Category: Pioneers Class

The Pioneers had another letter and a package delivered this week. The package contained a water powered rocket to blast off on the field. The Pioneers read the instructions, created labelled diagrams and went out into the field. The launch needed the right weather conditions so we checked the weather everyday until the wind dropped and the rain stopped. The sun shone and after a few damp attempts the rocket took flight. We built our own small rockets and used all the new skills to join the parts. The Pioneers really enjoyed writing about the rocket launch taking great care and spending a lot of time on their work.

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. 

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.

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!

As well as everything else that has been going on, the Pioneers have had a look at The Nutcracker We have listened to the wonderful music and danced and moved in time. We read the story together and they were fascinated that the toys came to life. We watched a beautiful performance of the ballet from The Royal Opera House and they loved the costumes and seeing the orchestra. We also had a bit of a chat about real and imaginary because some parts of the story are a bit scary. We also took time to prepare for next week’s trip to the pantomime. We are filled with excitement and wonder.

The Pioneers all love cutting and sticking and this week we have added other techniques for joining materials. They have used treasury tags, paper fasteners, paperclips and elastic bands. They tried a bit of weaving the paper and sticking with tape and blutac. They have experimented with cutting slits and tabs to join and have been incredibly focussed and skilled in this. There was not prototype or model to complete and the variety of structures was magnificent. Their creations were used in play during the week. This exploration will continue.

This week we have been reading Lost and Found and the playing has been wonderful. A boat and a selection of maps have been added to the classroom and these have been very useful. The Pioneers wrote lists of what to pack for their journey. The played with the animals of the antarctic. They looked at globes and maps and atlases and Google Earth to spot the icy land masses. They were very interested in what a harbour was. We talked through the story map adding vocabulary and even sentences. The Pioneers are spotting punctuation all over the place.Mrs Gurney worked with the ipads  and made videos of ourselves retelling the story.

So much learning this week.

This week the Pioneers discussed their Advent Calendars and we are starting to get a bit excited about Christmas! We looked at our class book,The Path To the Church which details all the events in the Christian Church calendar. We changed the prayer space cloth to purple to reflect the colours seen in church and we will look for these signs of Advent when we visit next week. We then made our own Advent crowns and put in the candles. We discussed the colours and the textures and the hazards of flower arranging.

The oasis rings were a source of many questions and experimentation.

We have read the story of the Creation and retold this with a story map. We have looked at our planet on Google Earth and discussed the colours and what we can see. The clouds are very visible. The white is the ice and the snow and the green is the land. The Pioneers also noticed that some of the land is different colours and knew that this was because some places are hot and dry. The Pioneers then recreated what they saw and talked about what they had painted. They enjoyed mixing and naming the colours too.

A very happy afternoon.

The Pioneers looked at our collection of animals and sorted them into groups. We knew that tigers do not live in Sleights! We recognised that some animals are farm animals and some are kept as pets. We made a set of woodland animals and drew these and did a bit of writing too. Bats,foxes and rats.

We researched and found out a bit more about owls and what makes them special. We watched videos of them hunting in the night and talked about how they processed their food.

We read the wonderful Owl Babies and retold this with an annotated storymap. We talked about the colours needed to paint the owl and we were all particularly interested in their eyes. 

The resulting paintings are wonderful.