The Big Idea - Take a look inside

Where in the world do animals live and why? How do animals come to live in zoos? Are zoos a good or bad thing? As growing Geographers, we will develop the geographical skills to explore and confidently talk about how they can use a range of web-mapping and satellite programmes to locate where animals in captivity come from, we will then learn about these places and consider why this might be. In Science, we will extend our knowledge of ‘Amazing Animals’ from KS1 considering nutrition and what animals need to survive – asking the question is this the same for all animals? How many bones are in the human body? Do all skeletons look the same? What are the differences? As blossoming Biologists we will explore skeletons, muscles and their purpose.

Trip to Wildwood

We went to Wildwood and took part in a skeleton workshop as part of our curriculum learning.

Our first activity involved thinking about the skeletons in the different animals. We needed to sort the toy animals into groups based on whether they had a skeleton on the inside, a skeleton on the outside or no skeleton at all. 

For our second activity, we got to feel real animal bones and had to sort them based on their characteristics, such as; long, short, round, irregular.

Our final activity allowed us to learn the scientific names of the bones in our body, talking about what they help us do.

Afterwards, we got to walk around to see if any animals were out in the rain. Everyone enjoyed being able to walk through the puddles and the mud, as well as crossing the bear bridge.

“It was fun touching all the real bones.”

“It was interesting to see the types of animals that had each of these skeletons.”

“The otter swam around and came up to the edge to see us. He was really cute.”

“The bear bridge was really wobbling and scary but we managed to walk across it.”

“The wolves were all laying down sleeping.”

English - Playscripts

As part of our English learning, we are looking at playscripts. We started by discussing how they are different to the pieces of writing we have done in the past.

We looked at how they have the names of characters at the start of lines, discussing how this shows which character is speaking. We then learnt how the writing was what the character was saying but in a playscript inverted commas are not needed. Finally, we discussed how the words in brackets told the characters what to do and how to behave.

Everyone then worked collaboratively to find these features in an example playscript.

English - Sweet Tasting

This term in English we have been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

As part of our learning, we were able to taste a range of different sweets and chocolates using our senses and adjectives to describe the taste, texture, feel and smell of them.

Then, we planned a new chocolate like Willy Wonka, writing the recipe needed to make the new chocolate.

    

Topic Maths

During our topic maths lessons we have been learning about different angles. So far this term, we have learnt about right angles, obtuse angles and acute angles.

‘A right angle is 90 degrees.’

‘An acute angle is smaller than a right angle.’

‘An obtuse angle is bigger than a right angle.’

We have looked at the angles in different shapes using our angle finder to help us. We even found a triangle that has more than one angle.

Number Maths

In Number Maths we are learning about fractions. We have found out what a unit fraction is and then used the fraction circles to order unit fractions.

Everyone showed the values of collaborative cat and adventurous aardvark during this lesson.

Learning Lift-off

As part of our learning lift-off, we completed a range of challenges.

We had to try and piece all the bones of the skeleton, identify what was wrong with the bones in the x-ray, name the animals based on their skeleton and decide whether a skeleton is an; endoskeleton, exoskeleton or hydrostatic skeleton.

Everyone was an adventurous aardvark and collaborative cat during these activities.