Friday 31st March
I can’t believe that we are already at the end of our busy half term.
The children in Scotland have been amazing and have learnt so much!
This week we had the opportunity to evaluate our Design and Technology task which was to design and create a rocket. This was linked to our learning all about the astronaut Neil Armstrong.
The children had to think about what shape a rocket would be and what materials they could use to create one. The children were able to work with their work partner to share ideas and think about what materials they had at home and at school that would be of use in their design.
Last week they brought in all of their materials and created their design. There was lots of discussion about what was going well and what challenges were being faced. As usual though, the children used their ‘Growth Mindset’ to keep going even when the rocket wasn’t working in the way that they wanted in to!
This week we looked at the specific nature of the success and challenges we faced. We also looked at how we might change our plans if we were to complete the build again.
After such a busy few weeks, I wish everyone in Scotland class a very Happy Easter and I hope the Easter Bunny brings lots of lovely Easter eggs.
Friday 24th March
We had a lovely time on Thursday when we welcomed our grown ups to join us for a Maths Mastery session. It was lovely to see how many grown-ups could make it to their first maths class in a while!
The children and adults will be completing a five-week programme at home to help support Maths Mastery lessons in school.
Scotland class were able to work with an adult to complete a series of maths games. These are all linked to the children’s daily Maths Mastery work.
The children enjoyed showing their adults how to subitise and complete problems and answer them using their stem sentences.
Friday 17th March.
In Computing this week, we were learning more about Programming.
We were able to use the DOC robots to talk about how to programme them to follow our commands.
As you can see from the photos, we used the DOC mats to programme our robot to get to a particular place on the map. We worked with our work partner to decide where DOC was going to go. After that was the tricky bit – finding out what algorithms we needed to programme into DOC.
It was great to see how the children worked so well together to think about how DOC could get to the places on the map and what instructions we needed to give him to get there.
Friday 10th March.
This week has been a busy one for Scotland class. On Wednesday, we were lucky to have a visit from the West End Theatre company who worked with us to produce a dance linked to the book – How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers. The finished dance was amazing. The children achieved so much in only 35 minutes!
On Thursday, we went on a class visit to the Centre for Life in Newcastle. This linked to our work in History all about Neil Armstrong, the astronaut.
Our visit definitely had a space theme. The children were able to dress up in space suits and design and build rockets out of all different sorts of things. It was fun to see how creative they could be!
In the planetarium we learnt all about the different constellations through a story about a little bear.
In the Space Zone we were able to visit the international Space Station and learn what it was like to live on space from actual astronauts who lived there. Did you know that if you cry in space your tears don’t fall?
As you can see in the photos, Scotland class had the most amazing time… who knows maybe there are some future astronauts amongst them?
Friday 3rd March
It was lovely to welcome everyone back to school on Monday after our half term break. There were lots of lovely happy smiles!
It’s been a very busy week in Scotland with lots of new things to learn about.
In Science, we are beginning a new topic which is called Animals Including Humans. It did make some of the children to laugh to think of themselves as animals!
As part of our lesson we had to play an Eye Spy game to spot lots of animals that were hiding in their habitats – we were very good at that. Another focus for the lesson was to talk about how we might classify animals into different groups.
We learnt about Mammals, Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles and Birds. We talked about which animals might belong to each of the different animal groups.
We talked to our work partners to think about which of these types of animals we might spot if we had a walk around our school environment.
On our walk around school and the outside area we spotted mammals, birds and even fish. Some of our classmates were able to see reptiles when they went home as they own snakes! None of us were able to spot any amphibians though.
We are looking forward to see what we learn about next!
Friday 17th February
We have had a lovely week in Scotland class.
This week in History we were learning all about Queen Elizabeth I. The children had to take on the role of the teachers!
Every child in the class was given a fact. After they had read their fact, they then had to move around the classroom to share their fact with another friend.
It was fantastic to see how well the children worked with other to share the information. It was lovely to see the respect they gave to each other as they shared information. Their speaking and listening skills were excellent!
Following this ‘Each One, Teach One’ activity, the children then came back together into their table groups to create a group poster full of all of the facts they had learnt.
It was a great collaborative activity. Well done Scotland. We are most definitely ready for a well earned rest over half term!
Friday 10th February
On Tuesday this week, we joined with children and young people all around the world to celebrate Safer Internet Day.
The theme for this year was ‘Want to talk about it?’
The children in Scotland completed lots of activities about what they liked to do online and how they thought that they could be kept safe. It was really good to hear all the fantastic ideas the children came up with.
‘Have my grown-up near me when I’m on the computer.’
‘Always ask my grown up if I can go online.’
‘Never share my information.’
‘If I get worried about something tell a grown up.’
‘If something pops up – don’t click it – it might be dangerous.’
Friday 3rd February
The website this week is written by the children of Scotland class as part of their work on Multimedia presentations. We learnt how to word process and then add photos to our website page.
This morning in school, we went to the dance studio to meet Hannah who taught us how to be safe on the internet.
She brought with her a friend called ‘Boo.’ Boo was a rabbit who liked playing games, watching Youtube and being online.
We pretended we had a box with electronic devices inside that we use. We had iPhones, laptops, iPads, Smart watches, Xboxes, Switch, Smart TV, Alexa and Siri.
We talked to Hannah about how to stay safe when using online devices. We looked at a checklist of things that would help to keep us safe. We then put actions with the rules.
We then had to help Boo to stay safe online by helping him to answer some questions. We were detectives and had to help Boo do the right thing.
Have look at the photos to see some of the other activities we did.
Boo will definitely be safer online with our help!
It was really great to see how well the children knew how to stay safe online. The list of ‘safety’ rules is included in the photos. One really important one to consider is ensuring that parental controls are turned on on every device that the children use.
Friday 27th January
During our Art and Design lesson this week we were learning all about how to make paper sculptures.
First, we watched a video about how to create our masterpieces.
It looked so easy but we really had to use our ‘growth mindset’ to create our paper and card cylinders. It certainly wasn’t as easy as it looked!
We used pencils to wrap our paper around to help to make the cylinder shapes. Then we glued the edges to fix the shape.
After that, we used glue to stick the tube towers onto the base piece of card.
The finished products were fantastic!
Friday 20th January
This week we have been learning all about Christopher Wren. We learnt about the amazing buildings he was the architect for when he helped to rebuild London after the ‘Great Fire’ in 1666.
We looked at some of his buildings in our Art lesson. We then used clay to try to sculpt some of our own.
I made the Fire of London monument. It was easy! Matty
St Pauls’ Cathedral was cross shape. Miley
King Henry VIII house (Hampton Court) was full of windows. Olivia
I built the Royal Chelsea hospital. Kaitlyn
It was tricky. Billy
It is easy to balance the bridge. Arthur
Friday 13th January
Happy New Year!
The children have returned to school so enthusiastically after their break – full of stories of Santa and toys. It sounds as though they all had an amazing time!
This week in our Collective Worship session, we were focusing on New Year traditions. We talked a lot about our New Year Resolutions and the sort of things we might we might want to achieve this coming year.
Many of the children talked about the Environment and how important it was to look after it carefully. Discussions focused on the different types of things that the children did already to help the Environment and the different things they could do.
Litter picking was something that some of the class already did and was something that other children wanted to do. We talked about how we would do this safely.
‘Beach cleans’ were another environmental resolution that the children wanted to try so they could help to keep plastic and rubbish out of the oceans. They thought it was very important to take care of the ‘sea creatures.’
Recycling was another thing that some children did already but other children wanted to make it their resolution to do it too. It was nice to hear how the children talked to each other to share their ideas as to how and what they could recycle.
I was really impressed with the way in which the class spoke so maturely about the topic of The Environment and how they would safeguard the planet’s future.
Working towards saving the planet is a pretty good resolution – I’m sure you’ll agree!