We have had a fantastic week in 5A this week! The children have been building up our toolkit for writing explanation texts as they work towards their goal of creating their own about how animals survive in the harsh conditions of the poles.

In order to help us gain a bit more insight into what life is like there we had the opportunity to talk to someone who has made several scientific expeditions to the Arctic! The children were all fascinated to learn about the amount of equipment required in order to survive the trip, and everything someone would need to do in order to survive those conditions. Our visiting explorer was kind enough to pass around some of his equipment for everyone to see first hand, and the children all enjoyed trying on the big thick boots and coat. Harris was even lucky enough to be pulled across the classroom in a sled!

We are well underway in 5A in our current topic ‘Pole to Pole’ this half term and starting to understand more about what life is like in the Arctic and Antarctica. We have previously cast ourselves back to 1914 when Ernest Shackleton set sail on his pioneering expedition. This week, we have looked to the present day and found out what life is like at McMurdo research station in Antarctica. The children were all very interested to find out how people lived there and that, despite the harsh conditions present, there were similarities to how we live back in Leeds.

During science we began to look beyond our planet and out into our solar system. We went on to the playground and used fruit to show the relative positions of each of the planets and the sun and their distance from each other. This helped to improve our perception of the scale of the solar system, and the relative size difference between each of the planets within it.