Category Archives: Uncategorized

Non-fiction Skills

We have been using our topic of Ancient Egypt to look at the features of non-fiction books.

We have been learning to use a dictionary to look up some of our topic words. We have learned that a dictionary has two purposes – to help us spell words correctly and also to help us find out what the word means.

We are working in pairs to find topic words.

We have found out that most of our topic books have something called a glossary at the back. Like dictionaries, we have found out that these are arranged in alphabetical order. A glossary is much shorter and gives us the meaning of some of the words in a book which we might not know.

We worked with partners to choose words from a topic book which we did not know the meaning of. We wrote the meaning of these, from the glossary, and then shared them with another pair of children in our class.

We are learning lots of new vocabulary.

Topic Spelling

We have had lot of Ancient Egyptian themed spelling as part of our creative challenge this month. The Superstars have been working really hard.

Spelling words on a pyramid.

Spelling words around a mummy and words turned into hieroglyphics.

All the spelling words are hidden around the poster.
A mummy sarcophagus with the spelling words inside!

2D and 3D shape

We have been learning all about shapes and their properties since we came back from the Easter break. Here are some of the activities we have been doing.

We went for a “shape” walk to look for 2D shapes around our school.

We are showing how many sides our octagonal tables have!

We worked together to complete tree diagams for the properties of 2D shapes.

We made lift the flap books about 3D shapes.

We learned about nets and made our own 3D shapes from nets.

Our favourite activity was this one – making 3D shapes from cocktail sticks and marshmallows!

Mrs Stewart joined in.

Our supplies

Ancient Egypt

Our new topic for this term is Ancient Egypt.

Last week we learned where Egypt was by looking at pictures and the globe. We discussed the meaning of ancient and modern and made a wallwisher about some of the things we thought we already knew.

We learned why the River Nile was so important to the people of Ancient Egypt.

We found out that the Ancient Egyptians used the Nile to irrigate their fields to grow food. We were a bit unsure about the meaning of “irrigate” so Mrs Stewart showed us in the sand tray!

Irrigating our sand tray.

We found out thet the Ancient Egyptians also used something called a shaduf to lift water from the banks of the River Nile up to water their fields. We looked at some pictures of a shaduf online and then worked together in groups to make our own.

Mrs Bailey, our lovely classroom assistant, had already made one to show us. We tried it out in our newly irrigated sand tray!

Then we set to work ourselves.

We did a great job.

Keep reading our blog to see what else we find out about Ancient Egypt.

My Day, Month and Year Part 2

Today we spent more time exploring our mini science topic.

First, we looked again at the phases of the moon. We looked at the website of Woodlands Junior School which has some great information.

We completed our own guide to the different phases of the moon.

Then, we made some models of the moon, earth and sun to help us explain how they move around each other.

After playtime, we started to create our own out of this world pictures.

We used plates and other circle shapes to create planet outlines on black paper, using our soft crayons. Some of the planets had to be just peeking out from the edges.

We were allowed to use any colours we wanted, as we were creating our own special planets.

Next, we splattered white and yellow paint over our picture for stars. Some of them turned into shoooting stars!

Here are some lovely, colourful planets from Carly. I like the tartan one.

Finally, we added our own faces to astronaut cutouts and added them to our picture.

Here is our science display outside our classroom.

Kerpoof animation

Today we were learning how to make a single frame animation using Kerpoof.

This is a really cool website, which is free to use, and which allows you to do all sorts of creative things.

We were creating animations with a fairytale theme.

Our challenge was to make at least one of the characters move across the screen. We could also add actions and music.

We really enjoyed this and are going to keep practising so we can perhaps make animations with more than one frame.

Have you used any other animation tools online?