animal classification and how to create flow diagrams. We begun by looking at grouping animals into vertebrates and invertebrates and the characteristics of each (bones inside the body= vertebrate, exoskeleton= invertebrate). We also handled a selection of animals and explored artefacts to bring our learning to life.
From the invertebrate group we got to hold Madagascan hissing cockroaches and learnt their brains are spread throughout their bodies so they can live up to 7 days after losing their heads! We also held Giant African Land Snails and learnt they have 2 noses which is their main sense and they also have 14,000 tiny teeth.
From the vertebrate group we then looked at the 5 types of vertebrates: mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish. We got to stroke a guinea pig and also a Royal Python which uses it’s tongue to smell and has a 6th sense which we do not have, heat vision to see it’s prey at night!
Geography
This lesson encouraged the children to use their observational skills to identify river features in the three sections of a river. From pictures, the children could see that the upper course was predominantly in hills/mountainous regions whereas the middle and lower course were on more flat land. The middle course is where we saw things like meanders and ox bow lakes. The lower course is where the river begins to meet the sea and this is where the river was seen to widen significantly.
RE
Continuing on our RE focus on the creation story, we have reflected on the messages and our thoughts after reading Genesis 1:1–2:3. We drew the events as they occurred, and then summed up the key messages of the text. The questions we considered were:
What does this story mean?
How does it make you feel?
Were there any surprising, interesting or puzzling moments?
Music
As musicians we have been focussing on the singings strand of our music curriculum. We have been following a sequence of learning around ‘This little light of mine’, listening to it being sung in different styles, looking at how the music makes us feels and then adding actions to the music. Our music warm up is to ‘Tony Chestnut’ which is a different version of head, shoulders, knees and toes and well loved by the class!
Science
We are now deep into our learning of ‘Living things and their habitats’ in science. This week we looked at classifying animals. The children were given lots of animals to group and then had to think of other animals to add to each. This lesson focussed on their oracy skills, particularly their probing and clarifying discussions. The children challenged the thinking of others and justified their decisions with other groups.
RE
We have looked at the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2: 15-17 and Genesis 3) in our RE lesson this week. We looked at their actions and God’s response. We then looked at the Ten Commandments and discussed what was happening for them to be needed and how our world would be different if they were followed by everyone. We finally discussed admit when we are wrong and ask for forgiveness as Christian people believe God is interested in their actions.
English
We have begun this term with a short unit based on Oliver Twist. The children have written descriptive scenes from the original film, focussing on how to set a specific mood and atmosphere. They have challenged themselves with including many grammatical features in their writing including show not tell, relative clauses and personification.
Autumn Term Learning – Latest at the top
Here are the knowledge organisers for Geography, History and Science. They will tell you what we will be learning this term.
Geography Knowledge organiser Whose footsteps do we follow in
History Knowledge organiser Whose footsteps do we follow in
Science Knowledge Organiser Properties and changes of materials Year A Term 1
History and Science: Fleet Air Arm Museum
On Wednesday, Badger and Owl Class visited the Fleet Air Arm museum. We wanted to build our historical and scientific knowledge. The first session of the day was to build, test and evaluate the wing shape of balsa wood airplanes. We explored the variable of different wing shapes and then measured how far they flew off an aircraft carrier. We learnt about how to balance our planes and how the balance is key to the direction and distance they flew. We then loaded them onto a model aircraft carrier to launch them and see who created the most aerodynamic and well balanced plane. One part of the trip was to explore the museum. We looked at how the Fleet Air Arm took part in conflicts around the world and we focussed on the aircraft, men and women of the WW2 era. The children were well behaved, knowledgeable and passionate about the learning on offer.
Science: We looked at reversible and irreversible changes and made a type of rubber out of milk and vinegar. This material is currently drying in the shape of a Christmas tree decoration to add to our tree! We learnt that up to 1945 this substance was used to make combs, buttons and much more. We also looked at how to separate materials using the processes of filtration, magnetism, evaporation and sieving- lots of mess was made here!
Music– After a term of Ukulele lessons, the children focussed on their performance skills. They played to lots of different pieces of music but their favourite’s were Disney’s Lava, Feliz Navidad, Flea, Caterillar and Spider.
RE- Hinduism
To celebrate Divali (festival of light), we made Diya’s from clay. Once they were dry, we painted them so they were bright and colourful ready for a tea light to be lit inside. Shaping the diya’s was the trickiest part of making them, trying to keep a circular shape and the edges thin. We also coloured in Rangoli patterns and made our own.
History- Primary and secondary sources of information
We have been lucky enough in our class to handle for artefacts from WW2 thanks to Leo S. We used these in our lesson to compare the effectiveness of sources. The teacher gave some information about an air raid siren, then Leo got one out and rang it for the class to see how it actually sounded. We also played a bit of Chinese whispers in the lesson to show how information can change as it is passed on.
English units, the children having great fun looking through my Spiderwick book to find creatures to write a report on.
Maths– we have almost finished our unit on place value, just rounding, multiplying and dividing decimals left to go after half term! We will then be moving onto converting units of measure before looking at the 4 operations.
History- we focussed on our oracy skills, thinking about how to challenge or build on others’ ideas. I was really impressed with the effort and in-depth conversations we had. We ended this week with a lovely afternoon of hot chocolate and computing.
Next half term we will be swimming every Monday, please remember to send the children in with their swimming kits. Any parent helpers who are available, please see Miss Wheeler/the office.
Please enjoy some photos taken this week of the learning: the children loving their Ukulele lesson; our materials investigation in science; and map work in geography! I hope you all have a lovely half term.
This week we have located countries involved in WW2, learnt the ‘E’ chord on the Ukulele, pretended to be at the doctors in French saying how we feel, and lots more! Lots of children are very knowledgeable on WW2 and it’s lovely to have their input in lessons and for them to share their understanding.
This week we have had a lot of fun with our learning. We looked at key events in British and World history and placed them on a timeline to see where World War 2 sits, as well as looking at negative numbers in Maths. In Science, we investigated the melting point of chocolate (please see below for some pictures of the children in action) and in music we continued to learn the Ukulele, this week focussing on the A minor and C chord.
Please remember to read with your child and sign this in their reading record at least 5 times a week, please note any words that were unfamiliar to them or other key pieces of information. I will be checking diaries throughout the week, ensuring by Friday there are 5 signatures. Please ensure they bring their diaries to school everyday for us to sign if they read with us.
Spellings will be handed out on Friday’s to be completed and returned no later than Wednesdays. We will be testing these on a Thursday each week.
PE for our class is Monday and Friday- their PE kits need to be in school for these sessions.
Photos from the week:
Queen Elizabeth Collective Worship
As a school community, we have found the passing of Queen Elizabeth an emotional time. To support our children, Mrs Harvey held a special collective worship to reflect on her life, some lessons we can learn from her and the impact she had on our nation. As a class, we have been watching Newsround to keep up to date with current information and so we can follow the events of each day. If you are interested please look through our Collective Worship slides.
Mark Making Week
Our first week back at school was spent ‘Mark Making’. We have created artwork based on the poem ‘Magpie’ and completed some ‘line art’. In addition, we looked at ‘An informative guide to Miss Wheeler’ for the children to learn a little more about me before writing their own. The children have made a good start back and are looking forward to a year of learning ahead.