English
In this term’s book When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, the young girl Anna flees Berlin with her brother and parents in 1933 when Hitler is elected Chancellor, and the family begin a new life as refugees, initially in Switzerland, only to move to Paris and then England.
French
Mathematics
In Geometry Oaks drew polygons and classified them by identifying their properties, including their line of symmetry. We worked on visualising 3-D objects from 2-D drawings; made nets of common solids and measured their volume. We also experimented with cubes/pyramids and cones/cylinders and solved practical volume problems. We filled them with sugar and found out that the volume of a square based pyramid is 1/3 of the volume of a cube where the base and height is the same in both shapes. We also worked on plotting and identifying co-ordinates while Translating, Rotating 2D shapes and clearly remember the success criteria for these movements. Oaks also solved problems with angles at a point and angles at a point on a straight line We continued measuring angles with the increased accuracy and now can do it confidently to one degree. Linked to our ‘Young Entrepreneur’ project, we solved various percentage, price and quantity word problems.
Young Entrepreneurs Project – Business project
A business is more than just a product or a service. Behind every item that we buy, every service that we use, there is a story. Running a business involves many skills – creativity, leadership, team work, communication, budgeting, planning, design, customer-awareness and many more. During this unit, children learnt these vital business skills, as they embarked on their business journey. The children were encouraged to take risks, be independent and realise that the hard work that goes into planning and setting up a business pays off.
The children engaged in team activities to create their business plan, research the market, practice pricing and budgeting and design logos and slogans. Four teams created their own stylish leaflets and implement strategies to increase their profit.
We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience. – John Dewey
Like all serious business people, Elm and Oak Young Entrepreneurs met to reflect upon the performance of their respective business projects at the Summer Fete. Their ‘project retrospectives’ were a moment to think about:
· What they had planned to do
· What actually happened
· Why it happened
· What they would do next time
· What they learnt
· How they can improve
Ginormous THANK YOU to all our customers for supporting our business venture ! We would not have been able to do it without you!
Trip to Accrocamp St.Germain en Laye
Oak and Elm visited Parc Accrocamp, a tree climbing adventure park located in the forest around Saint Germain-en-Laye.
This event took place to celebrate the achievements of our Young Entrepreneurs who, as you know, recently devised, planned, acquired bank loans for and ran businesses, the proceeds of which have covered the cost of this well-deserved class activity.
The tree climbing activities will see the children discovered a variety of courses, including rope bridges, zip lines and scramble nets, high up in the trees (safely secured in harnesses, of course).
Science
This term, Oak class learnt about living things and their habitats. They learnt how to describe living things as well as how they can be classified based on similarities and differences. The class also were asked to give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics. Oak Class also learnt about the body and its functions. We looked closely are the different organs of the body, identifying and naming the main parts of the human circulatory system
History
This term was all about World War II and as well as learning about the war itself the focus was about how and why it happened. Our research led us back to the outcome of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles.
Oak learnt about the punishing terms of the treaty that were intended to crush Germany but in doing so sparked a nationalist backlash that unleashed Hitler. They learnt about the attitudes and goals of the main parties responsible for imposing the terms: France, the U.S. and Britain.
Oak learnt about the outbreak of WW2 and the German occupation of Europe. To reverse German expansion the allies needed a presence in Europe and the beaches of Normandy were chosen as the entry point. Both Oak and Elm classes learnt about Operation Overlord and took a trip to Normandy to see for themselves some key sites of the D-Day landings, with a visit to Omaha Beach, the Pointe du Hoc and the American Cemetery. They also visited the Overlord Museum, dedicated to the memory of this key event in WW2 and full of fascinating military equipment and memorabilia.
Geography
The focus in Geography was Glaciers, when they formed, where in the world they are found, and the marks these ‘rivers of ice’ have left on the landscape.
The class learned:
- The stages of glacial formation
- Key features associated with glacial landscapes
- To explain how glaciers form using geographical vocabulary and diagrams.
ICT
This closing term, Oaks did a fantastic job on Trinket (which is a visual learning platform to Python coding and programming) and discovered Tina which is a turtle that is controlled by code. By changing the code (signs, numbers, words..) the students get a different outcome each time on the right of the screen, also depending on the theme and its different functions and commands, where they could see the immediate results of their work.
Some of the challenges they solved were:
- Make different shapes by changing the code
- By using input function and variable Tina could ask them different questions to create a database
- Adding colors to text
- Made circles of different sizes and colours
- By going forward, backward, left and right
- By giving instructions to Tina to solve Math problems and simple questions
Students were not afraid of trying out new things, even if this was completely new to most of them. This platform gave them the opportunity to correct their mistakes and even being okay when making them. They must be proud of their work. Here are some examples of what they accomplished:
Spanish
This end-of-school-year term, Oaks developed their Spanish skills by learning about descriptions of our town or city and identifying the different places they could find around the area they live in, they worked on basic vocabulary words, identifying sounds, writing down sentences and talking to their partners about their ideas.
As summer quickly approached, students were interested about sports and its similar names in Spanish compared to the names in English, besides practicing the basic vocabulary related to it, they were able to identify the words in an audio and wrote sentences about the Sports they prefer and their friends’ preferences as well.
By the end of term they made a Power Point presentation about Spanish-speaking countries and their most important facts, landmarks and traditions. Buen trabajo Oaks!
Sports day
