As part of our history hook week, we’ve spent some time looking at the music of War time and the importance of this to boost morale. One of these songs was We’ll Meet Again by Vera Lynn. Then we used instruments to create a soundscape of sounds from the war.
In reading, we’ve been focusing on text marking for vocabulary that we were unfamiliar with. We discussed the important of understanding the vocabulary we’re reading as this helps our understanding of the text. As part of this, we practiced reading around the word as this can support our understanding.
Yesterday morning, we visited the library so that children could select a book they could take home to read. We discussed the importance of reading the blurb to help pick books that math their interests.
Hook week continued this week as we started to explore a local artist who does perspective drawing. This is what we’ll be focusing on in our final case study. Children worked together to research this artist before we critiqued some of his pieces of work.
On Tuesday, we were fortunate to have Time Travel Education come into school to learn about different aspects of World War 2. First, we were introduced to the beginning of the war and the key people: Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. We learnt about the air raids and the role of the wardens. Then we had to opportunity to help get rid of the fire bombs that had been dropped. This required teamwork to keep everyone safe.
Evacuation was our next area to learn about. The children got to learn about the upheaved to family life to ensure the safety of the children. They packed their bags and were given an insight into rationing. We had a shop keeper and some customers who came to spend their vouchers. We’ll build on this later in the case study.
In the last session, we learned about how the Wardens would deliver first aid and met Ernie (dummy) who had become trapped in a building that had been blown up. Once we seen how to treat a broken femur, we had the opportunity to treat our partner for the same condition.
In between the sessions in the hall, we had access to boxes of artefacts which came with reading materials to help us learn about each one.
Our favourite one was as craft that had a map printed on it. Aircrew would wear this so that if their plane went down they’d have a map on them to help navigate their way to safety.
During our book talk lesson, we have worked together to answer a range of questions. We focused on the importance of using the text to support us to answer the question. Some of our questions asked for evidence from the text and this was an area we will continue to develop as we more through this year. It was great to see the children working collaboratively and working to each other’s strengths.
It was lovely to have so many parents join us this afternoon for our family learning and to be able to meet the grown ups of our crews. Thank you to all the grown ups for getting involved with the gas mask making, making fighter jets and identification labels. There were some great fighter jet designs.
Today we took the opportunity to immerse ourselves in our expedition. Children came dressed up as evacuees which was lovely to see. The minute the sirens went off, we had to quickly build an Anderson Shelter to protect themselves from the bombs being dropped by the Germans.
Once we realised it was no longer safe, it was time to pack our suitcase and head off to the countryside.
The suitcases were packed and we then boarded the train so we could leave London and move to the countryside where we’ll be safe.
This week we’ve started building some background knowledge about World War 2. We also put the main events into a timeline which took some great team work. Children had to consider days and months due to quite a few events happening in the same year. When we’d completed this, we used the timeline to help us create a knowledge organiser that highlights the key events and people.
One of our crew challenges this week was the human knot. Children had to work together to untangle themselves. It was good hearing some children taking a lead and helping to instruct their peers.
