Adventurers / Investigators Archive
What's been happening in Adventurers & Investigators.
Summer Term 2018 - Make a Change!
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Summer Term Topic 2018 - Make A Change
The children have begun this term with endless amounts of enthusiasm for our topic 'Make a Change'. They have been really passionate about ways that we can stop plastic from getting into our oceans. We have made posters to show 'shocking plastic facts' and have begun to write letters to encourage parents to support our campaign to make a change.
We have continued to add to both outside areas in Investigators and Adventurers class. Thank you to FOBs for loaning a Gazebo and also the parents that have donated many items. Please feel free to have a look! The children have really enjoyed sharing books together sitting on the car tyres and love the new dens! We still feel very lucky in Adventurers class to have our new outside space!
The children are really enjoying 'show and tell' and it is lovely to see links to topic in class and the fact the children are taking their learning home! The children are asking each other lovely questions and really developing the skill of listening to each other's ideas. Well done!
Mrs Howe, Mrs Bowden and Miss Bruen.
Wb 19.03.18
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We would like to begin by thanking everyone who was able to attend the Curriculum Celebration on Friday afternoon! This was a great success and the children enjoyed showing off their learning with you! Please make your own volcanoes at home-all you need is bicarbonate of soda, washing up liquid, vinegar and a mint. Add some food colouring too to make it extra fancy!
The children enjoyed the disco on Tuesday and we discussed our favourite memories as a class.
Year 2 visited TCS for Funfest on Wednesday and had fun practising their balancing and trampolining skills. There were also extremely well behaved-Miss Andrews was very proud!
This week we have been continuing with our writing about Shrek. This has involved making our story-scenes and writing character descriptions in pairs. We focused on our use of adventurous adjectives and produced some fantastic pieces of work. Please stop by to see some of the Investigators work on the display just outside of the classroom!
In maths, we have been focusing on subtraction and how we can use different methods to help us. These include number lines, Numicon and cubes. We have now started to move on to word problems to challenge our learning.
Next week we look forward to lots of Easter-craft and fun throughout the week :o)
Have a lovely weekend
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
wb 12.03.18
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This week we have been writing about Shrek, including drawing our own story maps. The children enjoyed this activity-as the classroom fell silent as they became engrossed in drawing ogres and dragons! This will help us when we begin our story retell in the coming weeks. We also plan to create story boxes-so if you have any spare cardboard boxes we will be happy to take them off of your hands!
In maths we have been looking at additive reasoning. The children have been focusing on using a number line to solve problems, as well as how to solve missing number problems. We will continue with this in the next week.
For computing, the children were learning all about algorithms and how this is linked to using computers. We listed our own algorithm for getting to school in the morning, and then typed this up using Word. We each logged in and had a go at doing some basic typing. This was very exciting and the children were brilliant at having a go.
We have begun to look at Queen Victoria, and have been learning all about her temper and mood swings! Ask your child to tell you some interesting facts they have learnt so far!
Have a lovely weekend
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
wb 05/03/18
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We have had an incredibly busy week following the Beast From the East last week!
We have now ended our time looking at capacity, but agreed that the final lesson of exploring different ways of using ml was fun!
We made estimations as to how many ml were in a container and then had to prove it. We ended up slightly soggy but enjoyed the investigation.
We had Science Day on Thursday, and used this time to visit other classes to see what investigations had been going on in the school. We were the experts on the ingredients needed to erupt a volcano and passed this information on to the other children, with our reasons why. For anyone wanting to recreate this experiment-all you need is washing up liquid, bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and a mint!
We thought that the sugar in the mint had maybe reacted with the acid in the vinegar, which formed our evaluation.
We have today had World Book Day and our costumes were amazing! We looked at the poem ‘These old shoes’ by Tony Mitton and thought about items of clothing that really mean something to us also. Some children had a go at writing their own poem and we read out our favourites in front of the class.
We look forward to another busy week next week!
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
wb 19/02/18
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Welcome back to the second half term of Spring!
We have chosen Shrek as our new focus within Literacy-and it is not only the children who are excited about this!
We began by watching the first part of the film, and then discussed the characters. Investigators worked in groups to record 'awesome adjectives' for Shrek, and the list was impressive! We then created wanted posters for the main character-with an interesting selection of rewards available (lifetime supply of sweets anyone?!).
In music we have been focusing on rhythm and beats. The children used both instruments and their hands to create their own rhythm, which they continued out onto the playground at playtime!
We are continuing to put together the volcanoes for our science experiment. The children are looking forward to being able to test which liquids will cause the volcano to erupt!
In history, we have now moved away from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Victoria. We will be including ICT by encouraging children to gather simple information and place this into a powerpoint.
Have a lovely weekend
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
wb 05/02/18
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Today we conclude another half term and it has flown by!
It is amazing to think of all the learning that has taken place over the last few weeks since Christmas, and this week has certainly not been an exception!
We have been busy making Story Boxes and characters to support our creative writing, and have had lots of fun doing so! There was a buzz of activity and excitement when using these to make up new stories, and as you will see from the pictures below, a great deal of creativity went into creating these.
The Adventurers began making their volcanoes this week, as part of their science investigation. This was very exciting and again, involved a lot of hard work-and fun!
We have started a new scheme of music recently, and today the Investigators have been learning all about the Blues. We have been learning about creating a beat and how we can create movements to support this. The children also learnt a song to go with the beat which they were very proud of!
Have a lovely half term break and we will see you back on the 20th Feb.
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
wb 22.01.17
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This week we have spent a lot of time getting to know more about Queen Elizabeth 1. It has been lovely hearing from parents that children have been discussing their learning at home. We have painted portraits of Elizabeth, learnt all about her shoe-throwing antics in whole class guided reading and written our own interview with her. The children even worked in pairs to conduct their interviews (complete with crowns of course!) that were filmed ready to watch back as a class. The children really enjoyed this and added a touch of drama to the occasion!
We have been mixing paints with a focus on primary and secondary colours. The children have enjoyed experimenting with different shades of colours and experiencing the fun of just getting a bit messy!
We are hoping to create story boxes/freeze frames in the coming week. If you have any spare boxes/small plastic bottles then please drop them off into school as this will all help us with our creative writing opportunities.
Have a great weekend
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
wc 15/01/18
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We began the week with science and looking for different materials. We went on a hunt for these in school and enjoyed focusing and what the materials looked and felt like. We also braved the weather conditions (many thanks for providing the crucial wellies-it was a washout!) to look for different materials outside and discussed why they were chosen for that purpose.
Year 2 have been working hard in SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar). They have been playing contraction dominoes and experimenting with noun, verb, adjective and adverb silly stories- (just ask and they would love to show you!)
We have started looking at Queen Elizabeth and have thought of some questions we would like to answer by the end of the topic. We worked in groups to think of these, and have a particular interest in her clothing attire! Why WERE her sleeves so large?! What was the collar around her neck?! Answers to come!
Investigators also began their dance PE lessons this week. They focused on movement and stretches to music, as well as how different muscles work.
Next week we will be looking at geometry in maths, including 2d and 3d shapes.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
wc 08.01.18
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This week we have been writing postcards about the things that we have enjoyed in the first week back at school/recapping our Christmas break. These will be finding their way to you in the post within the week so keep a look out! It was a nice way to begin looking at our topic of Queen Victoria/Queen Elizabeth. We have been learning all about how different schools were back then, and the girls were not impressed with the subjects of sewing and housework!
In maths we have continued to learn our 2/5/10 times tables. We have been looking at doubling numbers using playdough and fabulous drawings of ladybirds.
Year 2 have begun to use a Thesaurus to find absolutely amazing and incredible adjectives! They have really enjoyed this and we hope to see these new words used in their writing soon.
We look forward to science on Monday, which will be looking at different materials found at Forest School, and how we could sort them based on their properties.
Have a lovely weekend
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
What an excellent first week back!
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We have been delighted with the children this week, as their batteries have been recharged and their curiosity for learning has been replenished!
In maths we have been looking at counting in 2s and began by listing all things that come in pairs, which the children enjoyed drawing.
It was lovely to hear all about Christmas in a recount of the holidays. Many brussel sprouts were drawn as well as all of the people the children spent time with and of course, the gifts left by santa-apparently we were all very good last year!
We look forward to all that the new term has to offer, including exciting science and learning all about Queens Victoria and Elizabeth as part of history.
Welcome back!
Monday 4th December - Friday 8th December
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Here is a sneaky look at our back drop for Tuesday! Designed by the Adventurers and Investigators! Can you spot the deadly animals?!
Saturday 26th November 2017
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Adventurers Class had the door fitted to the back of the class that will lead onto our decking! Building work should start very soon!
Monday 27th November - 1st December 2017
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Last week the year 2's had the opportunity to make Chris-tingles at school. The following day the year 2's then visited St John's church in Bishopsteignton. They were fortunate to be met by Reverend West and members of the church, most of whom participate in 'open the book' assembly'. Reverend West congratulated the children for amazing knowledge and behaviour. Thank you to all the adults that organised this event! The children loved it. Well done to all the Year 2's!
Monday 20th November - Friday 24th November
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This week we will carry on with our Christmas play rehearsals. If your child has had lines sent home please keep practising! They have really impressed us with how much they know already!
Monday 13th November -Friday 17th November
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Children in Need
Our teddies helped us with our work!
Busy times!
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We have had an incredibly busy couple of weeks in Adventurers and Investigators!
We were very excited for the visit from the helicopter on Monday, and spent some time trying to draw and label it following the information we gained from the Navy experts!
We also spent all of Friday morning learning about why Remembrance Day is so important. The children had lots of fantastic questions such as "Why did the war begin?" and "Why do we wear poppies?" We watched some clips showing the Cenotaph, a 2 minute silence and what the football game would have looked like on Christmas Eve between the trenches. The children discussed how they might have felt if they had been there, and it warmed my heart to hear replies such as "It made me feel happy because although they didn't speak the same language, they could still be friends". Children are amazing!
Which leads me on to Anti-bullying week. We began today with an assembly from Mr Killoran introducing the week, and the children already have lots of questions and ideas for activities.
Both classes are becoming experts on different animals for literacy and as part of our Deadly 60 topic. We will be creating posters will all of our facts and then swapping classrooms to see each others work. The Investigators are currently learning all about sharks and we already know some very interesting facts-please ask your child for more info!
We look forward to seeing you all at parents evening this week to pass on the wonderful things your children have been doing.
See you then!
Miss Andrews
Monday 6th - Friday 10th November
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The Investigators and Adventurers had a great time with Dr McCann today! Dr McCann's stories were very exciting! The children really impressed us with their knowledge and also their fantastic questions.
Monday 6th - Friday 10th November
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Well done to all the Adventurers who completed their run on Tuesday morning! Children will have brought home their certificates today. Thank you to those children who have already brought in their sponsor money. We are very excited about our outside play area!
Drink Breaks! Keep Running! Warm up Time!
Monday 16th October to Friday 20th October
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On Wednesday all the year 2's had a fireman come and visit the school to talk about fire safety in the home. It was also an ideal opportunity to discuss safety with fire works. Ask your child what they can remember how how to keep safe in the home.
Monday 9th October - Friday 13th Ocober
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This week we have all had the chance to go and spend time at our school forest school. We had a fabulous time making 2D and 3D shapes with natural resources. The children had lots of amazing and clever ideas!
We are becoming experts of rectangles, squares, cubes and cuboids this week! We had to make our own pictures of squares and rectangles. Some of us measured the sides with rulers and some of us cut one side and tried to make them the same by lying them against each other!
We have also made some 'Deadly Animal' sandwiches. This was very exciting for the children so they may have mentioned this to you at home! Photos to follow!
Here are some of our deadly sandwiches!!!
wb 02/10/17
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This week we have been focusing on using story maps to help us to remember and retell the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We are learning the different actions involved, including some Makaton sign language! The children are very much enjoying this and it is having a very positive impact on their learning.
All KS1 children have been involved in creating our new lunchtime charter to help ensure it is an enjoyable time for everyone. We have also created some pictures to go with our new rules which we look forward to including in posters around the hall. Keep a look out for our fabulous artwork!
We are looking forward to the Harvest celebration on Friday and have been discussing in class what this involves and why it is important. The Investigators have created some acrostic poems and some children will be reading out their poetry during the celebration.
Finally, we have begun to display our Deadly 60 animal habitat artwork in and around the classrooms. The children did a fantastic job of creating desert and jungle scenes using paint, chalk and charcoal. Mr Killoran himself has had a quick peek at these and was very impressed by the effort and detail involved. We look forward to displaying the rest of these in the coming week.
It's a busy and exciting time!
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In the last four weeks both Investigators and Adventurers have been extremely busy with their learning. They have been involved in exciting investigations as part of maths, thinking of questions to ask the Big Bad Wolf from our current story of Little Red Riding Hood and even had a go at taking part in some acting when answering these questions, as the wolf himself! It was lovely to see the children so animated and engaged in their learning!
We have also been out onto the playground and field to look for signs of Autumn. We collected acorns, conkers and leaves with various colours which formed a great discussion about why this was happening.
In the coming weeks, we will be investigating the habitats of some of the Deadly 60 animals and start to ask questions such as whether or not this impacts on the 'deadliness' of an animal. We will also be creating a collage of a habitat to be chosen by the children to display in our classrooms.
We look forward to you coming to see this once it is complete!
Miss Andrews and Mrs Howe
Tuesday 5th September - Friday 8th September 2017
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Welcome back! The children have come back very enthusiastic with their learning. They are particularly excited about our new topic; 'Deadly 60!
We have had lots of fun making number lines in different number patterns and some of us have been partitioning 2 digit numbers and applying these skills. The children have been introduced to 'Little Red riding Hood'. They have loved learning about 'the big bad wolf' and have started making links between him and deadly animals!.
Monday 26th June - Friday 30th June 2017
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The Adventurers and Investigators had a wonderful time on the beach on Monday. We learnt about beach safety. We built dens in our teams of 6. This helped us with our team work and problem solving skills. To add to the fun we pretended we were on a desert island and made an SOS sign out of pebbles! We made a fire ad cooked marshmallows. We also had 'free time' to explore the beach. Some of us dug streams leading to the sea, some of us enjoyed chatting in our dens and some of us made sandcastles. Thank you Ali for organising the day! Ali was very impressed with our behaviour and enthusiasm to learn, which we are very proud of.
Also a big thank you to all our parent volunteers. We could not have gone without your support! We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did!
Also a big thank you to the MTAs who came in early to make our packed lunches.
Curriculum Celebration 23rd June 2017
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Monday 19th June to Friday 23rd June
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This week we are going to carry on making our class newspaper thinking about all the things we have learnt over the last year. What can we remember? What did we enjoy? What did we achieve?
Thank you for all the homework telling us your achievements! It was lovely to learn more about you all.
We will learn how to make jam sandwiches this week. We will try and give each other clear instructions on what to do. Hopefully the parents will be able to follow our instructions on Friday when we have our curriculum celebration at 2.30pm.
We our still learning different ways to make number lines. We are getting very good at writing our own number lines to solve real life problems.
On Thursday it is The Adventurers Forest School Day!
Everyone took a letter home with them last week about our trip to the ness beach where we will have a Beach School Day! We will need lots of adults to help us so would welcome volunteers!
Science Investigation! What do plants need to grow?
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In both classes we have been carrying out an investigation to see what plants need to grow.
Our big questions was:
Do all plants need soil to grow?
We discovered that our beans didn't! But they definitely needed water. We were left wondering how long the beans would carry on growing without soil. What do you think?
We made a few mistakes along the way, but it didn't matter as we learnt from it! One group forgot to put a bean in the soil! One of the beans that we weren't meant to water got left outside in the rain.Someone had the idea that we could use a slow motion camera to film the bean growing.
Monday 12th June to Friday 16th June
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We have had a lovely couple of days getting involved with activities at the village festival. We went to trails around the village, built dream catchers, made mini beast clay models, collages with fabric and learnt lots of interesting facts about beans! This was quite lucky as our topic as been about plants and the story 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. We also had been learning about mini beats in class so it was really exciting to get to make mini beast clay models. A big thank you from Adventurers and Investigators to those who taught us!
We loved singing to everyone at the end of the week and were very proud of our performance. We had practised a lot in class and we could hear people singing around the school! We would like to say well done to the older children for doing a brilliant puppet and dance show!
We are very lucky to be part of a great community!
Monday 5th June - Friday 9th June
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This week in maths we have been carrying out investigations on 'number lines'. We have looked at number lines in real life ( tape measures, scales , rulers and thermometers) as well as number lines other schools have used. The children have then made some of their own number lines and have had a great variety of ideas from beanstalks to interactive number lines showing the 50s pattern. Next we will begin to look at how number lines help us to solve problems.
The children have begun to ask questions such as 'Why do we have number lines?' 'Why are some number lines in patterns?' 'Why are some numbers bigger than others?' 'Why do some of them not have numbers?'
In literacy we have agreed to make a class newspaper based upon what we have done in class since September. We will try and remember all the exciting things we have done at school and also celebrate our achievements and why we think we are so awesome.
This will be linked to this weeks homework, talking about and hopefully writing about why we think we are awesome.
We will also carry on with our science investigation on plants; comparing how plants grow I different conditions.
1st May – 5th May
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The children will continue to plant seeds and carry out their investigations entitled ‘What do plants need to grow and stay healthy?’We will agree on ways to begin record our findings.
In numeracy we will carry out activities on fractions in a variety of contexts. Jack and the Beanstalk will definitely be included! If you had ten beans how many would you have left if you shared them equally with a friend?
We will begin the task of planning to write our own version of Jack and the Beanstalk. We have already discussed the main character being a girl living with her dad. We thought she could be called Georgina. We will plan our own stories using a variety of activities such as pictorial storyboards, drama, story shelves, role play. Thanks to Oliver for donating a large card roll so we can make a class beanstalk! We thought it could be the ogre’s toilet roll! I wonder if anyone has one for the Investigators Class so they can make a beanstalk? When we have completed out stories the Adventurers and Investigators will share their stories and ideas with each other.
The Explorers have offered to come and show us their ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ story map. We are looking forward to seeing it!
24th April – 28th April
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We have had lots of fun writing our character descriptions of the ogre in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ The children invented their own ogres and we had some very interesting ideas. Apparently he likes to go into town and meet his ogre friends! He also liked to sleep everyday by the tree. He doesnt like the colour of his skin so he sunbathes every day!
For topic we have begun planting our seeds and planning our investigation. The children were very surprised to see how much seeds vary in size! Lucas B was very surprised by how tiny carrot seeds are.
Week beginning 24th April
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This week we will continue to write our character descriptions of the ogre from Jack and the Beanstalk. The children had some great ideas about what he might say, what he looks like, what he might do. The children designed their own ogres as a starting point and some of them had tails or 4 legs!
In maths we are focussing on measure and began last week by measuring giant foot prints and putting them in order of size. This week we will measure our own pictures of the giant.
We started our topic on the outdoors, exploring the school grounds and spending some time in our new forest school on the field. We were able to identify many common plants and mini beasts.
This week we are beginning our mammoth gardening project! We have lots of ideas and this will help us develop an understanding of what plants need to grow and stay healthy. The children are very excited about this term project!
In PE we learnt good running techniques. We practised running the same distance to see if we could improve our time and then compared each others running techniques. Well done to James in Adventurers class. Fabulous running technique!
27th March - 31st March
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This week we will begin discussions on our new topic, 'The Great Outdoors'. We have already decided our focus will be garden life. If you have any gardening skills or knowledge you would like to share then please let us know!
There will be no phonics or SPAG homework set this Easter holiday, but we will be sending home optional homework for Easter holidays. Don't forget to keep up the reading for 5 minutes a day! Thank you.
Curricululm Celebration
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The children had a lovely time teaching parents skills they had learnt over the term. Thank you to all adults that came. Some great poetry writing. It was lovely to see more homework done by parents arriving the following day!
19th March - 24th March
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An exciting week ahead with our curriculum celebration tomorrow!
Come and find out how a picture tells a thousand words!
The children in each class will tell you about the lives of Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong. They will explain how they are similar and how they are different!
Don't forget that Friday is Red Nose day!
12th March - 17th March
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In our Literacy this week we will be learning more about the lives of Neil Armstrong and Christopher Columbus. We will be writing stories about their lives and
we will be investigating how their lives are similar and how their lives are different.
In our Maths we will be looking at ways we can add numbers together and how we can show how we know each calculation is correct.
On Tuesday this week the Yr2's will be attending a FunFest session at TCS. Don't forget your PE kit!
The Yr1's will have an extra PE session with Mr Flint!
Monday 6th March - Friday 10th March 2017
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Maths
This week we will be looking at how to represent numbers. We will build on this by developing the skill of comparing 2 numbers and proving whether they are bigger, smaller or the same. This will then be applied in a variety of contexts such as weight, length or height.
Literacy
We will begin the week by making our own junk model rocket. This will then support us to write a set on instructions on how to build a rocket. I look forward to seeing the children's inventions!
PE - Don't forget our PE specialist is teaching games on Monday and Tuesday afternoon. Some children still do not have a full PE kit in school. It is really important that the children get changed for PE. Thank you for your support.
Mrs Bowden will be in the Adventurers class on Thursday she will be teacher science, focussing on habitats.
World Book Day Thursday 2nd March
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We had a great time on World Book Day. The children loved extra reading time throughout the day and writing poems based on the book 'The Day the Crayons Quit', which was used across the school. The children loved having the adults come in and read with them at the end of the day.
To add to the excitement of the day the fire service acme to visit the year 5s and year 2s! All the year 2s had a special lesson on fire and safety with an expert from the fire service. Booklets to follow next week. Well done to the Investigators and Adventurers. You were very respectful and asked some great questions. Dominic really impressed us with his knowledge of the fire service!
27th February - 3rd March
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The children produced some great ideas for writing a recount on Wallace and Gromit's Grand Day Out! Not only were all the children very motivated but they also produced some excellent work with lots of fun ideas!
The children have worked very hard at describing and comparing shapes. We learn the skill of comparing two shapes and explaining what is the same and what is different. We have had lost of really interesting ideas and really progressed with the use of our mathematical language. Later on in the week we used this knowledge to sort shapes according to properties and making repeated patterns. Well done! All the children worked very hard. Ashla and Hollie amazed us by the amount of work they produced and their enthusiasm to learn. Well done!
21st February - 24th February
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