Empathy Class

Empathy Class Topics

Summer Term: My World. This term the class will be carrying out a geography based topic.  We will be learning about maps and mapping our local area.  We will also link our topic to school journey which will give us the chance to compare city environments with the countryside.

In the second half of the summer term we will link to the Football World Cup. The children will have a chance to learn about the countries taking part, investigating where they are on the map, their capital cities and aspects of their culture.

 

Spring Term: Places to Play.  The children began by visiting local parks and analysed what the environment consists of, noting park furniture, open spaces, types of equipment and their construction, quiet and resting spaces and safety of access and construction.

We went on to visit Battersea Park and the children particularly enjoyed the adventure playground there as well as our tour of the rest of the park. The children have also visited Kidspace Croydon as an example of indoor places to play.

We have also researched innovative playground design from around the world to inspire the children to design their own playgrounds, and possibly even influence our own new playground design.

In Art and DT the children are designing and building their own playgrounds and looking at different construction methods.

In Science we have been looking at forces.  We began by looking at pushes and pulls and have explored friction and different surfaces.  The children have been making paper helicopters and will be carrying out an investigation using the helicopters about air resistance.

Autumn Term: Anglo Saxons and Vikings. The children have enjoyed learning about the Vikings initially as the ‘hook’ into the topic, especially making shields and a longboat. They are learning about where the Vikings came from and about the less stereotypical view of the Vikings as peaceful farmers as well as being fierce warriors.

The children have visited the British Museum and have learned about artefacts that tell us about the lives of Vikings and about techniques used by archaeologists to study artefacts to learn about the past. We will be moving onto Anglo Saxons and the history of the peoples living in Britain at the time of the Viking invasions, the wars that ensued and the establishment of the Danelaw.              In Science our topic has been ‘Teeth and Eating’. The children started by looking at their own teeth and the teeth of other animals. They discussed keeping their teeth healthy and practised brushing a giant model of teeth. They then carried out an investigation to determine the role of different teeth and came up with their own explanations for the purpose of Canines, Molars and Incisors by biting bread, fruit and strawberry laces! They also made models of teeth to reinforce the key differences in shape and function of each type of tooth. We have moved on to look at the digestive system and have enjoyed experimenting with chewing to make saliva. Next we made a model of the digestive system, mashing up food and juice in a bag and squeezing it through tights. This always a fun, kinaesthetic, and memorable session because the children love the opportunity to express how gross they find it, amidst the laughter usually generated by typical toilet humour especially enjoyed by boys!

Our Learning

We brainstormed ideas about winter and then wrote our own poems.

 

We came up with our own superheroes to write stories about

 

We also got into our characters in order to develop them

 

We used these to work on our grammar as well as our stories

 

A Story Plan

 

We made our own apple crisps to sell at Borough Market, and compared their fresh and dried weights.

Comparing Fractions

 

Empathy Class is taught by Ms Armer, Mr Eythan and Mr Alex.