We have been learning that books both fiction and nonfiction are so interesting. Books can transport us to other worlds, they can teach us new things and they can inspire us. Mr Sallis gave us some new books celebrating diversity called Little Leaders : Exceptional Men and Women Black History . These books tell us about some inspirational people who made a difference in the world.
This week the children helped me move and created a more welcoming reading area in the classroom which we have already begun to use.
Many of the children came into school dressed as book characters. Can you tell who they are?
The children also brought in their favourite stories and books and shared them with each other which reminded us about just how much sharing a story can be.
Over the next week, why not see if you can complete the reading stars game. In how many different ways and in different places can you be found reading?
Well done to everyone in Year 4 for the fantastic effort you made with your World Book Day outfits. You all looked tremendous and we enjoyed hearing about the stories you shared.
This week, we have been busy creating an area in our class where we can enjoy sharing stories with each other. It’s starting to look good already and the children made bunting to share their book recommendations with their friends and decorate the class library. We have great plans to make this area more comfortable and inviting and you can help if you would like to donate a book to our class from our Amazon wishlist.
The children also had a great time today sharing stories with our friends in Year 2. Everyone enjoyed the chance to share a book with someone who they don’t normally get to spend time with, along with the chance to discover some new stories together. We would certainly hope to repeat this soon.
On Tuesday of this week Year 3 celebrated St David’s Day, which they did in style with their red white and green outfits. We even had a very spectacular dragon! They learned to say Happy St David’s Day in the Celtic Welsh language, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!
On Ash Wednesday Y3 joined in receiving The Ashes with the rest of the school in a whole school Ash Wednesday Liturgical Assembly led by Brother Nelson and attended by parents. They will be thinking about and making their Lenten promises soon.
What a busy first week back to school after the half term break! In Year 1 this week we have been making shapes from other 2D shapes, learning about old toys in History and locating the UK on maps in Geography.
Take a look at some pictures of what we have been up to this week:
Thank you for all the generation donations at our cake sale too. We raised a record amount of money! Thanks to the parents who helped out with the cake sale and parents that donated those delicious bakes too.
This week, the children have been learning about the story of the Last Supper, as told in the gospel of Matthew. They created some beautiful crosses with signs and symbols that are important to them.. It was lovely to hear how thoughtful the children had been as they created their beautiful crosses. Well done everyone.
The bulbs that we planted in January are beginning to grow very quickly. We are looking forward to seeing them flower!
To end the week, we have also started to learn how to do English country dancing. Photos will follow when we can tell our left from our right hands and have perfected clapping, skipping, chassaying, promenading and do-si-doing in time to the music. That’s not as easy as it sounds!
In Year 6 we have begun exploring our new class book called:
Suffragette: Battle for Equality
We found out that women have not always been allowed to have equal rights, a voice or have a vote as to who should lead our country.
We began by exploring what it would be like if only boys were allowed to be on the school council and make laws. The majority of boys thought this could benefit them whilst the girls felt discriminated against and that it was unfair. Some boys also recognize that a person’s gender should not determine whether or not they should be allowed to contribute to the life of the school.
Writing with formal language can be difficult as it is not something we are used to doing. However, through the course of the week the Year 6 children planned and wrote formal letters to the Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone trying to persuade him to allow there to be a law passed in parliament to allow all women to be able to vote and have legal rights.
Through using thesauruses to help find formal language and synonyms, through careful editing and improving the children wrote some very powerful letters.
The overall message of what we have learned is that discrimination against gender, race, religion or monetary status is something that should be challenged and never accepted as right.
This week in Design and Technology, year 3 have begun to learn about pneumatics and how the idea of pressurised air being used to make machines work goes all the way back to ancient Greece! Many of them knew that their bicycle and ball pumps use air but they were surprised to learn that the drills used to drill holes in the road are powered just by by air, and that it can provide enough power to create that amount of force! They watched as just air, powered a small rocket and are excited to be making their own pneumatic toys.
3-D printed pneumatic rocket launcher
They are going to be using a mixture of new and recycled items to create their moving toys, which may look something like this:
In History, Prehistory is in the air… as the children have just begun to learn about the last part of the Stone Age and the children will be going on to learn about the Bronze and Iron Ages too. They have been imagining what their life would be like if they lived as Stone Age farmers up in Skara Bray on the Orkney Islands and wrote a diary entry for a day in their lives, as we compared just how different life was, then to now.
Year 3 celebrated Wellbeing Week on Friday by reflecting – and dancing about – growth. The amaryllis now on the classroom window-sill is a metaphor for the growth which everyone experiences. We asked the question “Can all growth be seen?” We’ll see how the amaryllis grows taller (quickly), but it will also grow in other ways which we won’t be able to see, resulting in a beautiful flower. We discussed how growth is exciting and leads to fantastic new skills, but it isn’t always quick or easy. To think more deeply about this, we considered a skill we’d already learnt, such as swimming. We thought about the steps and breakthroughs taken along the way to gain this skill, as well as the things which went wrong. It’s these little steps and mistakes which, over time, lead to success and pride. This goes not just for the subject learning at school, but the growth we experience in our relationships with family members, friends and other people at school. Everyone in year 3 is growing, in lots of ways; and has much to be proud of. Here are some of the fantastic records the children made to show their understanding. A great motto for life which the children in year 3 shared is “Practice makes progress”.
Well-being has been the theme for the week. We spent time thinking and acknowledging the people who are in our support group- the people such as our friends, family and even pets who are there for us whenever we need it.
We then practised some mediation techniques to help us relax when we may feel a little stressed or overwhelmed. Calm breathing and listening to relaxing music can really help.
Finally, we spent time recognising our gifts and talents. We are all different- we help the world be more interesting in this way. We can use our gifts and talents to help others. We should celebrate our differences and not knock each other for them.
In addition to learning about our well-being, we had Internet Safety Day on Tuesday. We looked at possible scenarios which we may find ourselves in, where we may feel pressure to make the wrong choices online or react to others in a negative way. We created role-plays, wrote stories and even made board games to help advise others if they ever find themselves in this situation.
We have had such a busy half term. We all deserve a nice rest and some fun for the half term break.
I wish you all a lovely alarm-free week and I look forward to seeing you on 21st February!
As part of our Science, Design Technology and Wellbeing learning, we have had a wonderful week taking part in lots of activities that focus on healthy eating. After taste testing many combinations of foods from the Eatwell plate, we designed our own wrap ingredient combinations and created a class shopping list. Everyone chose one item of food, such as ham, cheese, tortilla wraps, cucumber or tomatoes to bring in and share with their classmates.
When preparing the ingredients for the wraps, we learned how to cut food by making a bridge with our fingers, grate cheese safely and we made sure that there was enough food for everyone! Once the food was ready, we then followed our designs and created our own wraps. We made sure that we didn’t overfill the wraps, because the trickiest part was folding the wraps up! Hoorah, after our wraps were made, we were able to eat them and one child was heard to say ‘This is even better than Christmas dinner!’
After we had eaten our food, we reviewed our wraps by thinking about how well they met the design brief. Were they healthy and tasty? Did the ingredients come from at least three food groups? What score would you give your wrap? We thought about what we would do differently if we made a second wrap and lots of the children thought that they would try some different ingredients, which is great, because we were able to make a second wrap on the last day of term!
