2025/26
Term 1
To start this academic year, Sycamores will be covering Ancient Egypt in history, electricity in science, watercolour in art and in PSHE, online relationships and being safe. Our English lessons will be based on 'The Day the Crayons Quit' by Drew Daywalt and 'James and the Giant Peach' by Roald Dahl, with a focus on 'writing to entertain'. This involves writing stories, descriptions, poetry and character or setting descriptions. We will also be focussing on handwriting and sentence work. Place value will be the focus of our maths lessons as well as Addition and Subtraction towards the end of the term. During our PE lessons, we will be covering fundamental movement skills, and they will take place on Mondays and Fridays for the first two weeks, after which, we will take a break to have swimming lessons every day in weeks 3 and 4.
Water Colour (Landscape)
In this final learning experience of the term, we will be creating a piece of art inspired by a range of artists known for their landscape pieces. We will start by using some of those as inspiration and annotating the pieces of art. We will then create our own landscapes using primary and secondary sources, which will help us identify scale and proportion. We will then practise a range of brush techniques as well as colour manipulation. Finally, we will use all of our knowledge to create our own landscape using watercolours.
We used different pictures of art by John Klee, Georgia O'Keeffe and David Hockney and annotated them, drawing on the colour, shapes and textures used, as well as the composition, how it made us feel and what techniques we might use in our own landscape picture.
Electricity
During this learning experience, Sycamores will be looking at the different types of appliances that use electricity, either through the main supply or a cell battery. We will then discuss the rules of being safe around electricity. We will then explore circuits and how a complete circuit is needed for electricity to pass through it. Finally, we will investigate whether different materials conduct electricity.
We investigated different circuits and labelled reasons as to why it was a complete or incomplete circuit.
We created circuits.
After sorting, we identified a range of electrical issues and explained how we can be safe.
We independently sorted different appliances and gave reasons why.
Online Relationships and Being Safe
For our next learning experience, we will be looking at online relationships and how to stay safe whilst online. We will begin by having different scenarios to discuss and answer by deciding if they could be real or fake. We will then continue the discussions by learning how we can build a digital safety shield when online. Finally, we will be understanding the importance of being able to speak up and asking for help when it is needed.
Online Relationships and Being Safe
We created leaflets on everything we had learnt about staying safe online.
Ancient Egypt
During this learning experience, Sycamores will answer the key enquiry of, 'What did the Ancient Egyptians believe?' This will lead us to explore different themes such as: Who were the Egyptians, and when did they live? Who were the Gods and Goddesses? How did they build the Pyramids? How and why did they mummify people? These questions should lead us to being able to answer the key enquiry. As part of the experience, we will be visiting Maidstone Museum!
We looked at the importance of the River Nile to the Ancient Egyptians and created a fact file.
We then learnt about the Ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses.
We recreated the Mummification process!
We had a fantastic time visiting Maidstone Museum, learning about the mummification process and making Canopic jars before exploring the different exhibitions on offer!
