Catapult Building

Respect class showed great school values this week, from Collaborative Cats to Open Minded Octopuses when we designed and made catapults, as part of our Fortify and Defend topic.

We discussed what catapults would have been used for, along with other mechanisms used by attackers throughout history, to breach castle walls. We acted as history detectives to work out which item came first, and placed them in chronological order. They worked hard to think of how the trebuchets, ballista, scorpions, ladders and battering rams could have been used. We then went on to design and make our own replica catapults. We are all really excited to se how successful we have been when we see how far our catapults can fire!

        

Writing - Tour Leaflets

The children are very excited for our return trip to Dover Castle and have been thinking about what we are going to include in our tour leaflet! We looked at a number of examples of leaflets including Lewes Castle and Fishbourne Roman Palace. We worked in groups to spot the features within the leaflets and what we are going to use in our own. The children were great Open-Minded Octopuses and Collaborative Cats coming up with some fabulous ideas!

Dover Castle Trip

At the beginning of term 4, year 5 were Responsible Racoons walking up to Dover Castle to look at the defensive features.  They were Adventurous Aardvarks walking round the Castle, spotting the things we had learned about this term including the Keep, curtain walls, arrow slits and drawbridge. We loved discovering when the castle was built and how throughout history the castle has helped defend our town, from the siege of 1216 through to the Second World war.

Maths

In maths this term we have been looking at polygons and understanding the properties of 2D shapes. The children explored whether a shape is a polygon or not a polygon, and used our mathematical language to explain why. They enjoyed working as Collaborative Cats and sorting them into the correct group.

History

In preparation for our Dover Castle trip, we have been learning about the fortifications that form parts of the castle, and how they were used to defend the castle throughout history.

The children have produced some amazing pictures of a castle showing the different fortifications. We have some real artists in Respect class!

    

   

   

Music

For term 4 we are continuing with learning our clarinets with Mr Cook. For our music theory we are moving on to looking at chords, and practising 3 note chords C E G and E G B.