Rye Meads Trip

We had a fantastic time at Rye Meads RSPB nature reserve.  We enjoyed our first school coach trip and learnt a lot from the lovely staff who worked with us.  

We took part in two sessions: bird-watching and plant hunting.  We saw some lovely birds including a coot, black-headed gull and some geese.  During the plant hunting session, we learnt about the parts of plants as well as exploring and observing the environment on the reserve.  We completed some leaf rubbings to help us identify the trees.

Polar Penguins

We started off our Polar Regions topic by using clay to make some model penguins.  In this topic we will be learning about the geography and animals of the polar regions as well as learning about what happened to the Titanic on its maiden voyage. 

In Literacy, we have been reading the book 'Leaf' by Sandra Diekman.  It is a lovely story about a polar bear who floats away from his home on a sheet of ice and finds himself in an unfamiliar place. 

Scottish Dancing

Today we had our Fabulous Finish to our Scottish Island topic.  Miss Hart taught us a Scottish dance that she learnt as a child.  We all wore something tartan and had a jolly good time!

Easter Egg Hunt

KS1 had a great time hunting for the bottle tops on the school field.  When their team had found enough tops they were able to exchange it for an Easter treat!  Thank you PTA for organising the event.

And relax...  

Today we had a lovely yoga day organised by Mrs Yeldham.  A visiting yoga teacher spent time with each class learning the basics of yoga.  I think we'd like to do some more!  

Science Week Fun!

We had a lovely time during Science Week learning about growing.  We learnt about garden and wild plants and went on a hunt around the school to look for them.  We also started a school competition to grow the tallest sunflower.  I wonder which class will win?

Looking for plants

We have been going back to our plants learning this half-term.  We have been naming and searching for plants in our school grounds.  We found an enormous number of daisies and a lot of ivy on our wild plant hunt.

Saltmine Theatre

This week we were visited by the Saltmine Theatre group. They performed a play for us based on the Easter Story.  We had a fantastic time and laughed so much!

The children in KS1 loved dressing up for 'World Book Day'. They all looked fantastic and were able to tell us which characters they were and from what story. They watched a video of the teachers acting out a story and they had a go at writing their on acrostic poem. 

Thinking about the environment

We have created some natural pieces of art to think about the beauty of our local environment and how plants and trees help us to survive.

Fruit Juice tasting

In Science, we have been learning about keeping healthy.  We were surprised to find out how much water was in different kinds of fruits.  We have learnt in Science that without water, we can only survive for 3-4 days.  

We carried out a fruit juice survey, trying five different fruit juices.  We then collected data on a tally chart to investigate which was the most popular.

Children's Mental Health Week

The children have been completing activities that benefit their mental health this week.  We have also been learning about how we can recognise and regulate our emotions in our PSHE lessons.

Geography Week

After a fantastic visit from James Kettchel, we were inspired to learn more about the world and the challenges it presents us.  We learnt about all the continents and used the atlases to discover the longest river, tallest mountains and largest cities in each continent.  We also learnt and recorded further information about some of the sights from each continent.

History Workshop

To launch our topic about health and nurses from the past, we had History off the Page in to visit.  They helped us to look at sources and role play events from the Crimean War.  We had a fantastic time learning about Florence Nightingale.  We will then go on to learn about Mary Seacole and Edith Cavell as well.

PTA Fundraising Day

We dressed up in our pyjamas and onesies!  The PTA asked us to make a donation to the school if we wanted to dress up today.  The money raised is going towards improving the KS2 playground.

Observing Trees

We have been going out and drawing a tree at different times of year.  We noticed that the tree is now bare and has lost all its leaves.  We think that this must mean that it is a deciduous tree.

Parking Survey

We went out onto the road outside our school.  First we looked for safety signs that showed there was as school nearby.  Then we drew the safety signs onto our map of the local area.  Finally we started at the bottom of the road and walked all the way to the top of the road, counting how many cars were parked on the road at that time. We'll go back out at the end of the school day to count how many cars are parked there at pick up time.  Then we'll compare the two different times of day and see if we can reduce the parking at the busiest time of day.

Children in Need

For Children in Need day, all the children dressed up in something that made them feel happy.  There were lots of lovely outfits, costumes and football kits that were being worn.

Odd Socks Day

To start Anti-Bullying week, we wore our odd socks to school today.  What a fun and colourful sight!

Remembrance Day

We held a two minute silence on the KS2 playground to remember the brave people who had fought and lost their lives to protect our country.  Children who are in the Rainbows and Beavers wore their uniforms.

Scooter Training

We had a fabulous time learning how to ride our scooters safely.  We learnt that you must stop, look, listen and think before you start crossing the road with your scooter.  We also learnt how to use our brakes to stop instead of using our feet.

Designing and Building model houses

We have been practising our skills to develop our own model houses.  Architects usually build a model before building their real building.  We had great fun joining our boxes together to start thinking about how we wanted to make our models.

Cross-Country Race

We race our best race to try and win the House Cross-Country competition!  Yet more resilience needed!  There were some amazingly fast runners but great efforts all round!

Historical Objects from the Museum

We have been learning about how homes have changed in our History lessons.  We have been looking at what houses were like in the 1980s and 1950s when our parents and grandparents might have been children.  We heard from people that age about their experiences.  However, to find out about Victorian times, we borrowed objects from the museum because there are no longer people alive we can talk to.  We explored how clothes were washed in Victorian times.

Hello Yellow

We are celebrating 'Hello Yellow' day by wearing yellow or something that makes us happy.  We've also chosen decorate biscuits during our Golden Time as a happiness treat!

National Poetry Day

We have been learning a lot of poetry this term.  For National Poetry Day, we performed one of our favourites - 'Cats' by Eleanor Farjeon.  We love the poem for its long list of places that cats will sleep and enjoyed devising and adding actions to our performance.

Skateboarding

We had a great time learning to skateboard.  Before we went out we talked about being resilient when you learn something new.   During the session, we learnt how to use our scooter skills to learn to skateboard.  Then we practised jumping onto our skateboards and performing 'pancake' flips.  What a fantastic time we had!

Local Area Walk

To start our 'Me and My Environment' topic, we went for a walk around our local area.  We were looking at the shapes we could see in the different houses we passed.  When we design and make our model homes we might use some of what we have seen to include in our design.