AUTUMN TERM 1- Pharaohs

In this topic we will learn about life 5000 years ago, back in ancient Egypt. We will take an imaginary cruise along the Nile, to enter a world full of mysteries, mummies and kings!

On our journey, we will learn about life along the fertile riverbank and discover fascinating facts about ancient Egyptian culture.

We will become archaeologists to help unravel the secrets of ancient tombs, using historical sources and artefacts to find out about the powerful pharaohs and gods.

Finally we will become apprentices of the chief embalmer, learning how to prepare a body for its journey to the afterlife. 

Geography

To start our Pharaohs topic off we have spent the afternoon looking at where Egypt is in the world and drawing maps of surrounding countries, seas, and oceans. We the looked deeper to add significant places and landmarks in Egypt.

Please see some of our hard work below.

Art 16.9.19

This week we have been improving our drawing skills by learning different ways to create texture and 3D effects using a variety of pencils. We learned that B pencils are soft and give darker lines and that H pencils are harder and produce lighter, thinner ones. 

We watched a clip of an artist explaining how he creates 3D effects by hatching, then tried out some of these effects on a sample sheet, before sketching some of the fascinating objects that were discovered in King Tutankhamun's tomb.

English 18.9.19

In English this week we have been planning our own independent recounts about the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, by Howard Carter in 1922. We learned that Carter's water boy accidentally found a buried step that led to the king's final resting place. 

We have tried to use a good variety of time conjunctions to list all of the key events chronologically.

English 25.9.19 Treasure- Narrative

This week we have been looking at writing narratives with good description. We have learned lots about different types of adverbs and have looked at how to accurately punctuate expanded noun phrases (sentences which include more than one adjective to describe the noun). 

Below is an example of the work we have produced.

History 1.10.19

Today Pine Class worked in groups to find out fascinating facts about the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs.

Each table was given the name of a pharaoh to research and then feedback to the rest of the class the most interesting facts found.

We learned:

• some pharaohs had more then 200 wives
• the last pharaoh was Cleopatra VII
• many pharaohs married other family members
• some of the pharaohs came to a sticky end!

Science / DT

Making catapults 

Today in class we made catapults from lolly sticks and elastic bands. Then we used our knowledge of levers, which we have been learning about in Science to try and find the best ways of propelling a piece of rolled up paper forwards and upwards. 

Ideas:

• Some of us created longer levers
• Some turned the fulcrum (pivot) beam in order to make it higher
• Some added strength to the existing lever so it didn't bend so much
• Some fired from in front of the paper missile
• While others moved the missile forwards on the lever, in order that they could fire from right at the end

However, we all agreed in the end that moving the fulcrum to be as far away from the load (missile) has the greatest effect.

DT/Art and design 14.10.19

As part of our Innovate week we are learning more about the rituals that surrounded the death of a Pharaoh. In Guided reading we learned more about Canopic jars that were used to store some of the person's internal organs for the journey to the afterlife.

After our research we learned how to create and smooth coil pots, in order to make our own. We them used skills learned previously to make thumb pot lids and designed heads to resemble, human, baboon, falcon or jackal heads.

Please see our slideshow below to watch our progress!