Year 3 had a fantastic day today at their Stone Age to Iron Age workshop with their Neanderthal teacher. They learnt about the developments from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, and how people’s daily lives changed with the development from using stone, to bronze, to iron. 

They were able to be deer and woolly mammoth hunters; they held real woolly mammoth bones; they learnt about communication within tribes; they looked at different types of settlements; they handled and drew Stone Age fossils and rocks; and they even built their own Stonehenge!

A brilliant time was had by all!

3AS have been developing their geography skills as they created a 3D landscape before choosing where to site the Stone Age village. We had to think about where a lake was most likely to form, where rivers would flow into it from and what resources the villagers would need access to. After surviving a flood (maybe we shouldn’t have built right next to the lake after all?) the villagers decided to construct a stone circle.

We had a fantastic afternoon in the sun searching for wildlife around the school field. We found spiders, woodlice, ants, beetles, ladybirds, centipedes and lots of other invertebrates as well as some frogs and a toad. We decided that our school provides amazing habitats for all sorts of creatures.

Year 4’s landscape designers have been hard at work researching, designing and presenting their ideas for a KS2 garden. They have produced designs that are both imaginative and take into account the needs of the garden area and they look very professional. Well done everyone in Year 4!

I have discovered a scheme that Sainsburys are currently running, which will support learning in Geography. Cards are given to you each time you shop and there is a collection book, which has many interesting facts. What great alternative to football/Pokemon collection cards!

To fit in with several of our topics, Year 4 went to Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the day. We had a tour of the tropical, sub-tropical, arid and Mediterranean glasshouses where we learned about the different places that useful plants actually come from, such as coffee, tea, rubber, cocoa and vanilla, as well as how they are adapted to survive where they live. For example, tropical plants have pointed, waxy leaves to help shed the heavy rainfall while Mediterranean leaves are soft and furry to protect them from the hot summer sun.

We also did a maths trail and explored the gardens including browsing the bamboo, rambling through the rock gardens and examining the exotic birds.

Year 4 had a fantastic day out and learnt lots too!

As part of maths week, and our geography theme, we’ve been looking at maps and how we can use maths to locate places on the map. We learned about Ordnance Survey map symbols before exploring 4- and 6-figure grid references.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been really busy creating a 3D map of South America! We started by spreading salt dough on to a piece of cardboard in the shape of South America. We had to leave it for a few days to harden, but as soon as it was ready we painted each country. The final stage was to create flags for each of the countries. It was a huge team effort and I’m sure you will agree they look great! Can you spot the flag for Uruguay? 

This week we have focused on the sea turtles in which the Mediterranean is their home. We researched and talked about the issues why the turtles are endangered. The reasons were very complex, from global warming to irresponsible fishing. We learnt a lot and then produced posters which are to inform people about the dangers facing the turtles and also aim to persuade people to stop doing the things which are harming these precious creatures. Here are our posters and the amazing, talented and inspiring children that made them. 

As part of our Mediterranean theme, we’ve been learning about coasts. We found out that coastlines are not all beaches, there are cliffs, stacks, caves, and lots more features too. They don’t even stay the same because of erosion. In fact, we even found out that the Mediterranean once evaporated and turned into a desert!