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.

Romans Rock!

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. 

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). 

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.

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.