Month: January 2024

Marvellous Maths.

Scott Grason-Taylor

We begun our week this week with an open Maths Activity morning. We welcomes 24 families into Learners Class alone! The class was buzzing with problem solving, times tables and practical activities around money, shape and time. It was wonderful to be able to share our learning with our families.

We have been focusing on our 5 times tables this week, using our fingers to help with multiplication and division facts. We are certainly becoming more confident!

In computers we have had a great time enjoying the Beebots to develop our programming skills. We looked at the four direction commands on a Beebot and using our powers of prediction to decide on the outcome of an algorithm. We created an obstacle course in the hall for the Beebots and loved having a really long race.

In Geography we have been finding out about the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. We looked at maps and were able to identify the whereabouts each country and name their capital cities.

In History, we are continuing to enjoy our topic Inventors and Inventions. This week we turned our focus to the invention of the wheel. We all agreed that this was indeed one of the greatest inventions and were able to identify many different ways the wheel was useful today. We particularly enjoyed mastering how to pronounce the place ‘Mesopotamia’.

Learners love to learn 🙂

 

Letters from The Elves

Scott Grason-Taylor

This week the elves have been sending their messages on the typewriter. We discussed that this is a bit like our computer keyboard but you cannot change the font or the colour of the text. It is also a bit more difficult when you make a mistake. We have been using the words past and present to talk about some of the items in the Cobbler’s Shop.

The elves asked for a house and so we gathered large loose parts and got going with the building. The Pioneers did well to share the space and the resources and the results are fabulous. New vocabulary was picked up along the way to describe the materials used.

The classroom was full of wonderful, purposeful investigation. You could see plans being made and reviewed and tested out. 

A wintry week.

Scott Grason-Taylor

This week has been particularly wintry and we have had a few days of snow.

Our first swimming session on Tuesday was a great success. We managed to get changed and unchanged into our swimming things independently, build on our water confidence and skills in the pool and we enjoyed every moment. We are extremely excited to do it all again next week.

In English, we have been reading The Good Little Wolf by Nadia Shireen. We are researching whether all wolves are bad! In the story Rolf (the little wolf) was far from bad and enjoyed making cakes and sharing with his friends. We will be reading more fairy tales to find out more about the characters of the different wolves we come across.

In computers we have been enjoying the Bee-bots. We are really enjoying programming to make the Bee-bots move around.

Parents evening on Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd January will be a wonderful opportunity to share the Learners’ successes and achievements with families.

Requests From Our Elves

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Elves have left us a note every day to ask for help. They needed a bed and a chair so we made plans and build them joining wood and card. They spilt paint and left red footprints so we had to clear that up and do some pictures. They asked for a “light in the night” so we got out some torches. We also talked about life in the past without electricity and how the Cobbler’s Shop may only have had a candle. We lit the candle and talked about the dangers and how difficult this would be. They also went outside and got stuck in the snow, in the igloo. We had to dig them out. All of the letters they wrote contained some of our current digraphs which was very useful! Great focus and lots of writing.

Friday 19th January 2023

Scott Grason-Taylor

Leaders have made a brilliant start to 2024!

In English, the children have been learning to write instructions. They explored a WAGOLL based on The Three Little Pigs and how to build a straw house before visiting the forest to build twig houses. Using this experience, the children wrote a set of instructions. The finished work is brilliant!

In maths, Leaders have spent the week tackling converting measures. They have converted metric units of measure, miles to kilometers and imperial measures and applied this learning to a range of problems. 

In art, our new topic is textiles. The children have learned what this type of art is and explored the work of our focus artist, Louise Baldwin. Following this, the children learned how to use running stitches, back stitches and cross stitches. Keep an eye on our class blog to see how we use these stitches in our artwork over the coming weeks.

In history, our new unit is the Victorians. The children have already learned about Queen Victoria, began to create a timeline and explored a range of historical sources to find out more about the British Empire during this time period and its impact on Britain.

In Collective Worship, Leaders have gathered with the whole school and explored our new Christian Value, perseverance. It was also brilliant to see the Reading Leaders deliver an informative assembly to the whole school this week. 

An excellent two weeks to start 2024!

 

 

Fantastic fairytales.

Scott Grason-Taylor

Happy new year. The first week  of 2024 has been busy in Learners Class as always.

In English we have been reading fairytales, as many as we could find. All week, we have been choosing snippets of our favourites, in order to create a recipe for our own fairytale stew. On Thursday we each wrote our own recipe, using a selection of ingredients including a strand of Rapunzel’s hair, a horn from the Billy Goat’s Gruff, a button from the Giant’s coat and some bits of bobbly beanstalk – to name but a few. On Friday we delighted in making a class fairytale stew with a big pan and spoon. We took turns to add an ingredient and were able to stir it into the stew. We have really enjoyed this writing topic, which is evident from our wonderful final pieces of writing!

We have been exploring shape in maths this week, identifying 2D and 3D shapes and identifying the names and properties of shapes.

We enjoyed our first PE session with Hawkes sports coaches and are beginning to build skills to help us learn to play basketball.

In computers we were delighted to be programming Bee-Bots, finding out that our commands were causing our Bee-Bots to move where we wanted.

In PSHCE this week, we have been finding out the difference between physical and mental health and agreed that looking after ourselves is extremely important.

On Tuesday 16th January we will start our first swimming session at Whitby pool. Please make sure your Learner brings a swimming costume and a towel in a bag and that earrings are taken out before arriving at school on Tuesday. Learners are very excited to start swimming sessions.

Learners love to learn everyday and enjoy working together in class.

The Elves Have Arrived

Scott Grason-Taylor

There has been much excitement on our return to school to find that we have elves. It started with just one and now we have six. Every day they have left us a letter and given us a job to do. This has involved quite a bit of reading using our new digraphs and a trigraph. The Pioneers have been finding out about the past by handling the items used in the Cobbler’s Shop. The elves used the leather to make the shoes and left them on the table, we compared this process with a video of how shoes are made now. Some things are the same but some are very different.

We made Elf Snacks by mixing and kneading the dough before cutting and cooking

The elves have been spotted on night vision video in the library and they were outside in the rain.

We made Elf Books and fastened these with paper fasteners and used the hole punch and glue.

We did some planning to build chairs and beds, realising that some structures were stronger than others.

So much happens in Pioneers in just 4 days.

Happy Learning!