Monthly archives: May 2019


Sailing on Lake Windermere

We had a most wonderful day on the Lake this week thanks to our hosts Windermere School and the perfect conditions for sailing.   We are already looking forward to our second day’s experience next month.


Actual Size

Just how big is a crocodile? What about a tiger, or the world’s largest spider? Can you imagine a tongue that is 60 centimetres long, or an eye that is bigger than your head?

Some facts and figures don’t tell the whole story. We have read this stunning book where Steve Jenkins illustrates animals both large and small at actual size, and that is what he named his book! We used the fact files for inspiration to draw out the actual size of animals in chalk on the playground today. See us here at work.


Gardening Toddler Taster

 

Thank you to all those who joined us this morning for our Gardening Toddler Taster session. It was lovely to see so many families enjoying the activities we had on offer, which included making flower cakes in the mud kitchen, sensory flower soup play and planting a begonia to take home. Our sand pit and water wall were also a huge hit. We are already looking forward to our final session of the year in July- Summer Fun! Please join us if you can.

 


Roboteers in Action!

Today everyone in Scafell has been developing the key skills we’ll need to become the next generation of roboteers, designing programs to make our robots do exactly what we wanted (well, sometimes!)

Fran from C-Stem came in with a set of Lego Mindstorm robots, and we’ve spent the day learning how to program them. We saw how robots are being used today in more and more applications – from the simple – hoovering the lounge – to the complex – building houses, making deliveries and driving our cars. In the future, using and programming robotic machines is likely to form a key part of most jobs, and so embedding key programming skills now is incredibly important!

It turns out it’s really hard to program a robot. Especially when the instructions aren’t clear and the robot won’t behave. Our problem solving was turned up to the maximum as we applied the simple things we learned at the beginning of the day and built them up into something much more complicated.

We started with maths – how many rotations of the wheel are needed for a set distance? Then, we moved on to moving forwards, backwards and making a turn. Eventually, we ended up making a shape with our robots, following the full process of being given a brief, designing our algorithm and debugging the program.

We had a great day and, even though it was hard work, we all felt very proud when our hard work paid off and we were able to solve complex problems by collaborating and thinking things through carefully.

A big thanks to Fran from C-Stem and to FOLS for funding the day!


Table Top Geometry

This week, Year six have been revising and extending their skills in all areas of the NC programme of study for Geometry.  They can calculate missing angles in quadrilaterals, triangles and at a point of intersecting lines.  They are also pretty amazing at identifying parts of a circle; calculating the area and perimeter of parallelograms, triangles and rectangles; and estimating and measuring angles using a protractor.  All completed before 9am on Monday morning – there’s no stopping them!

Here they are in action:


New Playground Equipment

This week, The School Council have been distributing the new playtime equipment that they have purchased on behalf of their friends so that we can be more active and have more fun at playtimes.

The items have been bought using funds raised by the School Council at events like our disco and our Afternoon Tea during the spring term.

The School Council worked together as a team carefully selecting equipment that they thought everyone would enjoy.

Thank you to everyone that has supported our fundraising events and well done School Council.


Wild Wednesday shelter building

Bowfell spent yesterday afternoon completing a set of challenges as part of their ‘Wild Wednesday’ learning. They worked in teams and were provided with a description of an animal. Each animal was hidden outside in different places for the children to find. The next task was to build a shelter for their animal. The children spent a long time engrossed in the activity, communicating their ideas, evaluating and changing their approaches as necessary, problem-solving and working as a team! They also spent time preparing our entry for the scarecrow competition we are entering at Countryfest in a few weeks time.


The Book Bus visits Levens

The Book Bus visited us today and the younger pupils had a lovely time, hearing the librarian read us a story and we all choose a book to borrow. This is a fantastic way of sourcing new reading material for school and the selection of new books is second to none! Thank you to the wonderful Library Service for all you offer to us.


Are we faster than Usain Bolt?

In maths today we were learning about measuring in metres. We found out that the great Usain Bolt could run 100m in just under 10 seconds.

This was a challenge we couldn’t resist – we have been exploring how far we can run in 10 seconds. When we first tried it took us only 8 seconds to run all the way across the longest side of the playground – this was a problem! So we decided to measure how far we could run in 5 seconds and then double our measurements to tell us how far in we might be able to run in 10.

Here are the measurements for 5 seconds we recorded in the playground. Can you see any that are the same? Can you see any longer distances or shorter distances? Next, we will be doubling these to find out our distances.


Levens Pop-up Restaurant Returns

This week, our year five pupils have been enjoying their first opportunity to prepare and serve a delicious two course meal for their parents and families in our brand-new dining facilities.  We are looking forward to inviting more diners to our special restaurant throughout the rest of the summer term.