International Week

Grade 4 had a fabulous time during their spring theme week. The theme was ‘International Week’ and each grade learnt about the culture of the country where their teacher is from. That resulted in the Grade 4s learning how to Irish dance, play Gaelic football, speak the Irish language (Gaeilge) and sing traditional Irish folk songs!

We have discovered a new sport...and it’s very old!

This term Grade 4 became the first group in Castelli to learn how to play gaelic football.
This is a new addition to the P.E. curriculum and it has proven extremely popular. This wonderful game, which is of ancient Irish origins, is quite technical to play, but our Grade 4 pupils were well up to the challenge!

Science and Food Studies

One of our projects this term has been on plants. In Food studies, with Ms. Ciara, the children had to dissect a mandarin and see how many seeds they could find. In our science lesson, we decided to plant the seeds and see if they would grow. (No sign yet)

Inquiry into Toys

Making and playing games from Ancient Egyptian Times to English Victorian Times

We studied games and toys from the past and learnt about the conditions for children that allowed some to play, but that prevented others from doing likewise. We also got a chance to look at this topic in terms of the recent past as we brought toys to school that had been handed down through our families and shared the stories associated with them.

Art Work

Monster Masks

What better time to cover up our faces than during Covid19?

The loudest response when we popped up at Grade One’s window was “What’s that?!

Pop Art

We studied the American artist, Andy Warhole

Build like an Egyptian!

We had so much fun learning about the Egyptians this term.

We were busy building pyramids and shadufs, whilst also investigating all the gruesome details about the mummification process! 

For that activity, we researched exactly how they did this and the tools they used. We then transposed that information into a modern context, in which we created our own supermarket mummification product boxes, which contained instructions about how to use the tools and materials inside to mummify a body.


In art with Ms. Ciara pupils admired the sarcophagi of important Pharaohs and marveled at the scarab beetle and how it was revered by ancient Egyptians.

Personal History

 In History we have been looking at when we were babies – what we couldn’t do then and what we can do now. The children had to bring in a baby photograph, fill out a questionnaire and show and tell their classmates about the special toy that they had brought in.


Here is a variety of photos from that project that was taken over a 3 week period.

The Ancient Italics and Etruscans

Building Websites (History, I.C.T., English and Italian)

In order to study these ancient civilisations, we decided to make individual websites. Grade 5 wrote in English, but then they had to present to Ms Roberta in Italian. She was most impressed! The websites are only viewable with school accounts unfortunately, but you can see some of screen shots of the fantastic landing pages . 

Keystone Arches

Making models of Keystone Arches (History, Design and Technology, Art)

We studied the theory in history while we were looking at the Etruscans and then, with the help of DAS, we built our arches. Now the class are all budding architects – not sure if I’d feel happy standing underneath any of their arches though!

Sugar Crystals Experiment

We discussed the importance of water and air and then made our sugar crystals!