In our first science lesson this week we focused on the changes that occur between Summer and Autumn. As well as, setting up our own weather station to help us when observing and recording the weather over the coming weeks.

In DT this week, we used a variety of recycled materials to create our own fairy-tale castles, complete with drawbridges and towers.

We had a go at building our own houses for the three little pigs using straw bales, bricks and sticks. We experimented also with using a combination of materials.

In art this week, we have been creating our own patterned papers through mixing different colours of paint and adding texture by using a variety of mark making tools. Once our patterned papers had dried, we enjoyed ripping them up and creating our own collage of the Princess and the Pea fairy-tale.

The children enjoyed their trip to the Tower of London, where they walked along the battlements, spent time in the White Tower-where they could explored the room where gunpowder was kept during the Great Fire of London, learnt about the Great Fire of London in more depth with the help of a lady called Jane, explored what houses would have looked like in 1666, saw the last standing wooden building and created sketches of these to use once back at school.

The children thoroughly enjoyed a bauble workshop kindly paid for by the Bisham PTA. The children painted their bauble silver and then used tools to add the design of a snowman.

Ice Decorations

The children spent time collecting natural materials to create frozen hanging decorations. They added water to their container of natural materials and froze them over night. The next day, the children were very excited to see what their frozen decorations looked like and hung them on trees, so they good watch them glisten in the sunlight.

The children set up an experiment to find out which material would keep the ice solid for the longest. They used their knowledge of materials from their science learning from last term to help them. They wrapped 3 pieces of ice in different  materials and left them all outside. The children were able to predict what might happen to each piece of ice and monitored the ice over a certain time period and recorded their findings.

The children learnt what animals live in the Arctic and also considered what the environment might be like there, to create their own frozen kingdom dioramas using recycled materials.

The children have enjoyed their DT learning over the last two weeks, where they have explored the key components needed to make a vehicle move, have built a chassis with 2 axles and 4 wheels, experimented with different prototypes of what to add to the front of their snow buggies to ensure it moves easily through the snow, have designed their own snow buggies and brought their designs to life by building them out of a variety of materials.

The children were set the challenge of creating a mobile to help Wallace sleep. The children were given the following design brief:

• the mobile needs to contain at least 3 different colours
• the mobile needs to have geometric shapes
• the mobile needs to be equally balanced when hung up.

The children enjoyed creating their own stories based on the Arctic environment with Arctic animals to create their own stop motion movie. The children first thought about their story ideas and used these to create a storyboard, which they later used to help them with their stop motion movie. The children learnt how to use the stop motion app, how to slightly move their characters each time, take lots of photos and put them all together, as well as adding in audio for the characters.

The children were very lucky to have a visit from the author Zehra Hicks this week, ahead of World Book Day. Zehra shared with the children her book 'Cheeky Monkey', explained where she gets the ideas for her stories from and also gave the children an illustration lesson, where they learnt how to draw the main character from the story 'Cheeky Monkey'.

The children thoroughly enjoyed their visit to Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford this week, where they took part in a workshop to learn more about how the Inuit community- what they wear, how they hunt, their diet and the sort of transport they use. The children also explored the Natural History Museum, where they were able to get up close to and sketch the skeletons of the polar bear and reindeer, as well as being able to touch the bear exhibits. In addition to this, the children were also able to explore the fossil collection, the birds, dinosaurs and insects sections of the museum to support their learning in Science this term.

Mrs Marshall kindly came into school to share with us the traditions her family follow to celebrate St David's Day on the 1st March each year. Mrs Marshall was able to explain who St David was and why he is important to the Welsh, as well as some of the traditions of wearing leeks and daffodils, making and eating welsh cakes and girls dressing up in traditional Welsh costume.

The children thoroughly enjoyed coming into school dressed as their favourite book characters for World Book Day this week, as well as enjoying using the well known traditional tale of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' to create their own version of the story. The children chose to change the character traits around and have Goldilocks as the good character and the three bears as evil characters! The children worked together as a class to think of new ideas for the text and then worked in small groups to create new illustrations for their story. At the end of the day the children joined the rest of the class in the hall to share the stories each year group had created.

In addition to this, the children enjoyed acting out the traditional and new story of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' using finger puppets and masks that they had made, as well as taking the time to share a story with a friend.

The children enjoyed using clay to make their own masks inspired by the native Arctic animal, the walrus. They practised their rolling, pinching, mark making and scoring techniques to make their masks. We will be leaving the masks to dry for the next week, before painting them and firing them in the kiln.

The children enjoyed taking part in this year's Dance Extravaganza, where they performed a dance to 'Some Things Never Change' from Frozen. This dance was inspired by our current topic of 'The Arctic' where the children incorporated some traditional Norwegian dancing into their dance.

The children enjoyed looking for signs of Spring during our Spring walk, where they discovered cherry blossom, daffodils and other beautiful flowers growing, buds appearing on trees and bushes, listening to the birds singing and flying over head as they return from migrating over the colder months and paying close attention to the weather- how it was cloudy but warm with spots of rain in the air!

The children thoroughly enjoyed their visit from 'Flo on the Road', who told us all about the life and work of Florence Nightingale. As well as, how this significant woman changed the world of nursing for the better. The children also had the opportunity to learn how to apply a bandage to protect the injuries of the wounded!

Through their learning of Mary Seacole this week, the children learnt how Mary used home remedies made from ingredients found in the home, to help heal the sick. The children had a go at making their own home remedies using fresh mint, ginger, honey, lemons and warm water. The children chopped, ground and mixed the ingredients to make their remedies. We encouraged Mr Chotalia and Miss Harrison to be our taste testers at the end too!

We were very lucky to have a visit from Sheila, who lives in Bisham Village this week. Sheila was able to tell us all about the village, the different jobs people do and how the village has changed over the years. Sheila shared with us photos of what the village used to look like, different people who lived in village and how the Bisham community support one another. 

The children have enjoyed the start to their DT unit this week, where they have learnt how to join materials such as card and paper and how to make 3D models stronger using a variety of techniques.

The children have started their science unit all about the human body, where they have spent time drawing around each other and labelling parts of the body that everyone has. The children also carried out a mini investigation to help them answer the question 'is the oldest person always the tallest?' The children worked in groups of children with a mixture of birthdays in Autumn, Spring and Summer birthdays. The children took it in turns to measure each other using the measuring tape and record their findings. They were then able to show their results in a bar graph, before discussing what they found out.