Sapphire

Summer 2

Japan!

This week the class have focused on the country of Japan. The children have made "Koinobori" which are carp windsocks. These can be found decorating the landscape of Japan from April through to early May, in honour of Children's Day on May 5th.

Summer 1

Topic

The children coloured and made the minibeasts for our If Only … book display. Linked to the book the class designed their own minibeasts in ICT and have shown the life cycle of a butterfly on their coloured plates.

In Topic, the class have made superhero bottles which have their own mask, cape and logo.They have started a superhero wow wall with characters they have designed and names coloured in a comic book style with big letters and zigzag outlines. In science, the year band set up a Magnetic Mayhem room, where the children were free to experience and experiment with magnets, magnetic objects and games.

Below is Sapphire Classes curriculum overview for this half term. You can click to view to document or download the PDF on the link below.

Spring 2

Expressive Arts

Sapphire class have had fun using the resources and their imaginations this week to build dens in Expressive Arts and use construction toys to build transport objects and lighthouses.

Topic

In topic, the children had fun making their own paper planes, which they flew in a distance competition in class, before flying them outside on the playground.

Spring 1

The children designed and made a list of resources needed to make their hand puppets before creating them.

Spring 1 Update

The children created a display based on our story Grandad’s Secret Giant.  They made their own giants with patchwork dungarees using different types of paper and drew mural walls.  In ICT as part of our design work, the children built different vehicles on the screen, printed out the nets and folded them to make 3d cars and trucks.

In science we have handled and sorted natural and man-made objects and tested a range of materials to find out which ones are waterproof.  They made feely hands by adding a different material to each finger and describing its texture.  The children enjoyed using their hands to colour mix and experimenting by mixing with paint and shaving foam in zippy bags.

As part of topic art the children have weaved using different types of material.  During the paper investigation they used a range of techniques – bending, folding, tearing and twisting to create a sculpture.  They took a range of natural materials such as ferns and pine cones and used them to print on paper with paint and make patterns and textures on clay.

Autumn 2

Space Morning

We have been busy in space as part of our Mission to Mars topic.  The children in Sapphire have made rockets, turned themselves into astronauts and made stars in a jar.  On Friday we had a space role play morning and the children had to make passports, NASA badges and spacesuits.  They had to queue up outside the classroom and show their passport before boarding the rocket.  We then watched a NASA rocket launch on the interactive board and listened to mission control count down.   Once they arrived at the space station the children could take samples of moon rock, create objects from space play dough and make aliens.  When we had finished we boarded the rocket and watched a landing sequence from the NASA site.​​​​​​​​​​​

Autumn 1

Underwater Display

The children in Sapphire class became underwater divers as they learnt about creatures who live in a sea habitat.

Computing

As part of our Mark Making in ICT, we focused on being able to fill shapes with colour.  The children used the filling tool to create a patchwork elephant on Busy Things.

Monkey Puzzle Display

All the children made an animal from our book and we hung them to show the order baby monkey and butterfly meet them in the story.

Zoo Trip

Sapphire Class had a fantastic topic visit to Whipsnade Zoo.  The class particularly enjoyed seeing the giraffes, tiger, elephants. sea lions and butterflies. 

Autumn 1

Let me introduce you to Sapphire Class… I am Jenny the class teacher, Michelle is our TA2 and we have our teaching assistants Rukshana, Jodi and Harry. The pupils in Sapphire class are: Aisha, Cais, Chloe, Raian, Ryan, Usman, Zaki and Zoya.

Topic

Our topic this half term is Let’s go Wild! This topic allows the children to explore different types of animals from around the world and look at the different climates and environments they inhabit. The children will look at the differences between our climate in Luton in comparison to other parts of the UK and the world.

Literacy

In Literacy our main book this half term is Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson.

Description from Amazon: "I've lost my mum!" It's not too much fun being lost in the jungle and little monkey wants his mummy. Kindly butterfly is keen to help, but they don't seem to be having much luck as the well-meaning butterfly misunderstands monkey's descriptions and leads him to all sorts of unsuitable animals! But eventually, they find ... Dad! It's just as well that he knows exactly where mum is, and she's waiting with a well-deserved cuddle.

We will also be focusing on using simple non-fiction texts that link to our topic work and animal poetry.

Maths

In maths we will be covering the key areas in two week blocks. Our first area of focus will be number, followed by geometry and measure.

ICT

In ICT Skills this half term we are focusing on mark making. This will be done using programs that allow us to draw different lines and dots, create shapes and add text.