Friday 27th November
Some people think that science is all about rockets and explosions. Actually, this week, it was. We've been investigating forces in our Science lessons, and our force of choice on Wednesday was gas pressure. This is caused when gas particles hit the walls of their container. The more often the particles hit the walls, and the faster they are moving when they do this, the higher the pressure. If the container is one of those little tubs that 35mm film comes in, and the gas is carbon dioxide produced by a fizzing denture tablet in some water, then it isn't long before the pressure in the sealed tub soon builds up enough to cause a small explosion, sending the tub rocketing upwards.
Once we'd recovered our composure, we realised that there were several elements of this exciting chemical reaction that we could investigate: the volume of water in the tub; the amount of tablet; and the temperature of the water. We worked in small groups to plan, predict and then carry out fair tests, recording our results in tables, to spot patterns and hopefully prove our initial hypotheses. Whichever variable we tested, the main result was a lot of fun, as you can see from the photos.
Friday 20th November
Wow, that was a quick week! Despite time flying, we seem to have fit in so much excellent work: our maths is progressing very well, as we have been getting to grips with fractions of all shapes and sizes. It's all in the times tables, you know, and two of our top TT Rockstars were awarded justly today - Jessica received a very sparkly medal as the runner up in the last TTRS battle, whilst Aliyah was the proud recipient of a stunning glass trophy for her herculean efforts in the same competition. There will be another battle soon, and the running for places will be fiercely contested again, no doubt.
Another writing unit came to a close this week - a flashback fairy-tale that tested our abilities to control tenses, paragraphs and our descriptive language. There are some superbly-creative minds in our class, and our writing has really stepped up a level in recent weeks. Here are a few snippets of poetic prose, lifted from the pages of our stories:
As the sun's rays fade away, I begin to walk across the bridge and all of a sudden, a troll jumps out and doesn't let me pass. He has bone-like arms that are covered in hair and continuously block me from my brothers, who are eating the lovely green grass on the other side. Harry P
The three pigs can see pupils like bullet holes, draining their souls, pearl white teeth ready to kill and a blood-stained muzzle about to bite. The wolf smashes the windows and the lights go out. Jessica
It all started a few hours ago, when that same full moon hit my eyes. I asked to go to my grandma's house, to deliver some warm apple pie before it got even darker. On the way, I picked a bunch of lilies and bluebells that smelt like perfume. I got them to put in a colourful, patterned vase on Grandma's mantle piece next to the fire. Maddie
He walked out of the house and got the cow. It had been tied up with a rope outside of the home. The cow looked sad and didn't want to leave, but it was their only hope, since they weren't like the other families and lived in a shack outside the woods, in the middle of nowhere. Jasmine
Sure enough, the little pig was sat on his dusty straw bed, and a snarl came from outside. He looked out of the window, and there it was: a great, big, amber-eyed wolf. The youngest pig screamed in terror. Charlie
It was dark when I got home; Ma scolded me for taking so long, but when she saw the beans, she was furious. She sent me to bed with two bread crusts! I looked out of the window and my five beans glimmered in the soft moonlight. Maisey
As if that wasn't enough creativity, have a look at our designs for the competition being run by our local MP Liz Twist. She sends out lots of Christmas cards every year, and wants to choose a piece of artwork for this year's cards, created by the children of primary schools in the area. We thought about celebrating our local landmarks in our designs, and there were some fantastic ideas, as you can see.
Friday 13th November
Wednesday's two minute's silence was preceded by a very moving performance of the Last Post, played by Mrs Lawrence. The notes that drifted down the corridor to our classroom inspired us to think about the sacrifices of those who have fought in wars - sacrifices made so that we can enjoy our freedoms today. As well as the poppy wreath we made last week, we spent time writing remembrance poetry. Our English work on powerful descriptive writing certainly helped, and some of our verses are truly moving. Here are just a few...
Our week ended with the ever-cheerful Joe Wicks, as he completed his 24-hour workout challenge in aid of Children in Need. We joined him live for his last fitness session (some of us in Pudsey-themed clothes and pyjamas) and were amazed to see his final total of over £1.5 million. This will do amazing things for the good causes that the charity supports, and it's good to know that our school will add to that total - South America class contributed over £40 this morning, which is fantastic.
Remaining with the Children in Need theme, we had some mouth-watering entries to the school's baking competition. A 'jolly well done' to those that spent time being creative in the kitchen, but there can only be one winner - and the prize goes to Athena's Pudsey cake. Well done Athena!
Friday 11th November
Art is good for the soul, so we make no apologies for sharing a little more of our creativity this week. Just before half term, the Co-op in Crawcrook kindly left us with some 'scratch art' pumpkins to decorate for their shop window, with the incentive of a prize (not that we need a prize to motivate us to use our imaginations). You can see the varied and wonderful results in the photos below.
It was with more than a little excitement then, that we greeted Miss Armstrong at the beginning of this week, when she came to the door of our classroom holding a prize bucket of goodies. These went to Maddie for her spooky graveyard scene.
As you can see, however, Maddie has been the fortunate winner of yet another competition! This one was for the design of a Healthy Packed Lunch - after thinking about the important food groups and how these could be combined in a healthy meal, we designed and labelled our own packed lunch that contained representatives from these groups. Maddie was presented today with a rather smart lunch coolbag, specially embossed with our own school logo.
Finally, to commemorate this year's Remembrance Day, we - along with the rest of the classes in the school - have created a poppy wreath for our door. The poppies were assembled from petals which we created individually, to form beautiful flowers that look very life-like. Quite a few skills were practised along the way, including colour-wash painting, cutting, folding, precision sticking and even some paper curling, but we're sure you would agree that the finished wreath is worthy of any memorial.
Friday 23rd October
We had a very creative end to our half term, as we brought our Design and Technology unit to a glittering culmination. To compliment our study of World War One in History lessons, we looked at the cap badges of soldiers who fought on the battlefield and the medals that were awarded to them. After looking at different examples from the Great War and visually 'disassembling' them into their component parts (who knew that the British Army were so fond of mythical creatures?), we decided on our own emblems, animals, shapes and ribbons, and re-assembled them into our very own designs. A lesson in using paper prototypes helped us to decide on our final proposals; this was followed by some tricky cutting of card and assembling into three-dimensional 'decoupage' medals. Some careful metallic painting was followed by a crash-course in sewing (from threading a needle to running stitch and backstitch in one lesson!) so that we could sew a loop into a length of ribbon to finish our medals. As you can see, some serious skills have been demonstrated, and every one of us deserves a medal for our efforts.
Friday 16th October
Continuing our PE theme, we have been honing our passing and throwing skills, as we have now started our first unit of netball. Again, there has been quite a steep learning journey; our first lesson revealed that we needed to improve our passing and throwing skills, not to mention trying not run with the ball! By our third lesson today, however, we were actually demonstrating some great moves, working together in our teams to pass the ball around the court (without 'travelling'). Honourable mentions go to Aliyah, Rhianne and Maisey who managed to score a few nets between them. Next week, we will be learning the specifics of the different positions.
Friday 9th October
We finished our athletics unit in PE this week (for the time being), having learnt techniques to improve our sprinting, discus and shot put. It's always nice to see improvements in our performance, so with that in mind, we recorded some initial performances at the start of the term. The most impressive gains were seen in our shot puts, as, after learning how to properly hold the shot (resting on the fingers, not the palm, and throwing arm at right angles to our neck), how to move to create the greatest momentum (start low, facing the ground, then twisting our bodies up and round) and how to finish (high, at an angle of 45 degrees), we all showed huge improvements in distances thrown. Some of us started with throws of around 3 metres, but ended up at more than 6 or 7 metres. Our future Olympian, however, may well be Jessica, with a final put of 11 metres!
Friday 2nd October
Our first English writing unit was focused on the techniques needed for creating suspense, and this week has seen the culmination of all that we have learnt since the start of term. Our lessons have been based around two characters from the fantastic book 'Wolf Brother' by Michelle Paver, with our own writing inspired by a scene in which our main character is terrified by an unknown threat, whilst a secondary character makes its way to help. Today, we had a celebration of our completed stories, with readings aloud to the class. The tense atmosphere was helped when the house lights were dimmed and the spotlight switched on, but as you can see from the chronological series of excerpts under the photos, the quality of writing was enough to send shivers down the spine!
It was late when Bradley made his way to the abandoned desert. The bleak pathway disappeared in the dry sand. The dead trees stared at him from above. Dust whipped him in the face, as he tried to fight through the rocks hidden by the sand, tripping him over into the dust. Sarah N
Kylie roamed around the forest, trying to find an exit, but with all the trees, it was almost impossible to escape or see the sky. She slouched in between two colossal roots. All of a sudden, a monstrous storm rolled in, and a gust of wind sent shivers down her spine. Ruby B
The sky darkened and grey clouds come in. Suddenly, zig-zag lightning flashed through the clouds, leaving holes in the tall grass. Sam T
Vanya heard a deafening scream in the distance, echoing in her mind; her body tensed and her fists clenched. All of a sudden, the leaves started to rustle. Her teeth began to chatter and her hands and feet were getting pins and needles. Aliyah A
Aryanah’s heart was thumping. There it was again, that rustle. Then a boom. The ground shook viciously – she thought an earthquake was coming. Charlie B
A few miles away Momo was in the distance, calling for Rosie. Momo adored the wind. It pushed him closer towards Rosie, as she was swinging from tree to tree, faster and faster. Bobby M
Gracie raced with the storm, danced with the storm; she felt one with the storm. The night sky glittered above her, swirling in beautiful patterns with oranges, blues and purples. Evie B
A colossal lion arose out of the long grass, its were teeth daggers. Its bloodshot eyes gleamed around, picking out the bitter stillness. He heard a small but sharp shriek, and as the lion ran towards the sound, Esmund ran in the opposite direction Harry P
While running, she saw the beady red eyes, the teeth like knives and the black body like the night sky. She ran and ran after the bear. Mia finally had to stop to regain energy, then she could not see it. She hung her head. Then she heard a bark. It was Moon! Jessica D
Friday 25th September
How quickly time passes! It's been a very busy week, what with getting to grips with place value and numbers up to ten million in Maths, writing cracking sentences to show suspense in English, learning about land biomes in Geography and designing some WW1 medals in Design and Technology, amongst other things. This half term's Science has been very practical so far, and we've been working with our learning partners to find out about properties and changes of materials. We've been mixing, sieving, filtering and dissolving with a range of materials, as you can see from the photographs.
Friday 18th September
What a great start to the new school year! We've all settled back into life at Emmaville with plenty of enthusiasm, albeit with some slightly different routines to get used to. Our first week in South America Class included lots of lively discussion, fun playground games, plenty of art activities, and even some writing and maths activities. It's been so nice to spend time with friends again, and all of us have enjoyed being in the classroom once more.
Say hello to our own strange 'avatars' that will soon be racing around our Accelerated Reading challenge board; a quick flick through the odd assortment of cartoon characters, superheroes and a very strange smattering of princesses and fairies, will give you a flavour of our sense of humour!