Highlights of some of the fun we have!

Year 6 took advantage of the lovely weather to produce some observational drawings of different viewpoints around our school.

Year 6 have been using their geographical skills to help with their historical enquiry.

Year 6 worked with the Environment Agency, to find out what to do in the event of a flood.

Superb Stellar art work.

We explored the front cover of our class novel for September in both English and Art.

Making a relationship web to help us create Our Relationship Fiesta, in our Jigsaw lesson today.

Our Year 6 children set up stalls to sell their products to Year 3 customers. Most of them managed to make a healthy profit!

Amazing RE artwork.

In the invention shed, we have applied our DT skills to create various moving devices.

Year 6 have been experimenting with electrical systems.

The children used their grammar skills to solve ‘The Mystery of the Stolen Spacesuit’.

Year 6 worked together to produce their timeline.

Using the skills learned this term, we have been devising our own games and rules.

Year 6 played a variation of a traditional party game to help them with their English. They seemed to have a lot of fun sorting words into sets with similar meanings.

As well as exploring rhythms, Year 6 have also been practising singing a song in two then four parts! Although they found it tricky to stick to their part, they enjoyed singing the song as well as learning about its origins.

Year 6 have enjoyed sharing what they have learnt. They were able to answer key questions about the topic and they produced some really informative writing.

Year 6 identified descriptive words and phrases in the story. They then used thesauruses to find suitable synonyms for the adjectives that the author used.

After looking at the circulatory system during lessons, we put together our own experiments to find out more about our lungs. Some of us had red faces afterwards but had enjoyed challenging ourselves.

Exploring Musical Instruments.

As well as finding out about the human heart in Science, Year 6 have been studying the use of heart motifs in the artwork of Jim Dine. Today, they created their own printing tiles to produce ‘poly-prints’. They are right to be proud of the work that they produced.

In Reading De-text-ives, we read a text about Charles Darwin. We made connections to our work in Science and played a game to help us to remember the meaning of key vocabulary.

Investigating light and dark.

World Book Day.

Year 6 worked on their own versions of a piece of Art by Emil Nolde, called ‘Wildly Dancing Children’.
They studied the composition of the piece and the ways in which the artist had created an impression of rapid movement. They sketched out ideas in their book before, finally, recreating the artwork using pastels. Their hard work is really paying off!

Year 6 are using their reading de-text-ive sessions to gather information about The Titanic and present their findings in their own non-fiction text. Today, some of our de-text-ives researched information about the sinking of this famous ship. They used both their reading & maths skills to find out the order in which the lifeboats were launched after the disaster. They chose their own way present this information.

Titanic Reading and Maths combined.

Here is a selection of the amazing work that Year 6 have produced as part of their home learning..

Year 6 have been finding out about the indigenous people of Australia – their traditions, art & music.

Highlights of some of the fun we have!

Problem Solving in Maths. There are 10 fish in a bowl. Some are red, some are blue and some are green. What could this look like? We certainly had a few ideas .

We asked some interesting questions in story time about these strange images. Can you guess which book we are about to explore?

This term we are learning about Online Safety. This week we looked at what information is personal to us and what we may share online. We made Hector hats with a chosen nickname.

Fabulous fractions!

Moving pictures!

We went to see the blue post box near our school and tried to guess why it was painted a special colour.
Our guesses were:

It is the same as our school
The red ones are for normal post and the blue are for Santa!
They ran out of red paint
Something special is happening

What is your guess?

Year 1 have been working hard in Lexia. We have been using our phonics knowledge to help build our English skills.

In our DT lesson we started our new topic called ‘Moving Pictures’. First we looked at different moving picture books and talked about how the pictures moved. We then looked in more detail at the slider mechanism and designed our own moving picture using a slider.

Children have used a clever photo app to make arctic animal collages. They have also created a bar chart using a maths app to record favourite snowy animals. The children have thoroughly enjoyed using these apps on the iPads and if any parents want to download Moldiv I know the children would be keen to show off their new skills!

We have named different 3D shapes. We then looked at the different 3D shapes that are all around us. It was fun playing 3D shape bingo.

Year 1 have been perfecting their observational drawing of insects this week in Art. As you can see the results are amazing!

We had lots of fun today in the Invention shed. We enjoyed showing our amazing inventions to the class and describing how we made them.

Year one have been doing some fantastic observational drawing of insects in Art this week.

Book themed weeks.

Super Homework Projects

Super Homework Projects

Polar Explores Day

Gymnastics

In computing we are looking at the term debugging, fixing a problem that goes wrong on a game, we used the apps Busy Bundle and Kodable to help us with this.

STEM Club

As part of our Louise Bourgeois topic about insects the children have been busy designing and making their own incredible insects!

Maths Problem solving

Lego Club

In our Jigsaw lesson we learnt how to set a goal and worked out the steps we need to take to achieve it. Lots of us wanted to learn how to tie our shoe laces. We know we need to practise a lot before we can achieve this goal.

In the Techno Den we have been testing out our camera skills by taking a world book day selfie.

This week in Art the children have been learning about Primary and Secondary colours. We read the book ‘Mix it up’ and then had fun colour mixing.

Highlights of some of the fun we have!

The children searched for clues from pictures, writing and atlases to help them to plan an expedition to Zanzibar.

Year 5 Reading Detectives have been reading ‘The Week’ : a magazine about news topics from around the world.

Year 5 found out that they could practise their reading skills without picking up a book.

The children in Year 5 have been learning the ukulele.  They performed what we had learnt to the rest of Key Stage 2.

This week in Year 5 we have been working on the ‘Healthy Me’ topic. We have talked about what we can do to keep ourselves safe and things that could impact on our safety as well as our physical and mental well being.

Year 5 visited Park View school to take part in a Magical Movie Makers workshop. We created our own characters, planned a whole movie and then filmed the scenes. The children had a great time and produced a superb film.

In the invention shed, we have applied our DT skills to create various moving devices.

In maths we have been using the compass points to write directions to places in the yard.

Our Year 5 artists have been creating lots of wonderful pieces of work this year including perspective art and watercolour work.

Year 5 took a trip to Lumley Castle to meet the crew from High Handenhold Fires Station. They took part in some Fire Safety drills learning about hoses, ropes and machinery the fire fighters use to cut casualties out of cars. Truly inspirational and a fab afternoon.

Robotics!

Outdoor Maths.

Fun Maths games.

Cricket taster session.

Fabulous French.

Wonderful Wednesday.

Science Research.

We searched for clues from pictures, writing and atlases to help them to plan an expedition to Zanzibar.

French at Park View.

Sikhism Day.

Investigating Mini Beasts.

Year 5 read about woolly mammoths and used their special de-text-ive resources to annotate the texts.

Fascinating Spider Investigations.

Forensic Science.

We had the opportunity to build shelters and create artwork, using natural materials. Then we tried making fire with flint and steel or foil and cotton wool. Our reward was tasty toasted marshmallows!

After spending part of their Wonderful Wednesday being a Reading De-text-ive, some of Year 5 spent their lunchtime sharing their love of reading with other children. They found a cosy corner of the Edwardian Library to settle down with a good book.

Year 5 explored Roald Dahl’s ‘The Witches’ to search for ways to spot a witch!

 

Year 3 have been researching prehistoric beasts. We loved their unusual and difficult names to pronounce such as ‘glyptodon’, ‘Megatherium’ and ‘Indricotherium’!

Year 3 have been investigating stable structures to help us in designing and making our own photo frames. We looked at different ways of strengthening our models to make them strong and resilient!

In History we have been learning about all aspects of Stone Age life. We have worked in pairs to create these amazing non- fiction books so that we can share our knowledge with other children in the school. We have loved finding out about Stone Age homes, diets, clothing, tools and weapons to name but a few of the topics covered.

Chillax Club – enjoying spending time together.

Year 3 have had new interactive boards fitted into our classrooms this week and we love using them! Today we have been using them to demonstrate different calculations to our peers!

We have had an amazing adventure in Cloudland! We read the story ‘Cloudland’ by John Burningham – the main character Albert falls off a mountain and lands on a big fluffy cloud where he is befriended by the cloud children. We practised drawing cartoon characters and then created beautiful scenes for our own Cloudland adventures!

Year 3 are practising the skills of joining and fastening using ribbon, string and wool. We then transferred these skills to designing and making mobiles. The mobiles are linked to this half terms PSHCE work on jobs and responsibilities. Focusing on a job we have added the tools, equipment and skills needed to carry out that role onto our mobile.

We were finding out about how Chester le Street and County Durham have been hit by floods and how we can prepare for a future incident. We learnt lots of new skills to help us in the event of an emergency. The Environment Agency monitors rain fall and Anna helped us to make our own rain gauges so that we can monitor local rainfall too. We are going to keep rain diaries and compare the data we collect.

Today we travelled back in time to Egypt 1922 to re-enact Howard Carter and Lord Carnaven’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb! It was lots of fun and has given us lots of ideas for our big write!

Today we were faced with a New Challenge and we had to work together as a team to complete the task. We learnt the value of listening to the ideas of others, working as a team and how making compromises can help us to overcome problems.

In our Jigsaw PSHE lesson we worked together to design our own peaceful garden.

We used nature as inspiration. We were using charcoal pencils to add different tones and shadows to our drawings!

Learning to use tools safely in the Invention Shed.

We worked with our friends in Year 5 during our maths lesson. They were very impressed with the maths problems we were working on! They showed us some of the maths work they are busy with in Year 5 too!

In Year 3 we are practising reading and writing the Time using Roman numerals from I to XII. To help us to learn the different numerals we have made clocks and sang a new song!

We are practising our recall of multiplication facts with some fast action games of Connect 4!

Year 3 have been coding with Kodable.

After learning about sound in the classroom we investigated further by making our own water xylophones in the Investigation Hub. We explored how different materials could change the pitch in different ways.

We have been performing some new songs on the recorder.

We have been learning about musical notes, beats and bars.

Now that we are in KS2 we are really sensible and grown up to prove this we have been set a special challenge. We are caring for our very own jelly baby. We had to name our baby, make a safe bed for it and provide food and drink. At playtimes our teachers provided a babysitting service for us. Tonight we are taking our babies home to care for them overnight. Tomorrow our babies are returning to school to help us to complete out challenge!

Tina from the PDSA came to our assembly to talk about the amazing work that the PDSA does helping animals everyday. She then worked with both Year 3 classes to help us to be Petwise! On Friday she is going to teach us how to speak dog!

Year 3 are being inspired by the storybook ‘Bunda’s Dreamings’ a traditional tale about Aboriginal Dreamtime. We have sang a song about a kookaburra, retold the tale of the river serpent and created some fantastic dot paintings of Australian animals.

Decorating and weaving at Chillax Club

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Year 3 are investigating the weather in different European countries. We used the official Met Office website to help us with our research. We looked at the range of temperatures and how the location of the country determined the weather.

In PSHE we are focusing on Dreams and Goals. Today we were talking about people who have overcome difficult challenges in their pursuit of success and the respect we have for people who have overcome such obstacles.

In art we have planned, created and designed our own images to trace. We love the magical effect of tracing which allows us to duplicate our images!

In Geography we have been finding out about earthquakes and we had an earthquake drill!

We had a fabulous visit to the Oriental Museum to support our work on Ancient Egypt. We had the opportunity to handle real artefacts that were over 2000 years old, we took part in a drama workshop about mummification and we saw a real mummy!

 

Highlights of some of the fun we have!

We went to the park to help plant one of the large flower beds next to the bowling green.  We are looking forward to watching them grow and working with the Chester Le Street in Bloom Team.

Wow – what a fantastic day we had recently visiting a very special creature.  Superb behaviour by everyone! We were very impressed with the how much information the children retained from previous studies and used  this whilst we were there.

We have been busy finding out what an Island is and used an atlas and globe to discover some.

Materials monster has helped us be detectives in science to discover properties of materials we found outside.

One of our favourite times of the day is story time.  We are enjoying reading the library we chose from our  visits.

Hector the dolphin has been helping us to remember to keep our personal information safe.

As part of our EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) work the children have very much enjoyed working with this story.  we listened carefully to the complaints of the crayons and tried hard to incorporate their suggestions in our artwork.

We have been thinking of about what our dreams and goals are and how they may be achieved .  Our friend Jo the Jigsaw has helped.  We worked together as a group a to draw a picture of a scene which our friends described to us.

We are trying really hard to Big Maths Beat that weekly scores.  Mully is very proud of us.

We are trying really hard to improve our handwriting, thinking about Chicken, Monkey and Giraffe letters.  We also generated some questions relating to the nursery rhyme.

In History we have been finding out about some of the main features of the Cathedral and how they are used.

Temperatures dropped in the classroom as we read facts about polar animals.  We also tried hard to then answer questions about the text.

What time is it Mr Wolf? Counting in 5 minutes.

We spent time carefully observing the view form our classroom and drawing what we could see.  some great suggestions as to how this view will change over time.

The children had a great time taking part in a Multi Skills Sport Festival.

Outdoor Science. If you go down to the park – what birds will you see today?  We also hunted for natures treasure to keep in our outside area.

What a lovely day we have had at Hamsterly Forest investigating and creating.

Thank you to the students from Park View for coming in to work with us. 

World Book Day

We have been finding out how Jewish children celebrate Mitzvoth Day.

Out and about exploring the local area.

We welcomed some of the residents from The Elms who came for ‘Afternoon Tea’ and to spend time working with us.  We all had a lovely afternoon. 

Many hands make light work.  We are all helping to look after our outside area and looking forward to watching our  plants and small trees grow.  The birds are also starting to visit the feeders and stop for a drink and a dip in the bath!

Investigating strange materials!

We have very much enjoyed reading the story of ‘Perfectly Norman’.  The children thought of some amazing adjectives to describe his character and how this changes trough the story.

Exploring strange materials in messy science.

Sign Language Club.

Working  in the Galaxy Zone,  looking closely at different fruit and then drawing them.  The children tried hard to focus on the shape, lines and patterns that they could see.

The Great Cestria Bake Off in the Cookery Room.

Enjoying practical maths in the Cookery Room.

In maths, dividing objects into groups of 2,5, and 10 and writing the division number sentences.