Horse Chestnut Class has children in Years Three and Four and is taught by Mrs. Heaps. Ms Woolsey is the supporting Teaching Assistant.
Autumn 2022
Beach School Session
Horse Chestnut spent a morning at Happisburgh beach making close links with other areas of the curriculum. We closely observed the sand martins living in their natural habitat. We observed their behaviour, sound and movement.
We then made survival beach nests, choosing our equipment and working as a team to construct this form of shelter. Friendship, teamwork, resilience and perseverance all played a central part in our achievements.
Horse Chestnut Class have been learning about Ernest Shackleton and his expeditions to Antarctica.
We have made Bannock Bread just as he did to survive when his ship, the Endurance was trapped in the ice. The children combined Design and Technology, Maths and English skills and knowledge to complete this activity.
We measured accurately with scales, followed instructions and cooked the bread outside on our fire pit as Ernest Shackleton would have had to in Antarctica.
Horse Chestnut Class are learning about the basic needs of survival. We identified one of these as the need for shelter.
I challenged the children to build their own survival shelters that all of their group would be able to fit inside and shelter from the elements.
The children planned, designed, constructed and evaluated their shelters. Everyone worked together collaboratively within their groups, listening to each other and working together to improve their ideas.
The shelters really were fantastic and I was so very proud of the way in which the children worked together, our school values of perseverance, resilience, friendship and kindness shining throughout.
Polar art work inspired by Ted Harrison
Penguin Sculptures
Eggs
Our Topic theme in the run up to Easter has been, ‘Eggs’. We have used this theme to link every area of our learning across our curriculum. The children have been totally immersed in the texts we have shared, ‘The Egg’ and ‘The Dragon Snatcher’ by M.P. Robertson.
We created story maps and took part in drama to retell the stories. We have rewritten these texts as George in the first person, redrafting and editing our writing.
We have created ‘A Rainbow Book of Dragons’ and used alliteration to create unusual names. We used the shelves of eggs from the dragon snatcher as inspiration.
We have discovered a cluster of mysterious eggs on the playground and our imagination has been running wild as to what could be inside!! We wrote descriptions of the creatures that could be about to hatch and then drew beautiful illustrations.
We discovered that the shape of the egg and the distribution of weight is key.
They did not break!
We have been investigating symmetry, and designed our own symmetrical patterns to decorate eggs.
We have designed and constructed baskets and parachutes so that our eggs could try and fly. We used a variety of materials and methods to build these, making predictions and evaluating our work.
We were lucky enough to visit Happisburgh Church and Reverend Dobson held Collective Worship all around the Easter story.
During Outdoor learning sessions we have been scientists outside, heating eggs and chocolate on our camp fire. We observed how eggs change when heated and even found that when boiled they become bouncy!!!!! We even sampled the chocolate and it was delicious!
Outdoor Science
In Horse Chestnut Class we use working walls. We use these for English, Maths, Topic and Science. These are a record of our learning and we add to these daily so that we can build on our previous learning.
Working Walls
In Horse Chestnut we are making strong links throughout the curriculum so that we travel on a journey through our learning.
We have begun our learning about the Stone Age by visiting Gressenhall to become Stone Age hunter gatherers.
We learnt about early farming and the impact this has had on our lives today.
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Outdoor Science
Volcanoes
Greek Day!
Outdoor Maths
