Pygora Class

Term 4 has flown by with all the activities and learning we have been up to. To start, we continued our swimming lessons - the children should be incredibly proud as they all showed clear progress and their confidence in the water has grown. They also learnt some water safety and how to help both themselves and others if they fall into a body of water. 

 

In our English work, we read a book called 'The Crow's Tale' which is inspired by a native American myth about a colourful crow who turns black from soot when he goes to collect heat from the sun. The crow became upset as he had lost his colourful appearance, but his friends pointed out that he was still as beautiful to them as he had shown bravery to help them all. We looked at the moral of the story then came up with other morals which we could use in our own work. We then wrote poems to tell a simple story to convey our moral which we turned into books to read to Billy class. The children loved reading their books to the younger ones and enjoyed illustrating their mini books. It was also world book day this term, we read el deafo, which inspired us to create our own superhero personas about what makes us unique. 

 

Our Geography this term was on South America. We began by using our map reading skills to create our own maps of South America, finding the countries, capital cities and other natural features such as mountains and rivers. We moved on to doing a study of Brazil and Sao Paulo to look at the differences between there and England/London. We learned about both human and physical differences so we could produce a comparative travel guide to help people decide where they should travel to.

Our art also linked to this topic as we created mixed media pieces of Latin American dancers, working on our proportions of the human body. 

 

In Science we finished off our forces topic which we started last term. We learnt about water resistance and attempted to design boats which would float through the water the best as well as trying to find all the levers, pulleys and gears that we could throughout the school - Levers were definitely the most common. We had to use some of our science skills from Year 4 in our DT this term as we made doodlers, so had to create an electrical circuit to make a cup with four pen attached wobble to create interesting patters. 

 

The children also particularly enjoyed music this term as we created loops and remixes using the iPads. We used the Chrome music lab website to build up loops with two different melodies as well as a drum beat and many of the children had a go after the lessons at home too. They also did really well to learn a short section of the Mario cart theme tune - a difficult task if you don't play the piano!

Pygora has had a busy term since coming back after Christmas.  We have really enjoyed learning about our history topic of the Maya. We learnt about what their lives would have been like, their social hierarchy and how they wrote. We created our own stela which has their names written on in Mayan. To explore how they got the food and resources they needed, we played a trade game; in groups the children were given a city and a variety of resources, they were then allowed to trade their items and make new items to gain points.  To finish our history topic, we tried some Maya hot chocolate (a cacao drink with chili), it was very bitter and not many of us liked it. We then made our own chocolate bars with a Maya theme as they were some of the first people to use cacao. 

In English, we looked at the book Rain player, which is about a Pok-a-tok player (a Maya game) who challenges a god. We wrote our own extra page for the book, including descriptive language and speech, which we then decorated using paper as this is how all the images in the book were also created. Our second half of English was explanation text writing. We linked this to our history and wrote about: the history of chocolate, how chocolate is made and a recipe for chocolate lollipops. We chose to do this because, as the RSPCA funded our residential, we wanted to run a chocolate lollipop sale to raise money for them and we gave out our leaflets with every sale we made. We ended up making 246 lollipops (and some additional marshmallows) and raised £277 . 

The children were also excited as our DT this term was Food tech! We started off by finding out how we get beef and the welfare of the animals. We then learnt the basic recipe for spaghetti bolognese which, in groups, we adapted to make healthier and added different vegetables. Finally, we got to work on our knife skills, make our recipes and take them home for dinner - they were delicious. 

This term has been a busy one for Pygora class, we have had three trips as well as leading the Christmas production. 

We started off the term with a one-night residential to RSPCA Mallydams wood in Hastings. We did lots of outdoor activities including trails, shelter building, badger feeding and fire lighting - which we then used to toast marshmallows. All the children stayed overnight and had a brilliant time, they should all be proud of themselves as for many of them, this was their first night away. Of course, a big thank you to Ms Adams, who was our chef and prepared all our food. For more pictures and a detailed summary of our trip, there is a post on our school website. 

Pygora class visited the Ashford household waste recycling center earlier this term as part of our work on the Polar regions to learn about ways that we can help prevent global warming. We got to see how many different products are able to be recycled so they don't end up in landfill - it was a lot more than we thought. They had sections for clothes, metal, glass, books, cooking oil and many more. The second group that went was a bit unlucky as we visited on garden waste collection day so it was rather smelly! Our visit concluded by getting to meet a very special bird (Bella the Harris Hawk) who helps to scare away seagulls from the site to maintain hygiene, we especially loved getting to see her fly and being able to stroke her. 

Our final trip this term was to the Marlowe theatre to watch the pantomime Aladdin. The show was brilliant and we were all amazed to see Aladdin flying on his carpet and doing flips in the air. We all had a fantastic time and even some children who were adamant they did not want to join in were caught having a sing and dance, and we all joined in with the traditional ghost busters, after all - it's the law!  

In DT, we designed and made our own mini stuffed toys. We started off practising our sewing by doing running stitch then some children who were confident in this had a go at blanket stitch. We then cut out our template and fabric before sewing our toys together and adding stuffing. They turned out really well and the children were pleased to take them home in time for Christmas. 

To link with our topic of the polar regions, in art we painted watercolour penguins. We learnt about colour theory: the primary and secondary colours, warm and cool colours, complementary colours and how to shade without using black. The children produced some beautiful work and they all showed big improvement from their first attempts. 

KS2 performed 'The magical Christmas jigsaw' for our production this year. Our class took on the main roles, doing all the acting and learning lots of lines. Their singing was beautiful and they pulled off two great performances, even if Miss Chapman did get told off for muddling a few up in the second performance. 

 

We started off Term 1 by having a great session of Kik theatre with Ian. This was based around our book 'The Lost Thing' which we adapted and wrote our own stories about a lost thing that we had previously designed. To start our learning, we made our own lost things out of random classroom items, then hid them around the school with a note attached saying, "Please return to Pygora Class," to see how long it took to get them back - it took one of them over a week to be found!

As part of harvest festival, we learnt about the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival (also known as the moon festival). We found out the story of Chang'e, who took an elixir of life, to prevent a thief from stealing it from her husband, then consequently went to live on the moon. We tried a version of the traditional mooncakes - a pastry with sweet red bean paste inside - and made Chinese lanterns as decorations.

This term, in History, we have looked at the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and thought about which group of people were more successful. We learnt about the Viking raid on Lindisfarne, what Viking culture, exploration and trade was like and about why they invaded Britain. We used all our learning to have a debate, each side pretending they were the leaders of either the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and got another teacher to judge which side won. We also reenacted the battle of Hastings to find out how the Anglo-Saxon/Viking era in Britain came to an end.