Term 1

This term our topic will be 'Our World, Our Ocean'. Some of the areas we will be discussing as a class are:

- Knowing that physical features are naturally occurring features and that human features are man made.

- Understanding how oceans are used as a trade links across the world, for transporting goods between cities.

- Understanding how the industrial scale fishing is affecting marine ecosystems, by depleting fishing stocks and damaging the ocean environment.

- Understanding how pollution from human waste such as plastic, chemicals and oil, are harming the ocean ecosyststem.

- Exploring some of the innovative ways in which scientists, engineers and others are trying to repair the pollution already caused, such as Oceancleanup.

- Knowing that using environmentally friendly products, having more plants and disposing of waste considerately can reduce harmful ocean pollution.

Our book for this term is Hannah Gold's 'The Lost Whale'.

The story follows a boy who is feeling abandoned after his mother goes into a hospital for treatment for mental illness, Rio arrives in California to a grandmother he has never met before and does not want to know.

Watching the grey whales off the coast, he realises he has a special talent that allows him to hear them. He makes friends among the whale watching community. When one of the whales, the beloved Whitebeak, goes missing, both adults and children join forces to find her. In the common cause to rescue Whitebeak, families are healed.