Planning

Our exciting topic for the Spring Term is - Out of Africa!

Our Literacy will centre around the text "Meerkat Mail". This book takes you on a journey with a meerkat who is looking for a home that suits him better than his current family home. As he travels around for the week, he gets more homesick and realises that he was in the perfect place for him all along and returns to his family. Click here for an online version of the story: Meerkat Mail.

We will also read Handa's surprise which is set in Africa. It's a short story where Handa wants to take a basket of fruits to her friend Akeyo. On the way to Akeyo's village, animals hiding in the savannah steal the fruits from Handa's basket which she carries on her head. Click on the link for the story read online: Handa's Surprise. 

In Geography, the pupils will learn all about Africa! They will learn all about the physical geography of the continent such as the dry savannahs, moutain ranges and the Great Rift Valley. They will look at a small village within Kenya and compare it with the village of Farndon. They will look at the locational knowledge of the continent: it's coastlines, countries and cities. 

In Art, we will focus on Kente cloths. The children will start by looking at Kente cloths and use their observational skills, when talking about what they can see. They will look at a variety of different styles and analyse them: looking at the shapes, colours and patterns.  Then, they will create their own artist investigations by choosing 2 different Kente cloths and drawing what they see in their sketchbooks. The pupils' inal piece of art work will be an actual kente weaving. In Design and Technology, having been inspired by Handa's, will design and make their own ultimate fruit smoothie. 

For Computing, our first topic will be coding, using Scratch Junior. We will look at how to use this programme to code simple sprite and make them move. As well as "de-bugging" some pre-prepared algorithms, the pupils will make thier own African savannah scene coomplete with moving animals. Our second unit will focus on handling data and the children will create their own pictograms linked with our learning within Science. 

For Science, the children will focus on learning about all the different aimals in Africa. The learning will focus on all the animals groups and their different properties: mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians. We will teach the children which animals are carnivores and omnivores and then classify and group the animals based on their characteristics.