Mental Health Week

Last week was mental health week in the school and we celebratede this in particular on Wednesday by wearing green to school.

The children spent the day like this, including when they were knee-deep in their fractions work using play-doh in order to understand the concept. Undoubtably, the children had a lot of fun doing this and have been asking me when they ca use the play-doh in maths again. It’s hard not to see why as they have clearly enjoyed it.

WOW barn

For our recent school trip, we went to the WOW Barn which was set up as part of Leeds city of culture 2023. This was a barn made up of 300 pieces of wood, each one representing the 300 women that helped to make this barn. The day revolved around gender equality and representation in different professions.

This also included the children having a microbiologist from the University of Leeds come and speak to them about microbes, and having a go at making their own (safe!) version.

ACE Artists

Earlier this half-term, we had a look at some natural art.

This is art that is made using natural materials and is complimentary to the natural environment around them. The children were able to make wonderful geometric patterns that dazzled everybody and they had a lovely time in the nice weather doing so. Just see for yourself!

Seven Arches Aqueduct

Last week we visited the Seven Arches Aqueduct.

After walking there and tracking our journey with compasses and maps, we arrived and had a history talk about the origins of the aqueduct.

Then the children were able to draw things in nature for links to their science and art lessons.

They realy enjoyed that day, but dont take my word for it, just look at the photos!

Good Leaders

In the first week back last week, the children kicked off their new RE topic of Religious Leaders at the kind of qualities that make a leader a good leader, and examples of these.

The children go together with different prompts (Good King, Good Primeminster, Good Captain, Good Teacher) and then went round the class and listed the different qualities and examples that would be relevent for each of these. While they noticed some subtle differences, they in fact found that a lot of these qualities were universal for good leaders. Just see for yourself!

Beats, Bones and Bodies

Last week on Thursday, the children managed to have their second session of Beats, Bones and Bodies.

The children are now furthering their drama and dance knowledge and how to apply abstract concepts to physical activities through their engagement in this process. The children have also been looking at acting out scenes through dance as well as representing sapes through group work as you can see in the photos displayed.

Winning Volcano

The winning volcano in the class in the end was Joseph’s volcano!

Now again, all of them were fantastic. Some of them bowled me over completely.

From the pictures it may be hard to see, but it was exceptinally well made and painted which caught my eye. Next, he made sure the different parts were very well-labelled, including the labelling of; tectonic plates, subduction zones and tsunami caused by a volcanic landslide.

However, there were several students in the class that had very well made, painted and well labelled volcanoes with additional features, so what set this volcano apart?

While Mrs. Howard and I were scratching our heads at who could be the winner (as it was so hard to choose) we noticed that he had included a booklet documenting his journey from the planning and design, all the way to the construction, painting and with instructions too so that future children could look and find some volcano making tips.

With all of this combined with everything else, we realised that we had the winner.

The award is a book of the child’s choice, which has ended up being a very appropriately chosen book about volcanoes.

Well done Joseph!

Volcanoes

I will show the winning volcano of the class in the next blog post which I intend to do today if possible. However, I would first like to issue a message about the volcanoes I have received.

As Geography lead of the school, it is my job not only to be a champion of Geography in the school, but amongst (many!) other things it is also my job to make sure that I give oppertunities for the children to get excited about Geography. So imagine the proud smile on my face when I saw the volcanoes being brought in, as you can see on my post.

I also took the liberty of counting them: 74….. 74 volcanoes is above and beyond the engagement I expected for this project. Our class in particular had the most engagement. It is clear to me that both children and parents have put so much into this and have taken so much time; from research to planning, construction and modelling, resource finding to painting and labelling. Time spent at the kitchen table with your child and they themselves putting in lots of work.

I take a bow and with a smile, thank you for all for your drive in engaging with this. You all deserve a big thank you and you made a Geography lead very happy.

Warm regards,

Mr Arnett

Pancake Day!

The children have (of course) thoroughly enjoyed Pancake Tuesday and what other qway would be beter to celebrate this than get involved in the pancake making process.

Always a fan of cooking, I took the children to the ACE Cafe and had them get their hands on the process themselves. You can see the results and I sincerely hope you weren’t bombarded with pancake requests when they returned home!

ACE Mathematicians – length and measure

This week, the childrenhave advanced onto their length and measure topic. While the conversion between the measurements can be a challenge to some at first, the children have really enjoyed not only getting their teeth into this topic, but also by getting hands on with their measuring by taking teir rulers around the classroom. I have plans next wek to have them going round with some meter sticks as well!

I would encourage you as parents to let your child take a ruler or piece of tape and measure things around the home as measuring length is always a very useful life skill.

Be sure as well to maintain their four operations skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) by having them practice their column methods.