Skiddaw

Experience Christmas

 in Bowfell / Church / Scafell / Skiddaw / Whole School by

Each class is Experiencing Christmas this year with a difference. Pam has kindly organised all the usual church resources for us to focus on the Christmas story in six stages in our class bubbles, spending a time each day reflecting on the message of this special story.

We were asked to think about what presents we might give to Jesus if we were visiting him. Wonderfully thoughtful suggestions included a teddy, a precious fossil, a beautiful pearl, diamonds, emeralds or rubies, a cuddly toy, my love and a house (so they didn’t need to stay in a stable).

At the final part of the story, we laid our gifts in front of the baby Jesus listening to the last verse of the carol “In the bleak mid winter” – What shall I give him, poor as I am?

Thank you so much to Pam for her wonderful organisation of all the beautiful resources we have used during Experience Christmas.  Every child in school has been able to explore all the different elements of the first Christmas in depth.

Super suffixes

 in English / Skiddaw by

Year 3 and 4 are learning to spell words with different suffixes. They had to decide between a range of different rules that we now know.

“Knock off the e and add our ending.”

“Look for one vowel, look for one consonant, double the consonant and add our ending.”

“Change the y to i and add our ending.”

or

“Just add our ending!”

It takes a careful look at the root word and a final check if it LOOKS right before deciding what it should be!

We had an interesting discussion on why bad+er or bad+est don’t really sound right too. Super spelling work everyone and gorgeous handwriting too.

 

Rock painting in the sunshine!

 in Skiddaw by

Here we are, in the final stages of creating their rock art pictures. Stone Age people would not have had the beautiful sunshine we enjoyed, with only a small fire or lit torch for light inside deep caves, but we had great fun mark making with chalk pastels in the colours of rock – reds, yellows, brown, black and white.

Stone Age Cave Painting

 in History / Skiddaw by

Skiddaw class are learning all about the Stone Age in history. We have begun by finding out how we know what types of animals were around in the Stone Age. Lascaux Caves were discovered by some teenagers and possibly their dog in September 1940. Paintings of bulls, oxen, horses and stags are beautifully clear and are thought to be around 15,000 years old. Drawn by Stone Age people, they also show us early humans hunting as well as animals that were around then. We took an amazing virtual tour around the many passages and caves that are now not open to public in order to preserve them.

This has inspired us to create our own cave and rock art. Here we are preparing our rock by scrunching and painting on the paper to make it look more realistic. We are also making paper mache rocks to experiment with drawing smaller creatures on. It was lovely to work outside on a sunny afternoon on Wednesday. Next week we’ll be trying our hand at drawing stone age animals on these papers with chalk pastels and paint.

 

Paper crafting

 in Skiddaw by

Skiddaw class have been learning 3D paper crafting skills and have had great fun creating these firework inspired pieces.

Children In Need 2020

 in Bowfell / Scafell / Skiddaw by

Children in Need this year has been a little different but rest assured we have had lots of fun and raised an amazing £166.00! All week, classes have been dipping into the BBC Five to Thrive with Joe Wicks learning about the importance of keeping connected to our family and friends, taking notice of our surroundings, keeping active and being curious and the benefits of giving and kindness. Some also tuned in to see Joe Wicks complete his amazing 24 hours of PE in a live lesson on Friday morning.

Not only have we enjoyed coming to school in comfy clothes, we have all had great fun playing Children In Need Bingo! Thank you Mrs Coker for organising such lovely prizes.

Boxes of Hope

 in Bowfell / Church / Scafell / Skiddaw by

Thank you to everyone who has created a beautiful box of gifts that have already started their journey to making one child’s Christmas.  A total of 28 boxes were collected yesterday.  Thank you Levens!

We will Remember Them

 in Bowfell / Church / Scafell / Skiddaw by

On the 11th November we came together in our playground to remember all those who have given their lives so that we can live in peace and enjoy our freedom.

Every pupil in school made a poppy out of recycled materials found at home.  They were brought to our very special outdoor service where members of year 6 read out the names of the fallen from Levens village and recited ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae.

At 11am, we marked two minutes of silence to remember and reflect.

Today each child brought their poppy to our entrance hall where they attached it to our beautiful rustic cross, kindly made by one of our very talented parents.

UK Parliament Week at Levens

 in Skiddaw by

This week it is UK Parliament Week and across school we have been learning about democracy and how our country is ruled and run. You might just be able to read the questions and answers on Skiddaw’s display but can you link them up correctly?

Years 2,3 and 4 have also been learning about incredible people who have stood up for what they believed in and helped to make their country a fairer place for all. Rosa Parks’ courage and dignity, that sparked the movement that ended segregation in the USA, and Emmeline Pankhurst, who dedicated her life to fighting for women’s voting rights, are among those heroes we have learnt about who showed such strength and bravery that is still so relevant today.

We have also voted in our own elections for School Council this week. Drum rolls preceded the announcement of each successful year group representative during today’s Celebration Assembly. Well done to all who put themselves up for nomination and made such thoughtful speeches about their ideas. We have experienced Democracy in Action!

Super Science Skeletons

 in Skiddaw by

Did you know…

…our bones help us stand up right and move around?

…humans have over 200 bones in our skeletons?

…our back bones are also known as our spines?

…our rib cage helps to protect our soft squashy organs like our heart, lungs and stomach inside our chests?

…the longest human bone is the femur, our upper leg bone?

…calcium in milk and dairy products helps build strong bones and teeth?

Skiddaw class have been learning facts such as these in science this week. We have also made some super skeleton puppets using split pins for the joints. Here we are at the beginning stages. Working together well in our pairs meant taking turns, supporting each other and persevering with tricky details of the instructions. We all finished our puppets before the half term break – great work everyone!