Into the unknown...

In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton set out on another Antarctic expedition – this time to cross the continent. He failed. However, he achieved one of the greatest feats of turn of the century polar exploration; he returned with all his 27 men – alive. The aim of this term is to develop an enquiry on the Polar region of Antarctica focusing on Shackleton’s 1914–17 Endurance Expedition. We will find out about the details of the mission, what went wrong and the crew themselves. The children will have the opportunity to study Antarctica, its place on the Earth and on a map, position and significance of latitude and longitude. They will also examine and analyse Antarctica’s mountainous terrain, oceans and their effects and influences upon the expedition. Finally, they children will take on the role of a member of the Endurance crew. During the ‘Antarctica day’ children will participate and co-produce a ‘role play’ of the expedition.

In English we will be using the texts; ‘Shackleton’s Journey’ and ‘Ice Trap!’ to bring the expedition to life!

In Maths this term, we will be continuing to build upon a range of mathematical skills, including, place value; addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. We will also be spending a week considering the properties of 2D shapes and another covering fractions. We will continue to apply our skills to solving problems and developing our mathematical language through reasoning.

In science we will be considering the properties of materials and reversible and irreversible changes.

In P.E this term we will be concentrating on Handball and Netball to develop our attacking and defending skills.

“Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.” 

Sir Ernest Shackleton 

Survival Skills!

What a great start to the term! We have had a wonderful first week back discovering our new explorers topic! We completed a series of tasks to discover if we would survive on a polar expedition. We may need to practice!

We have been celebrating our love of reading by taking part in ERIC (Everyone Reading In Class) sessions. We encourage each other to share our books and read independently.

We began our English lessons by analysing the front cover of our text 'Shackleton's Journey'. We looked in detail at the images and what they might be able to tell us about the story inside? Here we are working together in our groups:

Book Trailers

To finish off our study of our class text, the children worked together to create book trailers to encourage others to read 'Shackleton's Journey'. I'm sure you'll agree that they produced some wonderfully persuasive trailers!

Stop Animation! 

Throughout term 1, Class 5 have been studying the fateful journey of Shackleton and the Endurance expedition. We have considered its details and twists and turns and finally used all this wonderful newfound knowledge to produce our very own stop animation films. I am so incredibly proud of the children's hard work, they created the sets, directed and produced all their own work. Well done class 5!