Class Three have continued to learn all about rocks and soils. We have learnt how fossils form and about the work of Mary Anning. We made our own fossils by creating a mould using plasticine then filling this with Plaster of Paris. We finished then off by painting the set plaster. Don’t they look amazing!
Reception, Year One and Two had a wonderful visit to the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre in Ulverston yesterday. We were greeted at the temple by our guide Kerrin who led us through a guided meditation session and taught us a little more about the Buddhist faith. We learnt that Buddhists believe in living their lives built on love, compassion and empathy.
Our meditation session focused on steady breathing and everyone agreed they felt calm and relaxed afterwards! We enjoyed looking at the statues of the Gods and Goddesses, learning their names and spotting the largest dharma wheel in the building. Can you find it amongst our photos?
We’ve been trying something new in Class 4 this week. Making use of the collaborative features in Microsoft Word, the entire class has come together to re-write a story inspired by our class novel: “Trash” by Andy Mulligan. Some of us were assigned as writers, others as proof-readers and others as editors. The result was amazing (and a little chaotic) as our story came to life at breakneck speed. Words were appearing from all over the classroom as people wrote, edited and corrected as a whole. Below is the story we ended up with, in full, for you to enjoy at home!
I jumped off the train before it reached the platform. You don’t want to get caught by the station guards so we needed to get off as soon as soon we could. The train must have been moving faster than I thought; as soon as I hit the ground I fell over and rolled in the grass. Gardo almost ran over me! I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could and noticed some station boys, who looked pretty mean, standing at the far end of the platform.
When I first saw them, they looked all tough; the kind of boys that would fight a guard but that wouldn’t end well. In the corner of my eye, I saw Rat hand over a 20, then 50, then another 20. I didn’t know how long we had to get the thing in the locker, I hoped it would be at least 15 minutes, or more. It looked like Gardo was getting ready to fight, as he was gripping onto his sharp hook. Rat turned around, steadily walked towards us and started talking to us. He said we had five minutes to get the thing in the locker, and we had to be quick!
As I was walking through the crowed station, I felt Gardo gripping my wrist extremely hard! Rat was picking up a pace and was giving us a signal. I didn’t know what it meant but Gardo certainly did. I think it meant down here. Then Rat sneaked down some bendy stairs and we were in a grey small room. The pipes were wiggly and I saw Gardo looking around anxiously. Then Rat went round a corner for a while. Then I saw Rat reappear.
Rat was quick to open the locker and to get the mysterious thing in the black door which we did not recognise. We wanted to find out that’s for sure. Rat turned to see if anyone was looking, without thinking he grabbed the black “mystery thing” and ran. I asked,
“What were you thinking?! You could have got us caught!” The surprising thing was he just ignored me. Then I started to get angry, I thought if it wasn’t for me we wouldn’t have got the bag! He just ignored me, again.
Sprinting through the station, Gardo was watching around like a CCTV camera making sure Raphael was safe. There were no cops in this area with this mystery item in this bag in Rats clothes. Suddenly, lots of cops were covering the crowded station but that didn’t stop Rat slithering through the crowd. They didn’t get caught so they ran home.
Class 3 have started their topic on mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes. We have learnt all about Mount Everest and now know some amazing facts, including the dangers climbers face. We have also mapped the major mountain ranges and then practised our map reading skills when looking at the location of Scarfell Pike.
Class 3 have been having a great time learning all about mass. We have worked hard at identifying intervals on scales in order to calculate the mass. The children loved practising these skills when estimating and weighing items.
Class 4 have completed an exciting project inspired by mythical creatures when studying the Ancient Greeks last term.
We created studies of dragon eye details using ink pens, water colours and pencils. Carefully studying texture, shape, line, tone and pattern. This led on to creating a 3d eye in clay where we extended our skills using this media previously when we made our clay plaques for the celebration of the Queen’s jubilee last summer.
Class 2 have absolutely loved their last week of the Spring Term! It started with our school trip to Lytham St. Anne’s, for which the weather couldn’t have been kinder. We observed the outside and the indside of the windmill and the children produced some fantastic observational drawings of the building. The Victorian museum on the ground floor of the windmill was a great taster for some of our history learning that we will be undertaking in the Summer term. As well as learning about the purpose and history of the windmill, the volunteers from the Lytham Heritage Group, also showed us around the lifeboat museum. We enjoyed discounted ice cream from Andy the ice cream man and a lovely walk, before returning to school.
For the remainder of the week, we were designing and constructing our own windmills. The children showed fantastic patience and resilience when assembling the main parts, in order to make sure their models were stable and effective. It was another fantastic week of Design and Technology and Mrs Mason and I were were so impressed with the children’s achievements. Well done Class 2!
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What a day for class 4 today! We’ve been in Barrow attending the FIRST LEGO league regional final.
It’s been a day of grueling challenges, starting early with the first test of the robot we have been coding in school over the last few months. We quickly learned that the robot game wasn’t going to be as easy as it had seemed at first; we needed to regroup to strategise and come up with a game plan. Despite a difficult first round, Class 4 showed resilience, came up with a plan and were ready for round two. This went far better, with our robot coding teams now working together to help each other and giving direction to new team members. More learning was done and we came back at the end of the day for round three with a solid team and a clear plan. We had some bad luck with some elements of the game, but the progress made since the first round was phenomenal and we walked away with a respectable score!
Just before lunch, we were also called into the boardroom to present our ‘Innovation Project’. We’ve been working on this in school too – a new idea on the theme of ‘energy’ to help change the world. We went with cow poo, naturally, and set about telling the judges all about our cow waste to energy plan for the farms in the local area. We got a real apprentice-style grilling from a crack team from Ørsted – the renewable energy company sponsoring the event – and had to keep our cool despite some tough questions.
Throughout the day, we were also expected to show the core values of LEGO League – I’m pleased to say class 4’s behaviour was exemplary throughout. Not just kind and polite, but thoughtful of others too, from helping other teams to charge their robot to an impromptu litter-pick in the hall after lunch.
I’m pleased to announce that with all of these things combined, Levens came away with the trophy for best newcomer! Well done to the whole team for their truly phenomenal performance!
