Welcome to Moles class! Our teacher is Miss Wood, who is now entering her third year at Bedwell. She brings lots of new ideas with her, and is really keen to make our lessons as active and engaging as possible.

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest school newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Theo and Bonnie

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.  
• We will be exploring persuasion this term, so keep an eye out for examples of this genre in the world around you, like adverts on YouTube or in magazines, or speeches being made by politicians on TV. How effective are they? What makes them persuasive?
  
• In history, we're learning about Ancient Britain. Archaeologists have found a surprising amount of relics from the Stone Age and Bronze Age in our local area, and you can find examples in Hitchin museum. Go to their website at www.northhertsmuseum.org to find out more about visiting. 
• In geography, we will be learning all about France, so this would be a great opportunity for any family members who have visited the country to share their experiences. What did they see, do, eat and drink? How similar or different was it to the UK? Has anyone seen the Alps, visited the Louvre or been up the Eiffel Tower?  
• Investigate what magnets stick to - fridge magnets work fine, and you can investigate lots of different materials around the house. Try different metals and help your child discover that magnets only stick to some of them (mostly iron and steel).
• There’s some great advice on talking to children about online safety on the NSPCC website at www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/ We also use lots of resources from the UK Safer Internet Centre: saferinternet.org.uk/ 

Our latest news:

• On 27th February, we came to school in red, white and blue to celebrate USA Day and round-off this term’s geography topic. During the day we took part in three very different activities. First up, we were introduced to American Football, learning the names of key positions, practising a play and scoring a touchdown. For the second session, we made apple pies, slicing apples and rolling out pastry. Finally, we created American flags, choosing unusual tools to paint the stars and stripes. 
 

 
• We loved getting involved in this year’s Science Week. We particularly enjoyed the senses trail, trying to identify objects using just one of our senses. We also took part in the Knex Challenge, building model helicopters in pairs. During the week we also got to take part in a session with Teaching Talons, who introduced us to some of their amazing animals and built egg-drop contraptions which could safely carry an egg from the roof to the ground. 
 

 
• At the beginning of December, we went to our school trip to Hazard Alley. Through hands-on scenarios - like crossing roads, spotting fire risks, and learning about stranger danger - we discovered how to stay safe in everyday situations. The immersive environment gave us the chance to practise real-life skills in a fun and memorable way, boosting awareness and confidence. It was a day filled with teamwork, laughter, and valuable lessons that will stay with us long after the visit. 
 

 
• We were delighted to be joined by so many of our parents and carers for our Stay and Read event. We talked about the reasons why reading regularly at home is so important, explored some of the things we can do to make it an enjoyable experience and shared lots of our favourite books. A big thank you to everyone who made time to join us in class. 
 

We have been learning about... 

Art - In geography we have been learning about the USA, and linked to this we created clay models of famous American monuments. Some of us chose the Gateway Arch, whilst others chose the Statue of Liberty and a few of us went for rockets! The models were quite tricky to make, but we learnt a lot about how to shape and join clay.

Science - As part of our work on plants we carried out investigations to discover what they need to survive. We tried growing them in the dark, with no water or sealed in plastic bags (to give them no air). We recorded our observations carefully and used these to draw conclusions about the conditions needed for seeds to germinate and grow.

English - In English we have been reading a fantastic book called Leon and the Place Between. In the story, Leon wants to prove to his brothers that magic is real, so he volunteers to be in a magic show - and is transported to a mysterious, fantastical world. We used the same idea for our writing, with characters transported a new and exciting world after travelling through a strange portal. While writing, we focused on descriptive language and building suspense, as you can see in the examples below:

Lala was slowly walking around the peaceful woods. The woods were Lala’s favourite place to be. Lala said to herself, “Where should I go to now?” She went round the corner and found a surprise. A beautiful campfire was there! She saw tall, green and rough trees all around her. She also saw her friend running towards her. Suddenly, the tall, green, rough trees got even taller! Accidentally she tripped over and it really hurt. Before she could even catch her breath she was teleported to a magical world. “Where am I?” she asked herself...

By Frankie

“What game should I play?” asked Emily. She chose to play 99 Nights in the Forest and was making a good base to survive for 99 days, but then she got hungry and went to find food. Suddenly, she got teleported into her game because she played a bit too much. “Oh no, what am I going to do?” said Emily in shock. She thought she was stuck in the game forever, but there had to be a way out. “I can do this!” said Emily, feeling very brave...

By Stefi

This term's topics

English - Our next writing unit will see us creating our own adventure stories, using The Girl Who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook as our core text. We will use this fantastic story to inspire our own character and setting descriptions, developing our use of sentences of different length to vary rhythm and engage the reader. We will then explore the plot structure, identifying how the author has used lots of ‘rise and fall’ elements to make the adventure particularly exciting. Finally, we will use all of these skills to write adventure stories of our own. After that, we will try to squeeze in a quick poetry unit before the end of term, using Marshmallow Clouds by Ted Kooser as our core text.

Maths - We’ve got lots of topics to pack into the last few weeks of the year. First up is time, where we’ll be developing our understanding of 24 hour time, checking we can read analogue clocks accurately and developing our problem solving skills. After that it’s statistics, where we’ll revise our understanding of bar charts and then move on to reading and interpreting line graphs. Then it’s on to negative numbers, using the context of temperature to help us to understand that 0 isn’t always the lowest you can go… Finally, we’ll be returning to shape, identifying acute and obtuse angles, learning about different types of triangles and plotting coordinates. Along the way, we’ll also continue to practice tables facts every day.

Science - We will be exploring different types of forces, including pushes, pulls, gravity and friction, and thinking about the way that these affect the way that objects move in different situations. We will design and carry out fair tests to see which materials create the most friction, and to discover which materials stick to magnets. We will also investigate different ways in which we can measure forces.

Humanities - In history, we will continue to explore the technological changes that occurred across the Bronze and Iron Ages, which (slowly) changed ways of life and introduced new clothes, homes, weapons and jobs. All of this helped us to make the most of our trip to Celtic Harmony Camp in June, when we got to experience a taste of Iron Age life! In geography, meanwhile, we will be exploring France! We will begin by locating France on a variety of maps, atlases and globes, and will use this understanding to identify reasons why France is important to the UK. We will use maps, photos and videos to explore a range of environments and climate zones within the country, and will compare life in France with that in the UK.

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