Dragons 

In the Dragons this week, pupils have been finding out about the expansion of the Roman Empire. They have explored why the Roman Army was successful, how it was organised, and how soldiers were trained.

In food technology, the Dragons made vegetable soup and bread.

The Dragons have been busy creating story arcs and plots for the animation they are making for our summer Film Festival. In English, they have been reading about myths and legends, particularly Romulus and Remus, and how Rome began. They have studied Roman towns, why they developed where they did and why Bath is a Roman city, in preparation for their field study next week. 

In the outside classroom, the Year 3s looked for the first signs of spring and studied life cycles.

They found and studied daffodils and the different parts of a flower.

The Shire

Years 1 and 2 have been reading the book 'Journey' by Aaron Becker and using it to discuss their own stories about emotions, feelings, senses and new adventures to go on. 

They have painted some beautiful daffodil watercolour pictures in class, and have been working on Mother's Day cards (shhh!) Whilst out and about this week they have been excitedly scouting locations for the live action part of their film.

The Pixies have also been looking for signs of spring and comparing the season to Winter. They have been enjoying the warmer, sunnier weather with some water play.

In Maths, they have looked at doubles and painted symmetrical butterflies. The Pixies have been working hard on their words and sentence-writing skills, and surprised themselves with how tasty the cheese and courgette and cinnamon, maple syrup and courgette muffins they baked were!

The Wizards

This week in Wizards, the children found out about the slave trade in Bristol. They researched the journey the slaves took, from being taken from their homes in Africa, to being sold as slaves in Bristol, before being shipped to the Americas, where many of them worked in the cotton fields or in sugar plantations. The children also found out about Edward Colston, who was a famous slave trader in Bristol. The children will be making a documentary about Bristol for our film festival.

As part of the work in the garden, a group of Year 5s studied the daffodils in the quiet area: they drew diagrams of the lifecycle of a daffodil. They then dissected a daffodil and named the different parts. They brought some different types of daffodils inside to brighten up the classroom. 

In preparation for our end-of-year film, the Wizards worked in groups to produce animations using objects found in the classroom. We all enjoyed watching the films on the whiteboard and working out what our next steps would be to improve the quality of the animations. 

The Wizards have also successfully taken cuttings of sage and rosemary from the quiet area; these have now been planted in pots to be used in future recipes in the kitchen.