Dinosaur Creations 

As part of our Evolution and Inheritance topic, Purple Class have been finding out about how animals have evolved from creatures like the dinosaurs. To try and imagine what these extinct creatures looked like we created a life size dino foot print by combining cut outs of all of our feet and sticking them inside the actual size of Titanosaur foot print. As you can see it is so big we needed to put it above our display! 

For our DT part of the topic, we created dinosaur heads from recycled milk cartons. By cutting out the basic shape, we then applied kitchen roll to the carton which worked really well as the texture made it look like our heads had scales! Each child then worked really hard to mix colours to make the dinosaur look realistic after researching their distinct features. 

Making drinks with different ratios 

In maths, Purple Class have been learning about ratio and proportion and how they are useful in real life situations. We have been looking at recipes and how you can change the quantity you want to make of something by altering the ratio. 

To put our methods to the test, in groups we made a range of tropical drinks with different ratios and chose our favourite. Some groups realised the more lemonade a drink had, the less flavoursome it was so by changing the ratio of lemonade to fruit juice, their flavour improved. 

It was a very tasty and fun lesson and the children can't wait to try their recipes at home! 

Le petit déjeuner

Purple Class had a delicious start to their Monday morning this week by enjoying a french breakfast! The children tasted different traditional french breakfast items including croissants, baguettes, pan au chocolat and juices. I think you can tell they thoroughly enjoyed it!

Searching for eco-systems 

As part of our geography work on North America, Purple Class have been finding out about eco-systems. We have learned about swamp ecosystems in the United States of America and the important role each living thing has in an area. To compare the ecosystems found in America to those found in our local area, we ventured out into our playground, field and garden at school to see if we could discover some mini eco-systems. 

Sketch book cases

In design and technology lessons, Purple Class have been creating sketch book cases using a variety of techniques. It started with a design, the children were given a piece of cloth and fluorescent paints, using lots of water, colours were mixed and the cloth was painted. Once the basic design was done, the children then needed to paint a heavy layer of PVA glue onto the cloth, this would strengthen the material and make it more resistant to damage. During this process, photos and drawings were then added to the cloth and glued over to prevent them from peeling off the cloth. Finally, Purple Class had a go at sewing using a traditional sewing machine! The children were so excited to sew around their cases, create pockets and even sew buttons onto their cases. The end products look fantastic!

The end of our marvellous Mayan topic

The end of the Autumn term was also the end of our marvellous Mayan topic, we have discovered, designed, created and investigated lots of things from Mayan art, ancient ruins, battle masks and tasted delicious food. Here are some photos to show some of the amazing things we did during this topic. 

Chilli....in chocolate?  

Recently, Purple Class discovered the food of the ancient Maya diet and were quite surprised! We learned that 80% of the Mayan diet was maize (now more commonly known as corn) and that the Mayans believed the first people were made from maize dough. In fact it was SO important, they believed that when they were severely ill they needed to pray to the maize god and eat nothing but...you guessed it.. MAIZE! 
Also in the Mayan diet, well if you were rich anyway, there was chocolate. Unfortunately, not the chocolate we know today but a more bitter and spicier chocolate. The Mayans were the first people to develop chocolate and thoroughly enjoyed drinking hot chocolate too! However their chocolate consisted of lots of cacoa beans, chilli and other herbs and spices. Therefore to truly understand what it would have been like to eat like a Mayan, Purple Class tried some chilli chocolate, maize crackers and tortilla chips. All the children really enjoyed tasting the exotic foods and I think you can see from their faces, they were quite surprised by the chocolate! 

Let's play Pok-A-Tok! 

Purple Class have been learning about the ancient Mayan game Pok-A-Tok and decided it was time to try the game out for ourselves! 
In class we had learned that Pok-A-Tok was a game used to symbolise a battle between the gods which ends with a rather grim result. The purpose of the game was for each player to try to get a large, heavy ball into a small hoop placed on a large stone wall, without using their hands and feet. Each game would last hours (sometimes days!) and it was seen as a great honour to be chosen to play. The rulers of the city would watch from temples on opposite sides of the court - at Chichen Itza, the court still exists today! 

The children soon realised that the game, is more difficult than it seems. Some of them said it was really tricky to pass the ball to other members in your team, while others struggled to even keep hold of it! Pok-A-Tok made an exicting PE lesson and we can't wait to play it again! 

Discovering the Rainforest 

As our topic this term is the Mayans, Purple Class have been researching where the Mayans came from. We discovered that they originated from Central America and lived in the vast rainforests located there. We found out about all the different plants and animals that inhabitate the rainforests and the different levels they live in.

To show what we had learnt, the children created forest collages, showing the different levels and the types of plants you would see. As you can see, there were lots of different materials used to create the collage which help each aspect of the picture stand out. Once they were all finished they were used to make our AMAZING rainforest display! They look incredible!