Living things
Curriculum 2015. Class 2 Year 3 & 4
Main Areas of Learning
Roll up your sleeves, get out your magnifying glass and let’s get investigating. This science based dimension focuses on finding
out about ‘living things’ and habitats. We will kick-start our learning by finding out about the seven life processes to ensure that
we know exactly how to identify ‘living things’, so there can be mistakes.
Ideas for home learning:
Children could have a small plot at home to grow
their own flowers or vegetables
For of interactive activities on plants, Google
Woodlands Junior Living Things
Design a habitat for a black footed ferret - an
interactive game http://www.arkive.org/education/games/designa-habitat
Create a log pile in your garden to provide a
habitat for insects and small animals
As biologists, we will identify the different parts of flowering plants and set up a range of investigations to find out about their
functions. We will explore the conditions affecting plant growth and find out about soil nutrients, fertilizers and crop rotation.
The Internet and books will be used to research how seeds are formed, dispersed and germinate. Learning about pollination will
lead us nicely into our next category of ‘living things’ - mini-beasts. The school pond and garden area will provide us with a
wealth of different species of mini-beast to study and enable us to think about habitats and food chains. We will also visit East
Shilvinghampton Farm to help consolidate our learning. A key question that we will be asking is ‘How do both natural and human
led changes in the environment affect living things and habitats?
For the final part of our learning about ‘living things’, we will be looking at animals and humans. Our raised bed will be planted
with vegetables and this will lead us into finding out about food groups and healthy balanced diets. There will be an opportunity
for us to use our design technology skills to create an make a healthy vegetable soup. We will consider the diet of animals and
answer the key question ‘do different animals have different diets?’ This will lead into a comparison between human and animal
digestive systems. We will also compare differences in teeth and skeletons.
Learning Blocks
Block 1- Plants
Bock 2 - Mini-beasts
What do plants need to grow? We will build
on Key Stage 1 learning to investigate this
key question by undertaking a range of
practical investigations. We find out about
soil nutrients and why farmers operate a
crop rotation system. We will look closely at
the functions of the different parts of a
plant and learn about plant life cycles.
Did you know there are 9 million different
living things on Earth! We will collect minibeasts from the school environment and
observe why the habitat is suitable for them.
We will explore the feed relationships (food
chains) between different living things in a
particular habitat. The management of some
different habitats will be researched.
Block 3 - Immersion
Walk to East Shilvinghampton Farm to look at
land usage and habitats
Observe and record plant and wildlife in the
local environment
Propagate seeds and tend to our class raised
bed
Design and make a healthy vegetable soup
Visit a local permaculture co-operate
Block 4-Animals and humans
Use online activities to identify different food
groups and design favourite healthy balanced
meal. Create a class model of the human digestive system. We will use mirrors and cameras
to look at own teeth and compare these with
pictures of animal teeth. Use egg shells to
undertake an investigation into decay.
Skills.
Areas of Learning.
Science
Essentials for Learning and Life
Spiritual and Moral
Using Literacy
Shape poetry - to write a class poem about where they
would go if they could fly like a bird
Persuasive writing - Are Zoos good or bad?
Children look at information to help them decide their
own opinion on this matter
Plays and dialogues - Create characters using description, stage directions and dialogue. Write and perform
2 playscripts: based on a proverb and on a Roald Dahl
chapter.
Children will be learning about the world’s
oldest existing religion - Hinduism. They
will develop a understanding of the Hindu
belief that there is one god with many
different aspects. They will then learn
about the River Ganges and why it is
significant for Hindus, but also start to
suggest whey non-Hindus might also want
to visit this river.
Using Numeracy
Enterprise
Measure plant growth accurately in millimetres and
centimetres
Measure liquids accurately in millilitres when watering
seedlings/plants during investigations
Calculate the area and perimeter of marked areas
when exploring mini-beasts
Use graphs and tables to display data collected during
science investigations
Weigh ingredients accurately for health soup recipe
Count accurately for classification activities
Children will make requests for parents to
‘lift and split’ plants from their garden
which can be potted on and nurtured to
produce stock for a plant stall at the School
Summer Fayre. Organising and manning
the stall will be an integral part of the
process. The children will also grow vegetables for sale in their raised bed.
PSHE
Computing
The children will be developing their knowledge of
‘networking’ and how the World Wide Web works. This
will involve producing a page, or series of pages, for
the school website. The children will be using Serif
Pageplus and Serif Webplus to complete this task.
The children will be embedding different media
material into their pages as they explore what works
best.
All through this process the class will be reminded of
how to stay safe online by protecting your personal
information.
We will continue to follow the JIGSAW
PSHE programme of study . The areas of
learning are:
Healthy Me
and
Changing Me
Ÿ identify and describe the functions of different flowering plants: roots, stem/trunk, leaves and flowers
Ÿ explore the requirements of plants for life and growth (air, light, water, nutrients from soil, and room
to grow) and how they vary from plant to plant
Ÿ investigate the way in which water is transported within plants
Ÿ explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination and seed
dispersal
Ÿ recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways
Ÿ explore the use of classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their
local and wider environment
Ÿ recognise that environments can change and that this can sometime pose dangers to living things.
Ÿ identify that animals, including humans, need the right type and amount of nutrition, and that they cannot make their own food;they get nutrition from what they eat
Ÿ identify that humans and some other animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and
movement
Ÿ describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans.
Ÿ identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions
Ÿ construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey
Art and Design/Design and Technology
Ÿ develop and communicate their design technology ideas through discussion and annotated sketches
Ÿ select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks
Ÿ evaluate their ideas and products against their own design criteria and consider the views of others to
improve their work
Ÿ understand and apply the principles of a healthy and varied diet
Ÿ prepare and cook a variety of predominantly savoury dishes using a range of cooking techniques
Ÿ understand seasonality, and know where and how a variety of ingredients are grown.
Languages
P.E.
The Catherine Cheater scheme of work will be
used to promote language learning strategies. The
children will learn some basic French vocabulary,
which they can use to develop simple sentence
building.
This unit of work will aim to develop competence to
excel in a broad range of physical activities. Athletics will become a major focus as we move towards
Sports week in early July.