Today, Elms made some guacamole as part of our D.T learning around cooking and nutrition. The children used lots of different preparation skills such as cutting, slicing, peeling, mashing and spooning. They put their learning into practise by discussing food safety and also how the guacamole could be eaten as part of a balanced diet. The activity also linked to our learning about Mexico.
Sycamores have been learning all about the conventions of play scripts. To support their understanding, they worked in groups to perform a play script using the different stage directions and character names. The children knew the parts they needed to read and used fantastic expression and actions when following the stage directions.
Sycamores enjoyed a fantastic visit to the Great North Museum with Chestnuts to consolidate our Science learning from last half term. At the museum, we visited the planetarium, used the Ancient Greek activity packs as a pre-teaching task for Summer term, explored the different galleries and took part in a workshop all about the Moon. The children really impressed us with what they had remembered from their Earth and Space Science topic and could explain why we have night and day. Sycamores were absolutely amazing and were fantastic ambassadors for our school. We were extremely proud of them all.
As part of our French lessons, Sycamores have been learning how to tell the time. We first recapped the times in English using small clocks before discussing the language for hour in French. The children became more and more confident in speaking the time in French before we began to write the time in sentences. Great work Sycamores!
In Sycamores, we are reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. This week, we have been learning all about diary writing. The children used freeze framing for four key scenes to infer the character’s thoughts and feelings at different parts of the chapter. They really focussed on the facial expressions and gestures to show how the characters were at that moment. The rest of the class were a great audience whilst each group performed their freeze frames and could guess who each of the characters were from their expression. Great work Sycamores!
In Art, Sycamores have been learning all about how to make tints, tones and shades using paints. We have added white to a base colour to create a tint, exploring what happens as we add a small amount of white paint each time. We then looked at shades and added a small amount of black each time to our base colour. As we added the black, we realised we didn’t need to add that much! Finally, we learnt about tones and added grey by mixing black and white together to our base colour. It created a muter colour palette. Well done Sycamores!
Sycamores began our new History topic by taking part in some drama. We acted out the story of the Yellow Emperor and the Xia Dynasty; finding out information about it whilst remaining in role. Did you know that the Yellow Emperor of the Xia Dynasty may not have even existed? There may be truth in the stories but people often question parts such as the Yellow Emperor being taken to heaven by a dragon. Great drama work around a historical idea Sycamores.
In Chestnuts, we have had an Ancient Egyptian afternoon where we invited parents to see what we have been up to.
We tasted lots of typical Ancient Egyptian food such as bread, honey, figs and cheese. We also made jewellery and Tutankhamen style headdresses.
As part of national fieldwork fortnight, Chestnuts carried out transport and pedestrian counts around the Fellgate estate.
We came back to school and analysed what we had found. We thought about how the council often carry out fieldwork to make decisions on road crossings, traffic calming measures and pedestrian walkways.
As a treat, Chestnuts visited the Customs House to see The Little Mermaid.
The children really enjoyed the film.
