The Adventurers have been working hard in all areas of the curriculum this week.
In English, the children have continued to think about how they can make an impact with their actions and have applied their ideas into sentences that use subordinating conjunctions and fronted adverbials. Their writing has been a joy to read. They have also planned and began to write their poster text and are looking forward to completing these next week. In history, Adventurers have been learning about the different time periods in the Stone Age. After carrying out a reading activity, they worked together to sort facts into the correct time period before showcasing what they had learned with some great written responses. On Thursday, Adventurers had their first music sessions. The children were extremely excited to play their instruments for the first time and had a brilliant first lesson.
Category: Class
Happy Learning
We welcomed the Pioneers into their classroom this week and everything was ready. They have filled the space with curiosity and questions. They have moved everything to combine dominoes and train track, buttons and magnets, dough and acorns. They have been dressing up, singing and dancing, writing and building.
The days have found a rhythm and the Pioneers are learning the routines. They managed lunch and outside playtime, collective worship and our end of week disco which was quite something. We talked about how important it is to be part of a team and they certainly played this out in their actions this week.
Happy Learning
Inspired by Beatriz Milhazes…
This week, Learners had a wonderful art lesson creating collage inspired by Beatriz Milhazes.
Learners enjoyed researching the artists own pieces, before creating their own inspired artwork.
Just like Beatriz, Learners used bold colours and cascading patterns, using layering and overlapping to perfect their ideas. The aim of Beatriz’s art was to ‘pull the viewer in’ with an eye-catching display and Learners creations most definitely achieved this. Learners created artwork with focus and creativity, using the skills they have learned over the last few weeks and most importantly they thoroughly enjoyed it!
Learners class have worked incredibly hard this year and have been such enthusiastic learners. They are certainly ready for the adventures of year 3!
Writing and Drawing
The Pioneers love to write and to draw and it is at this time of the year that we can look back and see just how far we have come. The desire to write is there. The desire to understand is there. The awe and wonder found by looking at and learning about our natural world is fabulous. The Pioneers love new knowledge. They are hungry and impatient and demanding and this is so wonderful and long may this continue.
Pioneer don’t stop.
Exploring forces
In science this week, we have been learning about forces. On Wednesday we looked at how using different forces could make an object change its shape. We used dough to help us find out. We squeezed, stretched, pushed, pulled and twisted the dough and recognised that using these forces helped us to form a new shape.
We then thought about our own daily routines, such as eating, opening doors, playing football and brushing our teeth. We could identify the forces that we would need to do all of these things without even realising we were. Learners were fascinated. What a wonderful week of science learning!
On Friday, we enjoyed our school sports day on the field. Many of our families were able to come and watch while we ran, jumped, threw and balanced our way through each event! What a lot of fun we had!
Keep an eye on our class page to see what we are learning in Learners Class.
Exploring friction.
In science this week, we have been finding out about friction. What better way to do this than to explore it for ourselves. We set ab out measuring how far an object travelled down a ramp while changing the material at the bottom to test varying friction. We made sure it was a fair test by keeping all the elements the same, such as the steepness of the ramp and the same vehicle each time. We tested furry material, smooth books, the hall floor, our school jumpers, sandpaper and carpet, Numicon boards and carpet. we measured how har the vehicle travelled each time. We found that materials with higher friction slowed the vehicle down, whereas the vehicle travelled much faster over a low friction material. Learners were fascinated by the results.
Learners had a lovely day in Whitby on Friday, looking for signs of Captain Cook to consolidate our history work around explorers. We visited the Captain Cook exhibition in Pannet Museum, stopped to sketch the replica of Captain Cook’s Endeavour, which resides in the harbour and visited the statue of Captain Cook, that stands proudly on the west cliff.
We are looking forward to Sports day, which is coming up this week and are hoping for good weather.
Keep an eye on our class page, to see what we are learning!
Exploring Collage
We continue to be delighted by collage. This week we added our painted paper to our willow lanterns and onto wet strength tissue paper. We had additional single colour paper to combine in our collage. The Pioneers used cutting,ripping and crumpling to add a variety of textures.
We also had a go at combining colour , exploring how wool worked. One Pioneer identified that the strands needed to look like candy floss and this was the perfect comment to get everyone started on the right road. This took patience and focus and control.
While working we listened to Carnival of the Animals and the variety in the music certainly changed how we worked!
Structures
In DT this week, Learners have enjoyed building stable structures. We demonstrated excellent problem solving skills. We tested different shapes and noted how they affected the strength of the structure. We experimented with different designs and materials and we were able to evaluate and then improve as we built. Some learners chose to work as part of a team, where others preferred to work alone. We soon found that triangles made the strongest shapes and that a wide base helped with strength too. The activity was calm and very focused. I think there are some budding engineers among us!
In English, we have begun writing our newspaper reports around A Midsummer Night’s Dream and are keen to include the writing skills, learned over the last weeks.
We are perfecting our time knowledge in maths, and regularly stop to check the current time on our class clock!
In geography, we have been watching the weather closely and have been recording data using an okta, thermometer, rain gauge and checking daily wind direction. We are looking forward to analysing our data next week.
We are looking forward to our class trip to Whitby next week, where we will be searching for links with Captain Cook to consolidate our history learning this term.
Learners are amazing and are bursting with enthusiasm for learning!
Choosing and arranging materials.
Learners have had a busy week and have particularly enjoyed art activities. Our focus this term is collage and this week we have been sorting different materials into groups. We used many different materials including card, paper, felt, wool and feathers. The children first sorted the materials into groups by colour. We then sorted the same materials in groups by texture. This proved to be a little more tricky. We identified materials that were bumpy, rough, smooth and soft.
On Friday, we had a lovely morning in Church, celebrating our families. Learners, together with Pioneers sang a wonderful song, giving thanks to all the people in our lives that care for us.
We are looking forward to our sports day over the next couple of weeks and will hope the weather stays fine.
Check in on our class page next week, to see what we have been learning!
Exploring Structures
The atmosphere in Pioneers was wonderful as we explored new building materials, how to join them and make strong and stable structures.
Using dry willow, we made tripods joined with paper tape. One of the Pioneers recognised that this was a similar structure to the ancient Egyptian pyramids. Another Pioneer described this process as “very satisfying.” They worked together to make three frames before beginning the wonderful work of putting on the wet strength tissue paper to form a skin. We will add our collage tissue paper once it has all dried. The final shapes are fabulous.
We then moved on to building with a huge selection of cups and the collaboration and cooperation we a privilege to observe. They began setting out structures individually but then moved to all work together on one big building suggested to be a castle with doors and windows and the addition of carpet. We used the words hollow, stable, base, arch and structure.
The tidy up process was wonderful and all the resources were collected and sorted to explore further with the addition of flat paint mixing sticks.
