Friday 7th February
We have had a super week in Oceania class this week filled with positivity to reflect children mental health week. We started the week of by watching an assembly all about what this years theme was for the week. The theme this year is 'Know yourself, grow yourself'. We have done small things throughout the week to help us with our mental health such as having some reflection time, doodling or listening to some music that makes us feel good. In addition to this, we have made each other a 'cup of positivity'. This is filled with everything positive for someone to think about themselves and to help them feel good. The children all had some wonderful ideas for what could go in their cups and throughout the week have been doing small acts of kindness to show how much they care about one another.
This week I wanted to share with you all the brilliant work we have completed in Geography where we have been exploring biomes. This week we focused on the Savannah biome which we found could be located in many places around the world including Africa. We looked at the typical characteristics of the biome and the flora and fauna that can be found there. Following this, we created our own Savannah biome maps where we created a map from scratch with features you might find. To go alongside our map, we created a key which included using a four digit grid reference. We used our maps to write the grid references for where the features could be located. I was so impressed by the children's understanding about grid references as it is not always easy to remember!
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Mrs Thompson
Friday 31st January
Happy Friday everyone! It is the last day of January and I couldn't be more proud of Oceania class for how hard they have worked across this first month of the year and especially this week. We have been learning all about the weather in French, defining what makes us the people we are in RE and converting between units of measure in Maths.
This week I wanted to share with you the wonderful history work we have completed based on our topic of Durham. We started the unit in Autumn term with a visit to Durham and the cathedral and this week we began to look at what a Prince Bishop was and why there were Prince Bishops in Durham. We discovered that as a Prince Bishop you could mint your own coins, create your own armies and collect taxes from the people. It was essentially the same as being a monarch of the country. We all wished we could have been a Prince Bishop! We also found out that William the Conqueror created Prince Bishops to protect Durham and the North East as there had been a number of attacks in the North of England where people had attempted to invade Northumberland from Scotland and also tried to invade York therefore he needed someone to keep an eye on this area and protect it whilst he managed the rest of the country from London. As a response to our learning, we had to write a persuading and convincing letter to William the Conqueror as to why he should choose us to be a Prince Bishop. I have to say I was very convinced by some of the letters the children wrote in the class.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Mrs Thompson.
Friday 24th January
It has been a brilliant week this week in Oceania class. The children have been working so hard on writing stories to develop characterisation in English, exploring animals that have made adaptions to survive in the Alpine Biome in Geography and testing forces in Science.
This week I wanted to share with you all the amazing work the children have carried out in our DT lessons over the past few weeks. We have started our new unit which has a focus on woodwork and have been exploring how to create items from scratch using wood and tools. In our first week, we made a magnetic note holder. For the past 2 weeks, we have been making a picture frame from scratch. We firstly made a design for the frame before we got to work starting to create the frame. We cut the wooden pieces using a hand saw into four 10cm wooden blocks. We then attached the pieces together with PVA glue and put a back on the frame. We then decorated the frame based on our designs and evaluated what had went well during the process and what we would do next time. Throughout the process, I couldn't have been prouder of their growth mindset to complete some very complicated and tricky tasks such as using the hand saw or trying to get the pieces to stick together. We all had a good giggle throughout the lessons at things going wrong such as glue getting stuck to pieces we didn't want it to however we all made an absolutely amazing frame by the end of the session and something we should be so proud of. Keep up the amazing work you superstars!
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Mrs Thompson
Friday 17th January
Happy Friday everyone! It has been such a busy week this week filled with experiments in Science where we have explored forces, role play of characters in our English lessons and learning Gymnastic rolls during our PE lesson.
This week I wanted to share with you the brilliant assembly we had on Wednesday morning which was delivered from the Gateshead Music workshop team. The assembly had a focus on the genre of Pop music throughout the decades. We started with the 1950's and made our way up to the present day. The children loved getting involved whether it be playing an instrument, dancing or even singing along to the songs. We experienced music from Elvis Presley, The Beatles, ABBA, Wham, Oasis and George Ezra. We love when the music workshop team come in to school and we can't wait for the next assembly!
Have a brilliant weekend everyone!
Mrs Thompson
Friday 10th January
We have had a brilliant first week back following the Christmas holidays. The children have settled straight back into routines this week and it has been so lovely to hear all about what they have done during the holidays. This week we have started lots of new topics such as forces in Science, learning all about the desert biome in Geography and starting a new book called ‘The Promise’ in our guided reading sessions.
This week I wanted to share with you the wonderful work the children have completed in PSHE where we have begun our new topic on relationships. This week we have explored that we may have relationships with people by being part of an online community. We discussed that this could be playing with our friends online, speaking to family online or by joining a group on an app we may use. We had some fantastic discussions around scenarios and debated whether these were safe or unsafe. In addition to this, we discussed about how to keep ourselves safe whilst online and how to spot the signs of something dangerous and something that we know is wrong when being part of an online community. The children were very honest during the session about what they do online and we reminded ourselves of the SMART ways to stay safe online.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Mrs Thompson