It has been a lovely start to Summer this half term and to Oaks’s new topic Magnificent Monarchs. We have started learning about the history of British royalty, all of the different houses that have reigned and some of the most famous monarchs. 

Our Art unit this half term has also gotten us to explore portraiture and the significance of royal portraits. We have had fun combining modern art mediums such as photography and drawing software to create historically inspired art pieces. Those of you who came to the Sharing Assembly would have seen a fantastic sample of the royal portraits Oaks photographed of each other. 

A big thank you also to Maples class this half term for all their hard work and dedication curating and conducting the Milton Keynes Museum takeover day for Oaks. We were able to learn so much from Year 5 and 6 on our tour of the museum, looking at the historic toys, visiting the Victorian classroom and the life size model street.

This half term Oaks have been very busy applying all their Bright Lights Big City knowledge into the final express part of our topic. Oaks have worked in pairs to make their own London Tour Guided for a visiting meerkat called Marley. 

They included what he should pack for each British season, the two best landmarks to visit and why they are important, and visiting information for London Zoo. 

We have really worked hard on our writing this half term as well as Oaks wrote their own versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They wrote over a series of lessons, showing off great descriptive expanded noun phrases and sequenced action. 

To end this half term Oaks worked on the Taxi DT project. Together they explored everyday products and identified the chassis, axle and wheel. Using this new knowledge Oaks designed and created their own functional London taxis. Each one meeting our design criteria of:

• Chassis, axles and wheels 

• 2 Seats 

• Taxi sign 

• And headlights 

Our Easter church service is always a great way to end the term alongside our annual Pasta Hunt and Egg Drop Challenge. Happy Easter!

It has been a great start to the Spring term this year. Oaks have started their new topic - Bright Lights, Big City - and are really enjoying learning about our capital city, London.   We kicked off the topic with a Great Fire of London day where we learnt about the 1666 tragedy, what caused it and what people did to fight the fire.  Oaks worked in pairs to create their own colourful timelines of events and took part in a whole class roleplay to reenact the Great Fire of London.  We also learnt how stories from history are passed down in songs and performed ‘London’s Burning’ in groups with actions.  Oaks finished the topic day with some Great Fire of London pastel silhouette art which looks great in our learning journey book. 

Since the beginning of term, Oaks have been very interested in learning about London and its capital cities. We created detailed dioramas of a famous landmark complete with non-fiction text telling the reader facts about the landmark. 

We also put our compass skills to work to write simple directions to travel from one landmark to another. 

Here are some of Oak’s favourite things from this half term:

“It has been cool learning about London” - I
“I have enjoyed learning how to use the spelling dictionaries in Phonics” - J
“I have liked to doing reading comprehensions with Rex the Retriever” - L
“I really enjoyed making the clay tiles in Art” - Ai
“I am enjoying doing multiplication and trying something new” - S
“I liked the acrostic poems we wrote about our monster and Mrs Dervish” - F
“I liked learning about arrays in Maths” - Ar
“I liked how we learnt that Big Ben isn’t actually the tower and it is actually called Elizabeth Tower” - H