Happy New Year! We hope that you've had a good break and you managed to relax and discover some new things during your time away.
In Year Three we have been hitting the ground running (this is an idiom) with a new topic: the Romans. The Romans were a society of people founded in the modern Italian city of Rome who through military tactical excellence was able to become one of the largest empires the world has ever seen. Over the coming weeks we are going to be learning about law, military techniques, slavery and the Freedman system, art, taxation, economy, city and country life, religion, arts and literature.
In our topic this week we have been learning about the creation myth of Rome through the story of Romulus and Remus. We learnt that Romulus and Remus were the sons of Sylvia and Mars: the God of War in the temple of Mars which Sylvia had been banished to. Their uncle Amulius sent servants to kill the newborns. The servants took the twins to the Tiber river and left them to drown. But, they did not and instead floated downriver into reeds where they were rescued by a she-wolf who raised and nurtured the boys. The boys were raised as wolves until they were older and started to explore the world where they were then taken in by Faustulus a shepherd who with his wife raised the boys as their own. When they grew up they helped the local villagers from attacks from bandits, stopping them and then returning the stolen goods. When they heard from their grandfather the truth of their origins and their evil uncle, the boys rounded up the villagers who had helped them through the years and as an army they stormed the temple of Mars to rescue their mother. Having done so they then settled on building a city in the place where they had been placed in the river as babies. Remus designed the temples and baths. Romulus designed the streets and houses. But, they could not decide on a name for this new city. Romulus wanted to call the city Rome, while Remus wanted to name it Rem. The twins, never having lost their wolf-like nature, fought each other and in the fight Remus was murdered. So, the myth creation of the story of Rome goes. And there are several versions of this story. Here is the one that we have been learning:
In Year Three we have been hitting the ground running (this is an idiom) with a new topic: the Romans. The Romans were a society of people founded in the modern Italian city of Rome who through military tactical excellence was able to become one of the largest empires the world has ever seen. Over the coming weeks we are going to be learning about law, military techniques, slavery and the Freedman system, art, taxation, economy, city and country life, religion, arts and literature.
In our topic this week we have been learning about the creation myth of Rome through the story of Romulus and Remus. We learnt that Romulus and Remus were the sons of Sylvia and Mars: the God of War in the temple of Mars which Sylvia had been banished to. Their uncle Amulius sent servants to kill the newborns. The servants took the twins to the Tiber river and left them to drown. But, they did not and instead floated downriver into reeds where they were rescued by a she-wolf who raised and nurtured the boys. The boys were raised as wolves until they were older and started to explore the world where they were then taken in by Faustulus a shepherd who with his wife raised the boys as their own. When they grew up they helped the local villagers from attacks from bandits, stopping them and then returning the stolen goods. When they heard from their grandfather the truth of their origins and their evil uncle, the boys rounded up the villagers who had helped them through the years and as an army they stormed the temple of Mars to rescue their mother. Having done so they then settled on building a city in the place where they had been placed in the river as babies. Remus designed the temples and baths. Romulus designed the streets and houses. But, they could not decide on a name for this new city. Romulus wanted to call the city Rome, while Remus wanted to name it Rem. The twins, never having lost their wolf-like nature, fought each other and in the fight Remus was murdered. So, the myth creation of the story of Rome goes. And there are several versions of this story. Here is the one that we have been learning:
And, while you are reading information about the Romans here is Gustav Holst's Mars from his The Planets:
In English we have been reporting back about what we have been doing on our holidays. We have been learning once more about The Five Ws and how answering these five points we can give a really good account. We have learnt that it is not simply filling in the answers but that we must weave our information into a story regardless of whether it is fiction or non-fiction. We know that a simple sentence can really lead into rediscovering more about what we did. This is the power of revision to re-see what we have so we can create more. Next week we will be doing another draft of our story and we our confident that we will remember more of what we did during our holidays. Here is a song describing the Five W's (plus a bonus word that doesn't start with a "w"):
In Maths we have been learning about stand up multiplication method. With this method, as opposed to the box method, we are challenged to do similar calculations as the box method but in a more challenging way which is making us think more about our times tables. If you would like to know how to do the stand up multiplication method yourselves...just ask us! We'd be happy to show you.
It's been a fun first week back and we're looking forward to learning more about our topic, describing more about our holidays and creating a better draft and learning more about multiplication. We ask this week if you could help us with our times tables this would be greatly appreciated.
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