This week the children in Year 5 have been taking part in an international event which is quite simply “out of this world”!.
Astro Pi is a fantastic event run by Code Club and the European Space Agency whereby school children can write a computer program to be run on a modified Raspberry Pi computer on the International Space Station. Yes, IN SPACE!
Each child in Year 5 has worked in a team to design and code their programs, which will display messages, pictures and the current temperatures to the astronauts onboard the ISS. The children then decided on their team names before finally submitting their error-free code into space.
As soon as their program has been run on the Space Station the children will receive a certificate which will show the exact time and location of the International Space Station from when their code was run.
Hi Class 6 and Class 5, Mrs Ruffell and Mrs Daniel would like to say a big thank you to all of you who have sent images of your home learning, which you have completed over the past two weeks. We have now created a new home learning page, on the Penpol Times, for weeks 11, 12 and 13. Please keep sending us images of your learning so that we can share it with your friends and families.
We both hope that you are all well and enjoying the learning challenges that we are setting.
Take care – Mrs Ruffell & Mrs Daniel
New Link -22.06.2020
https://classroom.thenational.academy/activity-clubs/art-club/episodes/the-world-around-us-bee-rest-stops-primary (Copy & Paste the link in to your browser)
New Link 08.06.20
https://www.leachpottery.com/design-a-pot-for-sharing-schools-challenge (Copy & Paste the link in to your browser)
New Link
https://rnli.org/youth-education/water-safety-from-home (Copy & Paste the link in to your browser)
PE and Outdoor Learning at Home
New -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCStjKlMICO-Em7zMJoHR3A (Copy & paste link in to your browser)
New – Digital Ocean – Surfers against Sewage – Copy and paste the link in to your browser
New – Try these simple relaxation and mindfulness activities together and help your child learn to calm down when they feel stressed or anxious. – Copy and paste the link in to your browser.
Use your mind – Laugh & Giggle – Breathe Deep – Stretch it out – Relax
Isaac B, from Class 5
The last day of term but I must share with you all these Photos of Isaac B’s amazing bee project. He has worked so hard on this as you can see and must be really proud of his effort as with all his home learning. Well done Isaac, you deserve a medal! – Mrs Daniel
Lola, from Class 6
A letter from Lola
Hi this morning Lola and her brother Caio went to visit their friend James who keeps Bees.
First we put on the Bee Suits so the Bees didn’t sting us and get into our faces. Then James lit some material to make smoke. So the Bees think there is a fire coming so they gather as much honey as they can and get ready to leave home, this makes them slower. We then looked inside the Bee Hive all the Bees flew out . We found some honey comb. Then we looked for the queen bee. She likes to hide in the dark. We knew she was the queen because she was quite big and fat compared to the other bees. Her job is to lay eggs and have babies. We saw the baby bees ,which are grubs and some eggs. The worker bees were busy looking after them. All the other bees look after the babies and they are all female. Some of the bees go out to collect nectar and pollen. We saw the yellow pollen on the bees legs. James was stood in the way of the bees entrance and he had thousands on his leg! When we put the hive back together and walked away the bees stopped flying around us.
From Lola
Verity, from Class 6
Verity has had a very productive week, working hard with her maths and English but also having a great time making a puppet show of her favourite book, Monkey Puzzle. All her family became involved in what looks like an amazing performance, I would like to have been in the audience! Take a look at her lovely photos.
Harry, from Class 6
Hi Mrs Ruffell,
This morning, Harry thought of an animal for every letter of the alphabet. He had to Google an animal for U – V – X and Y as they were very tricky. Harry also enjoyed I drawing the animals and watched ‘Art for kids ‘, to get ideas on how to draw them. Well done Harry.
Jessica, from Class 5
Take a look of these lovely photos of Jessica and her sisters enjoying themselves making play dough!
Emilija, from Class 5
Emilija has been extremely busy over the last couple weeks, as you can see from her photos. Well done Emilija, keep up the great effort with all your home learning, you are doing a brilliant job!
Bella, from Class 5
Bella has ben busy with some art work, story boarding and some instruction writing for Rapunzel, complete with illustration!
Tilly, from Class 6
Here are some photos of my puppets, theatre that I made out of a cereal box and my poster for my show. I enjoyed doing this as I couldn’t do my dancing show in May, which we’d been doing lots of practicing for. (Written by Tilly)
Wow! well done Tilly. I wish I could have been there to see it.
Harry, from Class 6
Thank you Harry for sharing your alphabetical home learning. I love the way you have ordered all of those items in alphabetical order. Well done!
Lily, from Class 6
Lily enjoyed making 3D shapes out of play dough this week to help her learn their names and properties! They were actually very tricky to make! She also looked for seals at Gwithian using binoculars but only managed to spot one as the others weren’t there.
Lola, from Class 6
Lola has really been focussing on bees this term and recently she visited the Heligan Gardens, where she was able to discover and learn more interesting facts about this amazing flying insect. Lola has also been busy learning about shapes and recording their properties. Great home learning Lola!
Poppy, from Class 6
Thank you Poppy for sharing your home learning with us. You have created some lovely puppets and also designed some lovely moths, which you have also named. Wow! what a fab duck! I love its design. Well done.
Harry, from Class 6
Harry has really worked hard on this weeks home learning challenges. He has created his puppets, built a theatre , written his own story and presented his puppet show. Read Harry’s very own story below.
This is my puppet show with pictures …
Once upon a time there was a boy called Harry.
He had two meerkats who he loved very much.
One day a wolf came along, he wanted to eat the meerkats.
Then Harry came and chased the wolf away. He never came back and they lived happily ever after
Harry, from Class 6
Harry has made a great start on his puppet show. He has drawn and cut out his shadow puppets and attached them to sticks. He has also written out his storyboard and made a start on his theatre. Well done Harry, I look forward to seeing the finished production. Great home learning !
Lola, from Class 6
Lola has been very busy designing a duck for the competition, which I think looks amazing. Also well done on learning this weeks spellings and taking a test. Great results!
Emily, from Class 6
Emily has been working so hard this week on solving a variety of number problems. You really have shown great commitment towards your home learning this week. Well done Emily!
Poppy, from Class 6
Thank you Poppy for sharing your home learning. You have used great adjectives to describe the sea and also included a lot of detail in your postcard from New-York. I hope you had a great time? 🙂
Isaac, from Class 5
Isaac has made a fantastic Jungle habitat, it must have taken him quite some time but as you can see it is well worth the effort! He has also written a football story in which the players receive super powers and an Ocean story which cleverly relays some interesting facts as well. Well done Isaac, you are doing a brilliant job with all your home learning.
Bella, from Class 5
Bella has been very busy with her maths and has done a great job on completing the worksheets. She has also designed and written about a fantastic water park which she enjoyed sharing with her dad and brother.
Lola, from Class 6
Lily, from Class 6
Wow, I love your wild flower ice sculpture Lily. I also enjoyed reading your instructions on how to build the perfect sandcastle and reading the postcard that you sent to your nanny from Menorca. I hope you had a great time on your holiday and the sun was shining? 🙂
Emily, from Class 6
Thank you Emily for sharing your home learning with us. You are demonstrating great commitment towards your home learning. I am really impressed with all of your learning. Well done!
Hi Year 1,
We are missing you very much but know that your adults are doing a super job of looking after you and teaching you.
We hope you’re enjoying the home-learning tasks as much as we are enjoying receiving the photo’s and videos?!
Please do send any photo’s through if you have the time. Remember we love seeing you playing as well as learning!
Miss Whear and Mrs Sukstien
Harley has enjoyed – making his information book 🙂 What super facts he’s recorded!
Harrison, from Class 3
Look at all the things that Harrison has been up to. Gardening with grandad.Building confidence in the sea and jumping from the rocks.Picking strawberries 🍓 talking about them needing to be red and letting the green ones grow a little more.
Florence, from Class 4
Florence has written a poem about a shell and also drawn a picture with hidden words in it! I wonder if you can spot them all? Great work Florence!
Miles, from Class 3
Miles enjoyed writing interview question sentences and using real coins to support his maths learning! He also built a bug hotel!
Luke, from Class 4
Luke has had a great week, learning all about the weather and different coins. He has been painting lovely rainbow pictures with his sister too. He also helped his family to sand down and paint their garden furniture – Great work Luke!
Rosie, from Class 4
Rosie has been busy doing mathletics this week and designing a recipe for a garden potion then measuring liquids and making the potion.
Toran, from Class 3
Toran’s garden with ten hidden plant themed words… can you spot them?!
Toran is loving today’s maths 🙂
Harley, from Class 3
Harley wanted to tell us all what happened yesterday, he was very excited to find a baby dove! Lovely writing about it Harley 🙂
Toran, from Class 3
Super code calculations today Toran!
Miles, from Class 3
Miles enjoying taking part in the Cornwall Schools Games!
Keira, from Class 3
Such determination on Keira’s face in these pictures! I’m very impressed!
Keira did 28 jumps in 30 secs
Jumped 22 hands in the long jump
And 2.1/2 hands higher
3 family members, had a go at all 3 events
On Friday we were lucky enough to be the first school ever to receive a Be Internet Legends virtual assembly. This involved all of our pupils in Key Stage 2 taking part in an interactive assembly with the team from Google and ParentZone.
In the exciting assembly children were reminded of the importance of being Internet Legends through questions and answers, audience participation and lots of other fun activities. Teachers were able to feed back to the presenters in real time as children responded on Showbie, meaning the presenters could then talk to the children and celebrate their learning with them during the assembly.
It was a lot of fun and we’re very lucky at Penpol to have been selected as the first school to experience this. The presenters said afterwards that we were such a lovely school to work with and that they hope you all keep up your Internet Legends learning over the next few weeks.
To help with this Mr Woolcock will be sharing weekly Be Internet Legends online safety activities on Showbie that you can complete with your family at home. They’re quick and fun and may just involve playing a few levels on Interland too…
If you missed the assembly you can rewatch it below
Last term we started a brand new club at Penpol, App Design Club. In this club the children in Year 5 and Year 6 are invited to consider an idea or problem and how they might make an app to solve this. Following along with resources made by Apple, the children then learn how to write code using the Swift programming language as well as learn how to plan and design their own app.
In the first half term we had a live link-up with Mr Jenkins who teaches at Booth Wood Primary School in the Midlands. This connection allowed children from both clubs to have the chance to share their initial app ideas and to ask for feedback. This Focus Group session proved valuable as the children were able to adapt and refine their ideas as a result of this feedback.
Following this they then did market research and looked at similar apps to see what they could offer which would be a bit different.
When they had got a clear idea of their app it was time to move onto Phase 2 – the design.
Initially each child created a ‘wire-frame’ idea by sketching on the iPads. This showed roughly what the individual screens of their app would look like and how they would be connected to each other.
After this we were lucky enough to have a Skype conversation with Sabe who teaches in a city called Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. He led the club through a fun and exciting lesson on creating App Prototypes using the Keynote app. The children followed intently and by the end of the session they’d created a simple app to browse animal facts.
We’re now taking the ideas learnt from Sabe and using them to create working prototypes of our own apps. This process is going to take a little while as we are trying to pay close attention to how the app functions and how it looks.
Hopefully later in the year we’ll be able to share an update with everyone where the children can share their app designs with the world!
– Mr Woolcock
Sharing ideas in a Focus Group session with Booth Wood Primary school in order to develop and expand their ideas.
Club members following along with their App Designs carefully following the instructions from Sabe in the UAE.
Our Year 6s have been learning all about the Mayans in their Topic lessons this half term. In Computing we’ve been taking this learning and creating our own animations based around the idea of an ancient Mayan Temple.
The animation itself is lovely, but to really appreciate it you need to know that the children have actually built their temples brick by brick in Keynote. This process has been incredible to watch as the children have added a whole host of new skills in their graphic design and animation toolbox. Well done Year 6!
This Half Term the children in Year 3 have been learning all about the Ancient Egyptians. As part of this exciting topic they have created some beautiful animations of the Mask of Tutankhamun set against a colourful Egyptian scene.
Class 7 Animations
The children paid close attention to detail when drawing the mask itself, looking at the ornate decorations and the beautiful gold finish. They then researched King Tut to find some interesting facts to accompany their animations.
This half term our year 5 pupils have been learning about Space and the Solar System. As part of this exciting topic, the children have been using their knowledge of our Solar System to create some video documentaries on the iPads.
However, obviously getting video footage of the actual planets is quite tricky. So instead the children have carefully re-created each planet using their own artwork and Augmented Reality.
They’ve then put these AR planets together in the video app Clips and added their own voiceovers, titles and special effects.
The children have worked phenomenally hard on this project and the videos below are testament to this. Please do jump right in and watch a few to get a flavour of our out-of-this-world Space Documentaries!
In a very dramatic turn of events, Year 4 pupils arrived into the Mac Suite this morning to discover that a situation had arisen overnight. An intrepid LEGO astronaut had got himself into a spot of bother on the surface of the moon.
He’d unpacked his suitcase and was enjoying a warm drink in the Moon Base when he realised he’d left his Moon Rover back on Earth. Oh dear!
To make matters even worse, ahead in the distance he could see two massive pieces of Moon Treasure that were too far away to reach on foot.
Thankfully, Classes 9 and 10 were on hand to help. When faced with a challenge, these classes can always built a robot to help out! So over the morning, both classes built, tested, refined and polished their Moon Rovers to help Astronaut Alan reach the treasure. We had a variety of designs, a huge array of different programming styles and a lot of trips back and forth testing their creations.
But at the end of the morning, I’m delighted to say that Astronaut Alan reached the Moon Treasure and safely returned to his base – safe in the knowledge that the treasure was actually just two foam cubes with patterns on.
This term children in Year 3 have been learning how to use the 3D design program Tinkercad.
They’ve learnt how to rotate, resize and combine objects into creative and imaginative shapes.
As well as this they’ve completed a series of mini-challenges to really test their digital building skills by creating 3D models of various objects using a very limited number of building blocks.
After these challenges the children set about creating their own design for a 3D Winter Ornament. They were allowed to use two colours and used examples from last year as inspiration.
Everyone got the chance to create several different designs before choosing their favourite one to be printed.
Check out all of the amazing designs below, aren’t they great?
Don’t worry if that’s a little too fast for you – here’s a gallery with all of the decorations in. Click on a picture to view it bigger.