Welcome to Owl Class
Class Teacher Teaching Assistant
Mr Dakin Mrs Sockett
Welcome back to class. If you would like to see what your children are learning this term please look at the pathway below:
Owl Class – Autumn Term Pathway 22-23
Spring Term Pathway Owl Class 22-23
Summer Term Pathway Owl Class 22-23
Here is the knowledge we are learning for Geography, History and Science
Summer Term
What lies in our hidden world- History
Spring Term
Geography Knowledge Organiser – Spring Term
Living things and their habitats – Science
Autumn Term
Science Knowledge Organiser Properties and changes of materials Year A Term 1
Geography Knowledge organiser Whose footsteps do we follow in
History Knowledge organiser Whose footsteps do we follow in
Summer Term Learning – Latest at the top
Athletics – PE
We have been learning to improve our running technique. In the last lesson, we looked at sprinting – head up, high knees, hip to toe. In this lesson we looked at how we can pace ourselves over longer distances. We started with a game, warm up and then set them 3mins to run as many times around the football pitch as they could. Only 1 person ran continuously for 3 minutes. This is because they ran too fast. We then had a strategy and tried again. This time all but 3 of the class made it for the 3 minutes.
Dunkirk House – Coronation celebration
As part of our courageous advocacy and community vision, the children of Bishops Lydeard Church School spent the morning with the residents of Dunkirk Memorial House. We listened to the amazing stories and history of people who had fought in wars, worked as nurses and midwives and even served during WW2 as code breakers at Bletchley Park. We handed out Commonwealth flags to the residents who loved waving them as we sang them songs. To finish, we gave them Bishops Lydeard coronation bunting to help them decorate their rooms and celebrate the coronation with us in the coming weeks. Both the children and residents were moved by the love and friendship shown.
Mayan Pitz – History
Owl class started our learning about the Mayan civilisation by playing the game Pitz. This ancient game is played between 2 teams trying to get the ball across the opponents line. You have to both attack and defend. In Ancient Maya, not only did the game last 2 weeks but if you lost, a member of the losing side was sacrificed to the gods. Don’t worry we didn’t play this rule.
Spring Term Learning – Latest at the top
World Book Day – The Whole Class
World Book Day – Our Costumes
Why would the Disciples give up everything for Jesus? – RE
We started our new ‘gospel’ module by learning what the word gospel means (The Good News) and finding out what the gospels in the Bible are (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). We then wrote down all our favourite objects and things to do in the whole world. Then, we acted out the story of Jesus calling the disciples, reflected on what we would give our things up for and evaluated what Jesus must have been like for them to leave all their personal belongings and jobs to follow him. Here are some pictures of our acting out.
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- Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee
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- Jesus calls Peter and Andrew
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- The leave everything and follow him
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- Jesus then calls James and John
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- They leave their family to follow them
Plants as living things – Science
Owl class spent some time this afternoon using our oracy skills to discuss a scientific picture. We were presented with a picture of a tree growing out of a house. We discussed, grouped and took turns to explore a range of questions. We then used summary sentence stems to present our findings to the class.
Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm – Science
Years 3 to 6 welcomed Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm into school. As part of our Living things and habitats module in Science, we studied classifications and flow charts. It was lovely to see the children deciding whether and animal was an invertebrate or a vertebrate. We got to hold and touch Giant African Land Snails and Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches for invertebrates. We then learnt how to classify vertebrates into different groups – Mammal, Amphibian, Reptile, Fish and Bird. To explore and analyse, we held Guinea Pigs and Royal Pythons to decide what groups we would classify them in due to their characteristics. While we were waiting to hold the animals, we were presented with lots of different and unusual artefacts to use our oracy skills to build and develop our ideas – sun beetle cocoons, stick insect sheds and even an elephant tusk. We finished by looking at flowcharts to get the right animal through questioning. We are so thankful to the Zoo for coming to visit us. Paula and Ruth were so engaging to all the children and knowledgeable, especially making that knowledge accessible for everyone.
Autumn Term Learning – Latest at the top
KS2 Carol Service
Our school gathered together for our KS2 Carol Service. It is the first time in 3 years we have been able to have one and we were so excited. We sang songs, read poems and listened to prayers and a Christmas message. It was a special morning and the children were wonderful.
History and Science – Fleet Air Arm School Trip
On Wednesday, Badger and Owl Class visited the Fleet Air Arm museum. We wanted to build our historical and scientific knowledge. 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 second part of the trip 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. The children were well behaved, knowledgeable and passionate about the learning on offer.
Science – Reversible and irreversible changes
We have been developing our knowledge in states of matter. In th last lesson we looked at dissolving and evaporating. In this lesson, we looked at whether some changes are reversible after we apply heat. We predicted whether the following would be reversible: melting an ice-lolly, burning wood, cooking an egg, melting ice-cream, boiling water, warming chocolate, melting butter, cooking meat, baking a potato and melting toffee. After we predicted Mr Dakin, tried to do reversible changes on most of these items. We recorded whether our predictions where right or wrong. Our favourite thing was when we went outside, and Mr Dakin burnt a bucket full of paper – he had lots of water and protective materials nearby!!
History – Primary sources
In history, Owl class have been exploring primary sources of information. We were really lucky that a child from Badger class brought in some WW2 artifacts: an Air Warden Helmet, a German air raid siren (Mr Dakin enjoyed using this!!), a .303 rifle bullet, gas mask instruction booklets and a hooded light/torch. We enjoyed trying them on and discussing what made them primary sources. We also looked at pictures of some primary sources and discussed:
1. What makes this a primary source of information?
2. What does this tell you about WW2?
3. What do you think this object, place or thing is showing?
4. Why was it created?
5. How would someone create a secondary source from this primary source?
Here are some pictures of our fun learning.
Music – changing rhythm
We developed our knowledge of stave notation. We included dotted quavers, crochet rests and semi-breves. To explore we listened to a sea shanty that had a steady 4/4 beat. I held up different notation and the children had to march around the room to that notation. Our favourite is our minim move called slide. We then listened to famous music such as, ‘We will Rock you,’ and the ‘Pink Panther,’ theme tune. In our books, we wrote down the rhythm using our notations.
Geography – 4 and 6 figure grid references
Owl class have been exploring 4 figure grid references. We started with a challenge, ‘how could you show your friend where something is on the map without pointing to it?’ We then learnt how to look along the bottom x axis of the map and then along the y axis, joining the grids together. We then picked our own objects and places and wrote the grid reference for it. To extend the learning some of the class tried 6 figure grid references. We found this tricky.
Music – Crochets and Quavers
Today we were not talking about crisps!! We were exploring music and the notation we use to build rhythm. We started by marching to the word ‘walk’ ‘walk ‘walk’ – this showed a crochet (1 beat). We then learnt about quavers (2 pulses occupying 1 beat) – we called this ‘jogging’ ‘jogging’ jogging.’ We used these skills to write out own beats and rhythm. Some of the children even tried semi-quavers (4 per 1 beat) and minims (2 beats). Here is how they got on.
Geography – How do we use a key to find features on and OS map?
We are going to be comparing OS maps and aerial photos next week. To prepare us for that learning we looked at how we use OS maps. We started the afternoon looking at what we remembered form our previous lesson an atlases. We then moved into looking at a small area of Taunton. We started labelling the section with places we could find on a key. To finish the lesson, some of the class were extended to compare things between Taunton and the Blackdown hills – we linked this to human and physical geography. This is what the children in the pictures are doing.
Science – Does hot water make chocolate melt quicker than cold water?
Today, we were exploring our states of matter. We used our ‘thinking scientifically’ objectives to create a fair test. We asked ourselves whether chocolate would melt quicker with hotter water or colder water. The class wrote up their tests, recorded results and then compared their predictions. We found that the hotter the water then the quicker it melts. This is because the particles move more the hotter they get.
Shared Reading – English
We are learning our new text – Jack and the Beanstalk. In this lesson we read the story to each other out loud and then explored what happened in each section. Mr Dakin set us a challenge to write a few paragraphs as the giant. The idea was that we used all the grammar features we have explored and practised in our burst write. We have been looking at: conjunctions, suffixes, adverbs, direct speech, past progressive tense, high level adjectives and possessive apostrophes.
Atlas Work – Geography
We have been completing our first Geography lesson of the year. We started by looking at our key vocabulary and what we knew already about the words: county, city, population, key, Equator, Hemisphere, Human/Physical features etc. We then used the Index of our atlases to find countries and present our finding of the capital city and population size. We had to use our key vocabulary to complete the work. Here are some pictures of Owl class hard at work:
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. If you are interested please look through our Collective Worship slides.
Mark Making Week
Say hi to the lovely children of Owl Class. We have completed our class charter and have spent the first week learning and growing together. We have looked at things we are doing well and areas we would like to grow. The children have lots of questions and are remarkable in how they are adapting to Owl class.
