Welcome to Moles class! Our teacher is Mr Humber, who has been teaching for sixteen years, the last eight of which have been at Bedwell. He is really good at art, history and maths, and he says his favourite things are rugby and pizza!

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest class newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Tahlia and Alfie

Home learning ideas:

• As always, tables facts will be really important to us this term, so it would be brilliant if you could work on learning these at home. Focus on one table at a time and try:
  • Making-up rhymes to help remember number facts (“4 x 6 is 24, bears growl and lions roar!”) 
  • Looking for numbers in that table in the world around you - on doors, car number plates, in phone numbers or when you’re out shopping. 
  • Writing-out tables with finger paints, chalk or water-on-tarmac, or make them from playdoh. 
  • Chanting, singing, whispering... Say tables out loud together whenever you have the chance. 
• Each week we are set spellings to learn. Click here for guidance on strategies you can use to support your child in learning these at home.  
• In history this term we are learning about the Ancient Egyptians, which provides lots of opportunities for learning beyond the classroom - try investigating the history, and making a picture or model of an Egyptian pyramid. There's lots of information, video and links to get you started available on the BBC Bitesize website.
  
• If you’re looking for something to do one weekend, the British Museum is free to visit and has a large collection of Egyptian statues, mummies and jewellery - find out more at britishmuseum.org.
• Explore sounds you can make around the house by tapping bottles, table tops or toys. What links are there between the material and the sound produced? Or try making a cup and string telephone, and talk about how the sound is being transmitted - there are helpful instructions at  sciencekids.co.nz/projects/stringphone.html
• You can have a go at coding in Scratch by heading to scratch.mit.edu or downloading the Scratch app. There are loads and loads of tutorials, ideas and examples of other people’s work available on the Scratch site.
  

Our latest news:

• We rounded-off the Autumn term with a massive Christmas dinner and our fantastic class parties. A huge thank you to everyone who sent in cakes and party snacks for us to enjoy together.
 

  
•  We enjoyed a trip to the cinema to watch Harold and the Purple Crayon as part of this year's Into Film Festival. We all loved Carl the Eagle Lizard!
 
• There was lots of competition for places on our Year 3 and 4 Football team at the start of the year, and the squad have done us proud in their first two matches of the season. You can find out more about how they got on here. 
  
 

 
• We thoroughly enjoyed getting involved in Science Week. A particular highlight was our visit from Falconry UK, who bought an array of birds, such as kookaburras, owls and falcons into school. We learnt so much about these magnificent creatures and were able to ask and answer lots of interesting questions.
 

We have been learning about... 

Geography - We have explored many different natural disasters in our geography topic this term and even had a zoom talk from an earthquake survivor! To support our learning, we have made cardboard volcanoes, built structures to withstand a (minor) earthquake, created tectonic plates and worked as a team to create a large information poster on a natural disaster of our choice. The curiosity and inquisitiveness throughout this topic have been wonderful to see!

English - In our English lessons this term we have been busy writing everything from stories, to poems to reports. In Mole class we particularly enjoyed writing fables. Using The Lion Inside by Rachel Bright as our model text, we learnt about expanded noun phrases, speech and prepositions. We were asked to create short fables with a clear moral and we were all proud of our efforts.

The Squirrel That Could, by Rajan

Autumn had arrived in the pleasant forest. Towering trees were shedding their fiery, vibrant leaves and a fresh, crisp breeze blew across the lake. On the edge of the forest in a warm, cosy nest lived a lonely squirrel. Squirrel only ate nuts and berries, never went out, never saw his friends and would just spend his days at home. The other woodland creatures would visit from time to time. 

“Please come out and play!” asked the badger. 

“No thanks” was Squirrel’s reply. 

Soon a harsh winter rolled in to the forest and Squirrel’s food had soon gone. His nest was cold and damp and he grew even more lonely. 

It wasn’t long until squirrel had a decision to make. Stay and starve or head out into the wintry forest for help and food. Snow had now covered the whole forest, it was freezing. Bravely Squirrel trudged through the thick, bitter snow and found his friend’s house. Badger opened the door. 

“Perfect timing. Today is Christmas. Come and have a feast.“ 

It was then that Squirrel realised he should have done this years ago.

Art - This term’s objective was to develop our shading skills, and we cleverly combined this with our work on tornados to create some colourful 3D twisters. Initially we used pen and coloured pencils, but eventually some of us moved onto creating shades with oil pastel.

This term's topics

English - Our next topic is built around the classic story of Alice in Wonderland. We will be exploring the way speech is used and organised in the story, and then using this as a base for short sections of dialogue which we will write (making sure that it is punctuated correctly). We will identify the techniques which the author uses to describe fantastical characters and settings, helping us to develop our descriptive writing. Finally, we will examine the way that stories are split into paragraphs, and think about where it would be appropriate to start a new paragraph in our own work.

Maths - We will start the term by exploring shapes, starting by developing our understanding of perimeter (the distance around the outside of a shape) and the way we can calculate it. After that, we will be revising the properties of 2d shapes and learning to identify different types of quadrilateral, including trapeziums, parallelograms and kites. Building on that, we will look at symmetry, identifying lines of symmetry in shapes and plotting symmetrical patterns. Later in the term, we will be returning to decimals, ordering, regrouping and rounding numbers with up to two decimal places. We will also investigate the link between decimals and fractions, writing and representing numbers in a range of ways.

Science - We will be exploring the way sounds are made and the way in which they travel. We will examine the vibrations created by a range of different instruments and think about the way that the pitch and volume can be changed on specific devices. We will carry out fair tests to check our predictions, and then investigate which materials to use to make ear defenders.

Humanities - We be exploring life in Ancient Egypt, looking in particular at the role of the Pharaoh in their society. We will learn about the lives of some of the most famous pharaohs, and compare them with modern day kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers. We will also be investigating the variety of gods that the Ancient Egyptians believed in and learning about some of the stories that were told about their adventures, which Egyptians used to explain the world around them. We will find out about the different areas that each god was responsible for, and the way that the Egyptian people worshipped them. Finally, we will investigate what remains of their civilisation and think about the reasons why they are remembered today.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.