Friday 31st March
It has been an absolutely amazing end to this term and the children have worked their absolute socks off. We have had a wonderful enterprise enrichment week, a visit to the Centre for Life and performed an Easter production to our grown-ups. I couldn’t be prouder of how dedicated the children have been to their learning and work and I am looking forward to the Summer term to see them grow and flourish more ready for Year 2.
Today we had a surprise left in our classroom – it was a magic pot filled with a liquid. We didn’t know what it could be but thought maybe it was a potion pot that could grant us wishes. We each took a turn at stirring the pot and saying our own magic words. At the same time, we made a mish for what we wanted the pot to make us. We had lots of different ideas for what we wanted the pot to cook us. We turned the surprise and ideas into creative stories in our book. The children were all so imaginative in the ideas they come up with and everyone wrote something different. I wonder if the pot might leave us something over the Easter holidays ….
Have a wonderful Easter everyone!
Miss McArdle
Friday 24th March
Happy Friday everyone! We have had the most fantastic enterprise week here in school topped off with an amazing Easter Assembly this afternoon by the children. They were absolute superstars and spoke and sang with such confidence and joy. I couldn’t be prouder as their class teacher and I am sure anyone who came to watch was just as wowed and proud of them.
As part of our enrichment week here in school, we have been looking at enterprise and careers. The children had such a wonderful lesson on Thursday afternoon where we explored all the different careers they could do when they grow up. We had a discussion on which careers and jobs we thought we would like to do and gave reasons. The children had some amazing ideas of jobs they wanted to do.
In addition to this, we also worked in groups to complete a pocket pitch challenge. The children had to come up with a business that sold a product or service and then create a pitch to persuade the rest of the class to buy their product. The children were so creative in the ideas they came up with such as bracelets with whistles to attract your dog’s attention, football for dogs and even a squishy toy that would glow in the dark. They were amazing at presenting their pitches, trying to persuade the rest of the class. We each voted and had a class winner of ‘Shine Jewels’ which made custom jewellery pieces with gems for children.
Have an amazing weekend everyone!
Friday 17th March
We have had an amazing week in England class again full of lots of fun including innovating stories in English, learning all about Mumbai in Geography and practicing for our Easter production next week.
This week I wanted to share the amazing work the children have complete in DT. Over the past few weeks we have been looking at rockets and the design process for making a rocket. Each of the children created a design for their friend, thinking carefully about the materials and technique they would need to use. This week, we began creating our designs in fantastic junk modelling lesson. We brought in lots of materials from home to create our rockets and looked back at our designs. At the end of the lesson, we showcased our rockets to our friends and took them home. The children loved being creative and it was wonderful to see all their very unique designs.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Miss McArdle
Friday 10th March
We have such a fun and busy week in England class. We took part in a fantastic workshop based on the book ‘How to catch a falling star’ by the West End Schools. The children were amazing at dancing and acting along to a piece of music with their actions inspired by the words in the story.
On Thursday, we visited the Life Centre in Newcastle. We had the most amazing time learning all about Science including Space! The children absolutely loved the space zone and were able to learn all about how astronauts adapt when they go to space. They looked at Mission Control, a real life model of inside the ISS and even got to make themselves flying astronauts using some clever camera technology. My name was shouted lots by the children whilst in the space zone as they had spotted a picture of Neil Armstrong’s footprint when he landed on the moon. We had found out about Neil Armstrong in our History lesson this week so it was wonderful to see the children making connections between their learning in class and what they saw on our visit. Whilst on our visit we also got creative, explored about the brain, took part in some science experiments and visited the planetarium for a story all about the stars. It was such a fantastic day from start to finish and I am sure the children will be so excited to go back.
Have a super weekend everyone!
Miss McArdle
Friday 3rd March
We have had an amazing first week back at school following on from a wonderful half-term holiday. The children have came back to school with their super listening ears and eagerness to learn.
On Thursday 2nd March, we celebrated World Book Day in school. The children came dressed up as their favourite book characters and brought in lots of wonderful books. We had a share in the class of all of our favourite story books. We were set a challenge by Miss McPherson to create a our own story as a class. We had such an amazing range of ideas but had to settle on one. We created a story all about a wizard named Walter who was going to Wizard School. Unfortunately, his first day doesn't go quite to plan. We have created the full story and illustrations from scratch and will be sending them off to be published into a real life book that you can purchase. Please find a teaser of the front cover below. Watch this space!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss McArdle
Friday 10th February
It has been a super busy week full of super learning in England class this week. We have been learning all about the Giant's Causeway in Geography, completed a new skill of skipping in PE and celebrate Internet Safety Day on Tuesday. I was so impressed with how much the children had remembered about how to be safe online.
On Monday we had a wonderful Science lesson where we completed some fantastic experiments. This half-term we have been exploring all about materials including learning about the different properties that materials have. We were set a challenge of creating an umbrella for a teddy bear that would help the teddy bear stay try. We tested 4 different materials to find out which one would be the best. We worked scientifically by making predictions, completing the test 3 times to ensure it was fair and then created our own conclusions based on the results. The children absolutely loved completing the experiments and we can't wait to do some more throughout the year.
Have the most amazing weekend everyone!
Miss McArdle
Friday 3rd February
We have had such a wonderful but very busy week in England class. We have had such a wonderful day today taking part in multiple workshops. We got the chance this morning to listen to a real life astronaut live from the Shetland Islands speaking about what happens when astronauts go to space. We attended this in preparation for us learning all about Neil Armstrong in a few weeks time. The children can't wait to find out more!
After that fantastic workshop and lunchtime, we attended another amazing workshop in person all about how to stay safe online. We met Boo a bunny rap who had some dilemmas he faced when going online. We helped Boo try to remember the rules you must follow when going online. I have to say I was so impressed at how the children had taken their knowledge about online safety from a our computing lessons to the workshop.
I wanted to share some amazing work the chlldren have been working on in our Music lessons. Over the past few weeks, we have been learning all about the classical piece of music called 'Winter' by Vivaldi. It is part of the composition the four seasons. We've responded to the music, danced to it and even tried to play some percussion instruments to imitate the piece! This week we focused on exploring the sonnet that had inspired the piece. We focused on the first part of the Winter poem which said ;
Frozen and trembling in the icy snow,
In the severe blast of the horrible wind,
As we run, we constantly stamp our feet,
And our teeth chatter in the cold.
We took each line and tried to think of a sound we could make to represent the words in the sonnet. We used our bodies to create sound and then recorded a short piece. I was so impressed with the children’s ideas and creativity!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss McArdle.
Friday 27th January
It has been such a super week in England this week. We have been working so hard writing our innovated stories, learning all about addition in Maths and finding out about Washington DC in our Geography lessons.
In our Art lesson this week, we had a look at sculpture which is our topic for this half-term. We were very creative and tried to make some 3D tube towers. We rolled up pieces of card and stuck them down onto a base. Some of us even started to add designs to our tube towers.I was so impressed by the children's patience , creativity and most importantly stickability in the lesson. They all tried so hard to make their paper sculptures, Please see the photos below of our super work.
Have an amazing weekend everyone!
Miss McArdle
Friday 20th January
We have had such a wonderful week in England class learning all about Sir Christopher Wren in our History and Art lessons, odd and even numbers in Maths and all about World Religion Day in our RE session.
Today I wanted to share with you some of the amazing work that the children have been doing in English where they have been innovating our story this half term all about George and the Dragon. The children came up with some creative ideas on things we could change in the story including changing George the knight into a ninja called Jack. Additionally, the wanted the ninja to use a magic wand to try and defeat the dragon rather than a sword. On Wednesday, the children created their own innovated story maps inside their books. I am sure you will agree that their maps are amazing and have so much detail! On Thursday, they used their maps to re-tell the story to their friends and classmates. I was yet again wowed by their re-telling of their innovated stories and the level of detail in their innovations. It was so wonderful to hear all of the story vocabulary throughout their re-telling. I think we are going to have some super writers in the future.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss McArdle.
Friday 13th January
It has been a super start to the new year in England class this week. It was so wonderful to hear all about the children's exciting holidays and all the wonderful things they had received over Christmas. On Wednesday this week, we were able to experience a fantastic music workshop delivered by Gateshead Music Services which got the children singing and dancing. We learned all about the different musical terms and were shown examples of the various instruments that were brought in including the drums and an electric guitar which was the children's favourite.
This week in PE we have started our new unit on Gymnastics. We firstly looked at different ways to travel including on different levels. The children were fantastic at moving around in a safe way and loved pretending to be different animals. On our next lesson, we got out the mats and began to learn some different gymnastic shapes. Some of the shapes we trickier than others for example dish. Although some were tricky, I was so proud of all of the children's growth mindset in the session. They all gave it a go and were absolutely amazing at encouraging their friends.
Keep up the super growth mindset England!
Miss McArdle