A Wonderful Week!

 

We have had a fantastic week, with two trips! We are truly becoming experts on World War 1 in Year 5!

On Wednesday, we visited the Remembering 1916 exhibition at Whitgift School in Croydon. We had a brilliant day and learned so much.

On Thursday, we started to put together our presentations about particular artefacts that we saw. We even had the opportunity to handle some of the objects- and try on some helmets!

On Thursday afternoon, we edited and completed our WW1 Silent Movies. They are all ready for their grand unveiling at the World Premiere next Friday morning at 9am.

Today, Year 5 visited the Imperial War Museum. We now know so much about World War One, we could each write our own book!

Next week is another busy week. On Wednesday, we will visit the LifeBus at church (11- 12:30 if any parents could help to walk us over the road) and on Thursday, we will be visiting Dulwich Picture Gallery for a fantastic WW1-themed art workshop. On Friday, it's our class assembly! The world premiere of 'Silly Soldiers', 'The Useless Soldiers', 'Catch That Rat!' and 'The Clown Soldier'.

An Invitation and a Sneak Preview!

On Friday 9th December, you are invited to the world premiere of four wonderful silent movies, filmed in 1919 by the St. Clare's Film Company and inspired by World War One.

Here, we can see a few sneak preview shots of the filming in process. We do hope you will be able to join us at 9am for this special event!

P4C

Source: The Imperial War Museum

This week's P4C sparked another wonderful discussion. Our stimulus this week was a painting; The Menin Road, by Paul Nash. After playing some games, we looked closely at the painting before coming up with some questions to discuss.

The questions that each group put forward were:

1. Can people still have happiness in their lives during wartime?
2. What did war do to mankind?
3. Was the war as dreadful as it seems?
4. Should women have been allowed to fight in World War One?


We voted for question 4: 'Should women have been allowed to fight in World War One?' It was a fantastic discussion and led to many ideas being raised about gender, strength and equality. Well done, everyone!

Wonderful WW1 Work!

We have been working so hard in St. Clare's this half term to become experts on World War One. Here are just a few examples of some of the amazing work that has been produced in the last few weeks. Well done everyone!

These propaganda posters are inspired by the sinking of the Lusitania on 7th May 1915. Once we had learned about the Lusitania, we looked at some real propaganda posters inspired by the disaster, then created some of our own.

Remembrance

Source: Chris Holley

On Friday, we remembered all those who had died or been affected by war. This year, the Royal British Legion wanted us to remember not only those who died in World Wars One and Two, but also those affected by wars since then and even today.

We had a special service at 10:45am, ending with a two minute silence and reflection at 11:00am. Can you remember why we hold our silence at exactly 11:00?

In the week before the service, we made poppy artwork and a wreath to offer in memory of the victims of war. Children from every class offered their wreath during the service. It was very special, moving and sombre.

World War One

Take a look at some of the beautiful artwork on these front covers. I can see that a huge amount of effort went into creating these fantastic covers- which will make anyone that picks up your project excited to read on!

In this week of Remembrance, we have been working hard learning more about The Great War. Yesterday, we looked in detail at Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est'. We analysed the techniques he used and then illustrated some of the lines to show what we understood them to mean.

Today, inspired by Wilfred Owen, we wrote a beautiful poem of remembrance as a class:

Your War, Our Fight

We were the living, we are the dead,

Below the crosses our bodies lie,

Upon the blood-red poppies, dropped shells from above,

In our dreams, they still reach for us.

Watching our brothers die, we struggled on,

Drowning for your freedom,

We thought we would be heroes and yet we perished,

Now we lie beneath the mud, on which we fought your war.

We loved, but love no more,

Families weep receiving tragic telegrams,

Those who loved us; love us more.

The poppies grow above our hearts, which hold the Lie they told us,

Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.

By, St. Clare’s Class

Thursday 10^th November 2016

World War One

This week, we started our new topic: World War One. We have found out about the long-term and short-term causes of the Great War and we wrote newspaper articles about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

We also enjoyed starting our new class book; 'The Silver Donkey'. We have read the first four chapters and everyone has written some marvellous description, letters and predictions this week. Well done!

We enjoyed imagining what the characters might say at one point in the story- after a very unusual discovery...

Take a look at these questions we wanted to ask the soldier, and some of our fantastic fronted adverbials. Remember to click on the pictures to make them larger and easier to read:

Next week, we'll be focusing on Remembrance, as we know that Friday is the 11th November; Remembrance Day. In preparation, we made these beautiful pieces of Remembrance art in our house teams, then combined them to make one striking piece to show the damaged battlefields and the poppies growing amongst the devastation: