Welcome to Rabbit class! Our teacher is Mrs Wren, who has been teaching at Bedwell for two years. She is really good at music and English, and wants to make her lessons fun, interactive and memorable.  

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest class newsletter
• Meet our School Councillors, Lacey and Alex

Home learning ideas:

• We’re working on tables facts 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.
 

 
• 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. 
 

 
• Earlier in the year we visited Celtic Harmony Camp in Hertford to support our history topic, which has focussed on life in Ancient Britain. We spent the day travelling from the Stone Age to the Iron Age by completing a series of workshops associated with each period. After an engaging introduction by Finbar (our guide through history) we learnt about Stone Age tools with a demonstration of flint knapping. We then tried this technique ourselves, using it to craft an arrow head. Next up we delved into the Bronze age, learning how they made pottery and crafting our own pot. Finally we moved into the Iron Age, where we milled our own flour and made bread. Before we left we were invited into the Chieftain's round house for Celtic story telling. Finbar was on fine form and even if we had no idea what was going on in some of the stories, we fell about laughing at his crazy antics before heading home!
 

 
• 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!

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 English, we started the year exploring a gorgeous story called Mini-Rabbit: Not Lost. We loved reading and exploring this adventure, and were inspired to create our own Mini-Rabbit story for an older audience. After that, we explored freestyle poetry and let our imaginations run wild as to what we would cherish in our magic box. To finish the term we have created our own fables with a moral based on our own experiences and explored jobs which you may not have heard of!

Setting description - by Rubi

for a fable In a peaceful, quiet forest the windy, cool fresh air rushed past. The golden, orange blossom leaves started to fall since it was Autumn. Can you hear the loving songs of the birds and the smell of the sweet, bitter air wisping around my nose?

Character introduction - by Daniel

Kevin’s tree fell. The wind rushed past him, he was sweating in his fur. His whiskers were trembling, and he tried to scream but just a breath came out. When he opened his eyes, he wanted to shut them, his heart was beating as fast as lightning.

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.