Spring Term Destination: Outer Space

Our Topic this term is:

Destination: Outer Space

We have enjoyed researching our Space topic; our planetary knowledge has influenced our English poetry, Art projects, dance movements in P.E. and our programming in Computing.

Science

We completed a mind map detailing everything we already knew about Earth & Space, which was quite limited to begin with!

We investigated the different theories concerning the shape of the Earth - was it flat or spherical?

Then, we did an experiment with a pencil and a glass of water to discover that not all we see is real. This helped us understand how the Earth may look flat but is actually spherical.

Next, we learned about the relative sizes of the Earth, Sun and Moon.

We researched why we have day & night and in doing so, we learned about our yearly calendar and why we have seasons.

We have also looked at Time Zones across the globe and can now explain why night and day take place at different times in different places on Earth.

As a class, we gathered many facts about the moon, which helped us to understand the different phases of the moon & why we sometimes only see part of the moon's surface.

We have begun to investigate the other planets in our Solar System to see how they compare to Earth.

English

Having learnt many facts about all the planets in our Solar System, we discussed and shared ideas before collaboratively creating emotive phrases about each of the planets, resulting in some stimulating poetry.

Art

We have designed & created our own planet, which will become part of our class heliocentric system.

P.E.

In P.E., we have been creating a dance based on all the planets in our Solar system, including our moon and Sun. We spent this half-term working in pairs & groups to capture the essence of each planet & display it in the form of dance. At the end of the term, we performed our dance to the rest of the school and our parents.

Computing

We have been programming simulations of the moon orbiting Earth and the Earth orbiting the Sun. We also composed some music, influenced by Space, to accompany our simulations.

Moon & Earth Simulation by Freya