Examples of our work in Redwood
Children's Mental Health Week
As part of Children's Mental Health Week, Redwood researched ways in which we can help to look after our mental health. We learnt that, a little like eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables each day helps to maintain our physical health, doing 5 key things each day can help to keep our minds healthy. We made posters to show what we had discovered.
Gymnastics
In gymnastics, we focused on balance. We worked with a partner to create paired routines that included contrasting and unison moves at different heights.
Copy of IMG_0176.MOVCopy of IMG_0170.MOVHistory: Anglo-Saxons
We used digital mapping and Anglo-Saxon place names to investigate where they lived. Did they live in our area? ... Yes! We discovered that there are many places near us with Anglo-Saxon origins: Fulford, Osbaldwick, Huntington, Hambleton, Newton-on-Ouse, Tollerton Linton-on-Ouse!
NSPCC Numbers Day
As part of our day of mathematics, Redwood looked at the Fibonacci sequence. We drew Fibonacci squares, added spirals and then created works of art from them.
Art: Bansky
As part of our topic on Powerful Parliament, we looked at art as a form of political comment in a study of Banksy. We focused on examples of his work and then Year 5 investigated stencilling and developed their own stencils.
Carbon Zero Project
We are part of the Green Schools Carbon Zero project. This means that we spend one lesson each week learning about the impact that our choices can have on the planet and considering ways in which we could have a positive effect. We attempted to illustrate this in a piece of artwork.
Design Technology: Christmas Decorations
We investigated Christmas decorations and then designed our own before creating them from felt, and decorating them with a variety of stitches and embellishments.
Service Children Champion Art
Angela Campbell, Service Children's Champion, visited our school with a wonderful art workshop. We created mandala-style poppies which will be displayed in Ripon Cathedral as part of the North Yorkshire Festival of Remembrance in November. We worked really thoughtfully and precisely; the finished designs look really effective.
Cooking: American Adventure
As part of our American Adventure topic, we developed a recipe inspired by a popular dish in Mexico. Mrs Kirby came into school to help us prepare and then cook chicken and vegetables and we served them in tortilla wraps. Sabrosa!
Frida Kahlo Inspired ArtworkÂ
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist famous for her self-portraits. She often placed herself in fantasy backgrounds. We created our own self-portraits, considering our expressions and placing ourselves in a fantasy background that reflects the things that make us who we are.
Art: Ancient Mayan Steala
We looked at examples of stela as part of our ancient Maya topic. We made our own (scaled-down) versions of them and used them as the basis for our story writing.
UK Parliament Week Election
As part of UK Parliament Week, we held an election! The pupils in Redwood created four political parties and then each party chose policies to become their manifesto. We elected parliamentary candidates and created campaign speeches and posters to explain our ideas. We held a hustings meeting with the rest of the school to present our policies. We then opened our polling station; gave each voter a ballot paper to mark and add to the ballot box; counted the votes; and listened as our returning officer declared the winning candidate.
Astro Pi Project
As part of Science week, we completed a KS2 Astro Pi project. We worked in groups with members of Willow class to design an image to be sent to the ISS (International Space Station). We researched where the countries involved in the ISS were in atlases, learnt how to code different colours using RGB, designed nature themed images on a bitmap and then used code to create the image to be displayed on an Astro Pi. These images will be sent to the astronauts on the ISS!
Remembrance Poetry
We studied a poem called Growing Pains by Sylvia Kantaris. It was based on a portrait of a young girl and the poet had written as if she was the subject of the painting; she had really captured her possible feelings. We began our work in the same way: studying portraits of WW1 soldiers and considering how we thought they were feeling and what they might have been thinking. We used historical sources to learn more about what life might have been like in the trenches and then finally wrote our own poems, using the structure from Growing Pains.
DT: Bridges
After researching different types of bridges, we worked in small groups to create miniature truss bridges. Once we had built them, we tested them and they were able to support 4kg!
Science investigation: Thermal Insulators
We learnt about different materials' properties and how they influence the choice of materials for specific purposes. We carried out an investigation to see which material would be most effective as a thermal insulator to prevent a snowman from melting. We had to consider how to ensure that our test was fair and make accurate readings of temperature with thermometers.Â
DT: Cottage Pie
As part of our focus on British Food Fortnight, we developed a recipe for a healthy, British dish in our DT lessons. We added carrots and peas to a traditional cottage pie recipe and ensured that the ingredients were produced in Britain.
Mrs Kirby came into school (thank you, Mrs Kirby!) to help us cook a standard beef cottage pie, a low-fat version and a vegetarian, bean-based pie. Our favourite part was tasting them; nothing was left! Many people preferred the low-fat version.
We compared our cottage pies with commercially available alternatives and discovered that ours were cheaper and lower in salt and fat.
Science investigation: Levers
We carried out an investigation to see whether the length of a lever affected the weight that it could lift. We discovered that the longer the lever, the more weight could be lifted.
The Wizarding World
We looked at the book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and then created our own wizarding world beast and created a new page for the book, complete with illustrations.
Eye Artwork
We studied eyes as part of our artwork. We looked at eyes by famous artists and produced our own using a range of media: acrylic paint, sketching pencils, pastels and clay.
Computing: Python
We used the program python to create some Islamic tile inspired repeated patterns.
History: The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons
We read the story of Beowulf's fight against Grendel during our study of Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. We imagined what it would have been like to witness the battle and wrote newspaper reports about it.
Here are a few examples of our finished writing.
The Lost Words
We used the book, The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris as inspiration for our own poetry and art. We sent some examples of our work to the author and the illustrator and received replies from them both!
The author told us that our writing 'put a broad smile' on his face and that they were 'beautiful things; combining imagination and observation'.
The illustrator described our art as 'very beautiful'.
