Curriculum News – Page 6 – Toftwood Infant and Junior School Federation

Art Spring 1 2024

Reception

The children in Reception have been doing lots of Art related to their ‘Fantasy’ topic. They have been busy learning how to make pirate hats from folded paper, designing aliens and have taken part in a guided drawing session to learn how to draw Supertato.

Year 1

This half term we have been focussing on the different seasons. We researched about each season and looked at the different colours we could see and how the trees changed over time. The children then drew a landscape scene including aspects of each of the four seasons. They thought carefully about their use of colour when colouring in their pictures. Finally, we added a window frame to complete their artwork.

Year 2

We have learned about the artist Claude Monet, in Year Two this half term. We looked at his famous painting ‘The Water Lily Pond’ and studied the techniques he used to create this. We then visited the pond in our school grounds to make observations about what we could see. We then used watercolour palettes to create our own pond paintings in the style of Claude Monet, carefully thinking about the colours and brushstrokes.

Autumn 2 – RE Reception

This term we have looked at the story ‘A Good Shepherd’ from the bible. We found out that the bible is a book that is special to Christians. We learned that one day a shepherd counted his sheep to find that one was missing. Instead of forgetting about his sheep he looked everywhere for it until he found it. We talked about how this shows that all of the sheep were special to the shepherd. We then thought about how we were like the sheep and that we are all important.

“He called out to the sheep” – Matilda

“He was sad and he will miss the sheep” – Greyson

“It is kind to talk to others” – Darcy

We then learned about Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, and took part in a workshop with Miss Helen. We found out about the story of Rama and Sita and enjoyed retelling the story together, dressed in traditional clothing, danced to some music and made our own diva lamps out of clay.

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We have also looked at the bible again to read ‘The first Christmas’. We discovered that Christians believe that Jesus was born on the first Christmas and that this story is sometimes called The Nativity. We have enjoyed recreating the story and pretending to be all of the different characters we have learned about.

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Autumn 2 – RE Year 1

This half term, the children have discussed how a celebration can bring a community together. We thought about celebrations throughout the year and the upcoming celebration of Christmas. The children shared what Christmas meant to them and the traditions that happen in their household. We discussed how families can celebrate in different ways and took this opportunity to research how countries around the world celebrate Christmas and spoke about how some religions don’t celebrate Christmas. The children retold the Christmas story too. We also learnt about the Jewish celebration of Hannukah and the story behind the celebration and how Jewish people celebrate Hannukah. We brought our community together by inviting parents in to listen to Christmas songs and poems that we learnt to perform.

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Autumn 2 – RE Year 2

RE Year 2 2023

In Autumn 1, Year 2 were thinking about the symbol of light. They thought about why light is used, and why it is important to Christians, Jews and Hindus. The children looked at the Christingle, and learnt about the significance of each part and what they represent. The children also learnt about Diwali and the story of Rama and Sita.

In Autumn 2, the children explored the Christmas story and the significance of the nativity for Christians. They designed their own stained glass windows, made a stop animations based around the nativity and they also wrote a prayer.

Geography Autumn 2023

In our school we encourage children to gain an awareness of the world around them and to think about the effect people have upon it. Skills are taught progressively from Reception to year 6, with opportunities for children to build on and embed their learning. The children complete retrieval grids to show their understanding before and after the topic.

By Year 3, in the Autumn Term, the children are building on their mapwork skills by recapping their knowledge of continents and countries, in their ‘Around the World’ topic. They have then learned about places in the UK and developed our understanding of different settlements such as cities, towns and villages. Then, they compared two UK cities (Norwich and Birmingham), and even challenged themselves further by extending their map skills while learning about grid references.

In Autumn Term, year 5 have been learning about earthquakes, building on prior learning about mountains and volcanoes, talking about plate tectonics and the “Ring of Fire.” They also researched how earthquakes are measured and studied an earthquake in Chile.

The children are encouraged to record their work in various ways, to appeal to various learning styles and use these additional opportunities to practise their SPAG skills and presentation of their work. We make links with local events and discuss things which are happening globally as they occur, especially when the children have encountered them on their television or have been affected by these occurrences, such as local flooding.

Art Autumn 2 2023

Reception

In reception we have been exploring the creative areas to make lots of artwork. We have also been working on explaining what we have made and sharing our knowledge of how to make things with others. We have explored lots of different materials and media whilst using our imaginations to create with purpose.

During our ‘Celebrations’ topic work we looked at pictures of fireworks and created our own firework art using brushes, cardboard tubes, paint and glitter.

Year 1

In Year 1 this half term, the children have been using different materials to print in order to see which material gave them the best texture for painting snow. The children then selected their favourite material to make a snow globe with them inside. The children also found out which colours mixed together to make other colours.

Year 2

In Autumn 1 the children have learnt about the Impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh. The children have taken inspiration from his Starry Night painting and have sketched and painted their own versions. The children have focused on including the swirling paintings and deep colours that he used in his own.

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We also had a go at using chalk and oil pastels to create a day and night picture. The children worked on their blending to create some beautiful pieces of art. They also incorporated the shadow of a tree to show it both in the day and at night.

DT Autumn 2023

Reception

The children in Reception have been focusing on healthy eating and where fruit comes from. The children had a look at a variety of fruits and discussed which ones they enjoy to eat. They also learnt that fruit have vitamins in them to give us energy, help us grow and stay strong. The children then had the challenge to assemble their own fruit kebabs and try some fruits they never had tried before.

Some of the children shared their thoughts:

Rylee – “The apple is sour”.

Emily – “The raspberries are very squishy”.

Evie-Rose – “The apples are hard so it’s tricky to get them on the stick”.

Edith – “These are my favourite (raspberries) because they are juicy”.

During our ‘Celebrations’ topic we learnt about the Hindu festival of Diwali. We created our own diva lamps out of clay and decorated them using sequins. We have also been working hard practising our safe scissor skills to create with purpose. We have made some lovely decorations and paper snowflakes for our classrooms.

Year 1

This term, the children were tasked with designing a product which would allow them to carry belongings across ice such as was used by Robert Falcon Scott on his trip to Antarctica. The children were able to design their product and then make it using the materials that we have in school. They then tested their creations by placing some school equipment inside and pulling it along a table to represent the surface of the ice. The children then evaluated their products based on how well they were able to transport the belongings across the table. The children also made fish tanks and thought of ways they could make the fish move inside their tank.

The children have also been able to make shortbread biscuits as part of our English topic. They weighed out ingredients and helped to mix the dough and shape them. They then decorated them into snowmen.

Year 2 Autumn

In Design and Technology the children will design and make a lantern. They design the lantern independently and think about the equipment and materials they would need. The children have also made castles as part of their topic. They used a variety of equipment and thought carefully about what they wanted to include in their designs and evaluated them after. This is a really important part of the Design, Make and Evaluate process as it allows us to think about what worked really well and anything that could be improved next time.

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The children have also designed and made a lantern for Guy Fawkes, the children thought carefully about their design and included careful thought on how their lantern could show the most light

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The children were also able to follow a recipe to make a treacle tart as part of their history day this term. They added and mixed ingredients as well as taste testing the result. They especially enjoyed this part! They have also baked Speculaas biscuits in English focusing on these skills again.

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DT Autumn 2023

Year 3 Autumn 2023

As part of our Ancient Egyptian unit, the children translated their first names into hieroglyphs, made a cartouche design and then moulded their own cartouche from clay. They researched the colours that the Ancient Egyptians used and tried to replicate these when painting and glazing their own cartouches.

In their food technology unit and using some of their food technology skills of chopping, weighing and mixing, the children made Egyptian bread ‘Kaak’ to taste test at home.

The recipe was adapted from one found on the tomb of Ramses III and involved creating a snail shape, boiling the dough – under adult supervision and then baking the bread.

Year 3 also created a cross curricular piece of work – combining art with D.T. be designing and creating a tile plate for the Gaudi inspired artwork of repeating patterns.

Year 4 Autumn, 2023

This term in DT, we made Roman cake stands to place our apple crumbles on. We used our mosaic knowledge to design the top of our cake stands. Once completed, we began assembling our cake stands. This involved lots of trial and error.

We enjoyed using a wide range of materials to see what would work best for our cake stands. Then we made our apple crumble. We used many of our Food Technology skills such as peeling, chopping and mixing. Once completed, we were able to test the strength of our cake stands and taste test our apple crumbles.

Year 5 – Autumn 2, 2022

In DT this half term, we have been focusing on designing and creating a Viking Longboat with a pneumatic system. This has been linked to our History topic of the Vikings, where the children have learnt lots about the designs of Longboats and why they were designed that way.

First, the children completed a design brief, where they carefully considered what materials and tools they were going to use. The children used many skills such as: sawing, measuring, drilling and cutting using a wide range of equipment. After the structure of the Longboat was built, the children were able to decorate their boats. The children were so proud of their final products!

As part of the food technology unit, Year 5 chose to make stained glass window shortbread biscuits. They continued to develop their food technology skills through chopping, weighing and cutting when following the recipe.

Year 6 Autumn 2, 2022

As part of our topic on World War 2, the children designed and made Anderson Shelters. They used their measuring, cutting and design skills to create their shelters and then evaluated them based upon their strength and appearance. The children worked very hard to make them look authentic; some even had little vegetables growing on the roof just as they did during the war.

Art Autumn 2 2023

Art

Year 3 Autumn term

Year 3 have focussed on developing their sketching skills using the techniques above to work on texture, line and tone when sketching a variety of Egyptian artefacts.

As part of a cross curricular theme, we looked at some of the works of Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi is a famous artist, architect and is often referred to as “God’s architect”. Adfter learning about his work the children were inspired to create their own repeating patterns using nature as a muse.

Year 4 Autumn term

Year 4 have focussed on the ancient world of Rome and have replicated beautiful mosaics from this period. They have created a 3D piece of artwork, combining this with their Design and Technology unit. Year 4 made mosaic cake stand.

They challenged themselves by creating their own tesserae using foam squares and reducing the size of these to recreate the small pieces of tile used by Ancient Roman artists. The children sketched their mosaic in their sketchbooks before recreating it with the tesserae.

Year 5 Autumn term

Year 5 have linked their artwork with their science unit on planets and shadows. They have created a piece of art using watercolours, focussing on the techniques of tinting and shading. We have considered different shading techniques such as, hatching, cross-hatching, scribbling and stippling. They have explored the use of both oil pastels and watercolours as medium to create artwork with and have created their own watercolour sunset of Stonehenge.

Year 6 Autumn term

Year 6, focussed their art around the history unit of World War 2. Recreating images of paratrooper paintings by using mixed media and collage techniques.

Year 1 – English Autumn 2

This half term, the children have read the book ‘Dear Dinosaur’ in our English lessons. The children received videos and emails from adults that work behind the scenes in school, explaining what their job entails. The book which focuses on giving and receiving letters, inspired the children to write letters to their chosen member of staff. The children thought of questions that they would like to ask as well as introducing themselves. Here at Toftwood, we have amazing staff members who were kind enough to then write back to the children and responded to their questions.

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The children then applied their letter writing skills to write a letter to Father Christmas explaining how they have worked hard this year and asking for a gift that they would like to receive. The children’s letters to Father Christmas were then delivered to the North Pole. The day after the letters were sent we received two presents under our class Christmas trees which included two books linked to Dear Dinosaur! They were Dear Spookysaur and Dear Chocosaur. The children thoroughly enjoyed reading these and making links to the other texts.

Reception – Literacy Autumn 2

The children in Reception have continued to work hard in their phonics lessons and have learnt all of the single sounds. They have also started learning some tricky words too and remembering that they can’t sound these out!

They have also been practising their blending and segmenting skills and have enjoyed activities in the tuff spots that help them to develop these skills.

Lots of mark making and writing continues to happen outside of phonics lessons and the children have been practising their writing skills both inside and outside.

MFL Autumn 2023

The Year 3, the children have been learning numbers, how to ask someone’s age and tell someone how old they are. They have added this to their knowledge of greetings and introductions to build up a simple conversation.

In Spanish in Year 4, the children have been learning the days of the week, months of the year and how to ask and answer about birthdays.

In Year 5, We have discussed diversity and created some posters displaying the importance of diversity and what it brings to our lives.

We have also been continuing to refine our memory on talking about the weather in Spanish as well as using dictionaries to look at the gender of Spanish words.

This half term in Year 6 we have been building on our knowledge of places in town by learning new vocabulary about methods of transport. We have applied this new vocabulary to forming sentences to describe how we can get around town.

Toftwood has just made friends with a Spanish school in Madrid and every child wrote a letter to the pupils there, telling them about Christmas here and asking the Spanish children about the holidays in Spain (In English) The children were really excited about this and asked some great questions! They are looking forward to translating letters from their new pen pals and finding out their responses.