It seems unbelievable that we have come to the end of our second week already. 

We started the week with our Art and Maths Day. Over two sessions, we learnt about the work of two Dutch artists: Mondrian and            MC Escher. Both artists use shapes in their artwork: Mondrian with his bold shapes in primary colours and MC Escher with his tessellated shapes. 

Mondrian used squares and rectangles and the primary colours in his most famous artwork. The children used numicom to complete pictures and to make their own pictures. 

MC Escher used tessellated shapes in his print work. The children printed using 2d shapes to create their own artwork. 

In our Drawing Club sessions, we continued our work on ‘Blue Penguin’ by Petr Horacek - looking at the setting and then using our imagination to think where the Blue Penguin might have travelled with the white whale. The North Pole to visit Santa proved to be a very popular destination. 

In PE, we have been practising our balancing skills and learning to use our arms and stomach muscles to help us as well as choosing a spot on the wall in front of us to focus on. 

In our lessons on Understanding the World, we have been learning where to find the Arctic and the Antarctic on maps. We have learnt that the word Arctic stems from the Greek word ‘arktos’ meaning bears because polar bears live in the north. Whereas, Antarctica, means ‘opposite the bears’ and is therefore in the south. We have been looking at the landscape of the polar regions and comparing them to our hometown in England. 

In PSHE this week, it has all been about persistence and perseverance. The children were set a challenge to balance blocks against each other and to keep going even when the blocks fell down or were accidentally knocked down.  Although most found it a very frustrating exercise, they all kept trying!