Author: Scott Grason-Taylor

A great start for the new Learners!

Scott Grason-Taylor

What a brilliant first week back for the Learners Class. The new year ones have settled in wonderfully, in just three days. This has been amazing to see. Both year groups have already been working collaboratively, which is a great sign of things to come.

Learners have had a busy few days visiting our school library to choose books for our classroom. Our class  now has a range books, both fiction and non-fiction for us to enjoy at our pleasure.

Our times table focus this term is the ten times table and we have spent some time this week using resources to aid our learning.

We are exploring the book ‘It’s Up To Us: A Children’s Terra Carta’ and have had some wonderful discussion and drawn pictures around nature and the planet. We were delighted to watch the King introduce the book and ask for our help. Next week we will be collecting our ideas of how we can help the planet and writing to the King. We will keep you posted!

The sun was bright on Thursday, so we opened the doors and went outside where it was cooler. We collected autumn leaves from the tree outside and with a partner created our own autumn trees.

We finished a busy week getting started on Sumdog and with some fun PE in the Hall.

What an amazing first week. I am very excited to see what Learners Class 2023-24 achieve! 

Mrs Brown

Flotsam

Scott Grason-Taylor

In preparation for our trip to Whitby next week, we took a look at FLOTSAM. This is a wonderful picture book full of curious items and possibilities.

The Pioneers had a great chat with Mrs Gurney about shells and cameras and things washed up on the shore. The Pioneers are very good at making predictions and giving reasons for these based on the evidence they have.

Looking at Fish

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers have been classifying living things and have been learning about fish. We got up close and looked at the fins and the scales and the teeth and the beard. The smell was not too bad as we got outside! We drew some great pictures recording features of each fish.

We also drew a Fish and Chip Shop food chain which was 

Thank you to our families for their rapid action in sourcing the fish for this fantastic learning.

 

Friday 7th July

Scott Grason-Taylor

It has been another wonderful week in Leaders class.

In history this week, the children considered how we know about the Mayan time period to finish off their learning in this area. They considered evidence such as buildings, writing, books and number systems. 

On Wednesday morning, Leaders enjoyed time in the forest. The children worked together to create forest faces on trees and then used their collage skills from art to create images with their forest finds. They displayed great teamwork and communication skills to complete the tasks.

On Thursday, it was a joy to gather together in church and celebrate all things music. The Leaders class band were amazing as always and it was wonderful to hear individual performances from many of the children in class. 

Well done everyone!

Friday 30th June 2023

Scott Grason-Taylor

This week, the Leaders have continued to explore the Mayan time period. Using a range of sources, they have found out about city life, with a focus on the layout of them. They found that the higher in the societal hierarchy you were, the closer to the center that you lived. The children also learned about Mayan Gods and created some brilliant pieces of writing based on what they found out.

In art, Leaders have continued to focus on collage, with a focus on the artist Hannah Hoch. The children learned that she used photomontage in her work and used her techniques to create their own collages. The work created is brilliant. 

The children have also been busy preparing for the music concert next week. We have some wonderful class band, recorder and individual performances ready to share with families next week.

On Friday, we were joined by Whitby Fire Service. The children were presented with information about camp fire safety. They learned that fires must only be started with an adult present and about where to start them and with what materials. Once the camp fire was lit, the children learned how to put it out safely.

Inspired by Nature

Scott Grason-Taylor

We  have been following the life cycle of our caterpillars and this week they turned into butterflies so we knew that the release day was drawing near. We went to the forest and found a shady spot for the release. Our butterflies were happy to hang around so we could take a close look at their mouth parts and their bodies. Eventually they flew off into the trees.

Inspired by the artwork in Eric Carle’s books we found out what it would be like to be an artist when we grew up. We found out that Eric was inspired by nature and walks in the forest with his father. The Pioneers watched a video where Eric shared his techniques and thoughts about colour.

We got brushes and sponges. Some chose other items like blocks and fingers and we added paint to wet quality tissue paper. The process was fascinating. The classroom was a quiet buzz of chat about colour and pattern. We found places for it all to dry!

The next day we set about making our own collages. The originality was fabulous. The Pioneers selected colour and pattern to fit their own ideas and made flowers and butterflies and of course the Very Hungry Caterpillar made an appearance alongside a dinosaur.

Another wonderful week of learning.

Exploring Calculations

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers have been very busy this week exploring calculations. We have returned to subtraction and the links with addition are becoming clearer. We have been working with teen numbers using a variety of manipulatives to support our work. The Pioneers moved form teacher to teacher trying out calculations with Numicon,Numberframes,Stickies,Moshimonsters and Tens and Ones. We wrote calculations and used Part/Whole Models to record our thinking. The quality of talk was high.Everyone was focussed and organised their resourses to get the right answers. Number formation is looking good and any reversed digits were quickly corrected.

Well done Pioneers.

Friday 9th June 2023

Scott Grason-Taylor

The start of the final half term of the year has been a busy one in Leaders class.

To start the week, on Monday, we visited St Hilda’s Church for a music concert. It was brilliant to listen to the wonderful musicians at the event. In addition to this, the children have continued to work hard in our class band music sessions, ready for our performances later in the half term.

This week, the children have continued to work hard on their writing, focusing on creating narrative pieces. Using the music video for ‘Titanium’, the children created brilliant stories, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

On Friday, the children demonstrated their creativity in art. Inspired by our focus artist, Ben Giles, the children created collages using the images and materials available to them. Check out the gallery below to see the amazing work that was created.