After reading ‘The Giant Jam Sandwich’ in our ‘Talk Through Stories’ session, Year 1 explored instruction writing whilst making jam sandwiches. They focused on sequencing, using time connectives and imperative verbs.
Apart from watching their teachers get messy whilst they followed the classes vague instructions, their favourite part was of course eating them.
Jam 4
This term, Year 4 have taken great joy from learning outside in our wildlife garden. From Science through to Music, the wildlife garden has provided the perfect setting to enjoy not just forest school, but also all of their learning.
Just before half term, Class 9 wrote a description of the wildlife garden from each of their perspectives. The class really enjoyed sharing their descriptions in the mini amphitheatre. This task drew out all of the benefits of looking after the fantastic wild areas that we are lucky in our community to have, a particularly poignant topic of discussion with the G7 summit taking place this week.
I really like spending time in the wildlife garden. It makes me feel happy and calm. Alex, Class 9
In Science, Year 4 have also been learning about habitats and had to create a powerpoint/ pic collage on what habitats could be found in the wildlife garden, along with the features and residents of each habitat. Students were particularly surprised to find centipedes, tadpoles and even a wandering Wilf (our very own resident school dog) in the wildlife garden.
Finally, Year 4 have taken dusted off their vocal chords and sang a classic song, ‘Let it Be’, by the Beatles, a song which we studied last half term in music. It was a great song to finish off last half term and listen to students singing in a big group again. Enjoy the video below!
Reception have been enjoying some great Balance Ability sessions since coming back after Easter.
I like letting go when we’ve held the bikes and then we go very fast down the hill – Jude
The children have enjoyed the challenges set for them to ride the bikes around the cones, practise gliding and have learnt about how to keep safe when on the bikes.
When you glide you have a big push off and then your bike moves – Niyah
I like gliding because the bike moves by itself – Suki
Reception have also enjoyed using the bikes in the afternoon and have been showing off what they have learnt.
I like the balance bikes because you can ride them in the afternoon. I like pedalling my bike at home – Seth
Well done Reception, we’re looking forward to seeing your bike skills grow over the next few weeks!
Children in Key Stage 2 have recently taken home their very own Internet Legend trophy to celebrate their ongoing learning into online safety and how to become responsible online citizens.
It’s safe to say that these trophies have generated quite a buzz amongst our pupils and I’m sure they will be appearing on desks, bedside tables and shelves all over the place very soon!
The children have been encouraged to build their trophies with a grown up at home as part of the process involves answering a series of questions about being safe online in order to unlock the instructions step-by-step. These questions also serve as great conversation starters and will hopefully help open up lots of productive conversations about being safe online.
The reward for their efforts are these awesome 3D trophies which will remind them that they really are Internet Legends.
We’ve been sent in lots of photos of these trophies in their new homes through Showbie and this post will be updated as more photos come in so watch this space!
Class 2 have done some great learning as part of STEM week and enjoyed becoming scientists, engineers and mathematicians for the week.
On Monday, after listening to the story of The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff, the children were set the challenge of building a bridge for the goats to cross, using only spaghetti, masking tape and teamwork! Once built, the class tested their bridges to see which was the strongest and came up with ideas to improve their bridges next time.
On Tuesday, we took part in an experiment using skittles and watched what would happen as water was added. After waiting a few seconds, the children loved seeing the patterns that emerged and looking at how different the other patterns around the class were.
On Wednesday came one of the children’s favourite activities of the week – making volcanoes! In small groups, the children were challenged to build a volcano using whatever they could find around the classroom, making sure they left a space for the volcano to erupt. Once the volcanoes had been constructed, it was time for them to be filled with lava (a mixture of baking soda, vinegar and red food colouring) and to erupt!
The children put their maths and engineering skills to the test on Thursday by creating ramps for cars and measuring how far each car travelled. They predicted how far each car would travel and then tried raising and lowering the ramp to see if that would make a difference. After recording our results, we then talked about what might have affected how far the cars travel as a group.
Finally, on Friday we created some artwork using a swinging bottle/bucket and watched the different patterns it created when the children pushed harder or gentler on the bottle. We’re really pleased with how the artwork came out and hope to have it up on display in our outdoor area for you all to see soon!
Well done Class 2 on some great STEM learning, it was brilliant to see you enjoy becoming scientists/mathematicians/engineers and artists!
What an exciting first day it has been in year two for both children and teachers. All children have had a great first day back and from the smiles on their faces you could tell that they were all thrilled to be back at school playing and interacting with their friends.
The children were also very delighted with the new play equipment and refurbished fire pit.
Today, Year 4 celebrated the rise of the Roman Empire in true fashion. Armed with shields, swords and Roman legion attire, the excitement from the students entering school was palpable.
To begin with, the Year group were greeted with Roman army commands: Consiste! (Halt!), Laxate (at ease), silentiurm! (Silence!) and Sin/ Dex (Left/ Right!), which would come in hand later on in the day.
Next, both classes were thrown into the melee and had to use their best codebreaking skills in order to crack a hidden message written by the emperor himself, Julius Caesar. The hidden message revealed one of Caesar’s greates quotes to date:
“It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.” Julius Caesar
After exploring this quote and thinking deeper into what Caesar’s quote means, creating is exactly what the students did next. After having designed mosaics the day before, the students were tasked with creating a Roman mosaic. This proved lots of fun and the results are already looking promising.
The grand finale, however, had to be experiencing what it was like to march like a Roman. Led by Mr Wise’s booming commands, Classes’ 9 and 10 both marched up and down the hall, to embed their understanding of Roman commands. Next, the students practised forming the defence shape, which is the ‘testudo’, or the tortoise. This proved an effective barrier against incoming missiles aimed by the teachers, as you can witness in the video below.
All in all, the children had an excellent morning immersing themselves in the Roman life and learning first hand how the Roman army worked.
Class 6 have enjoyed learning outdoors.
Class 6 have had a great start to the new term. They are really enjoying taking their learning outside where they have been able to calculate a variety of number problems and then discuss their reasoning.
The children have also been busy collecting and recording facts about polar bears and discovering who built the first castles in the U.K.
Well done Class 6, I am very proud of you all for making a great start to the new term
Mrs Ruffell
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.
