Our Year 5 Topazs have launched into their new topics for this term with eagerness and enthusiasm. We began our Maya topic by learning where and when the Maya civilisation existed, and how the Maya culture continues today in Mexico and central America. We learnt about the masks that some of the Maya would have owned for important religious ceremonies and also to cast fear into their enemies’ hearts during battle. Then we finished the lesson by designing our own Maya-influenced masks. Mrs Oram certainly wouldn’t like to be faced with these fearsome creations on the battlefield!

In Science, we jumped into our new topic by investigating how flowers are pollinated, as we dissected some alstroemerias and lisianthus. We identified each feature of the flower as we progressed, and were interested to notice the difference in the structures between the two flowers. 

Bertie: “One interesting point was when we felt how sticky the stigma was. I could feel how it would catch the pollen.”

Percy: “It was interesting to see what’s inside the pistil because you’d never normally see that part of a flower.”