Plants

In our final term, Swallows have focused on a plant's life cycle. We created diagrams explaining how seeds germinate, the plant grows, pollination occurs, seeds are formed, seeds are dispersed and it all starts over again. 

We carried out many investigations to identify how the parts of plants function. Our STEM week focused around Nature Areas and Swallows focused on which pollinators we'd like to introduce. We designed our nature area around attracting these animals and encouraging them to make homes.

Our artwork focused around Paul Cezanne and his still-life sketches. Swallows created their own using fruit before then creating cross-sectional sketches.

Earth Rocks!

During the final weeks of Term 5, Swallows began their topic focused on rocks. Swallows really enjoyed the range of investigations completed, testing rocks permeability, floatability and hardness. Swallows also learnt what soil is and how the different types vary from each other.

Roots to Food also visited us during this time, giving us a chance to practice our cooking techniques and learn more about food from around the world.

Location, Location, Location!

Swallows continued their Location, Location, Location! topic in term 5, focusing on the neighbouring country of France. We learnt about the mountains, rivers and capital city of France before focusing on the human features of Paris.

We enjoyed reading 'Katie Meets the Impressionists' which linked into our art work focused on Claude Monet. We practised his techniques of defining strokes and blotting, leading to the creation of our own Monet artwork of nature in our school. This was particularly exciting as we got to paint 'en plein air' (meaning outside). 

During term 4, Swallows studied our topic of location, location, location! This focused on our local area. During the term, there were many exciting writing opportunities such as writing to the local council asking for improvements to Dartford.

Swallows were fortunate to go on a trip to Horton Kirby, visiting many of the human and physical features we had studied in our Geography lesson. They looked at the main features of the village, including the river, lack of shops and the local public house. The class completed a range of activities, focused on: map keys, compass skills, what future Horton Kirby may look like and much more.

Healthy Bodies

During Term 3, Swallows learnt about healthy bodies which included healthy eating and our skeletons. To go alongside our topic, we read the book 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' by Roald Dahl and created a range of writing to accompany this. The class particularly enjoyed writing their newspaper reports and letters to persuade Mr Wonka to make healthier snacks.

Early on in Term 3 we learnt about a balanced diets and the types of foods that should be eaten to stay healthy. We investigate the amount of sugar in popular drinks and were amazed at how unhealthy some of them were. Over the term we continued to look at healthy food and ended the term by making our own healthy soup. 

The other major aspect of Healthy Bodies focused on our skeletons and animal skeletons. We looked at a wide range of x-rays, including those that showed every part of the human body. We were amazed to discover that we have 206 bones in our bodies. We learnt about muscles and joints within the body, discovering that we move because our muscles contract and relax.

I am a Roman Soldier!

During the term, Swallows were lucky to have a very special visitor.We were visited by a Roman soldier, equipped with his sword, shield and spear, and wearing his full armour. We learnt how to be warriors and importantly how to stay alive! This was presented through a Roman army march where we were attacked by 'Celts'. Using the tortoise formation, we had to protect ourselves and our comrades from enemy 'arrows' (beanbags). 

During the visit we also discovered stories about mad emperors, courageous conquerors and defiant defenders. We all got involved, taking on the many different roles that included assassination victims and Gods.

The Romans

During term 2, we learnt about Roman Britain and the Roman way of life. We found out when in time Roman Britain happened before mapping out what The Roman Empire looked like at the height of it's power. To better understand our own British history, we also looked at Celtic Britain and the conflict that arose through the Boudicca uprising. We compared Roman Villas and Celtic Roundhouses, created posters about the Celtic way of life and wrote a newspaper report on Boudicca. One of the texts we looked at this half term was 'Escape from Pompeii' and we wrote excellent setting descriptions. 

Opposites Attract

Also during term 1, we read the story of 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes and wrote a range of texts, including a diary entry from Hogarth. We investigated how magnets work, what materials are magnetic and what a non-contact force is. The class had the opportunity to complete a Home Learning task to create their own magnetic board games.

Sports Anthem Song Writing

Swallows class were fortunate to have a visit from Nathan Timothy who is part of the Song Writing Charity. Through funding from Dartford F.C., he worked with the class to create a new sports anthem.

We started by identifying different mystery sounds and thinking about different ways objects can be used. Next, we made a list of our favourite sports and words related to them. The children sang their activities and what they like about them, which they discovered is called improvising. We used these to create ideas for our verses. After listening to some current anthems, we thought about what we could use as a chorus to create our own anthem.

In groups, the class recorded different sounds in a range of ways. Many used random objects or their bodies to create percussion sounds and others used their voices to create some very unusual sounds.

Throughout the day, in groups of four, Swallows recorded lyrics for the verses of our anthem. While children were recording, the rest of the class designed CD and thumbnails for our track. By the end of the afternoon, all of the different parts were mixed together into our own fantastic Sports Anthem.

You can listen to our track using this link: Our Sports Anthem

Light and Shadows 

Swallows enjoyed reading the 'Owl who was Afraid of the Dark' and linking it to our Science work through the range of light sources. We created character descriptions and retold the story in our owns words with our own new character.

In Term 1, we learnt about a range of light sources and how shadows are formed. We used torches, black card and chalk to create our own silhouettes before seeing whose silhouette we could identify. We build on this by creating a range of monster shadows in the playground. Using the sunlight we created shadows that had 4 arms, multiple heads or other odd features.