Is there an award for “Most Orange Team Area”? If not, there definitely should be!!

After a hearty breakfast and some sing-a-long Pokémon lullabies on the tv (don’t ask!) we are finally headed to the competition itself in Worcester.
Today is a chance to set up our Pit Area, practice the Robot Games and meet all the other teams. It’s also a chance for the staff to unveil their own special “Honorary Pumpkin” t-shirts!

Today the Pumpkins were set a challenge – to get a selfie with an American flag in an unusual location. You might need to zoom in on some of them!
Extra challenge – can you spot the person who accidentally deleted theirs and then hastily had to use CapCut to hastily make a new one? 😂
Yesterday our 2 Year 5 classes had some very special visitors. We were joined by the Beach Guardians. Beach Guardian is a community interest company that aim to ‘engage, educate and empower against plastic pollution. Based in Cornwall they perform regular beach cleans and conduct educational work shops and we were lucky to have them bring their workshop to Penpol School.
During the work shop the children had chance to sift through the sand and take a look at many of the plastics which had previously been collected from the beach. They also had chance to look at some of these micro-plastics under the microscope as well as design a poster to encourage people to do what’s right and take their litter home with them.
We also discussed the impact of physical geography as well as the human impact and discussed how currents can take plastic waster all over the globe. They shared with us a bottle that was produced and Malaysia which washed up at Perranporth.
The aim of the session was to motivate the pupils to continue ti spread the message of our topic teaching this term- improve health and well being of both people and planet.
If you’d like to find out more about their work or how you can get involved please follow this link
https://www.beachguardian.org/
Here’s a short vlog sharing what we’ve been up to on day 2 of this American Adventure, as told by the Pumpkins!
This afternoon we were fortunate enough to have an awesome guided tour of Fenway park where we were able to learn all about the history of the stadium, how it’s evolved over time and how they’re using modern technology to grow their own food to use in the restaurants on site – they even have a computerised irrigation system to help their crops grow.
“Fenway Park was really interesting because there were so many thing that we were shown, and they all had meaning and we learnt about them in detail. I understand baseball now!” – Ethan
“My favourite part of the tour was going to the highest stands called the Green Monster, and we sat in the same chairs that the celebrities sit in when they come to watch a RedSox game” – James B
Our morning activity today was focussed around the two Core Values of Teamwork and Fun – and what better place to combine the two than the LEGO Discovery Center in Boston?
Here the Pumpkins explored many different worlds of LEGO, from the Space Land where they built rockets and sent them off into cyberspace to the Builders Workshop where the students got to work with Shaun the Master Model Builder to create their own mini figure-scale scenes.
They even combined forces to turn a giant LEGO mountain build into an orangey “Pumpkin Kingdom”!!
We’re on the way to our first stop of the day at the LEGO Discovery Center and that means our first taste of public transport in Massachusetts – the T line.
“When we got off the first train it was really stinky smelling underground! We’re on the Orange line now and that’s really pumpkiny!” – Jenna

After a breakfast of ‘Lucky Charms’, toast and fruit the Pumpkins have been spending some time updating their diaries with their highlights of yesterday.
“The diaries are good because when we look back on them in five or ten years we can think ‘oh, this is what we did on this day’ instead of just completely forgetting everything when we get back.” – Piran
Today we’re off to visit the LEGO Discover Center for a team building morning, followed by a tour of a very famous sporting ground this afternoon… Keep your eyes on the blog to follow our adventures!
“My favourite thing yesterday was learning our first secret activity – visiting the LEGO Discover Center today! I’ve always wanted to go to one but they’re mostly all in America.” – Ethan