Springtime has sprung

In science, Learners have been monitoring what time the sun has been setting each month. We first started to record the times in September and have watched the hours of daylight shorten. We have been excited to begin identifying that the days are getting longer with this week’s sun setting at 5.29pm. Spring is on the way, as we have spotted some spring bulbs beginning to peep through outside the classroom and buds appearing on our class tree. 

In maths we have been getting to grips with arrays. We have been using resources to make arrays and were able to match these to a multiplication sentence. 

 

We are enjoying dance sessions with Hannah Verity dance each Tuesday and are keen to learn new moves to add to our routine in order to lead towards a finished performance.

We were excited to welcome families into the classroom on Friday to celebrate World Book Day 2025. We enjoyed sharing many stories together and discussed our favourite characters and made our own book marks.

In English, we have worked extremely hard on writing a balanced argument about whether we think books are still relevant today. 

visit our classroom page next week, to find out what we are learning.

Learners love to learn!

 

Pop-Up, Slide and Pivot

The Pioneers love to cut and stick and create and in Design and Technology we have been looking at mechanisms and creating our own. Our initial designs were simple but soon became personalised, combined and complex.

The Pioneers are aware of how to keep themselves safe when cutting card and paper and making holes, placing a blob of blu-tac behind.

On World Book Day, Pioneers worked with their families to create pop-up pages and they were simply stunning.

 

Zoom to the Moon

The time had come for the visiting elves to leave and go back to their day job. The Pioneers have enjoyed their daily letters and tasks and had one final job to do. They needed to launch a rocket with moving parts and water power to zoom to the moon. We looked at the sliders and the pivots and discussed mechanisms. We used the pump to push the air into the bottle, half full of water. We discussed liquids and gasses and the materials the rocket was made up of. 

In the classroom we used joining techniques to create our own rockets before heading to the field for launch day. 

The elves have all gone and been replaced by trolls and a few goats.

We listened to In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg and discussed how this made us feel. The story and the music work very well together.

Happy Learning

Food Chains

In Science this week, Learners have been finding out about food chains. We recognised that the sun gives energy to a producer, which is then eaten by one or many consumers. In the classroom, we made our own food chains, using pictures.  This then helped us to create our own food chains, using our own drawings and adding the terms herbivore, carnivore and omnivore correctly.

In History, we have been finding out ‘who is in a monarchy?’. Learners were very interested in identifying the members of our current Royal Family. We discussed the terms heir and heiress and Learners were keen to understand the rules of succession. Learners were particularly interested to find out what abdication was and they agreed this was a fair choice for a prospective King or Queen.

Learners have begun dance sessions with Hannah Verity this week and are looking forward to practising their new routine over the coming weeks.

Exploring and Making Links

The Pioneers love to be active and to look for patterns and links and find ways to explain these. We have been exploring patterns in number looking at 5 and a bit and 10 and a bit. We have used a variety of materials to create number lines and representation. We used a big wooden number square and a number splat on the whiteboard. The work was full of new thoughts which require a bit of grappling to articulate once we had spotted links.

The elves are still with us and wanted a material to make a window in their rocket. The Pioneers were asked to test materials to decide which would work best. We explore testing all and everything in the classroom by looking to see if light could pass through or not. We then recorded our results on a table, discussing our findings as we went. The Pioneers now know how to record results on a table and the words transparent and opaque.

 

Marvellous Monarchs!

In history this week, Learners have been learning all about monarchs. We used drama to build our learning. We enjoyed becoming absolute monarchs, where we could make ALL the rules, dishing out punishments for anyone who didn’t comply. We then became part of a constitutional monarchy. Here, the monarch needed the partnership of a Prime minister, together with an elected Government to help make any decisions and rules. We were relieved to learn that we now have a constitutional monarchy and unlike the past, there would be no “off with your head” punishments.

Learners have been busily drawing story maps around the Peter and the Wolf story and are excited to begin writing a narrative next week. We have been gathering words with the suffixes -ment, -ness, and -ly in order to make our writing even more interesting! 

Learners attended a Gymnastic event in Whitby on Thursday, where we had lots of fun. Sports leaders organised events and Learners enjoyed rolling, jumping and balancing. We were able to show-off all our gymnastic skills and we enjoyed every minute. 

Next week, will be our last swimming session at Whitby pool. It is clear to see the progress made over the last months  and how confidence  has improved. We will be looking forward to starting dance sessions with Hannah Verity after half-term.

Learners love to learn, keep checking our class page to see what we are learning!

Spring Sunshine, Story Telling and Big Printing

The sun shone and there was a little bit of a warm feeling in the air. Pioneers spent most of the day out and about making use of our wonderful school grounds. 

We worked on story telling and story making linked to Peter and the Wolf and our visiting elves. We enjoyed maths in the forest and on the playground. In the afternoon we did some printing on a big scale using tubes and lots of loose parts to experiment and create. 

Such a wonderful day.

Pop Art Creation

Learners have had a fantastic week. In art this term we are focusing on printing. Inspired by Andy Warhol this week, we have created our very own Pop Art piece, with the repeated pattern of our handprints. We chose bright and bold colours just like Andy Warhol and we are astonished at just how effective our finished piece looks. It is already proudly on display outside our classroom!

In English this week we have been finding out about Haiku poetry. We learned the rules of Haiku poems and were able to clap along to check syllables contained in each word. With great determination and focus we used our knowledge to create our own Haiku poems inspired by Peter and the Wolf. Again, Learners were immensely proud of their finished pieces.

In history we have been finding out about the monarchy past and present. This prompted many interesting questions and Learners were keen to broaden their knowledge around this.

In RE we have been thinking about the Jewish religion and have been interested to find out the things that are important in Judaism.

In maths we are getting to grips with money. We have been making one pound using many different coin and are learning how to calculate change. 

We have been learning batting skills in cricket and are really enjoying these fun sessions each week.

What a busy week of learning, just how we like it! Check our page next week to find out what we have been doing!

Learners Class

How things work!

Learners have been looking closely at how things work this week. In DT our focus is mechanisms. This week we have learned about input motion and output motion and have identified the everyday objects that would need this movement. We delighted in creating our own moving pictures with a slider mechanism. 

In Maths we are learning about money and this week we have been counting in pound and pence and have successfully been able to choose a given amount, using different coins.

In English, we are loving the inspiring music of Peter and the Wolf. This wonderful music is guiding our poetry writing over the next few weeks. This week we have been introduced to each character and instrument and have been collecting adjectives that we will use in our poetry. 

Reading is always high on our enjoyment list in Learners class, we have visited the library and have enjoyed listening to many new poems this week. Learners love to enjoy library books at home with their families, alongside their own school reading book. 

Swimming sessions are showing incredible progress. We will be finishing our block of session this half-term, but the confidence and progress made is astonishing! We are incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to learn cricket skills each week. This week we enjoyed bowling and learning the correct way to stand and throw!

Learners have also enjoyed writing letters to the Linda Community School in Zambia this week and are excited that these letters will be delivered soon by Jo and John for the Zambezi Sunrise Trust. We are looking forward to Jo and John’s visit to Sleights next week, when we will zoom call with Livingston in Zambia. 

Check in with us next week to see what we have been learning about!

Learners love to learn!