End of Topic Project

We are now finishing our Towers, Tunnels and Turrets topic ready for Christmas to take over next week.

Our final project was set for us by the 3 little pigs. They had a problem with the Big Bad Wolf blowing down all their houses and needed some help to build a safe fortress.

The children worked in groups to identify the features of a safe fortress. We had some amazingly creative ideas such as having a secret door that looks like a bookcase to trick the Big Bad Wolf.





The children then worked independently to make a design for their fortress, thinking about what tools and materials they may need.



Finally, the making process began.
The children worked very collaboratively and overcame problems along the way.

The magic of Santa

Here a few photos of this morning's discovery.

The children were so excited and did some of their best writing when writing letters back to him.
They told him what they had done that was good this year, what they would like for Christmas and why (including a gift for the whole family to enjoy) and ended with some questions.

Self-Portraits

Today we have been busy drawing self portraits.

We began by using mirrors to look carefully and the shape of our faces and the location of our features. We drew and oval shape and made a cross to help us position them correctly.

We then watched a video called 'Austin's Butterfly' which encouraged us to give each other feedback on how to improve before doing a second draft.

We added crowns to make us look like a King or Queen.

Weekly News 17.11

On Monday when the children arrived in the classroom there were lots of mysterious objects on the carpet. We completed a ‘free writing’ activity which involved choosing an object and writing in any style or genre such as; a story, a letter, a description or a poem. We made the focus handwriting and encouraged many children to start applying joins.

Later in the week we looked at the story of the Billy Goats Gruff and had a class debate / hot seating where we discussed reasons for and against crossing the bridge, for example ‘If you keep crossing the bridge you will give me a headache from all your trip-trapping.’

In Maths this week we have started to look at subtraction on a blank number line. The children find this more difficult than adding due to counting backwards in tens from any number so if you get a chance to practise this at home that would be great. We also solved subtraction word problems using our preferred method (mental, blank number line or 100sq).

In Science this week we have performed a simple experiment using newspaper. The children were challenged to create a bridge between two desks that would hold the weight of a goat figure. They worked in small groups and were only allowed to use 4 sheets of newspaper. The test showed some interesting ideas and the children thought carefully about how to make the newspaper stronger by folding, layering, rolling and twisting.

Whales class visited Mulbarton Church on Wednesday afternoon. Many thanks to Reverend Adrian for showing the children round and performing a pretend wedding. Shark class are looking forward to going next Wednesday. 

Forest School

Just a few pictures of this afternoon's forest school fun:

Weekly News 10.11

Weekly News

This week we have been very busy writing our tunnel adventure stories. The children showed fantastic imagination and tried hard to include lots of detail to interest the reader. Everyone tried to use capital letters, full stops, finger spaces interesting sentences starters and adjectives. Some children even added similes and speech marks.

In Maths we have started learning how to use a blank number line to add. The children used their understanding of place value to add the tens and ones separately. We had three levels of challenge;

Bronze: Add a 2 digit number and a 1 digit number.
Silver: Add a 2 digit number and a tens number.
Gold: Add two 2-digit numbers (tens and ones)

Below is a picture to show the strategy:

In Religious Education we have started to look at Christianity by looking at the features of a Christian church. The children drew and labelled a church and some children went on to write facts about Christianity including the symbols, holy book and festivals associated with the faith.

You will see in the children's home learning books that there is a reading activity. This will count as one piece of home learning and must be completed by Monday the 20th as part of our 'Reading for Pleasure' whole school focus.

PARENT HELP PLEE

On Wednesday the 15^th of November, in the afternoon, Whales class will be walking to Mulbarton Church where Rev. Adrian will be showing the children around. We would really appreciate a few parent helpers to come with us. Shark class will be doing the same trip during the afternoon of Wednesday the 22^nd. Please let the class teachers know if you are available to help on either week.

Both classes are also attending a Multiskills festival at Easton College on Thursday the 23^rd (morning). We would like to have 2 adult helpers to help with this too, if possible. Again, please let us know if you are free to help.

Forest School

We have just enjoyed our first forest school session, and what fun we had!

We played games, built dens, climbed trees, went on the rope swings and sat around the fairy circle.

Weekly News 3.11.17

This week we have been focussing all of our work around towers and tunnels.

We started the week by building different size towers and estimating their height in centimetres before measuring accurately using a ruler. Some children also looked at millimetres to make their measurements even more precise (for example 2.5cm). The gold challenge involved answering mathematical questions about their measurements such as; ‘How much taller is tower 3 than tower 1?’, ‘How tall would your towers be if you put them altogether?’ and ‘Can you convert one of your measurements from cm into mm?’.
Later in the week we looked at subtraction on a 100sq by moving up to subtract tens and backwards to subtract ones.

In English we have looked at the story ‘The Tunnel’ by Anthony Browne. In the story one of the main characters has a dilemma about whether she should follow her brother into a strange, dark tunnel. The children wrote reasons for and against using conjunctions (because, unless, until, if, so that). AT the end of the lesson we acted out a ‘conscience alley’.
On Friday everyone started planning their own tunnel adventure story by making a story map.

In Geography we have been learning about famous towers around the world such as the Eiffel Tower, the Burj Khalifa etc. We looked at the continents each tower was in and labelled on a world map. Some children made their labels more specific by finding the country within the continent.