Year 3 Egyptian WOW Day!

 

Egyptian WOW Day

Today, Year 3 had the opportunity to come to school dressed like Egyptians and dive into what life was like for them many years ago. We started by taking a look at when the ancient Egyptian civilisation began, how you could become King and what was special about Tutankhamun. We then learnt why the Egyptians would mummify their Pharaohs before using our reciprocity skills to mummify each other! We ended our amazing day using by being resourceful and creating our own Cartouche using a hieroglyphic word mat and then hunted for key vocabulary in a word search . 

Year 3's WoW Ancient Egyptian Afternoon

This week, the Year 3's ventured back in time to the days of the Ancient Egyptian civilization.

 The WoW afternoon created a great start to our focus civilization in History for this half term.

Children engaged in activities such as 'Who wants to be an Egyptian?' - an adaptation of the show 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?', Hieroglyphic Writing, Britain's Next Mummified Model and Entertainment for Pharaoh.

The highly anticipated WoW afternoon was a huge success and it was such a joy to see all the Year 3 children engrossed in their learning about historical events, using historical vocabulary and sharing many inquisitive thoughts.

Dominic asked '"How did people make the pyramids?"' 

 '"What did Ancient Egyptians eat?"' Karimah enquired.

 This has provided a great foundation for the learning to follow about The Ancient Egyptian Civilization across the next few weeks.

Well done Year 3!

Volcanic Eruptions with Hazel Class

This week, Hazel class finally got to erupt their volcanoes! They've been waiting a long time for this and the wait was definitely worth it. Using a mix of vinegar, water and fairy liquid, the children had to add in the final ingredient to make their volcanoes erupt....baking soda! You can see from their faces that they were fascinated and had lots of fun doing so!

'If it was a real volcano then the water bottle would be the conduit which is the part where the magma flows up' - Grace.

 'Some of the lava oozed out of our volcanoes and some of them flowed down really quickly' - Tommy.

 'I can't wait to show everyone at home how to erupt a volcano! It was so much fun!' - James.

 'Some volcanoes do have really thick lava that trickles slowly down the side, so our volcanoes were similar to some in real life (minus the heat)' - Naleli.

Year 4 WOW Day

Year 4's new topic this half term compares the reigns of Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II to ask the question, 'which monarch had the biggest impact on Britain?' To kick off this topic in spectacular style, yesterday saw Ash, Birch and Willow classes treated to not one, not two but three sessions of awesome activities!

The first of these was an exceptional Tudor-themed workshop led by Peter Balanck, an expert on all things medieval. The children were able to try their hand at an amazing selction of hands-on authentic experiences, including trying on Tudor clothes and armour, writing with a quill pen, having their own coin minted, spinning wool and trying out a range of games played at the time.

"The soldiers of Queen Elizabeth's time must have had great strength and endurance to have worn this protective clothing all the time" - Ellis Drummond

"I would have made a brilliant court jester!" - Adam Murray

With all this new-found knowledge of the Elizabethan days, it was now time to travel 300 years into the future and find out about how Britain has changed since our current queen, Elizabeth II, has been on the throne. Cue another workshop that gave us a whirlwind tour of Britain from 1948 to the present day. We learned about the founding of the NHS, the rise of the Beatles, England's World Cup win of 1966, the manned missions to space of the late 60s and early 70s, the controversy caused by the Thatcher government and the explosion of 'girl power' and the Spice Girls in the 1990s. Of course, none of this would have been complete without a chance to dress up!

"I jumped at the chance to play the Queen. Elizabeth II is an inspiration to us all" - Emily Clayden

"If I had been a Beatle for real I would have been Ringo - drummers have all the fun!" - Olivia Wheal

 

As if all this wasn't enough excitement, we also spent some time in classes making physical timelines to improve our chronological awareness of the two monarchs' reigns and the huge span of history that separates them.

 

"I had no idea the country changed so much between Queen Elizabeth II's birth in 1926 and now!" - Oliwia Bartink

 

"We found out from making this timeline that Queen Elizabeth I's era was a time of great exploration and a flourishing of culture in England" - Eriya Byamugisha