Willow wb 13.02.23

The children in Willow class have been working on developing their drawing skills this week and we have been creating our own Islamic Art patterns. We have learnt the importance of taking our time to be really accurate  in order to create effective geometric patterns and to allow for symmetry to work. Our choices of colour have also been important in making our patterns stand out and be memorable. The children did a great job with these and you will find examples in the photos alongside this blog. 

This week has also involved reminding ourselves of the key ways to stay safe on the internet. Our assemblies have been based on this theme and we read a story called Digiduck where we discussed some of the ways in which we can stay safe online including the importance of keeping our passwords private, not clicking on something if we feel unsure what it is and using the internet in a positive way so that we can all enjoy it and learn from it. The children recalled the key points well and we considered why these were so important to us. 

This week in science, we learnt about the water cycle and we created some lovely posters to help us remember the key facts about this. On Monday, we were also really lucky to take part in a dance and fitness session run by Nicky from Chi Chi Fit. We had a fantastic time doing this and everyone participated brilliantly. This was followed by our whole school dance festival where we thoroughly enjoyed the class performances. We have been looking at the ocean including the different layers of the ocean and travelling on the ocean. Using improvisation and opposing dynamics, we have created a dance to reflect on our observations. 

This was the final week of our topic on Ancient Islamic history and we have learnt more about what life was like for the richest people in the city and the experiences they would have on a day to basis. We wrote postcards to Saxon Britain to compare these two aspects of History. We started by doing a 'tour' of the streets where we pointed out the key buildings and features that stood out before thinking about what we would expect to find inside a grand banquet or when visiting the court to speak to the ruler. 

We have been impressed with how well the children have worked this half term and hope that everyone has a lovely half term break. After the holiday, we will be moving on to a new topic all to do with the climate zones and biomes of the world. The information for this topic can be found on our Willow class page.