Silver Birch Class

2021-2022

Welcome to Silver Birch class. 

Our teachers are Mrs Jackson and Mrs Downs and and our class TA 's are Mrs Bailey and Mrs Stillwell Garratt.  

Our class page will contain lots of information about things we are doing and learning about in Silver Birch. We also have a class blog which is written by the children from Silver Birch. Here you can see pictures and examples of work that we have been doing each week.

The link to our blog is:  

https://firtreesilverbirch.wordpress.com/      

Please feel free to ask questions or make comments on the blog.

In the event of self-isolation or further lockdown

In the event of your child needing to self isolate, please use the links above that your child can do in any of the subjects. In the event of our class bubble isolating or a school closure lockdown, we will be using Teams online. Your child will need their user name and password to access Teams. 

Over the past week we have been learning about the heart and how this important muscle works. Today we had the opportunity to dissect a heart and discover its internal structure and workings. We certainly have some budding surgeons and scientist amongst us! 

Here are some of the comments that the children made: 

'We could feel for ourselves how thick the left ventricle was compared to the right ventricle. This is because it has to pump the blood further around the body.'

'We could see the veins and arteries. This helped us to understand how the veins bring the blood back to the heart and how the  arteries carry it away.'

'The white around the heart shows us how much fat is surrounding it.'

The Ancient Egyptian project was enjoyed by all of the class. Here are some comments from some of the chiildren describing the skills and knowledge that they worked on:

During our ancient Egyptian project we made ancient Egyptian death masks. We followed the instructions carefully to produce one.  First, we cut out a headboard from cardboard and taped it to our masks using masking tape. Next, we glued strips of newspaper to our masks. Then, once it was dry we painted cool designs over the newspaper and glue. After that, we left them to dry for about a day. We learnt  about what colours would be appropriate to use and the significance of them; we also improved our papier mache skills. 

By Rosie

By creating our two page spread I developed my researching skills and learnt all about the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses and how important religion was during Ancient Egyptian times.

By Imogen

I have learnt how to make an Egyptian masks and why the Pharaohs would wear them in the tomb. We developed our skills in cutting and symmetry when creating our mask and learnt about the significance of the colours that were used to paint them.

By Maisey

I learnt what the Scareb beetle represented to the Ancient Egyptians –  it meant death. We used a bar of soap to carve our own beetle using cocktail sticks and clay tools.

By Riley

 Silver Birch got off to a great start with our Ancient Egyptian project. Firstly, we researched and wrote diaries about the daily lives of the Ancient   Egyptians.   We investigated the foods they ate, the types of furniture they would have had in their houses, the types of jobs they did and how they spent their free time. 

 We also turned our classroom into an 'ibu' (embalming workshop) and everyone attended a training session - how to mummify a corpse (jelly baby).   Thankfully, nobody fainted when they were asked to extract the brain or vomited when they removed the internal organs. Wrapping the body was a   painstaking process and everyone persevered! Some of the trainees even brought their own 'mummia' (pritt stick) to ensure the layers of linen   bandages stuck together. This demonstrated that many of Silver Birch would have been expert embalmers in Ancient Egyptian times!

 It was during our research of the mummification process that we learned about the importance of amulets and charms to protect the body in the afterlife.   We decided to create our own scarab beetles, carved from soap! Using a range of modelling tools, we think we have created a lovely gift for a friend or   loved one - a perfumed amulet to keep them safe.

 Pen and pattern artwork

 Continuing with our Ancient Egyptian project, Silver Birch have spent this week researching Ancient Egyptian Gods, Goddesses and Pharaohs. This   will lead us to writing our non-chronological reports. One of the Pharaohs we have been learning about is Tutankhamun. In art, we sketched his   portrait using pen with a focus on line and pattern. Firstly, we learned about line proportion and symmetry when drawing the face. Then we looked at   the use of pattern to add detail. We think our drawings are super impressive.

 Since our project for this term is Hanukkah - the Jewish festival of light - we decided to play the dreidl game in groups and eat Gelt (chocolate coins).   It was huge fun! In English, we learned the historical background to the festival and wrote the Hanukkah story - the victory of the Macabees over the   evil tyrant, Antiochus and the miracle of the oil in the menorah, which lasted for eight days and eight nights. We also researched the traditions and   customs of this festival. Did you know that 17.2 million doughnuts were eaten in Israel during this festival last year.

Together we Can was the theme for this year's Children in Need and Silver Birch decided to see if collectively they could run a marathon. For such a body smart class we knew that this was feasible. However, it wasn't 26 miles that we managed to complete... it was a whopping 97 miles! Well done Silver Birch for showing such great teamwork, perseverance and determination!

In English, Silver Birch read and evaluated a range of poetry with a WW1 theme. We discussed whose perspective the poem was written from, whether there was a pattern to each poem and how the poems made us feel. We were then asked to write our own poems and the results gave us goose bumps. Some of the children in class used the blackout poetry technique from John Macrae's poem: ' In Flander's Fields.' 

We had a great Forest session with Fiona. Firstly, she showed us some interesting fungus called 'Wrinkled Peach' and we then turned into nature detectives as we were asked to explore the forest ground to see if there were any other interesting fungi specimens to be found. We were lucky to spot 'Dead Man's fingers,' which was thematic, considering Halloween was nearly upon us! 

Lots of children enjoyed den building and working as a team and others enjoyed playing in the mud kitchen. Billy's bee hotel hangs proudly in the forest as a reminder of our Take One Picture.

We are about to investigate who killed King Duncan? We needed to ask effective questions to locate as much information as possible from our suspects. Lady Macbeth, Banquo, a guard and a minstrel were all questioned and gave convincing alibies. Macbeth was absent from the hearing...

Our Take One Picture was not painted by a famous artist. We chose a bee print that had been painted using watercolours and was simply titled 'The Bee.' We knew that the bee population was in decline; we wanted to learn as much as we could to inform others why it is vital to protect this species of insect. We began by researching facts about this super pollinator using non fiction books and the Internet. We were also lucky to have a visit from Gethin's mum as they recently became beekeepers during the first lockdown. In a short space of time, Silver Birch became bee experts! We wrote non chronological reports to share our findings. We learned also about the anatomy of the bee and produced some stunningly detailed pencil sketches that you can see on our display. We also used beeswax to create some beautiful batik prints to represent the hive's interior. We had fun colour mixing different hues of honey to paint our tessellating hexagonal shapes - the most efficient shape according to the bees! Finally, we were able to taste test several different varieties of honey, including Gethin's honey straight from the hive! Did you know that the darker the colour of the honey, the stronger the taste. This was such a superb nature smart start to our term. Not only did we learn how nature smart Gethin is; we also learned how practically smart Billy is as he made a superb Bee hotel, which now hangs in our Forest area. Please send your bee questions to us... we are 'buzzing' with anticipation to reply!