In both Whole Class Reading and English, we will be exploring our new class story “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” by Katie DiCamillo. The story focuses on Edward Tulane, a china rabbit, who becomes lost from the little girl who loves him. His travels span the course of more than 30 years as he tries to find love and happiness again, even if it means having a life without his former owner. As Edward goes from place to place, he also changes emotionally. He meets new people that help him along his path, and he not only finds the true meaning of love, but he also finds his way home. This is a classic children's tale of hope, loss, change, but most importantly love. During our Whole Class Reading sessions we will be focusing on our fluency, building on our ability to read with expression, and developing our comprehension skills, through our use of the text to retrieve our answers. 

In our writing sessions, we will start with a focus on the author, Katie DiCamillo, and produce a biography. The children will make great use of their prior knowledge of using paragraphs to help them plan and organise the structure of this. We will then move on to writing a short story narrative with a focus on the grandmother, Pellegrina, and her perspective of what happened.  This will support the children in building their understanding of fables, started in Beech Class, and how they are used to share a moral.  In this piece of writing the children will further develop their understanding of dialogue and how to use speech punctuation to present dialogue between characters. Throughout our writing lessons, we will refine and develop our writing using a range of grammatical devices, including: simple, compound and complex sentences; paragraphs, contractions, past, present, future and present perfect tenses; prepositions and prepositional phrases, fronted adverbials, apostrophes and similes.

In Maths we will start the term with a recap of fractions, just to make sure that we are really secure in adding and subtracting fractions, how to identify and convert mixed fractions and how to compare two fractions with different denominators.  We will then move on to a focus on measurement, learning how to measure and compare the mass of objects using grams and kilograms, before moving on to measuring capacity and volume in millilitres and litres.  After this, we will move on to telling the time, making great use of our knowledge of fractions and the five times table to help us with this.  The children will learn how to use the 12 hour and 24 hour clock to help them tell the time at different points in the day. Finally, we will return to a focus on measurement and learn how to use hours, minutes and seconds to measure and compare time.  We will end the term with a further revisit of our fraction knowledge and using this to start exploring decimals, initially focusing on representing tenths in a variety of ways.

In Art, we will be focusing on architecture, initially starting with an exploration of the Parthenon and the many sculptures in this.  The children will use their knowledge of the aspects of the frieze that are ‘in relief’ to create their own relief clay tile. We will then move on to look at modern and older examples of architect that have been built on using symmetrical and asymmetrical design. Finally, the children will explore the work of the Spanish architect Gaudi, and explore how his work was influenced by nature.  The children’s final piece of artwork will be influenced by the work of Gaudi and take the form of a mosaic tile. 

In Geography the children will use maps of Western Europe to identify key countries and key physical features. They will use maps to explore the location of countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands, recognising physical features such as peninsulas, mountains, and rivers. The children will carry out an indepth study of France, locating Paris, the capital city and look at maps of the city itself. They will identify the path of the River Seine and the River Rhone, reinforcing understanding of physical features (rivers) and human features (settlements). They will look closely at images of diverse French landscapes including the sandy beaches of Southern France, the wine regions and the Alps. They will learn that the Alps are mountains that have high altitude causing the climate of these regions to be cooler.

In History our learning focuses on the power struggle between the monarchy, church and the people during the Middle Ages. Throughout this unit, the children will analyse some of the significant changes that took place during this period which helped pave the way for a fairer and more democratic Great Britain, such as Henry IIs legal reforms, the sealing of the Magna Carta, and Simon de Montfort’s Parliament. They will also look at the Holy Wars and learn about Richard I and Sultan Saladin. The children will be looking at the restraints put on the power of the monarchy by both the people and the church, focusing on the early Plantagenet monarchs. 

In Latin we will continue to learn about our Roman family, living in England, and learn about their lifestyles, home and food. The children will learn how to read, and translate, stories about the family and how to communicate in simple Latin sentences.  Throughout their learning journey, the children will start to see how the roots of many commonly used English words today actually came from Latin.

In RE we will be focusing on the Christian faith to explore the question “Why do Christians believe they are people on a mission?”.  We will start by exploring our understanding of what being on a mission means and link this to the Bible story of Jonah, who was sent on a mission by God.  We will be interviewing adults at home and at school to help us understand what their mission, or job, is.  The children will then explore a further Bible story, this time about Jesus and how he encouraged his followers to be the light and salt.  This will then help us to move on to understanding what ‘The Great Commission’ means to Christians and Jesus’ role in this. Finally we will be linking with Reverend Juanita to understand the role of the Church and its mission in supporting Christians, through the celebration of Pentecost. Finally the children will be introduced to the concept of the Five Marks of Mission in the Anglican Church and how Christians use these to help others in their communities.

In Science, this term we will be focusing on Chemistry, through the study of rocks. The children will be introduced to key knowledge about rocks, including their appearance, simple physical properties and how to recognise different types of rock. We will look at how geologists work to find out more about rocks on earth and beyond and how geologists study the properties of rocks, composition of rocks, and what rocks can tell us about life on earth long ago. The children will then move on to learn about how sedimentary rock forms, and that fossils form when things that have lived are trapped within rock and how this process allows us to learn about plants and animals from thousands and millions of years ago. We will finish this unit with a study on soil and how soil is made from rocks and organic matter (decaying things that have lived).