Category Archives: Literacy

Treasure Island

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This term, the class have listened to and read an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous book, ‘Treasure Island’.   Jim Hawkins sets sail searching for buried treasure and adventure, and finds himself caught up in a deadly mutiny. He manages to outwit the cunning pirate Long John Silver in order to stay alive! An exciting plot!

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This has been a very popular book. The children have loved reading about all the characters, and the many twists and turns in this adventure story. As well as being a Literacy theme, ‘Treasure Island’ has led to many other lessons in Maths, Social Studies and Expressive Arts.

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We learned how authors like Stevenson build up suspense in their story, and that good description helps to create a picture in the reader’s mind. The class enjoyed writing their own exciting pirate stories. 

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 After reading Treasure Island, we made puppets of all the characters from wooden spoons. Everybody made a pirate puppet and chose one or two other characters from the story. The puppet show was great fun with lots of action and scary pirate voices! Everybody took turns for the main parts and  the narrator in the different scenes. People were very resourceful with props for our play! 

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Using Maps and Atlases

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I can display my knowledge of the geography of the United Kingdom: Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland.

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I can understand and use an atlas to find out the location of and information on:

  • Cities and towns
  • rivers and mountains
  • Oceans, Seas and Channels
  • airports and seaports

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I can discuss and compare information I find in maps and can accurately say where in the UK they are located.

I understand and can use the terms:

  • compass positions: North South, East, West
  • map keys
  • grid references

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We had a competitive team learning challenge which consolidated our learning. Everybody managed very well and worked co-operatively on this task.

Feelings about Bullying

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We discussed bullying; what it is and how people feel when they are bullied. Our class task, set by Mrs Williams for our feedback assembly, was to design posters showing how we feel when we are bullied. Each poster looked very different but they all had the same message of how we feel when we are bullied.

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3D Safari Scenes

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To end our Kenya topic, the children made their own individual 3D Safari scenes which reflected much of what they had learned about Kenyan National Parks. They were very creative and very detailed. Mrs Williams visited our classroom to see the magnificent work and to hear each person talk about what was happening in their scene. Mrs Williams then told us all about the Safari trips she had made in South Africa and the amazing things she did and saw on them! 

 

The Big Five

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The Big Five: Elephant, Rhinoceros, Lion, Leopard, Buffalo

The class completed a research homework task on at least three of the African animals from ‘The Big Five’. In class each child chose two animals and worked on presenting the information they had found as: 

  • A PowerPoint presentation 
  • An information poster

Pupils had the opportunity to talk about their completed work to the rest of the class. The posters have now been displayed in the classroom.

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Kenyan talk by Mr Ralston

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Mr Ralston visited our class on Friday and gave a very interesting talk to the class about his visits to Kenya. Through the Boys Brigade organisation and their fundraising, Mr Ralston was able to make several visits to Kenyan schools and children centres to help them to improve their facilities. In a powerpoint he showed us some of the people and children he was able to help.

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 Mr Ralston told us a lot about the everyday life of the Kenyan people he met and the amazing experiences he had on safari and when visiting the Mara Maasai Game Reserve.  He passed around several Kenyan artefacts and Kenyan money.
IMG_9176The class thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and the children asked many good questions throughout. Mr Ralston was impressed with the class and commented on their good knowledge of Kenya and their obvious enthusiasm to learn more. 

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The Banana Chain

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The class were split into the five working groups involved in the banana chain: Plantation owners, banana workers, shippers, exporters & ripeners, supermarket owners. Each group learned about their job and all the difficulties and costs they have to deal with. 

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If each banana sells for 20p, then how much of this should each working group get? Who should get the larger share? Who should get the smallest share? Each group argued their case and worked out how the 20p should be split.

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The class have learned how Fairtrade helps farmers to get out of poverty. We watched a film that shows how Fairtrade has helped Kenyan Tea farmers to improve their working conditions and the lives of their community.

Book Reviews

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For World Book Day the class wrote book reviews on fiction books that we have enjoyed reading this term. We wrote about the plot, the characters and why we recommended the book to friends.

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These were displayed nicely together with 3D drawings of them reading their book. We added a speech bubble with our positive thoughts on reading books. These attractive posters will be judged by Mrs Berry and Mrs Small next week, and the winner will choose a book from our school ‘Book Fair’. They will have a tough time choosing a winner as everybody did an excellent job with this writing and drawing task!