Birch Class 2019/2020 Term 5

The topic for this term was: Our world-Recycling

Our world is where we live – our home, our family, our school. It is the places that we go, the people that we meet, the things that we can see, smell, hear, taste and touch. Our world is important because we share it with lots of other living things. We need to treat our world with respect – to ensure that it is well looked after – so that every person, animal and plant can live healthily and enjoy it.

This IPC unit gave the children a chance to learn about our world. In the first part of term, during the lockdown, children have been learning online from home. It has been a very challenging time for them but they really showed how resilient and hard working they can be!

Literacy

Speaking and listening

The theme was introduced during a zoom conference, in the last week of the Easter Holidays, the 22^ndof April when we celebrate Earth Day. Children learnt about this holiday and the ways people around the world celebrate it. We discussed why it is important to care about our environment and what we can do to help the Earth every day (recycling/reuse/conserve). We have been marking this day by planting seeds (vegetables and flowers).

Following the online classroom from Dubai

Reading and Writing

The national curriculum objectives for this term (to regard reading as a pleasure activity, to show understanding of that has been read and to read with fluency applying the phonics knowledge) have been met through various read aloud sessions and shared reading, where we discussed, for example, what we can do to help reduce our waste. The story of the Magpie became very popular and the children learnt the importance of recycling and sorting out the various litter into the right bin/container (by the material it’s made of). Birch children demonstrated they can listen to what has been read, contribute to discussions and make links to their own experience.

To encourage children’s writing, but also to focus on keeping positive throughout the lockdown, we started posting our thought in our Quarantine Scrapbook.

We loved playing headband! A good way to practise asking and answering questions.

During this term we also had many 1:1 sessions and small group zoom lessons to practice reading aloud and becoming fluent readers. All children in Birch made excellent progress in reading!

But our most favourite book for this term has been Here comes the Garbage Barge, by Jonah Winter. The children enjoyed listening to the true story of the garbage barge that set off from Islip, in NY, hauling nearly thirty-two hundred tons of garbage! We followed the route of the infamous barge, through its six-thousands mile journey. It was not difficult to embed geography, science and maths within our core subjects. The children learnt to name and find the countries on the world map where the barge stopped. In small groups we also found out what those countries and towns are famous for, and the children made a presentation to the class.

The children in Birch have also been busy creating comics! Inspired by the barge story, they set up different groups responsible for drafting the story, creating the characters and drawing the pictures! It was their own initiative and they really showed fantastic team work and high standard presentation skills.

Maths and Science

One of the main objectives for science in term 5 , was to learn about the life cycle of plants. We planted some lentil seeds, we watched the seeds germinate and gradually grow into little plants. We followed the plant’s phases and recorded what we saw. We identified what the plants need to grow (light, water, clean soil) and we estimated how much taller the plant would be a week later.

During term 5, children learnt how to create art work using natural materials from the forest/garden and also how to make toys using recycled materials. The pictures below show a game made with recycled materials that the children created and used to learn the roman numerals and to practice the 4 maths operations.

The link below takes you to a video clip sent by a student to the online classroom, showing the game he made and explaining what he learnt from it.

https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.1416c3fe-acbd-42bc-80f8-78fe60c48d79&share_token=2VO7QccQRm641wDxefSs1g&mode=share

Let’s get cooking!

This is Birch class measuring, working out fractions when dividing the ingredients by the three teams, adding and subtracting ingredients, mixing and taking turns. What team work!

Look at the final result! Mr H, the judge, has a tough decision to make! In the end, all three teams get at least 1 point each for texture, taste and look. We all won!!!