Friday 30th June
In Art, we have been studying the artist Eric Carle the author and illustrator of the well-known children picture book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We looked carefully at the illustrations and how he uses collage to create the images in his books. Over the last few weeks, we have been developing and our skills and this week we created our own animals using collaging of patterns card. We had to visualise our animal and then use a trial and error method to create the final piece. We were so proud of all of our finished pieces and even created some more during our golden time.
Friday 23rd June
It has been a technology based week in Wales class this week. In Maths, the children have been furthering their positional and directional knowledge through the use of our 'Doc Robots'. They worked as a group to write an algorithm to get the robot from point A to B but they had to use the correct mathematical language such as 'quarter turn left, half turn clockwise, forwards, backwards'. I was super impressed with their understanding of quarter and half turns which they have embedded when learning about time and fractions in prior maths units. They had great fun in the dance studio applying their understanding and creating their own challenges for their partners to solve.
Carrying on with the use of technology, in computing, we have been completing a class project of making a transition book for the next Wales class. The children used the app 'PicCollage' to create a page for the book, explaining aspects of our classroom and the daily routines of Year 2. I'm sure the Year 1 will love this book and benefit from it greatly.
Friday 16th June
The children have blown me away this week in many lessons. This week we have been learning a very important skills of telling the time. The children have really grasped the tricky concept of time and have had great fun playing lots of time games including our favourite 'What time is it Mr Wolf?'.
This afternoon, we had to use our resilience to cut out our templates for our Reading Record pockets that we have designed and are going to make in Design Technology. We've been building on our textiles skills learning to do thread a needle and do a running stitch. We will use this skill to sew our templates together. Watch this space to see our finished products.
Friday 9th June
This half term we are focusing on a fiction unit in English. On Tuesday a very strange package was delivered to our classroom door. Miss Woolard had a basket of items and a beautiful picnic blanket that Miss Turnbull had knitted herself. We were intrigued as to what the items in the basket would be and had to use our prediction and inference skills to work out what the story could be and how these items told us about the characters or plot in the story. One by one, we revealed the items which were: a cheese sandwich, an apply juice, a bag of crisps, a knife and fork, a seagull puppet, a jar of mustard and a letter from someone called Mr Grinling. After much confusion and debate, we agreed that our next model text must be based on the famous story of The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch. We're excited to innovate our own story maps and write our own journey tales this half term.
Friday 26th May
We had a very special but familiar visitor in our school yesterday. The children were delighted to see Adam Bushnell, a local author and expert in teaching children writing. We never know what surprises are in store for us when Adam visits but on Wednesday, it certainly didn't disappoint.
The children were hooked from the start as they went on a mission to an 'Alien Planet', designing and building their own rockets to get there. In English, we have been looking at the tools needed to write letters (formal and informal). Throughout the afternoon, we designed packing lists, imagined how different life would be on our 'Alien Planet' and even drew a lifecycle of a very strange creature; you wouldn't believe the ideas the children had! Using all of this inspiration and planning, we wrote an informal letter to our friend to tell them all about the weird and wonderful creatures and nature we saw when we visited our 'Alien Planet'.
A huge thank you to Adam for inspiring us and we can't wait to see you again for more wierd and wonderful writing workshops.
Friday 19th May
This week the children have worked so hard on their 'Secret Agent Training' missions and we are so proud of their work ethic and determination.
On Wednesday, the sun was shining and we headed off to Thorp Academy to take part in a cluster schools event ran by Mrs Chapple and her Year 7 Sports Leaders. The children had a blast at the Quadkids Festival and they are already looking forward to the next one in Year Three. The afternoon consisted of a carousel of sporting activities to develop their jumping, throwing and running skills. It was clear they were very capable of throwing for both distance and accuracy. It was great to see them putting their newly developed sporting skills into action in a competitive situation. They were all so supportive of one another and worked as a team to collect as many points as they could. Many of the staff and Year 7 pupils commented on their success and their impeccable behaviour. Now, we look forward to our annual Sports Day where we will compete to earn points for our houses.
Friday 12th May
The children of Wales class have been developing their design skills this week. This half-term our unit in Design and Technology is on sewing. Today the children were beginning to develop their sewing skills. They started by threading wool through the holes in the stencils. It was trickier than we thought it was going to be but they used their growth mindset to keep going. Next week, we are going to apply this skill using a plastic needle and thread. I am very proud of their resilience and they had great fun learning this new skill.
Friday 5th May
The beaming smiles and laughter would have been a clue as to how much the children of Wales class enjoyed their Coronation Day celebrations to celebrate this important moment in history- the coronation of King Charles III. They were all very excited and full of questions about what will actually happen on this important day. The children learnt about King Charles III's roles and responsibilities as King. The concentration faces were on as they all took part in a whole school sketch of the King using all the skills they had learnt in art. I think he would be very impressed with them all, Just when the children thought the fun was over, Miss Armstrong surprised them all with an ice-cream van. It was a joy to see their delight, manners and they were all so grateful for this. As one child shouted out 'Who thinks Miss Armstrong is the best?'. We all certainly agree!
What a memorable day it was-one I'm sure Wales class will remember forever!
Friday 28th April
We are very lucky at Emmaville due to all the enrichment experiences we get. We always look forward to our Music Workshops with Gateshead Music Company and this one did not disappoint. The workshop was a Disney theme and the children thoroughly enjoyed guessing the movies from the clues and then performing a range of songs. What a treat it was to have a live band in our own school hall. We recapped the knowledge we had learnt from the previous sessions and the band were amazed how much we had remembered.
Friday 21st April
The children in Wales class always love their Art and Design lessons but especially enjoyed this unit on the artist Colleen Wilcox. After learning about Hawaii in their Geography lesson, the children found out about an artist from Hawaii, whose artwork is inspired by the beauty and the nature of her home island. Over the last few weeks, the children have been building on their painting skills using the watercolours to make tones and tints of different colours. Using these skills, they painted an underwater background and a contrasting sea creature to go in the foreground. I was very impressed with their ability to apply these new skills independently. We are so proud of our paintings, they are hanging proudly in our classroom for everyone to see.