Our story began early one morning in one of the dormitories in Morda workhouse......The sunlight came through the window, which meant that the children had woken up too late for breakfast! How could this have happened? How were they going to sneak into the dinner hall without being spotted? This could be awful....what punishment would we get?  

Oh no is this the master of the workhouse! We must stay quiet...we can't get caught....! Phew, we made it to the dining hall without getting caught. But, who will be the first to go up to the cook to get their gruel?

While we were eating our gruel, the master of the workhouse appeared. We were so scared that he knew we were late for breakfast. Then we noticed one of the children going up to the master....what was he doing? What was he thinking? He can't be asking for more gruel?! Oh no he is! The master was not impressed and he asked his wife what punishment they should get. She said he was to have no bread and cheese for the rest of the week!

Once we had eaten our gruel, it was time to go to the workhouse classroom, where our teacher Elizabeth Hughes was waiting for us. As we walked in, we stood by our tables, then said the Lords prayer. It was arithmetic today, some of the children didn't answer their question quick enough and was made to stand up. At least their punishment wasn't too bad!

We are studying the work of Georgia O'Keeffe. To practice using sketching pencils, we looked in detail at some flowers and made some observational drawings. 

We looked at a diary of someone who would have lived and worked in the workhouse. We looked at the language and features of a diary.

We listened to Elizabeth read from her diary. It was an awful day in the workhouse, how could she make this better.....

We watched a short clip from the film Oliver Twist, we re-enacted what we thought it might have been like as a child, working in Victorian workhouses. 
'We would have been tired and hungry'
'Our feet would have hurt'
'We would have felt sad and unhappy'
'Our bodies would have ached all over'
'The dust would have made us feel poorly'
Here we are working the large mill....

Not far from the workhouse, was Morda Primary school. We discovered this photograph of  children standing outside of the school in Victorian times. We recreated the photograph. It took us a while to work out where the photograph was taken, as the school has changed so much! We wondered what school was like in Victorian times......

How do we know how far back in history Queen Victoria reigned? We used our timeline in class, to look at different historical events and compared them, such as when we were born, to when The Beatles released their first song. We then looked at English monarchs throughout history and  put them in order, which helped us to work out how long ago Queen Victoria reigned. 

We then made our own timelines.

As part of our role as expert historians, we will be writing some non-fiction. We looked at non-fiction text and identified some of the features.

We hope that you have had a wonderful Easter break and eaten lot's of chocolate!
This half term we will be busy learning about Victorian Morda, especially the workhouse. If you have any pictures or artefacts that would help our learning, we would love to see it! Our Mantle of the Expert drama takes us back over 100 years to Morda workhouse, where we meet some of the people who worked there and hear their stories.
Science - This half term we will be looking at plants, what they need to grow and labelling parts of a plant.
History - We will be looking at Victorian Morda and what life was like in the workhouse.
Computing - We will be continuing to develop our skills in programming and inputting data.
Art - This half term we will be linking our art with our science, and using the work of Georgia O'Keeffe for inspiration to create our own paintings of flowers.
Forest school - Forest school will be every other Tuesday afternoon. Please bring suitable kit - water proof coat and trousers, warm trousers and top. No denim, as this can be uncomfortable when it gets wet. 
​PE - PE will be every other Tuesday and Thursday. Please check weekly reminders.
Please remember, water is always the best! It keeps brains hydrated and focused, we recommend that children bring only water to school with them. 

To begin our story, we looked at a picture of some hands. They were hands that had seen some good things and some not so good. 'I wonder what this person says about them?'  
'Their life was hard.'
'They are old.'
'It looks like they are dirty'
'They must have worked hard.'
'They are wrinkly.'

We looked at a photograph of a woman. We wanted to know more.....
​As a team of historians, we decided to meet her and ask her questions.

The expert team of historians got straight to work on making notes and finding out more about the person in the picture.

From Australia to Wales and Egypt. Celebrating everything that is unique and different about us! We talked about the country which is significant or special to us and found out lot's of information about it too.

The children in Daffodil enjoyed exploring faith of Islam. We recapped our previous knowledge, Coen could talk about going into a Mosque; how Muslims wash their feet before they go in, that the men wear skull caps and how the men and women are separated. We then looked at the Five Pillars of Islam and talked about them being like rules on how to live. The children then created some beautiful posters sharing their knowledge for others to see. A perfect activity for International Day!