In Summer 2, we have continued our topic, Groundbreaking Greeks, where we have looked closely at the city-state of Athens. Additionally, we have studied key important figures in history such as Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes. As a class, we have learnt about the Greeks’ achievements in Philosophy, Maths and Medicine, discussing how this can still have an impact today in modern day society. Also, we have learnt about democracy in Greece and key landmarks such as the Acropolis. To finish our topic, we will be looking at the Greek Olympics, arts, culture, and Alexander the Great.

 During Art, we have been studying the expressionist movement and created our own pieces of expressionist art influenced by Edvard Munch. In French, we have learnt about how to describe different shapes and discuss key classroom vocabulary. Finally, in DT we are looking at Greek architecture and designing our own examples of buildings you would see in ancient times. What a great end to another fantastic year in Maples class!

This half term, we have started our new topic, ‘Groundbreaking Greeks.’ We have looked closely at different time periods during ancient Greece and made comparisons between them. Maples have studied what life was like for Greeks during the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisation, Dark Age and Archaic period.  Additionally, we have looked at primary and secondary sources of evidence, discussing their reliability and what they can teach us about ancient Greece. We have also explored Greek myths, such as the Trojan horse and created our own newspaper reports about this event. Finally, we have been improving our research skills and created our own non-chronological reports about Ancient Greece.

In Art, we have been studying 'mixed media' where we have explored various techniques such as folding, quilling, marbling, collaging and even creating our own paper! During our PSHE sessions, we have been discussing what qualities make a good team and are in the process of creating our own video documentaries about the school during Computing.  

This half term, we have continued our ‘Sow, Grow and Farm’ topic, focusing on where our foods come from and what conditions are needed to produce farmed goods.  We have also looked at various case studies, such as potato farming in Jersey, citrus farming in California, coffee growing in Peru and strawberry farming in Spain. Based on this, we created some fantastic posters and information leaflets. 

We thoroughly enjoyed working in teams and debating the topic:  'Should we import food?' where children created balanced arguments and expressed their opinions using evidence from sources to support their ideas. A key highlight of our learning was during our DT topic, where we created a delicious soup using vegetables that were in season.

In art, we have been studying 'land art' and have created some wonderful sculptures and designs using natural resources such as stones, twigs, twine, clay, leaves, flowers and grass.