Tying in with our project on health and fitness for life, we have been learning a lot about healthy eating recently. As a treat, we got to make fruit salad on Friday. We used a variety of fruit to prepare the salad, and then added orange juice before digging in! Delicious! Afterwards, we took the chance to revise procedural writing by writing out the recipe.
0 Comments
In keeping with the Active Schools Week theme (and the theme of our current project, Sport and Health for Life), we worked on paintings of sports balls this week in art. We discussed how to create form and a 3D effect by using light and shade. We built up colours and mixed to create the 3D spheres. Then we discussed how best to display them in the classroom.
So, after weeks of hard work and researching, our projects on World War One and Two are finally complete. On Friday and Monday, we presented our projects to the class. The topics we explored included: Hitler and the Nazis, Interviews with People Who Lived During the War, Weapons of WW1 and WW2, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, War Horse, Life for Jews in WW2, Life for Children during WW2 and Racism during WW2. The standard of the projects was amazing – we were all blown away by the hard work and effort that everyone had dedicated to their projects. We had everything from PowerPoints, drama, film scenes, video clips, colourful posters, song and dance, models, artwork… It was amazing! The project work is now on display in our classroom so feel free to come by and have a look if you’re interested. Here's a short summary of a fraction of what we learned in class about both wars... Why not have a read and then see how many of the questions you can answer?! We did these for homework this week.
As we've been recently studying World War 1 and World War Two (and our projects are almost ready for presentation!), Ms. Kirby chose art lessons that were related to our theme. First, we learned about propaganda posters, which were used to influence the public in different ways. During World Wars One and Two, propaganda posters were used on both sides in order to… - Recruit men to join the army; - Recruit women to work; - Encourage people to save food and not to waste it; - Keep spirits high; - Promote the leaders and government. Having examined some real propaganda posters, we set about making our own. They turned out very well! We also learned about the Blitz in London during WW2. We talked about the bombing that the British people in cities had to endure during the war. They had to use blackout curtains and bomb shelters, and many children were evacuated from the cities to the countryside. We created a silhouetted skyline of London using black card and layered it over a sunset. We had to use very intricate and careful cutting to create all the buildings and shapes of the skyline. Some people added planes and bombs, and we also used crepe paper and chalk pastels to create the effect of the smoke and fires caused by the bombs. These masterpieces are displayed in the main school! Why not have a look when you're passing by?
We're currently working on our class project on World War 1 and World War 2, and have already learned a lot about both wars. We've researched topics ourselves and also completed question sheets based on PowerPoints. We recently learned about World War 1, the nature of trench warfare and the conditions endured by many of the soldiers at the time.
To get an even better idea of life during WW1, we acted out the life of a soldier in five scenes, from the soldier telling his family he has decided to go to war, marching off with his fellow comrades, going 'over the top' on the battlefield, death in No Man's Land and finally, the general breaking the news of his passing to his family. Above, you can see some pictures of our drama! Following the huge success of our last project based on Space, we were all eager to start another project using the Project Approach. Following some discussion, a survey and a vote, we have decided that our new project will be based on life during World War One and World War Two. What an amazing and interesting topic!
So far, we have brainstormed what we already know about both wars (quite a lot!) and talked about grandparents and great-grandparents that lived through or even were involved in the wars. We divided into groups and chose a topic that would be the focus of our project. The project titles are as follows: - War Horse - Interviewing experts on the war - Weapons of WW1 and WW2 - Life for the Jews in WW2 - Racism in WW2 - Comparing the Lives of Children in WW2 - Hitler and the Nazis - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Ms. Kirby took some books out of the library that we could use for research, and some people from the class also brought in books, including the Horrible Histories version of WW1 and WW2. We are looking forward to learning more about both wars through this project. On Monday, we brought our Space project to an end with another very exciting Skype conversation with an astronomy expert. This time, we were lucky enough to speak to Dr. Joseph Roche, an astrophysics lecturer in Trinity College Dublin. He worked in NASA's Space Flight Centre where spacecraft, instruments and technology are developed to help us study Earth, the sun, the solar system and our universe. Joseph Roche has been short-listed for the Mars One Project, which hopes to establish a human colony on the Red Planet on a one-way trip that will take seven months before landing on Mars. We were very excited to speak to Dr. Roche and were grateful that he would take the time out of his busy schedule to answer all of our questions. We had practised what we were going to say in advance. Darren recorded the Skype on a video and Hannah took photos. Joseph was very patient and gave us detailed and fascinating answers to the following questions:
- Were you interested in astronomy when you were younger? (Amara) - What made you interested in Mars and why do you want to go there? (Darragh R) - How are the interviews going? How many people will be going and do you think you'll make the squad? (Aoibhínn) - How long will it take to get to Mars? How much fuel will it take to get the rocket there? (Darragh H) - What kind of training, preparation and planning would you have to do before going to Mars? (Amy) - Have you any doubts about going on the mission? How do you feel about saying goodbye to family and friends and what do they think? (Laura B) - Do you think there is going to be any advanced life on Mars? (Éabha) - How will food be grown on board? What would happen if you ran out of food or water? (Adam) - Would you be living on Mars or in the rocket? What kind of things would you do on Mars when you arrive? (Ben) - How many of your own things would you be able to bring with you, and what would you bring? What would you miss most? (Aidan) We all learned a lot from Joseph and we thank him for taking time to Skype us - we hope he enjoyed it as much as we did! Can you believe our space project is almost finished? We’ve learned so much and are all experts on space now! We wrote questions, worked in groups on different project topics, researched planets using books and the internet, watched videos, saw a real telescope, created rockets and solar systems, Skyped a space expert and much more! It’s been a busy few weeks. We have one more exciting Skype planned next week – keep watching here for more information soon!
Recently, all of the groups got a chance to present their projects to the class and share all the information they had learned. The presentations were excellent. The groups had used posters, models, pictures, PowerPoint presentations, Photostory presentations and diary entries to represent all the facts they had found out. As well as the group projects, everyone in the class made their own booklet featuring some of the work completed individually on space. These are all on display in the classroom now. Linked to our space project, we recently created mixed media solar system collages. The first step involved creating the Milky Way galaxy on a black background. Using watered down white paint, we spatter-painted lots of stars and constellations. It was great fun and quite messy! Then we built and decorated the eight planets that orbit the sun using lots of different materials (such as crepe paper, tin foil, felt, card, wool etc.). Finally, we assembled the solar system with the planets in order. They turned out great! What do you think?
|
Ms. Kirby's 4th ClassWelcome to our blog! Have a look and see some of the things we get up to, using the categories below to help you navigate different subjects. Categories
All
Archives
June 2015
|