Robins

AUTUMN TERM 2023

Ceramic work

Following our studies of Mairie Stone's work and creating our own ocean-inspired designs, here the children are transferring their designs onto clay using a variety of tools. They were very excited by the sensation of working with clay and by the way you could 'erase' your design if you were not happy with it!

Trip to RAF Cosford

We went to the RAF museum in Cosford to contextualise our study of the development of flight in planes through History. The museum has an extensive collection of planes from very early planes (a little similar to the Wright brothers' Flyer 1 which was the first successful plane that the children are familiar with) to modern-day planes. The children were thrilled to be up close to these amazing planes and some of them were huge. We also got a chance to play on the special flight-themed playground!

The class was also interested in finding out about RAF pilots and delighted to have a chance to dress up in RAF uniforms!

English - 'The Seesaw'

At the moment we are studying a beautiful book called 'The Seesaw' by Tom Percival. The book tells the story of a beloved teddy bear that goes missing! Here we are reenacting the opening scene of the story where the bear is taken for a picnic on the beach:

Art - Ocean- inspired ceramics

This half term we are having a go with ceramics! We are using the art of Mairi Stone as inspiration and are following her study of ocean-inspired shapes and patterns to feed into our designs. Here we are experimenting with sketching some patterns based on sea creatures and their shells by looking closely at images and real shells:

Pilot visit

We were lucky enough to have a visit from a pilot this week to help us understand more about our History topic 'Flight'. He told us why he had become a pilot and what it was like to fly a plane. The children were really inspired and asked lots of questions. Maybe we have some budding young pilots amongst us!

Autumn- observing seasonal changes

As part of our Science curriculum, we have been looking at seasonal change in autumn. Here we are looking at signs of autumn outside:

Design and Technology

We have been investigating the use of sliders and levers in DT and have created 'moving pictures' based on the children's own designs to tell the story of 'Billy and the Beast':

Maths - Number and Place value

We have been working hard on ensuring a solid understanding of number by using lots of concrete materials. Here the Year 1s are investigating equality and inequality symbols (< > and =) using straws and cubes and the Year 2s are looking at place value of tens and ones using base ten equipment:

English- Billy and the Beast

We have launched into the new term with plenty of fun surrounding the text we are reading called 'Billy and the Beast'. Here you can see us re-enacting the story:

Please see here for archived learning from 2021-2022

SUMMER TERM 2023

Indian Banquet

We celebrated the end of our unit of learning about India with an amazing Indian banquet. This was where we got to showcase the lovely Indian-inspired placemats we made in DT. The children were all involved in the preparation of food including: rice, dahl, mango lassi, samosas, Indian sweets, raita, popadoms and mango chutney. The children thoroughly enjoyed the food and we were so proud of them for trying food they had not had before. Some fun was also had with trying on Indian clothing:

DT Project - Indian Placemats

Robins have been working very hard this half term to design their own placemats inspired by Indian designs for our Indian banquet. They have involved sewing on beads, embroidery and sticking on lots of sequins. Finally we reflected on the effectiveness or our designs:

Musical composition

In music, we have been listening to lots of styles of music and considering how they make us feel and what instruments have been used. This culminated in composing our own pieces of music. The weather was even kind enough to let us perform them outdoors!

Tie-dying

As part of our Art topic, we have been studying textiles and pattern. We learnt about tie-dying and experimented with different techniques to create our own pieces.

Weaving

This term we have been exploring the art of weaving inspired by the work of Annie Albers. We started by creating our own sunbeam designs by weaving fabric strips and wool through frames made of sticks:

We then moved on to mastering the art of French knitting:

The Disgusting Sandwich

This term we have been studying a book called 'The Disgusting Sandwich' which the children have really enjoyed. We re-enacted the story of the disgusting sandwich:

We then rewrote the story about a piece of cake in Clifton! Obviously, that had to be re-enacted too:

SPRING TERM 2023

Please click here for an overview of our learning journey this term:

Robins' Trip to Worcester Infirmary Museum

Today we visited Worcester Infirmary museum and learnt lots about nurses, doctors and medicine! We have been studying Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole as part of our Wonder Women topic this half term, and it was amazing to see the historical medicines and equipment that they would have used to treat sick people.

The children dressed up as Florence Nightingale and her team of nurses!

The children learnt about natural medicines, just like Mary Seacole would have used! They pretended to make different types of herbal medicines to treat sick people.

The children also found out about historical medical equipment, and tested it out on each other! here we have children listening to each other's heartbeats.

At the museum, there were also examples of modern medicine. We have some budding doctors on our hands!

Wonder Women

The children have been doing amazing work in history about some significant women whose actions have changed the course of history.

The theme of injustice has been discussed with all women and the fact that throughout our history, women did not have the same rights as men. The children used lots of role-play and drama to understand the lives of these important women!

We began by learning about Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.

Next, we moved on to Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale!

We were shocked by how dirty the hospital was before Florence Nightingale arrived!

The children designed a recipe for their own herbal medicines, just like Mary Seacole did!

Robins have really enjoyed learning about the Suffragettes and their fight for women to be able to vote. We decided that it is not fair for boys to have more things than girls... just because they are boys!

The children also wrote a diary entry from the point of view of a Suffragette. Great work everyone!

Art

The inspiration for this half term's art has been Frida Kahlo. We began by studying her artwork and found out that she drew and painted a lot of self-portraits.

We began by sketching our self-portraits, inspired by Frida Kahlo's sketches.

We then looked at some of her other portraits. We learnt that she also uses lots of colours, and includes aspects of nature in her portraits, such as butterflies and monkeys! We used oil pastels to create our own self-portraits.

PE

The focus for this half term has been building children's stability.

Snow

We've had a fantastic time playing in the snow during our break and lunchtime today!

Art

The children have been practising their amazing knowledge of primary and secondary colours to paint in the style of Beatrix Potter!

Measuring in Maths

We have now moved on to measuring mass in Maths! The children applied their amazing knowledge of grams and how to measure things using balance scales to bake a cake in maths!

Dogs Trust

We had an exciting visit from the charity, Dogs Trust today! We learnt about staying safe around our dogs and strangers' dogs.

Role Play Castle

Mrs Connor and the children have been working hard this week making our new role-play castle. They worked together to design the structure and it turned out amazingly!

Well done Robins!

Family Trees

We began our new history topic this week by sharing our family trees. It was lovely to see the children talk about their families, and listen to others talk about theirs too!

Here is our new Family Tree display!

Our Arctic Morning

Wow! We have had the most exciting Arctic morning to finish our topic of Poles Apart! As well as showing off our amazing knowledge of the Arctic and Antarctica, we have learnt lots of interesting facts. For example, Blue Whales are over 24 metres long!

We used role play and drama to pretend to be Arctic animals, and re-enacted the amazing trips of Arctic explorers on their way to discover these fantastic places. We have definitely got some budding explorers on our hands!

Here are some photos of our exciting morning!

We are pretending to be penguins and looking after the egg.

Here, we are pretending to be hibernating Arctic animals.

The journey to the Arctic onboard our ship.

Where in the world are the Arctic and Antarctica?

Freeze frames to show what we have learnt from our Arctic morning!

Mini Olympics at the Chantry

Wow! What an amazing afternoon we have had competing in the Mini Olympics at the Chantry. The children took part in a wide variety of fun activities, which all included lots and lots of running! Everyone showed our amazing Clifton Values, such as teamwork and perseverance, and supported each other to do their very best. Well done!

Dance Sequences

We have just finished a sequence of learning in dance. We created our own dance sequences, and then shared and performed them with a partner. Amazing work Robins!

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Our Geography Documentaries

To share the amazing knowledge we have learnt about the Arctic and the Rainforest in Geography, we have made our own documentaries about each of these wonderful places.

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Multiskills Festival at The Chantry

We were lucky enough to be invited to a Multiskills sports festival at The Chantry. The amazing 'Young Leaders' organised so many fun and diverse activities and kept the children busy and active for the whole afternoon. The class absolutely loved our time at the Chantry!

Science- Habitats

In Science, we have been looking at different habitats, starting with our own environment. We looked at the features of a woodland habitat and found worms, dead leaves, buds and lots of soggy mud!

We have launched into the term with our new Geography topic: 'Poles Apart', where we will be learning about different global regions including polar zones. The children were very excited to receive a mystery package which appeared to have gone astray..... It was supposed to go to Bristol Zoo, but the sender had mistaken Clifton, for Clifton upon Teme, so it ended up with us! Inside the parcel was.... A PENGUIN!! We have been trying to find out where penguins come from and what kind of environment they live in so that we can help this poor penguin:

AUTUMN TERM 2022

DT Tudor houses and Great Fire of London Reanactment

We have completed our second version of tudor house models having evaluated the first versions. The second versions looked far more authentic:

so we decided to carry out our 'Great Fire of London renactment' with the first ones:

The children were fantastic at explaining that the houses burnt because they were close together and their rooves were made of straw. They also observed the effect of wind on the fire and were able to understand how the fire was stopped by the wind dying down and breaks being made in the houses. T

World Nursery Rhyme Week

On 15th November, we celebrated 'World Nursery Rhyme Week' by dressing up as our favourite Nursery Rhyme characters. We shared copious Nursery Rhymes and enjoyed joining in with actions. We also made muffins, practising measuring, with our very own Muffin Man:

Design and Technology

In DT we have been making Tudor-style houses using templates and evaluating our designs.

PSHE

Our PSHE 'Jigsaw' lessons allow the children the opportunity to practise guided meditation sessions and also to explore issues in a circle time, respectful forum. Here we are talking about the consequences of our actions and making the right choices. The children really enjoy and benefit from these sessions.

Art - Colour mixing

In Art, we have been looking at all the beautiful colours of leaves in autumn. We have been learning how to make secondary colours so that we can paint leaf colours.

Drama

To help us to understand different perspectives at the time of the Great Fire of London, we carried out some roleplay:

Burning investigation

In Science, we carried out an investigation to find out which materials burn easily to help us understand how the Fire of London spread. We predicted what would happen and drew the conclusion that wood was not the best material to build houses from to prevent fire- especially not if the rooves were made from straw!

Making Bread

Of course, we had to take the opportunity to make some bread in DT as this is how the Great Fire of London started... In the King's bakery as the children will be able to tell you!

Art- Great Fire of London

In Art we have started making our layered pictures depicting the Great Fire of London. Here we are starting with our base using pastels:

The Great Fire of London

The children have been very excited by the launch of our new topic. We started off by examining some evidence; we looked at some old, torn pages from Samuel Pepys' diary and learnt about the importance of eyewitness accounts as sources of evidence.

We also looked at some more historical artefacts to see what we could find out about what things were like in 1666. Here we are looking at a clay cooking pot used over an open fire and a leather wide- brimmed fire hat. We compared them with equivalent items today: