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What is History?

Scott Grason-Taylor

Learners class were keen to find out the meaning of the word ‘history’ this week. We had wonderful discussions about the past, present and the future and could identify experiences in our own lives from each of these categories. Next week, we will learning how to plot these experiences using a timeline. 

In English, we are continuing to prepare our explanation texts answering the question ‘what is a global neighbour? We reflected on the school visit from the Zambezi Sunrise Trust earlier in the year and could articulate and write about the wonderful charity they run.

We have really enjoyed mark making this week in Art, in the style of Pablo Picasso. We used pencils, wax crayons and charcoals to draw zigzags, curls and lines in our sketch books. I think Learners are definite artists in the making!

We enjoyed computers with Mrs Gurney on Thursday and learned some key E-Safety rules. Learners created a paper chain of  5 trusted adults that they could talk to and ask for help from if they needed to. Learners had great fun making these and ended the session with a game of  ‘Does Sid say yes or no?’

We finished the week with a fun PE session, perfecting our throwing and catching techniques. There was a lot of concentration in the room as we raced each other while balancing beanbags on our heads.

Another busy week of learning in Learners Class 🙂

 

Out and About with the Pioneers

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers spent the day outdoors exploring our wonderful site. We packed up our trolley and took responsibility for the kit we needed. Some helped to carry some very heavy buckets. We talked about looking after ourselves,looking after others and looking after our environment.

As we went along we pointed out hazards like nettles and thorns and big holes in the ground. We speculated that these could have been made by badgers.

Our first Forest Find was a sycamore tree and it’s seeds so we stopped to take a look . We walked the boundaries and discussed where it was safe to go. We then set up camp next to the Oak tree and had a good rummage around. Lots of ladybirds were relocated and acorns and leaves made their way into the treasure boxes. We shared a good book before moving up onto the field to explore.

We had snack in our outdoor area and a good phonics session before lunch.

In the afternoon we headed back to the forest to look closely at leaves,selecting some to press for printing later. One Pioneer suggested this.
We pulled some vegetables which was very exciting.  One Pioneer could identify the vegetable from the leaves.

To finish the day we repeated our bread dough making from last week with greater efficiency and a different kind of mess!

It was glorious.

Sleights Strikes Again

Scott Grason-Taylor

Welcome to another week in Discoverers’ class 😀

This week it started in style, when we held a KS2 cross country within our grounds. We ran around the front and back fields, and even into the forest. 

After battling across the different terrain, we cheered on the other classes, watching everybody finish with a huge smile of pride on their faces.

A whirlwind week.

Scott Grason-Taylor

Learners  Class’s feet haven’t touched the ground this week, we have been SO busy!

We started the week with cricket sessions with Owen from Yorkshire Cricket. We REALLY enjoyed this and had lots of fun practising our throwing and catching skills. There was a mention that cricket bats may be coming out in session 2, so we are very excited about this.

Also on a sports theme, Learners visited Caedmon College Whitby on Thursday afternoon and took part in a town multi-skills event. Learners were awesome, we ran, we balanced, we caught, we threw, we jumped over and we crawled under. We thoroughly enjoyed it and  gave it everything we had!

In the classroom, we have been consolidating tricky words in phonics sessions and revisiting Phase 3 and 4 words and sentences. Learners class love to read and Little Wandle phonics sessions are invaluable in building our skills.

In geography we have been looking at our location using google earth. We have been labelling features around our school grounds using an aerial photograph of the area. We were very interested in aerial views and proceeded to draw a map of our own classroom. We had a good look around and identified where things were. Then, carefully using a ruler drew our own maps. Learners worked with great focus and the finished maps were wonderful.

We finished the week with an Open Morning for our families. Learners class was a hive of activity, with a huge parent turn-out. Learners and visitors enjoyed learning together and the classroom had a very happy buzz.

Learners love to learn! 🙂

 

 

Making Sleights

Scott Grason-Taylor

This corner of the room is very popular and always full of activity and conversation. The Pioneers work together to build and create. They have combined a variety of materials to create parts of our village. They have made the river with the railway line running along it and used the foam tiles to make roads and bridges. They added green felt and grass to make the fields. They discussed that trains don’t go on roads and need to be kept on tracks. They built their own houses and talked about where they lived. There with lots of talk about neighbours and the shops in the village. They added signs and their mini-me.

This has built up over the week after reading Sid in Sleights and looking at the photographs of the village. We have now added different types of vehicles that pass through the village.

Fabulous Pie

Scott Grason-Taylor

Pioneers got stuck in to making bread dough. They combined each ingredient-flour,yeast,sugar,water and oil to make a crust for the fabulous pie. This took a great deal of perseverance to continue when their hands were sticky and uncomfortable. Every Pioneer followed the instructions and were successful in their dough making. They then combined this with their selection of animals to retell our wonderful story of Fabulous Pie. 

At the end of the session they were all more familiar with the required ingredients to make dough and some of the actions required to bring the dough together-mix,kneed,roll,rub and scrape.

They used Numicon to clean the table at the end of the session!

Adventurers start to the term.

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Adventurers have had a fantastic second week and should be really proud of their efforts! In English, they have worked very hard to produce their own Terra Carta about the environment and they look great!

The have started gymnastics in P.E, began exploring the Amazon Rainforest in geography and made a good start to our science topic of light! It is great to see the Adventurers settling back into school life so well! 

We are all looking forward to next weeks learning, keep up the great work!

 

Learners Class Terra Carta.

Scott Grason-Taylor

Learners Class have been buzzing with ideas for their own Terra Carta this week, inspired by the book It’s Up To Us. We have had wonderful discussions and have painted pictures to match our plans for action. The future of the planet is in safe hands with the emergence of such a caring generation. 

In maths year 1 have been busy sorting objects into groups and even thought of as many different ways as they could to sort themselves, from eye colour, to the colour of their socks and lots more besides. Year 2 have been consolidating teen numbers and perfecting the spellings of the words to match.

In RE this week we have been identifying the special things important to Christians, a lot of which we have seen during our own visits to St John’s Church.

We had lots of fun in music this week, clapping out beats and passing the pattern around the classroom to each other, and adding beats to the pattern to make the pattern harder each time, there was a lot of concentration and lots of smiles.

Learners have had a fantastic first full week. We have shared a lot of stories and enjoyed identifying the meaning of words that we hadn’t heard before.

We are excited to begin cricket sessions on Monday and ready for the week ahead.

 

Our First Full Week

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers have completed their first full week at school and it has been wonderful. So much has been achieved and everyone is much more independent in the classroom. They know where the resources are and where and how they need to be returned. We are beginning to find the rhythm of the day and that is reassuring. Things happen in the same order each day and within that order, exploration and experimentation,thinking talking and calculating can happen. Often this is noisy and messy and then a calm occurs when everyone is focussed and the learning happens.

We have been painting and building and sorting and arranging and comparing and sharing and laughing and learning together. It is no wonder that we are a bit tired by the end of the day.

Well done!