Welcome to our next adventure! This half term, we will be following the journey of Lila and her friends and she embarks on the biggest journey of her life - does she become a firework-maker and follow in her families footsteps or does she do as her father says and become a dancer and wife? 

We began our new adventure by visiting a firework display! We got cosy and watched the fireworks and tucked into our own homemade chocolate apple snacks!

We then read some of the story and found out that Lila really wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a firework-maker but her dad thought otherwise! We decided to write an argument to try and convince Lalchand why Lila should become a firework-maker and not be made to become a dancer and wife. We played bingo with our features for the genre and went on a Wizard Word hunt around school!

Keeping with the seasonal occasion, some of us entered fantastic pumpkins into the pumpkin carve off! Well done Bailey, the LKS2 winner!

As we read further, we were all quite shocked that Lila had just thrown fireworks into her backpack! We discussed the dangers of fireworks and completed an activity about how to keep safe around them. 

This half term in PE, our Year 4 children are competing in a very special competition all to do with skipping. They are doing this with Mr Ashford. Meanwhile, Mr Cooper is taking Year 3 and 5s on a trial through a scheme called MOGBA. We tried it as a whole class this week and played T-Time, focussing on stability and ways to ensure we stay stable in games.

We decided to do a bit of research on the history of fireworks, focussing on Guy Fawkes. We read some information and answered some questions about him to help us understand how Phillip Pullman's Firework-Maker's daughter was influenced.

As we read on, we found out that Lila decided to disobey her father and travel to Mount Merapi to become a firework maker. She visited the jungle so we decided to visit the woods and recreate a jungle scene! We all came dressed as animals and created the sounds as Lila walked through.

We wrote a setting description focussing on expanded noun phrases and prepositions. We then used Descriptosaurus to help us edit and improve our writing.

In art this half term, we are learning about Alexander Calder. We began our topic by doing some research about him and looking at some of his sculptures. We thought about what the sculptures reminded us of and what elements of them we liked.

We received a letter from a man called Rambashi who had decided to open a Jungle Grill. Attached to the letter were some sample foods. We tried maggots, tiger paw soup and bug crumble. We then wrote an advert to persuade people to visit Rambashi's Jungle Grill to try some bizarre food!

This half term in RSHE, we have been learning about managing risks in relation to drugs and alcohol. We were visited by Dave from D:Side who did a fantastic session with us about alcohol and the effects on the body. We then completed some follow up tasks when he had gone and checked our prior knowledge. 

Continuing to think about Alexander Calder, next we created mood boards to get all of our ideas of colours and shapes onto a page. This helped us think about our 2D design which we would then be turning into a 3D model.

In RE, we found out about the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. We read the story to find out where the celebration originated from and then completed some tasks to show our understanding of the story.

Using all of our ideas so far, and looking at some of Alexander Calder's 2D designs, we then created a design for our model which we are then going to translate into 3D designs. We used black lines to symbolise our lines and coloured blobs in the correct shape using the colours and shapes we explored on our mood board. I'm sure you'll agree our designs look amazing and I can't wait to see these in 3D sculptures soon!

After all of our build up work, it was time to build our 3D sculpture. We used wire, polystyrene and coloured paper and tissue to turn our 2D design into 3D. We then looked at someone else's and evaluated it to see how it fit the style of Alexander Calder.

As we read on, we discovered the King was hosting a firework competition! We thought about what we would want to include in an event if we were a King and presented these ideas to the class. We then wrote formal invitations asking people to come along to the ceremony including questions, exclamations and subheadings. 

Next in RE, we learnt about the story of Sikh Diwali. We thought about how it relates to light and how it links into the Jewish story. We also looked at Hindu Diwali and compared how all of these festivals celebrated light.

Wow! Our invitations worked and we were invited along to a press conference to discuss the firework competition! We spent the day there and answered lots of questions as the press. We then wrote a recount of the day.