Swallows in action!
June in Swallows
It has been an exciting and jam-packed start to Summer 2 in Swallows class. We are well underway with rehearsing for our summer production ‘Out of this World’ and are excelling at being the chorus part. We have a lot of lyrics to learn but we are trying our very best to do so. We can’t wait for you to watch our performance next month!
We also had an amazing Sports Day recently and we displayed so many of our Aplington values during the afternoon’s event. We cheered each other on brilliantly and demonstrated excellent resilience and determination throughout.
We also had the opportunity to take part in a hockey taster session with Ms Picton from Langley school. A great opportunity for us!
In terms of learning, we have been reading the picture book, ‘Luke’s Way of Looking’ in English and from this we have written a formal letter and a setting description.
In science, we have completed a unit on electricity and can all now describe and make a simple circuit.
In RSE we have been continuing to learn about our bodies and health.
In maths, we have completed topics on ‘time’ and ‘shape’.
This week we are excited to sing at the Royal Norfolk Show.
Week commencing 12.5.25
We are well under way with our new topic ‘Ideas that changed the world’. We began the topic by thinking about what an invention is and what an idea is, and we have all been given our own Inventors Notebook to record any ideas we might have.
Our history learning started by thinking about notable people from history who have had an idea, action or invention that has changed the world. So far, we have learnt about Rosa Parks and Edward Jenner. Please ask us about these notable people!
In English, we have been reading ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ by Roald Dahl. This book links well to our topic as George invents a new medicine for his grandma. We have all had a go at writing our own marvellous medicine, learning the features of a recipe alongside.
In computing we have been learning how to write algorithms. We have successfully written code to make our initial and we have learnt how to use the ‘repeat’ command to draw a square and then experimented with further shapes and patterns.
We were also fortunate to have a hockey lesson from Ms Picton from Langley who taught us some hockey skills.
We are all working incredibly hard and having lots of fun at the same time!
World Book Day 2025
Week commencing 24.2.25
Welcome back to a new half term! We hope you all had a restful and enjoyable half term break. The children have had a great start to Spring 2.
We have kicked off this half term with our new class book, ‘The Indian in the Cupboard’ by Lynne Reid Banks. We will be using this text in our English lessons and in our topic lessons we will be learning about the native American people.
In maths, both years are continuing with their learning on fractions for a couple more weeks as well as recap on other prior learning.
We are all excited for our school trip to the theatre this Thursday!
10/02/2025
In English, the past few weeks we have been reading the book ‘Lots, the Diversity of Life on Earth’ by Nicola Davies. This non-fiction book has led us to write diary entries, acrostic poems and setting descriptions. We have also learnt about extinct and endangered animals.
In maths we have been learning about length and perimeter and are now beginning a unit on fractions. We’ve also been doing lots of practise on our times tables and other number facts.
In science we have almost finished our ‘animals, including humans’ unit. We have completed several different experiments linked to the human body.
In geography we have been learning about biomes and the features of different biomes. We looked closely at the biomes of Ireland and the USA and compared these.
Our final outdoor learning lesson was to build a den, working in groups. It was more challenging than we expected!
Spring Term
What a great start to the new year we have had in Swallows! The children have come back excited, refreshed and ready to learn. Our new topic this term is ‘Here and There’, and we are now fully underway with it.
We began our topic learning with science and thinking about what humans (and animals) need to eat to survive. We looked at the Eatwell guide to understand a balanced diet and the children designed their own meal. We looked at food labels and began to understand the traffic light system that we see on packaging. From this we then began to learn about the potato famine and how when the people of Ireland’s main food source was taken away, it caused devastating effects. In the next few weeks, we will learn about the people who emigrated from Ireland to the USA.
This half term, it will also be our turn for outdoor learning with Ms Godbold. Our first session has seen us learn about what compost is.
Our RSE this term is ‘Valuing Difference’ and we have embarked on this learning already.
Week commencing 2nd December 2024
This week we had not one, but two school trips both taking part in our fine city of Norwich.
On Monday, we had the honour of singing outside the Forum. We sang so beautifully and confidently, and even featured on the local news! After out stint singing, we walked from the Forum to the Guildhall before walking towards Elm Hill to look at all the fabulous Tudor buildings. We then walked past the Maid’s Head Hotel before visiting the Cathedral. It was fantastic seeing all the landmarks that we had been learning about in real life!
On Wednesday year 3 and 4 went to Strangers Hall for the day. We took part in various activities to help us understand more about Tudor Norwich and the group of Strangers who moved here during this time.
During both school trips, the children behaved beautifully and enthusiastically – we are so proud of them!
Week 9, 10 and 11
We have had a wonderful few weeks since returning from our half term holidays.
In English, we have been studying a version of ‘Midsummer’s Night Dream’ by Andrew Matthews. This is an aspirational text and the children have produced some outstanding written work from it. We can’t wait to share this with you at our open afternoon this Wednesday (27th November).
In maths, we completed our unit on addition and subtraction and have now moved onto multiplication and division. We frequently recap all prior learning completed this year and the children are becoming much quicker and more efficient at the methods taught so far this year.
We are halfway through our new science topic of ‘light’. We have learnt how we see and what light sources are. We know how shadows are formed and what impacts the size and angle of shadows. We have carried out two investigations, one to investigate what objects are opaque, translucent or transparent and one investigation about how the distance of a light source impacts the length of a shadow.
Next week, we are looking forward to singing at the Forum, going on a walking tour of the Tudor buildings of Norwich and visiting Strangers Hall. These experiences will really consolidate the children’s learning from this term.
Weeks 6, 7 and 8
We are now at the end of our first half term. It has been a brilliant half term and we are so proud of all the children and how well they have settled and how they have worked. What a thoughtful and aspirational group of children they are.
In English, we have been reading the Queen’s Token by Pamela Oldfield. We have completed sentence level work, worked on dialogue, worked on improving sentences and written a diary entry. We have worked on editing and improving our writing and our confidence in reading our work aloud has greatly improved.
In maths, we have been resilient as we completed our place value unit and we are now working on addition and subtraction, with the year 3 children learning how to use column addition for the first time.
We have busily been preparing for our royal visit and the children are proficient in Tudor dancing. Our final afternoon this half term will be entertaining Queen Elizabeth Ist – please check Tapestry for some photos of this.
Our half term has been packed full of other events such as the cross country and harvest festival and we are looking forward to what next half term will bring too.
Thank you for all your support this half term and we hope you have a restful and fun half term break.
Week 5
We have had a busy couple of weeks covering everything from Royal Tudor portraits to road safety! A royal courtier arrived on horseback to deliver an important message from Queen Elizabeth I and the year 4s also enjoyed a cinema trip to see Kensuke’s Kingdom which they covered as a class reader last year.
Week commencing 16.9.24
We have had another brilliant week in Swallows class. The children have written poetry, learnt about the Tudor monarchs, continued their learning on place value and learnt about how Tudor food and cookery was different to the ways we cook and eat today. We applied our knowledge by preparing ‘gingered bread’, a Tudor snack. We followed a Tudor recipe, using ingredients an average Tudor person would have had access to. The gingered bread was described by the children as spicy, with most children suggesting there was too much ginger and not enough sugar.
We have had a super first week in our new year groups. We have loved welcoming in the new Year 3s to the class and welcoming back the now Year 4s. We have spent time catching up with each other and getting to know the new routines and rhythms.
We have already made a start on our new topic, Strangers. We have talked about when the Tudor period was and have begun to understand the monarchy. We have also learnt about what life was like for people living during the Tudor period. We have looked at Tudor homes and are able to explain the differences between rich and poor Tudor houses.
