Category: Class

A Wonderful Week to be a Learner!

Scott Grason-Taylor

Learners have had the busiest of weeks this week and ‘we have had the best week ever!’

On Monday morning, some children walked down to the mobile library in the village and delighted in choosing some new books for us to read at story time, Next month another group of children will visit the library, return these books and choose some more to enjoy. 

On Monday afternoon, to build on our RE topic of Judaism, we held a Jewish Shabbat in class. We laid tablecloths and dressed the tables with plants and candles. We then enjoyed toasted bagels and juice together. We really felt the spirit of the celebration of Shabbat.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed forest school learning. The sun was shining and we had the best day in the fresh air. We transferred our RE learning to the forest and thought about another Jewish celebration called ‘Sukkot’, where Jewish families build a hut called a ‘Sukkah’ and sleep in there for a few nights to remember the Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

On Thursday, we became scientists and tested absorbent and non-absorbent materials. We used pipettes, water and different materials. We tested each one and recorded our results accordingly. I think there are a few budding scientists in Learners Class.

We have also enjoyed many stories this week as always.

What a wonderful week to be a Learner!

 

If at First You Don’t Succeed,Try,Try Again

Scott Grason-Taylor

Our Christian Value is Perseverance and we have had to persevere this week. We have experienced a number of setbacks with our rocket-a leaky pump, a tricky connection and then it shot over into a neighbouring garden. A mission was launched to recover our rocket lost in the wilderness.

The day after the rocket went missing another Elf letter arrived asking for help. One of our elf friends had gone to get the rocket and was stuck in a tree. Luckily the Pioneers were on hand to rescue him. We were most grateful to our helpful neighbours for their support in this matter.

Meanwhile, back in the classroom we build our own junk models. These began as rockets but have now turned into complex robots. Through this work we have found out about joining techniques and the need to wait for glue to dry. The Re-Bot and his friend the U-Bot (re-Use-Bot) are incredible and on display in our classroom.

In maths we have been comparing using a balance scale and this has got us thinking and talking and estimating. It’s tricky stuff.

 

And the Beebots have featured too and they have some beautiful new mats to roam on. The Pioneers have been giving them complex sets of instructions to make their way across.

A lovely week of happy learning.

A Surprise Visitor!

Scott Grason-Taylor

Adventurers arrived at school on Thursday morning to discover their classroom had been trashed! According to the caretaker Mr Everall, The Iron Man was spotted leaving the school and stomping down the street. There was lots of evidence around school to show this,  including: giant footprints, nuts and bolts, squashed cans and half eaten computers and a toaster! The children were very excited to look for more evidence of his visit and find out exactly what had been going on. They even interviewed an eye witness and reported the main facts back to each other. Watch this space to find out more!

 

The children are really enjoying our class text ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes and we started to make our own model Iron Men in DT which we plan to cover in paper and paste and then paint.  

 

Chinese New Year Celebrations

Scott Grason-Taylor

We have enjoyed finding out more about Chinese New Year this week. We spent time finding out about how animals link to different years and the meaning of this. We also delighted in creating our own Chinese lanterns and were amazed at how easy they were to make (some of us went home and made them with our families too).

In RE we spent time looking closely at the Jewish Shabbat and hope to enjoy our own Shabbat next week – please give consent on Parent Pay, for your child to sample the foods. 

On Wednesday 9th February we will be visiting the forest, please send your child in old clothes and please bring a spare pair of shoes in a bag. Thank you.

This week, a few Learners requested to bring in their favourite books from home and read them to the class. This has been wonderful, we are hoping to continue sharing our stories together over the coming weeks.

Zoom to the Moon

Scott Grason-Taylor

The elves sent a letter to the Pioneers to ask for a rocket to zoom to the moon. The Pioneers took time to construct their own rockets using parts of Beebots,computers and telephones. They then drew and annotated some plans to support their work. We took a look at a Space Book to get some ideas and got to work.

When we visited the library there happened to be a rather nifty rocket and pump waiting to be investigated. A number of issues were identified and the elves suggested that Mrs Hann should really buy a new rocket. An elf was actually spotted dancing around before leaving another letter and spreading our work all over the floor.

We discovered that it is not a good idea to stand behind a water  powered rocket.Some of us got a little bit wet!

The writing that followed was quite spectacular.

We hope for a successful launch next week. As one Pioneer said,”We are perseverancing!”

An exciting week of music, French, hockey and science!

Scott Grason-Taylor

Adventurers have had a very busy week covering a wide range of subjects.

In music, they have been tapping out a beat to classical and popular music. Then using instruments to create different beats.

In French they have been learning the names for jungle animals and then were able to match pictures of animals to the French words.

We have been really impressed with the children’s hockey skills in P.E. They are now able to dribble with a ball, change directions, tackle each other and play a short game. 

In science we have continued to learn more about the properties of solids, liquids and gases. We were able to act out how the particles moved in the different states of matter and then draw images of them.

To finish off the week the children used junk modelling materials to create their own ‘Iron Man.’ We plan to cover these in paper and paste and then paint them. We’re looking forward to seeing the end result.

Scientists in the making!

Scott Grason-Taylor

We have have been so enthusiastic about our learning this week.

Building on our Science topic of materials, we deepened our knowledge by being able to describe and label properties of the materials around us. We had so much fun and our scientific vocabulary was astonishing, freely using words like transparent, opaque and flexible to describe! This was wonderful! See our pictures of some properties of materials within our classroom.

 

Also, this week we have enjoyed making Ocean collages, which crossed curricular Geography with Art. We were peaceful and calm while enjoying this activity – just like the ocean itself!

Learners Class just love to learn – I can’t wait to see what next week brings!

Looking Inside

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers were fascinated by the Beebots and some of the other gadgets we have in the classroom so we decided to take a look inside to see what makes them work. We got to grips with using a screwdriver and pulled apart some telephones,some beebots,a laptop or two and a printer. The room was silent as they got the plastic casing off and discovered the “cities” inside.

They are now going to put the contents together to create something new and exciting. Plans have been drawn up.

They also looked really closely at the Beebots and the controls and read and wrote sentences. The writing is fabulous.

New Year, New Topic.

Scott Grason-Taylor

Our new topic in school is ‘Inventors and Inventions’  and in English we have been writing imaginative and then real explanations about how a toaster and hoover works. The children have been really interested in finding out how two different types of hoover works (battery operated and a cable hoover). They are quite knowledgeable on this subject now and are well practised at hoovering up!

We are learning all about Ancient Egypt in history and the children took part in several hands-on investigations to explore the properties of solids, liquids and gases in science.

Adventurers have started dance lessons with specialist teacher Hannah Verity on a Tuesday afternoon and are continuing ICT lessons with Mrs Gurney every Thursday.

In P.E we have been learning different hockey skills and I must say I have been very impressed with the children’s abilities so far!

Music Through the Corridors

Scott Grason-Taylor

Hello Viewers,

This week has been a special week in RE, as we have started to explore the month of Ramadan for Muslims. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims do not eat or drink anything during daylight hours. This is so that they feel closer to their God, by sacrificing and giving. Did you know that Muslims also pray five times each day?

We are so excited that we have been invited to join an after-school club on a Monday, where we can create bands, within our whole-class band. We can form part of a separate woodwind band, or separate brass band. 

Another highlight this week has been writing our final copies of our explanation text about the water cycle. We are going to take our final copies home, share them with local businesses who require the water cycle to keep going and read them to our siblings to teach them all about it. 

That’s all for this week, but we will update you with more next Friday,

Discoverers (Romy, Wesley and Tamsin)