2023/2024

Healthy Eating

This week, Maples will be learning about the importance of a balanced diet and how we can use food packaging to help us plan a range of healthy meals. We will also explore the reasons why we need a healthy diet and what might happen if we don't eat healthily.

Money

Over the past week, we have learnt all about how to get money, what we can do with it and how we can keep it safe. We also had the opportunity to earn money in class to pay for activities on Friday afternoon. We could earn money for doing extra jobs around class but we also lost money if we lost our equipment!

Ancient Greece

In history over the next 3 weeks, we will be learning about Ancient Greece. We will explore features of modern Greece and consider what this tells us about Ancient Greece. Using primary sources, we will be using primary and secondary sources to discover what Ancient Greeks believed in and the role of religion in everyday life. Over the course of our learning, we will look at Sparta and Athens to decide if it was better to be an Athenian child or a Spartan child! Looking at war and conquest, we will investigate the legacy of Alexander the Great.

Coasts and the Water Cycle

Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at the features of coastlines and the water cycle. We will look at longshore drift and how coasts change over time and explore what can be done to preserve our beaches. Excitingly, we will be visiting Broadstairs beach to identify the features we have been learning about.

Sound!

This week, we have explored how we hear and how sound travels. We used this knowledge to investigate what sound waves look like for loud and quiet sounds and for high pitch and low pitch sounds. We investigated which class was the loudest, and we explored the pitch of different instruments to identify key features that affect the sound produced.

Recorders and Rests

This week, we have learnt how to play the notes B, A, G, C and D. We have looked at musical notation and now know the lengths of crotchets, minims and quavers. We composed our own pieces of music in groups and performed them together.

Sinking our Teeth into Digestion

Over the next 2 weeks, we will be exploring teeth and what they are made of. We will explore how an animal's diet is linked to the types of teeth they have. After that we will be exploring the journey our food takes after we swallow it!

Now that we know our teeth are vital for crushing and grinding food, we have explored the impact different liquids might have on our teeth. We used eggshells to represent tooth enamel. The acidic vinegar dissolved the shell and made it soft. We also noted that the coke and the squash discoloured the shell. To investigate further, we decided to conduct an investigation to see if cleaning the eggshell with toothpaste twice a day would prevent the discolouration of the coke.

We used dental mirrors to get a good look at our teeth. We noticed our teeth are different shapes and sizes.

Block Printing

Maples have been getting messy exploring how to block print. We have experimented by printing on different materials and have explored what happens when we combine different colour inks together.

Christians

We visited All Saints Church in Maidstone and learnt about the important rituals that happen during a wedding. We re-enacted a wedding and learnt that the congregation also make promises to God to support the newly-weds throughout their journey of life.

We have been learning about how different Christians feel about the bible and why it is important. We have also learnt about life milestones and how some Christians might choose to celebrate these milestones.

We learnt about Baptism and how some Christians are baptised as a baby, some wait until they are older and can choose, while others are not baptised at all.

In tune with Tarzan

We have been exploring the work of Phil Collins, in the Disney movie Tarzan.

We worked in groups to compose our own introductions to Trashin' the Camp.

Animal Classification

Term 2 - Science

We have learnt about classification keys and have created our own.

We have been learning about living things and the 7 life processes. We have grouped animals based on their type, and have learnt about vertebrates and invertebrates, and endo and exo- skeletons.

We had a visit from Jack from ZooLab and he brought along some of his friends for us to meet!

Water means LIFE!

Term 2 - PSHE

This week, Maples have been exploring all the ways in which we use water and how we waste it! We will learn about water scarcity around the world and what we can do to be WATER WARRIORS! We are very excited to have a workshop planned with ecoAcive too!

Tree-mendous Rainforests!

Term 2 - Geography

To kick off term 2, we will be learning all about tropical rainforests. We will learn about biomes and how specific animals and plants grow in different biomes due to key factors such as climate. We will locate tropical and temperate rainforest on the world map and make comparisons between them. Finally, we will learn all about the layers of the rainforest and the plants and animals that thrive in each layer. After our trip to BBC Earth Experience, we will get the opportunity to build our own rainforests.

Wondrous Watercolours
Term 1 Art

For this learning experience we will be using watercolours and exploring them to finally create our own landscape paintings.

For our final pieces we incorporated all the techniques and skills we have learnt over the past weeks to create a landscape inspired by a picture of a landscape.

Get Aethelraed-y for the Anglo-Saxons

Over the next three weeks, we will be learning all about life in Anglo-Saxon Britain. To start, we will find out when the Anglo-Saxon period started and why they settled in Britain. We will explore a variety of artefacts and sources to understand what life was like. We will also be visiting Canterbury Cathedral to take part in a workshop.

We explored a variety of Anglo-Saxon artefacts, and we discussed what these artefacts tell us about life in the Anglo-Saxon period. We were astounded to discover that Anglo-Saxons took very good care of their teeth!

We created timelines to show the key events in the Anglo-Saxon period.

Watts in a Circuit?

To kick off term 1, Maples will be learning about electrical components. They will learn how to make a simple series circuit and then investigate which materials are the best conductors!