Dolphins, 2022-23 Archive

Welcome to Dolphin Class

Year 3 & Year 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5th May 2023, King Charles lll Coronation Celebrations

During the week we have been learning all about King Charles lll and the coronation service itself. The children showed amazing recall of their learning from our Platinum Jubilee learning from last year too!  Our learning ended with us coming together as a school for a tea party in the hall, with a King Charles and coronation themed quiz, finishing with the National Anthem. In Dolphin Class we also took on King Charles lll big help out challenge and volunteered one lunchtime to tidy up the flowerbeds, pots and area outside the back of our classroom. It now looks so much better and we have planted some flowers, strawberries, raspberry canes and tomato plants.

21 April 2023, Art – Rangoli and Mehndi Patterns

We have been learning all about Indian art, from its origins and development to murals and miniatures, considering the elements of art used and common themes throughout.  We then focused on Rangoli and Mehndi patterms, taking time to practice the shapes and designs in our sketch books before creating Rangoli patterns outside with chalk.

 

19 April 2023, English – poetry

Since returning from the Easter break, having complete our own versions of the Cinderella of the Nile story, we have started a new text – Jim, a cautionary tale.  We started by exploring lots of different types of poetry, sharing and finding out favourites and identifying the features and forms poetry can take. We have are learning the poem with actions, working on our intonation and flow so that we can recite it as a class together.  We will then move onto to starting to create our own poems, exploring rhyming words and patterns within the poem.  The children have loved sharing the poems this week and particularly like the gruesome ending of Jim!

 

30 March 2023, Science – Let’s Investigate

In the last lesson of our let’s investigate science block this half term, we explored the connection between our lung capacity and our fitness levels. We recalled from our previous learning about our bodies how we breathe and the links to our diaphragm muscle. We posed the question, do those of us that do significantly more sport than the rest of us have a bigger lung capacity?  Before we could investigate our question we needed a way to measure our lung capacity!  We created our own lung capacity measuring device and then all took it in turns to see how big our lungs were!  After recording the results and noting down those of us that did lots of afterschool sports clubs several times a week, we looked to see if there was a correlation between the too.  We found there were some links, but through our observations of our results it raised more questions linking to our heights and ages and how our lung capacity might be linked to these – wonderful investigation, observation and questioning skills Dolphins!

 

28 March 2023, Maths – measurement

In maths we have moved onto learning about measurement – length and area.  We started by improving our measusing skills, finding ways to measure our arm span and then compare them, it got us thinking do taller people have bigger arm spans?

 

20 March 2023, British Science Week

A fabulous afternoon learing all about Leonardo da Vinci and Igor Sikorsky and the connections between them – inventors of the helicopter!  We then created our own roto-copters and investigated how to make them fall faster – wonderful working scienitifically skills!

 

14 March 2023, Art

We have started a new block in our art learning – Indian art. We have learnt all about the different forms of Indian art and it’s origins and have started exploring Rangoli patterns, creating our own in our sketch books.

 

2 March 2023, World Book Day

What a fabulous day celebrating all things reading! In English we shared some poetry and wrote our own poems all about Brixham, we shared stories with our books buddies, took part in a masked reader competition in assembly and came back to school in our pyjamas for bedtime stories with hot chocolate!

 

22 February 2023, PE – Swimming

This half term in our PE lessons we are going swimming. During our first lesson today the children were amazing, developing their stroke technique and for some overcoming their fears – outstanding!

 

21 February 2023, Torquay Museum class trip

We spent the day at Torquay Museum learning all about Ancient Egypt including Psamtek-Ank their mumified boy.  We learnt about the scarab beetle and made scarab models out of clay, we practised being scribes writing heiroglyphics and played some Ancient Egyptian board games.  We also had the opportunity to explore the rest of the museum and complete their learning trail.  The Dolphins loved the visit and were enthralled by all the exhibits. They were all oustanding and were complimented on for their behaviour, knowledge and vocabulary. Well done Dolphins!

 

7 February 2023, History – Ancient Egypt

This half term we have been learning all about Ancient Egypt in our history lessons. We started by finding out about ancient civilisations, placed these on a timeline and found out where these were on a world map. We noticed some similarities and differences and considered what was happening in Britain at these time periods too. We have now moved onto to start learning about Ancient Egyptian life and their achievements.

30 January 2023, Science – states of matter

In our science lessons we have been learning all about the different states of matter – solids, liquids and gases.  As part of this learning we performed an investigation to determine the weight of gases. We all made predictions, with many of us thinking that gases have no weight, before then measuring and weighing different fizzy drinks. We learnt that the ‘fizz’ in the drinks is actually gases compressed into the liquids.  We left the beakers of drinks for several days to go ‘flat’, we could no longer see any bubbles of gas and so we weighed them again. Our results showed that all of the fizzy drinks were now lighter – so gases do have a weight!

 

January 2023, author visit – Rob Holmes

We had the pleasure of welcoming Rob Holmes, local author, today. He shared his book Master Owl which is all about mindfulness and also lead us in a mindfulness session, which we all enjoyed.  He shared his hints and tips for writing and we got to ask lots of questions too – thank you Rob, very inspiring and relaxing.

 

19 January 2023, PE – dance

Since returning from our Christmas break we have started learning all about dance in PE. We have started by learning various dance moves to music and performing them as a whole class in sync with each other.

 

January 2023, RE – Epiphany

We celebrated Epiphany in Dolphin Class by sharing an Epiphany cake. Lennie was the lucky one who found the ‘king’ token in his chunk of cake and so was our king for the day!

 

January 2023 – Happy New Year

We’ve had a fabulous start back to school following the Christmas holiday. In English we have completed our Polar Express Experience stories and have started our new text ‘How to live forever’ that we are going to be using to help us write a persuasive letter and instructions over the coming weeks. In maths we have moved onto mulitplication and division and have started by finding equal groups.  We have also started new learning in computing looking at databases, in history exploring ancient civilisations and in science learning about states of matter – lots of fun learning ahead.

Christmas in Dolphin Class

December 2022 – Winter Wonderland, Design & Technology

For our design and technology learning this half term, we have been evaulating, designing and making Christmas decorations to sell at our Winter Wonderland Christmas Market.  We started by evaluating existing Christmas decorations and thinking about our customers to set our own design criteria. We completed research into ideas and designed our own decorations, which we then had great fun making. On the day of our Winter Wonderland Market we decorated our stand to look appealing and Christmassy and set out our products for sale.  We all had great fun selling our products to our families and friends, who were all impressed with our products.

24th November 2022 – PE, gymnastics

Throughout this half term our PE focus is gymnastics, we have started by working on our different types of rolls and jumps. It has been fantastic to see all the Dolphins growing in their confidence and developing their skills.

15th November 2022 – Mr Fish

We had a very exciting visit today from Mr Fish, who is a local fisherman. He bought along lots of different types of fish and shellfish for us to look at and hold. We were amazed to see how many different types of fish were caught in our seas off the coast of Brixham, we had lots of questions for Mr Fish and it was great to learn so much about our local fishing industry.

 

3rd November 2022 – Science

We had great fun this week exploring different objects to try and identify what forces were being used to make them move/work. We discovered that all required either a push or a pull force and some needed both, we sorted them into these groups. We then moved on to consider what forces are occuring when an object moves across a surface; we noticed that when we were rolling objects they moved a different distance depending on whether they were on the carpet or the table.  We used our working scientific skills to plan our own investigation which we then conducted, recording our results in a table.  We discovered that different surfaces did affect the distance an object would travel and this was because of a force called friction. Excellent concluding skills Dolphins!

 

 

Welcome back after half term – we hope you all had a restful break.

 

17th October 2022 – RE, Judaism

Following the completion of our RE learning about Jesus’ family tree and ancestors we have started learning about Judaism.  We have explored how they pray, their special book the Torah and the similarities and differences between their place of worship and the Catholic church.  We also learnt about the special Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony that takes place for young people and how they prepare for this.

14th October 2022 – Maths

Dolphin class have become fluent in their place value knowledge and have been taking on increasingly challenging reasoning and problem solving activities, where they have to apply their mathematical skills and learning.  They have all shown great resilience and recall of their key facts – well done Dolphins. We are now moving onto addition and subtraction, which will continue after half term. Keep up that great attitude to your learning Dolphins!

13th October 2022 – RE

After exploring our own family tree, we moved on to learn all about Jesus’ family tree and ancestors. Today we learnt all about King Solomon and his proverbs, thinking about how we can apply these to our everyday lives. We started with ‘trust the Lord your God with all your heart’ thinking about what does it truly mean to trust someone else. To help we completed a trust exercise, guiding a blindfolded friend through the classroom around all the chairs and tables to get to the other side, thinking about how it felt to trust the other person to help and support you.

10th October 2022 – History, Romans

During the past few weeks we have been learning all about the Roman Empire and how they invaded and conquered Britain.  We were amazed to find our that it took 4 attempts for the Romans to successfully invade Britain and that many of their ways and influences shaped how our country developed, with some still evident today!  Most of all we loved learning about Boudicca and the outstanding warrior queen that she became and that Caligula once he arrived at the French coast ready to invade, changed his mind and got his warriors to collect sea shells  instead to show how they had conquered the sea … very strange indeed!  We will complete this learning over the next week by answering our enquiry question – what impact did the Roman Empire have on Britain?

7th October 2022 – Art, sketching skills

In our art lessons this half term we have been exploring the work of Paul Cezanne and other still-life artists. In our sketch books we have been trialing different sketching pencils and their uses, learning how to use line and tone with these pencils to create form and the different pencil holds we can use to sketch, add detail or add tone. The children have loved these sessions and using the pencils to create different textures and form, we definitely have a class of budding artists!

 

29th September 2022 – PE, tag rugby

In our PE lessons with Mr W we have started with tag rugby, learning the skills required alongside the rules and have started playing mini games. We have been having great fun and enjoyed working to together as a team to attack and defend and have developed outstanding dodging skills.

23 September 2022 – Science

In science we have been exploring the topic of animals including humans and in particular the human digestive system.  To help in our understanding of all the different parts of our digestive system, their function and how they work together we created our very own digestive systems!  So after our donning our lab coats and safety glasses, we used scissors for our teeth to chop the food up, added water as our saliva to start breaking down the food and then placed it all in a food bag, just like our stomach.  We then added orange juice which is acidic to represent our stomach acid and finally added the squishy mixture to the leg of a long tight to represent our intestines, where the children squished and squashed it through just like perastalsis that happens inside us. Very messy, great fun and lots of learning!

 

September 2022 – Welcome back Dolphin Class!

We’ve had a fabulous first few weeks back in Dolphin Class, full of learning and fun.  It has been wonderful to welcome the children back to school after their summer break, all keen to learn and excited to see their friends again.  I couldn’t be more proud of each and every one of my Dolphins, who have all impressed with their outstanding learning attitude and settled straight back in so well; we have completed so much already:

• Science – we have startred learning about the human digestive system
• History – we are studying the Romans and Roman Britain
• Maths – started on our place value learning with some graffitti maths with all our maths resources
• English – after sharing our story Escape from Pompeii we have been working on our newspaper writing skills
• Art – we are starting by studying still-life artists, from the traditional Paul Cezanne to the contempary Roy Lichtenstein, working on our sketching skills.

We’ve also started learning about tag rugby in PE, esafety and emailing in computing and our family trees and Jesus ancestors in RE.

Well done Dolphins Class – what a fabulous start!

Welcome to Dolphin Class letter Sep22