Aztec Class

Module 6

From farm (or, garden) to fork! Aztec students have made the most of the beautiful Module 6 weather to get outside. Here you can see them tending to their planting bed, and harvesting peas to make a special salad. 

As part of our learning about other cultures, religions and people, Aztec Class are going to visit the Gravesend Gurdwara. We have been learning about rituals and respect, including washing our hands and feet before we go into the Gurdwara. 

Water has a place of importance in the Sikh religion. We wash our hands and feet as a way of showing respect to sacred spaces, but we also use water to make art and to connect with the world around us. 

Aztec Class makes regular visits to the New Ash Green Library. We love looking at new books, hearing stories, and learning about the community around us.

Module 5

This week, many of our students in Aztec enjoyed the three day residential. Students and staff in school had the great responsibility of maintain the Horticultural area. We engaged in a variety of activities to support our curriculum learning, our motor skills and our wellbeing. Students particularly enjoyed harvesting sweetpeas, weeding and watering the crops. 

On Thursday the whole class were back together to share and celebrate the fun and learning of the start of the week. We also spent the day celebrating Wesak, a Buddhist celebration about the life of Buddha that takes place across the world this week. We made Sri Lankan filled breads, learnt about Sri Lanka from one of our wonderful TAs- the students loved asking questions about the country and culture. We use team problem solving and communication skills to build and decorate our own Buddhist temple, which brought the whole class joy. 

We finished the week by exploring the impact of ice melting by trying to find creative ways to melt balls of ice with objects inside. We explore how the water level in the tough tray rises and the ice melts and we acted out the rain cycle. 

It has been another wonderful week of learning in Aztec Class! We have celebrated VE day by watching videos about the istory of the day and discussing the importance of the 80th Anniversary. Students decorated a Union Jack flag and then had to inquire how to make their own flag handle from whatever materials they could find. These were then tested by a walking whilst flag waving on the school field. We have great problem solvers in Aztec Class! 

We have also been looking at how healthy and unhealthy food has an impact our brain and how we can make good food choices to help our energy and mental health. A nice healthy walk to the local library was enjoyed by all again this week and we chose new library books to enjoy. Finally, we learned how to make our very own bread rolls, understanding that this takes lots of time, hard work and patience. The end result was delicious! 

This week, we have been exploring the difference between our class and children in developing countries; we have looked at where they live, their schools and the games they play. The class had lots of interesting questions that we are going to explore over this half term.  We also learnt how to play a game called, 'Mancala' to learn about using natural resources to have fun.  We studied a poem called, 'Blessing; to explore  how some countries do not have access to water in the same way. We had our second community visit to the library and we were able to read in the beautiful little garden. We made healthy hummus and tried it with chopped carrots, cucumber and breadsticks. Finally, we have explored the moon phases and how the moon is symbolic to the Islamic religion and made beautiful moon art. 

Such a wonderful first week for Module 5! This week, Aztec have begun our community visits to the local library. All students enjoyed exploring the shelves full of books and can't wait to visit again next week.  With the lovely weather at the start of the week, we went outside to recall our Maths skills- length- from last module by making a flying paper aeroplanes. We have taken time this week to reflect on ourselves and each student drew a portrait and told the class something they loved about their own picture. Finally, we made individual smoothie recipes and reviewed ours and our another class members creations. Delicious learning, Aztec! 

World Book Week- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

What a fantastic week Aztec have had, imersing ourselves in all things chocolate! In Maths, we looked at creating our own poppit chocolate bars whilst showcasing our halves and quarters fractgion knowledge. As the weather was glorious, we decided to enjoy learning outside. We designed our own chocolate bars and their wrappers; we drew designs first and then wrote key words and sentences to explain our creations. Roman class joined us for some outdoor creativity and it was lovely to all be together. We made hats for the hat parade on Friday and had a wonderful time parading with the rest of Phase 3. 

We have been continuing with our engaging novel, 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', and have met new characters- the Beavers! We have been looking at the foods we eat to decide how much healthy food is in our diet by creating our personal shopping lists. Fractions is the focus topic for this half term in Maths and we have been looking at halves and quarters; we finished the week by making pizzas and cutting them  into halves and then quarters before eating our yummy hard work! As the sun is starting to appear, we have planted many different types of seeds (salad leaves, spinach, tomatoes and courgettes)  to explore farming and will be using these in our cooking lessons once we have some fresh produce to harvest over the coming months. A wonderful first week back, Aztec! 

In our final week of half term, we have celebrated Chinese New year and thoroughly enjoyed our Inquiry day. We made cupcakes and decorated them in red and yellow to represent the key colours of the celebrations.  We learnt about the year of the snake and made rattle drums to join in the afternoon celebrations. 

Aztec class' Maths focus this week has been division; we have been looking at sharing to link to dividing between 2, 3 and 4. For measuring this week, we have looked at measuring in cm- our focus was to discover how many different size blocks were needed to create the same length as a 30cm ruler. In citizenship we looked what motivates us. Students explore what they like and what motivates them to achieve their goals in these areas.  We made chocolate covered snow balls in cooking to continue our Narnia theme. They were delicious! 

This week we have been using manipulatives and music in Maths; we have been looking at grouping to work on our 2, 5 and 10 timetables. For measuring this week, we measured each student (and the teacher) to compare our heights on a large chart. Cooking continued withour Narnia theme into cooking this week and made white chocolate rice krispie sculpture to match the setting of, 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We also looked in more detail at the character of the White Witch and how she takes away the individual liberty of the characters in Narnia. We also looked at the adjectives used to describe the witch to draw our own image of her from the character description. 

This week we have continued exploring our class book, 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. We have reflected on the feelings of one of the key characters, Mr Tumnus, and how he is suffering in the novel. We have linked this learning to our History topic of the Slave Trade and explored how oppression makes people feel.   During this lesson we discussed what the slave trade was and also played limbo to celebrate the African culture. We then all sat under the desks whilst listening to a poem called, 'limbo' about slaves travelling to America on the boats so we could develop our understanding of the cramped and uncomfortable conditions they would have faced. We made individual freedom Art to represent what freedom means to ourselves.

Aztec class have been very busy this week- we have been partying with multiplication in Maths; diary writing in English and discussing the impact of choices in RE. 

We have made choices to exercise our bodies in our movement breaks using yoga- great poses Aztec! We read the second chapter of, 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and wrote a diary entry about what Lucy did there and how she felt. We also continued Mr Tumnus' hospitality of afternoon tea and made scones- Aztec were risk takers when trying the scones with jam as it was something new. Finally, we discussed the feelings of trying something new in our PSPD lesson and all enjoyed a game of either straw blowing football or building the tallest tower out of bricks. Great learning Aztec! 

What a fantastic first week back for Aztec class! We have started our new transdisciplinary theme, 'Where we are in place and time.' 

Students have thoroughly enjoyed beginning our story for this module, 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. So far, we have explore Chapter 1 and explored the setting of Narnia through writing, drawing and creating a whole class module of 'what Lucy saw through the wardrobe' out of salt dough- great team effort, Aztec! 

We have also started this year with a healthy attitude by incorporating cosmic kids yoga and Joe Wicks workouts into our day. 

Module 2

Our last swimming lesson outing was absoliutely fantastic with the added fun of visiting McDonalds! All the students were a credit to themselves, their families and the school. They individually ordered and paid for their own food and all sat together and enjoyed their meal. The Aztec team were incredibly proud of how they represented Milestone out in the wider community. 

The Christmas market was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who could attend. It was wonderful to see how proud Aztec students were of themselves and seeing how their hard work preparing for the market had paid off!

The Aztec Team wish you all a very enjoyable and restful Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Christmas enterprise preparations have continued this week. The door has been completed- the students worked incredibly hard on all areas of creating this door and worked amazingly as a team! Also, we have been making products to sell which include pinecone table centre pieces and wreaths. The students have learnt the skill of using wire to twist the pine cones together along a piece of wire and then shaping in a circle- they all embraced this new skills and had a fun time. 

Rosa Parks

Aztec have explore the extraordinary bravery of Rosa Parks this week. Listening to her amazing journey to find her place in the world for herself and the civil rights of all African-American people. 

We have also started our Christmas enterprise work for the Phase 3 Christmas Fair on the 18th December.  This week we have collectively created our Christmas door and also practised baking for the sale. 

Maya Angelou 

Maya Angelou was the focus for this week. We used colourful semantics to create sentences about her life and work. Music bumps Maths was great fin this week with the focus on subtracting those who remained standing from the class total. We cooked fairy cakes with chocolate chips and even had a Master Chef style cupcake decorating class! We thoroughly enjoyed selecting books to enjoy for our weekly library lesson. 

Ella Fitzgerald

This week, Aztec explored the history of Ella Fitzgerald by researching on Chromebooks and class discussion.  We looked at her life and then her musical career. The focus for Art was  jazz band themed pop art. We also made American sugar cookies, which the students thoroughly enjoyed making.  We also took Maths to the playground this week with some fun subtraction games. 

Josephine Baker

During week 2, we have been learning about Josephine Baker and her journey to find her place in the entertainment industry as the first African-American woman to be in a film! The class have explore how she moved from America to France to achieve her dreams and how she advocated for civil rights of Black people in America. In PSPD we created happiness card to explore how being kind to others can make ourselves feel happy. As it is Children in Need this week, our pop art lesson has taken a Pudsey Bear theme and the class enjoyed using tissue paper as their material to be creative with this week. 

American in the 20th Century- People and their place in this world- Amelia Earhart

In Module 2 we are now focusing on one country and one century: American in the 20th Century. We are exploring individuals who made a difference and found their own place in the world. 

This week we looked at the first female pilot who found her place in the skies. Aztec class have enjoyed learning important facts about her life. We have also made wonderful pop art of aeroplanes. 

Final Modern Wonder of The World 

We have finished our travels at Pertra in Jordan. The class worked together to construct their own model from lego; their team work was fantastic! We also enjoyed our inquiry day with a Halloween  Theme. The class enjoyed all things halloween theme to express themselves: dressing up in their wonderful costumes; creating their own halloween hats of their choice and joining the whole phase for a parade.

Exploring our sense with our visit to India and the Taj Mahal.

We have been visiting our 6th wonder of the world this week, the Taj Mahal. We hae learnt lots of fansinating facts; did you know that the Taj Mahal was built using one thousand elephants?  We explored our culinary sense in our cooking lesson by making chicken curry rice cups- they were delicious and all student got involved with mixing in the curry powder. 

In addition, we have been embracing the change in the weather by wrapping up warm and searching for nature inspired resources for our Maths lessons- we have collected leaves, sticks and stones to consolidate our learning through creating addition and subtraction.  These are proudly displayed in our classroom. 

Aztec were weaving wonders this week!

Aztec class were incredibly creative this week, they made their own weaving using wool after learning about how weaving is an important textile in Peru. We also learnt facts about our 5th Modern Wonder of the World, Machu Picchu. 

We had great fun in Maths this week with musical Maths games, 10 pin bowling and darts to build our subtraction skills. 

We had a wonderful celebration assembly to finish the week with every member of Aztec class receiving an certificate that links to an International Baccalaureate attribute we focus on in school; please give your child's a read. Aztec staff are very proud of each and every student in the class! 

Aztec were Archeologists! 

What an exciting week travelling to Rome to learn about the colosseum and the Romans. We made lots of discoveries with our Archaeological dig. Students enjoyed searching for artifacts and learning about each one; they took this one step further by writing an archaeological report of their findings. 

 As we  were spending this week in Italy, what better way to enjoy the culture than to make pizzas. Not just any pizzas, dessert pizzas; the students loaded their pizzas with chocolate spread, sliced bananas and sprinkles, yum! 

Our journey to Chichen Itza in Mexico

What a week it has been in Aztec class! We kicked things off with some fascinating learning about Chichen Itza. The students were captivated by the rich history of the Mayan civilisation, especially as we delved into the world of chocolate! To bring this to life, we had a fantastic time cooking flapjacks with chocolate, tying in the significance of chocolate with the Mayan god, Nkawkaw. We also made Mayan masks and completed our daily mile as a Mayan Tribe!

Performing Arts auditions brought an air of excitement to the week, and I'm pleased to say that everyone who participated did brilliantly! It was inspiring to see their confidence and creativity shine through.

We also had the pleasure of the school dogs visiting Aztec class this week. We fed them treats and took them for a walk on the field to help practise their recall.

Second wonder of the world

This week has been quite eventful! We kicked things off focusing on our second modern wonder of the world: The Great Wall of China. The students were amazed to learn about its history and significance. We’re also diving into our class book, There's a Rang-Tan in My Bedroom, which sparked some delightful discussions about the environment and how Orangutans are endangered. Maths has also been a real highlight of the week with our musical addition game! 

On top of all that, swimming lessons commenced! They were all buzzing with excitement as they splashed about in the pool, working on their strokes. It’s been a busy week filled with learning and fun, and we can’t wait to see what next week brings!

Welcome back to school, Aztec Class! 

Our first week as Aztec class has been lots of fun. We have been learning about each other, catching up with old friends and making new ones!

 We started the week by introducing our Inquiry Learning for this half term, 'How We Express Ourselves' and discovered that we are going on a journey around the world this module to explore the seven modern wonders of the world! We started our explorations in Brazil with Christ the Redeemer. The class were fascinated by the interesting facts including the sheer size of the statue- 30 metres high! We also explored the Brazilian traditional textile patterns called Chita and each student created their own design. 

We have also been building our team work skills to solve Maths problems, including making our Maths resources for our learning independently! What a great start to the year, Aztec Class!