At the start of this term, we began reading Wonder by R. J. Palacio, which is a remarkable book, about a boy named August.  August has a deformed face and has started school for the first time, in the fifth grade. The story is told through the eyes of August and other people that he meets along the way and it is a good reminder to not judge someone on looks alone. In English, we wrote diary entries as August and other children from his new school and the children were excellent at adapting their writing to show different styles and characters.

 

In Art, we have continued looking at David Hockney and his unique style when using water colour. Using these new skills, we published our poems (inspired by The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris) and painted watercolour pictures of different animals found in the UK. Next we are planning to draw and paint Hockney inspired depictions of our local landscape.

 

We have also started our new unit in Science: Living Things and Their Habitats. We have been learning about how animals are classified depending on shared characteristics. We have learned about Carl Linnaeus and his invention of the Linnaean system of classification.

 

We also celebrated World Book Day this term, and we shared our favourite stories and characters – honouring the joy that is reading and books.