Curriculum News – Page 3 – Toftwood Infant and Junior School Federation

Year 2 Summer 1

This half term the children in year 2 were surprised with instructions from the FLI (Federal literacy inspectors!) asking for help to create their own stories! Each day the children received challenges to support writing their own fiction book, including creating their own characters, settings and plot. The children loved making their very own books!

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The children also watched a film called ‘Embarked’ and answered questions about what they watched using their Vipers skills. They used this film as inspiration to describe the city and countryside. They then designed their own treehouses and wrote instructions about how to build them.

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Finally, year 2 looked at the Lifesize and Actual Size books. They were fascinated to see the different sizes of the animals as well as parts of the animals! They linked their English and Maths learning, by measuring the different parts of the animal using non-standard and standard measurements.

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Reception – Su1 2024

This half term, the topic in Reception has been ‘Once Upon a Time.’ The children have read a variety of traditional tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and Goldilocks & The Three Bears. They have also listened to alternative versions of traditional tales such as Jack and the baked beanstalk, Goldilocks and just 1 bear and The 3 little wolves and the big bad pig.

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RE Spring Term 2024

Reception

In Reception this term we have enjoyed reading ‘A Kind Stranger’, a bible story about the importance of showing kindness to those around us. We thought about why it is important to make good choices and be kind to others. The children discussed how we can be kind in school and linked this to our school’s Golden rules.

As it got closer to the Easter holidays we read another bible story called ‘The Happy Day’. This story taught us how Christian people believe that Jesus rose from his tomb after three days and how joyful his friends and disciples were. We learnt that this is why many people celebrate Easter and that our chocolate Easter eggs symbolise new life.

Year 1

This term in RE, Marsha and Todd visited the children and told them all about the celebration of Shabbat. They were able to link this celebration to when they learnt about the Jewish celebration of Hannukah in December.

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In the later part of the term, the children also learnt about the Christian celebration of Easter and learned the Easter Story.

Year 2

This term the children have been learning about how we may belong to a faith family. The learnt about how christenings are important when belonging to a faith family. The children acted out, and made their own Christening scene.

The children have also learnt about Passover and how it is celebrated. Marsha and Todd visited the children to talk about the celebration of Passover.They thought about the celebrations they take part in, and the objects that are important to them. They then created their own Seder plate.

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Art Summer 1 2024

Year 3

We have focussed on the artist Jeannie Baker and the text ‘The Window’ as an inspiration for our artwork. Using mixed media we created a Jeannie Baker inspired collage of a view from a window.

The children have used their knowledge of blending paints to create different shades and tones to replicate sky and grassland as a background and then used a variety of materials for collaging for texture. Once they were happy with their backgrounds, they gathered natural resources from the school grounds to recreate their window scenes. They thought carefully about placing natural resource on their collages.

Year 4

This half term, we have learnt about Claude Monet and have used his paintings to inspire a watercolour creation of water lilies. We have created a fact file of Claude Monet and have experimented with blending paints, using sponges and brushes to create a piece of art based on the impressionist’s famous paintings.

We have also explored the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti. We have used mixed media to create the sculptures. We used foil to produce the shapes we wanted, then applied masking tape to it. Finally we very carefully added clay to create our sculptures, these range from animals to peoples in different poses.

Year 5

This half term, we have created collages inspired by our Geography topic of Norfolk landscapes. We have focussed on the perspective of fore and back ground and the effected of using mixed medias.

Year 6

This half term we have observational bird drawings. We used our sketching techniques of contour, cross, random and hatching as well as stippling to complete a series of observational drawings. After each drawing, we evaluated our art work and annotated the areas we felt we could improve and the things that we liked.

Music Summer 1

Reception

This term the children have enjoyed our topic once upon a time, where the children have been learning about traditional tales such as, little red riding hood, three billy goats and the ugly duckling etc. The children particularly enjoyed the ginger bread man where the story was told through “Zorba the Greek.” As the tempo quicken in the song so did the tension in the story. They have also been watching Cbeebies Musical Storyland episodes such as to ‘The 3 Billy goats gruff’ where musicians from the BBC Philharmonic are joined by the storyteller, playing music and singing songs. Which you can watch here: – https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001syqc/musical-storyland-series-1-1-three-billy-goats-gruff

The Children also enjoyed watching Miss Helens; perform the three little pigs, getting the children to join with building the houses and blowing them down as the big bad wolf using the music to help them express themselves!

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Year 1

In Year 1 we have been learning to play the song ‘Get ready’ from our Charanga lessons. The children have used the chime bars and talked in detail about the different notes each bar makes. They identified the notes needed to play the song and the children listened carefully to the rhythm/pulse of the song before we began to play. The Charanga lesson showed us when was the correct time to play each note and the children showed excellent concentration and perseverance. They were very proud to perform the song together as a class.

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Year 2

During Summer 1 each Year 2 class had the opportunity to learn how to play the ocarina. The children learnt how to hold the ocarina and how to blow into it correct so it doesn’t squeak! They also learnt the notes D, B and G. They have learnt how to play songs using these notes and performed them confidently. All the children really enjoyed learning to play this instrument and many commented it was their favourite part of their music learning this year!

Art Summer 1

Reception

In Reception this half term, we have been exploring art both in class and outside in Ted’s Den. We have been experimenting with different materials including pipe cleaners, buttons, gems, pebbles, leaves and sticks to make our artwork. We had to think carefully about the material we chose to represent different elements in our art frames!

Year 1

In Year One we have been looking at the artist Jackson Pollock during our Planet and Beyond topic. We learnt about the techniques he used in his artwork and had a go at creating some of our own splatter paintings. We discovered that flicking the paint created lots of different patterns including lines, dots and curves. We had so much fun making our Pollock inspired galaxy paintings!

We also looked at the work of Andy Goldsworthy and created our own sculptures out of natural materials on the school grounds. We used leaves, grass, stones and feathers to make pictures on the playground.

The children also used natural materials to weave. They found natural objects and weaved these between some pieces of string to create some lovely pictures. They also used the leaves to print into clay.

Year 2 We have been very busy in Year Two this half term. We explored the artwork of the American artist Andy Warhol, as part of our Art Around the World topic. We drew our own pictures and photocopied them to make four exact copies, in the style of Warhol. We then experimented with oil pastels to add bold colours to our work.

We then learnt about Australasian aboriginal ‘dreamings’. We explored some material with aboriginal prints to look at the colours and techniques used. We cut out bold designs and symbols in black sugar paper to create waterholes, footsteps, people and animal tracks in our dreamings. We noticed aboriginal paintings use lots of repeating dot patterns, which we then incorporated into our own art by dipping the ends of paintbrushes into paint.

The children also created some paintings inspired by the continent of Asia. We were inspired by the cherry blossoms that can be found in Asia throughout the Spring and the children recreated these with paint. They thought carefully about the colours they would need and were successful when mixing red and white to create the perfect shade of pink.

Federation School Council – Spring 2024

Improving Lunchtimes

Over the Spring term the School Council were busy discussing ways to improve lunchtimes across both schools. We each collected ideas and suggestions from our classmates and fed back in a meeting. We discussed which of these suggestions would be possible to implement and then put forward our ideas to Mrs Pedlow. We sent emails out to specific teachers and FOTS to help get them up and running.

Some of the suggestions put forward were:

Calming music to be played in the dinner halls.
New playground markings
Playground pals to wipe over wet benches as part of their role.
Alternative lunchtime clubs
Mixed age group playtimes across the Federation once a half term.
Junior Playground pals for Infants
Introducing ‘Quiet Play’ areas in the summer on the playground (picnic blankets and a box of resources such as colouring, card games etc).

Comic Relief – Red Nose Day 2024

To support ‘Red Nose Day’ this year the children of the School Council asked pupils and staff across the Federation to take part in a non-uniform day. They made posters for every classroom to advertise the event and also asked their peers to add the colour red to their outfit if they could.

During the day both schools discussed the work of the Comic Relief charity and took part in an assembly. Each class created a large Red nose for their classroom door and the School Council created a red nose scavenger hunt as a special treat for over lunchtime. Every child who took part received Dojo points when they had completed the hunt. The Infant children were very excited to have some Junior school council members helping them on their playground.

A huge thank you to everyone who donated to the Comic Relief charity. We raised a grant total of £450!

Spring 1 Music 2024

Music in Reception

In maths, the children have been learning patterns, such as word patterns or making up their own body percussion patterns such as clap, stomp, clap stomp.

During Receptions topic this term, ‘People who help us’ the children went on a bus trip so we taught them the song, “The Wheels on the Bus” and they had the opportunity to sing it on an actual bus and perform to the bus driver!

Music in Year 1

During this half term, year 1 have celebrated a wide range of musical styles. The children have listened, sung, composed and performed both familiar songs like the lullaby, Hush Little Baby and new songs like learning the Days of the Week. They have once again enjoyed playing the chime bars, as well as discovering high and low notes in some of the songs they have learnt the lyrics to and performed.

Music in Year 2

This half term the children in Year 2 have been exploring many different music styles that link to community. They have listened and appraised different genres of music such as swing and classical. They have learnt different songs and performed these in class. One of their favourites was ‘The Music Man’. They have worked on listening and responding whilst learning these songs and performed these in groups. They also have been listening to music from the rainforest and drawing what we thought we could hear, the children used some of the instruments to imitate what they could hear.

Art Spring Term 2024

Year 3 Spring Term

In Year 3 we have been looking at our focus artist Georgia O’ Keeffe, a 20^th century artist who experimented with bold colours and different techniques when creating her beautiful pieces. In particular, we have carefully studied O’ Keeffe’s close-up paintings of flowers. The children have worked hard to emulate O’ Keeffe’s techniques by first creating a viewfinder which they used to pick a section of their flower to sketch, and then sketching two of these into their books. After evaluating which one they liked best and why, the children then sketched the outline of their flower at a larger scale, ready to be completed using our chosen medium of oil pastels. Once they had explored a number of techniques, such as sgraffito and dry blending, Year 3 then meticulously filled in their sketch using oil pastels to replicate the shades and tints of their flowers.

Year 4 Spring Term

In Art, the children learned about Islamic patterns. The children researched different elements of Islamic art such as calligraphy, geometric patterns, vegetal (relating to plants) and repetition of patterns. They particularly enjoyed discovering that most Islamic art will have a small deliberate mistake to show that nobody is perfect! After creating their final design, the children then made a printing tile out of string, card and other found items and used it to print a repeating pattern into their books. We have all enjoyed this topic as we have been able to use a range of different mediums such as pencil, string, cardboard and paint! The final task involved evaluating their work by recognising what worked well, what could be improved next time and what they had learned throughout the project.

Year 6 Spring Term

In Year 6 we have developed our collage skills by creating our own North American landscapes in the style of American photographer, Ansel Adams. We used only black, white and grey paper to create our collages based on some of the scenes that Adams captured. To develop our skills further we used paint to create a mixed media piece of art.

DT Spring Term 2024

Year 3, Spring Term

The children have been busy, designing their own Three Age dwelling – based on their History topic of Stone Age to Iron Age. They chose their own materials and constructed their dwelling. They evaluated their designs and the materials that they chose.

Year 3 have created their own bookmark. They have explored three different types of stitching (running, overcast and backstitch, creating samples of these to help decide which stitch they prefer for their design. They have drawn and labelled a diagram of their design, and have, in many cases, adapted these as they have progressed from drawing to stitching! The children evaluated their product, spending much time deciding whether they would like to change anything if they had the opportunity to do it again.

Year 4 Spring Term

This term in year 4, we have combined our Science topic of electricity and our Geography topic of mountains to create a working electrical board game. The children have loved using their scientific skills in a practical way and have created some fantastic board games, fit with light bulbs and buzzers. The children used their problem solving skills to ensure that their wires connected to the correct conductors in order for their games to work.

Year 4 has also completed their Food Technology project for this term: Fish cakes!

Through the process of producing fish cakes, they have learnt the D&T cooking skills of peeling and coating. We started by peeling and cutting potatoes into chunks, before boiling them and mashing them. We added this to tuna and grated lemon peel, finally flavouring it with parsley. We then scooped a handful of this mixture to press into a fish cake. We then practiced the skill of coating these fish cakes in breadcrumbs to learn to how to create a coating. The fish cakes went in to the oven for 20 minutes and we were able to take them home to taste them. They were delicious!

Year 5 Spring Term

During the spring term, Year 5 made a vegetarian curry. The children had a sequence of lessons whereby they carefully considered how to stay safe in the kitchen, discovered the different food groups, planned and researched a curry, made a vegetarian curry and then evaluated it. The skills that the children mastered were: chopping, measuring, peeling and squeezing. The children surprised themselves and enjoyed the curry despite it having lots of vegetables in!