It's been great to get back to school after a fun half term holiday. We are doing a whole lot more learning about extreme environments, including mountains. For those people who were lucky enough to ski down a mountain at half term, they are already experts on the topic!

We have been testing our geography knowledge by writing explanations of how different types of mountains are formed. We had to use cause and effect language, a formal tone and some sentences written in the passive voice. There are 5 types of mountains which we have learnt about and included in our explanations: fold, fault-block, volcanic, dome and plateau mountains.

In art, we are starting some research into famous works that have been inspired by mountain landscapes. We will use this to give us ideas for our own mountain paintings. In 6RJ, the works of Japanese artist, Hokusai, were especially popular.

Everyone did a great job of their half-term homework researching a state in the USA. There have been lots of imaginative ways of presenting the information: Emily and Natalie both recreated the shape of their state in 3D, Finlay made an excellent quiz about Texas and Arthur took his to the next level by recreating an actual rollercoaster that you might get to ride on in a Florida theme park. We all really enjoyed hearing each other's presentations and especially learning more about some of the less well-known states. We will continue sharing these next week.

Next week we will have our second visit from mountaineer, Nigel Vardy, AKA  'Mr Frostbite'. Look out for some updates on what we learn from him soon.