Our Spring 2 Learning Journey

Our Curriculum web for Spring 2

Our homework web for Spring 2

English - Everest: The Remarkable story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

Our class text for this half term is 'Everest: The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay'.

During the reading phase of our English unit, we predicted what the book was about through recipricol reading and a word cloud. We used our hook from our topic lesson to justify our answers and provide evidence for our reasons.

After a couple of English lessons, we found out that our class text tells the story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who were the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Throughout the 'reading phase' lessons, we inferred how they felt during significant parts of their journey, especially when Tenzing saved Hillary's life. We also retrieved information about the two mountain climbers, using the book and researching on the chrome books. All this information was used to write a biography about Edmund Hillary or Tenzing Norgay.

Maths - Fractions and decimals

In Maths this half term, we will be learning about fractions and decimals. We will be exploring equivalent fractions as well as converting decimals to fractions. We will also be learning about measure, which includes reading scales and converting measurements.

Science - Living Things and Their Habitats

In Science this half term we will be learning about living things and their habitats. We will focus on classifying and sorting animals, as well as creating our own classification keys. We are also going to be looking at and exploring a range of habitats.

Topic - What is life like when you live on a mountain?

19th February 2024: An unknown visitor...

This morning, we walked into school and discovered the following items outside one of our classrooms: a tent, a compass, a map, a backpack, a coat, walking trousers (which were ripped) a hat, a pair of walking boots, a sleeping bag, a chair and an email with instructions. With our talking partners, we used our prediction skills from English to discuss who we thought left these items and why? We also wrote down questions we wanted to ask about the scene.

Miss Shearn and Miss Holliday read the instructions out which asked them to make some resources so we could complete some activities which linked to our topic.

Activity 1 : We worked in pairs to use an atlas to find out the page number and grid reference of some countries. Then, we used a colour coded key to show the location of these countries.

Activity 2: We watched the documentary ‘Blue Planet II – Mountains’ and wrote down notes which we thought answered some questions.

We located Mount Everest and other mountains in an Atlas.

In this lesson, we expanded our atlas skills by locating different mountains and mountain ranges around the world. We had to record the height, the Country and the Continent of each mountain before recording on our own map. To do this we used a 'triangle' symbol key which represents a mountain.

Did you know that Mount Everest is the Earth's highest mountain above sea level? At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first explorers to reach the summit of Mount Everest!

RSE - Be Healthy, Be Happy (Safety First)

This half term is really exciting because we are having swimming lessons for the very first time. The unit focusses on how we can take responsibility for our safety and what the consequences could be if we didn't. We also learnt about spotting hazards we may see on our way to school or out and about with our family.

Our RSE and swimming lessons link really well because we have to make sure that we are safe during our lessons. The rules we were told by the swimming instructors are similar to rules when we are on the beach with our family. We also learnt and researched about rail and road safety so that we could create some useful information posters.

Values - Nelson Mandela and 'What does faith say about forgiveness'

Our key person for this half term is Nelson Mandela. We learnt about the significant events during his lifetime and why he links with forgiveness. We found out that he wanted black people to have equal rights and he went to prison because of this. He had many people who supported him and he had an impact on peoples' lives today.

Throughout our values lesson, we have been learning about how Jews and Buddhists view forgiveness. We learnt about their main beliefs and compared to other faiths we have previously learnt about.

RE - Why do Christians call the day Jesus died 'Good Friday'?

Throughout our lessons, we have been exploring the part of the Bible which explains why and how Jesus died. The particular event we focused on to start with was when Judas found out he was going to betray Jesus during the last supper. Once we listened to this part of the story (through Godly Play), we worked in groups to re-tell the story using paper puppets and the Godly Play resources.

Music - The Sound of Music

This half term, we are exploring the musical 'The Sound of Music'. So far, we have listened to the song 'My Favourite Things' and 'Climb Every Mountain'. We appraised both songs and gave our reasons. Most of us preferred 'My Favourite Things' because it is a jolly song. This led us to watching the scenes where these songs were sung in both the film and musical stage. We commented on the difference in sound as well as the similarities. In addition to this, we drew images to match the lyrics for both songs and drew our favourite things. We even wrote our own version of the song using our favourite things. Finally, we watched the movie and some of the stage musical version and compared the similarities and differences around the Von Trapp Family.