This term in Society & Environment lessons we have been learning about exploration.
To begin the unit we looked at Ptolemy's map. Claudius Ptolemy was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. He was a Greek-Roman from Egypt. He created an atlas around 150 C.E. This map is how he thought the world was.
We have done lots of research on famous explorers in the classroom and in library lessons. At the moment we have all chosen our own famous explorer to research and complete a project task on. It is very interesting learning about the history of the world.
We have also looked at navigational devices used by early explorers.
In particular we have looked at the Astrolabe. We have even made our own. We use these to measure the altitude of different objects.
Want to know how to make an Astrolabe?
Our Technology task was to design and create a ship to set sail that can catch wind from all directions. We found this very exciting. We each came up with different plans and designs and chose our best ones to create at school.
We had so much fun testing them out and having races. We have learnt that some materials are more appropriate than others. Especially if you do not want them to sink like the Titanic.
We have been working extremely hard in Maths this term.
During our Math lessons we practise mental computations strategies - there are so many to learn. We love playing Math Bingo to help us with our timetables.
We have also been doing activities using the smart board. We really like this!
Sometimes after that we get to do an activity with a partner where we can share what we know and help each other. This can help if we don't quite understand something.
We then complete a task that has to do with our focus for the lesson. We have had different focuses this term. We have looked at numbers and place value, patterns, reading graphs, creating graphs and a few more.
We have really enjoyed the problems solving and the investigations that we get to do using all the skills we learn in our focus lessons.
Some of us have made games and learning things for other students to practise with. We can't wait to have a go and see how they work.
Next term we are going to work towards getting better at mental computation and the speed of our timetables. Feel free to let us know how you think we could get better at these. We will keep you updated on our progress next term!!
This term in Music with Mrs W our class has been learning about African drumming and African dancing.
We have been working in groups to make our own music. We play instruments such as drums, tap sticks, bells and shakers as well as clapping our hands. We were able to record our music and listen to it. It was fun!
This term in ICT lessons with Mrs S we have been learning about creating a montage of London and the Olympics. A montage is about 20 pictures that you change the size and angle of and fit them all onto one page. We also created a PowerPoint presentation about what we did over our Christmas holidays. That was very fun! We have been learning important computer skills like cut, copy and paste. Did you know you can cut, copy and paste words and pictures? We are going to be looking at changing the colours of pictures soon. That should be interesting.
We get to use the computers for other subjects too. At the moment we are busy publishing newspaper articles we have been working on as well as researching famous explorers. We also use them for Mathematics and English games like Mathletics and Spellodrome. There is so much we can use computers for including THIS BLOG! :)
In sport lessons this term we have learnt about basketball, swimming and soccer.
We began out basketball unit by looking at the rules of basketball. We then got outside and began learning ball skills like bouncing and passing. After we learnt attacking and defending skills we moved into games. It was very hot and sticky and we got very thirsty since it was very hot. Some of the skills were difficult, but some were easier to learn. On the last week Miss A assessed us as we played some games. Some of our favourite parts were playing games like Golden Child and playing games against eachother of basketball.
After basketball for two weeks we had swimming lessons at the local pool.We really enjoyed our swimming lessons with our swimming instructors because it was nice and cool for a change.
We have just started learning all about soccer. Did you know lots of people in our class play soccer on the weekends? Miss A used to play soccer too!
We have been looking at accurate passes and how to kick a soccer ball properly. We look forward to learning more next term and playing more games against each other.
We will keep you posted on our soccer skills early next term!!
