During Spring 2, the Tiny Tigers have enjoyed learning about William Shakespeare and his play 'Much Ado About Nothing'. They were able to retell the story through drama. They have explored non-fiction books, especially recipe books and chose a recipe to cook.  The children have also written shopping lists and took them to the shops to buy ingredients. They have also written sentences about the trees they have planted and predicted what might happen as they grow. 

Busy Bees have also enjoyed an introduction to ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ this half term. They have written some fantastic diary entries and a character description too. The children then moved on to learning about farms. The children created some fantastic speech bubbles for the Farmer Duck and then made some Farmer Soup. After they made the soup, Busy Bees wrote some instructions using time words and conjunctions.

Last half term, Eager Elephants enjoyed reading Vlad and The Great Fire of London. They did lots of descriptions and used their senses when describing. The children also wrote diaries and stories related to The Great Fire of London.

In drama, the children enjoyed taking on fire-like characteristics to understand more about its movement. They also explored the many emotions felt by people affected by the fire and re-enacted the actions taken by people in London at the time of the fire. Year 2 have also been focusing on handwriting and ensuring that letter formation is correct and they have the correct spacing between words. 

Dazzling Dolphins also had a wonderful time immersing themselves in the work of William Shakespeare, particularly when learning lots about the characters, plot and the language that Shakespeare used. The children used Shakespearian insults to try and upset Mr Bartels, before writing a non-chronological report covering the main characters and their roles in the play. Year 3 also wrote diary accounts as if they were one of the love-struck characters.

After the school trip to Chester, the children wrote a letter of thanks to Brutus (the tour guide) thanking him for showing them the sites and teaching them the ways of the legionnaire.

Dazzling Dolphins have continued to read Escape from Pompeii, following the fate of Tranio and Livia who are fleeing the eruption of Mt Vesuvius.

Year 4 have also thoroughly enjoyed the whole school focus on Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. The children explored the characters of the play and began their learning by writing a character description, using lots of fantastic adjectives. They then wrote a newspaper report about the dramatic wedding between Hero and Claudio. They also enjoyed re-enacting the insult scene in the play, where the children formed a boy-vs-girl debate! This helped the children to write a wonderful play script using Shakespearean insults such as 'rotten orange!'

In a similar vein to the other classes, the children in Performing Pandas were enthused by a drama-rich topic of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and used this as inspiration to create some fantastic pieces of writing. By re-enacting the play, the children were able to write about the complex relationships between several of the characters and the importance this has in the conclusion of this Shakespearean comedy. The children also enjoyed inventing possible reasons why Benedick and Beatrice originally hated each other, and creating playscripts to allow them to act it out in a most hilarious way!
After this, the children have been perfecting their creative writing, using the video ‘Ride of Passage’ as an exciting stimulus. After extensive planning using synonyms, relative clauses and figurative language, the children stunned their teachers with some truly brilliant writing when retelling the story.

The Learning Leopards really enjoyed their Shakespearean learning too. They were inspired by the drama activities to produce some fantastic pieces of diary writing. Due to a number of children not being very happy with the true ending of the play, they decided to write their own alternative endings; they were quite gruesome! Following this, the children studied 'The Highwayman' poem. They enjoyed writing descriptions of the setting and the main character before retelling the story in their own words.