Cedars have been enjoying their topic, Emperors and Empires, where they have been learning about the Romans and their invasion of Britain. In the first few weeks of this term, the children created some excellent storyboards about the ancient legend of Romulus and Remus who the Romans believe founded Rome. During our Topic lessons, we have had many discussions about different aspects of Roman life and whether we would like to have been alive at this time in history under the rule of the various emperors. 

Our Languages lessons have also linked with our topic where we have been learning some ancient Latin. The children have been able to use their new Latin vocabulary to read short comic strips about family members, animals and chores we do around the house. Our final lesson of this half term will see us consolidating all of our Latin skills into an information poster about one of the areas we have learnt about.

In a recent Computing lesson, Cedars were using their word processing skills to create a plan for a VE day celebration. They had to write an event proposal for a music concert saying: where it was going to be held, the food they would serve, who would perform and how they would keep everyone safe who attended. The children had fun finding pictures to add to their posters in order to advertise their event.

In our Topic lessons, we have completed our Misty Mountain, Winding River unit of work where we have learnt about the different altitudinal zones found on a mountain, the water cycle and how the world’s habitats are changing around us. The children particularly enjoyed their lesson about contour lines where they were able to use a range of coloured card to create their own contour maps in their books. All of this new knowledge has inspired some lovely written work from Cedars where we have created an information leaflet for a mountaineer as well as a podcast script between a host and an ecologist.

As part of our Art work this half term, we have been learning about animals in art. We took part in a sketching masterclass where we learnt to accurately draw a horse, dog and puffin by using circles to guide the proportions of their bodies. This unit ending with the children using clay to create their own Bankura horse. We learnt about the importance of these creatures in West Bengali art work and how they represent energy, strength and loyalty. The children worked hard, carefully following the instructions to create their Bankura horses which gained many compliments whenever someone entered the classroom.

Cedars recently went on a trip to Hazard Alley where the children were faced with real life situations which could put themselves or others in danger. They enjoyed learning how to keep themselves safe and practised making phone calls to 999 and correctly giving all of the information needed to the dispatcher. It was particularly fun learning the recovery position and working in partners to practise how to do this correctly.

In our Topic lessons, we have completed the first half of our Misty Mountain, Winding River lessons where we have learnt about a range of rivers found around the world. We have thought about how a river can make changes to the landscape as it makes its way from the mountains to the sea. The children have also looked at the different types of mountains and how these are formed. At the start of the term, we had a visitor from Anglia Water come in to run a series of workshops with the class. The children had the opportunity to learn about the importance of water, how to save water and how our water is treated to make it safe to reuse. Here are some quotes from the children about their favourite parts of our topic day:

‘learning how much water is needed to make a mobile phone’

‘making the sewage soup’

‘cleaning the paint pots with as little water as possible’

‘getting wet when we did our water audit’

Cedars have also been busy learning the clarinet this half term and are getting more confident with playing the G, F, E and D notes correctly. The children are enjoying learning the different finger patterns and rhythms needed to play along to the music. Everyone is now able to independently get their clarinets put together with all four parts in the right place and facing the correct way.