English

World Book Day 2023

 in English / Whole School by

We had a wonderful day celebrating World Book Day 2023. This year, our challenge was to create a story sack of clues about a favourite book or character from a story. We had some brilliant book choices, with some being quite tricky to guess! We also enjoyed taking part in lots of lovely activities; writing book reviews, designing and making bookmarks, a pre-loved book sale after school organised by FOLS and World Book Day yoga in Class One. Class teachers also shared their own story sacks and read to different classes throughout the day.

Amazing Authors- Anthony Browne

 in Class Three / English by

Class Three have loved looking at the books of Anthony Browne. We started the topic looking at the book ‘Gorilla’. The children thought about how the characters were feeling using inference.  They moved onto to researching facts about gorillas and produced some amazing non-fiction reports, organising the facts under sub-headings. We then moved onto ‘The Tunnel’. The children made predictions about what would be at the end of the tunnel. We also considered the actions of the characters and carried out a conscience alley. The children gave the character advice and guidance. We followed this with the children producing decision wheels, these gave advantages and disadvantages of suggested next steps for the character Rose. The children then focused on diary writing and wrote an entry for Jack and Rose. We finally looked at ‘Voices in the Park’. The children loved the idea of writing about the same event from different views. To finish this topic, we wrote our own versions of the story  and called them ‘Voices in the playground’. We can’t wait for you to read them!

The Great Fire Of London Role Play

 in Class Two / English / History / Whole School by

Class 2 have had a great morning travelling back in time over 350 years to 1666 and experiencing what it was like during the Great Fire of London. Laura and Adrian from Imagining History brought us an exciting workshop involving drama and role play. We created the kitchen in the bakery on Pudding Lane and then used a range of methods from the past to try and put out the raging fire. We threw leather buckets of water at the blaze, used squirts and water carts. We even tried to create a fire break by using dynamite to blow up the burning houses but to no avail. We took on different roles including King Charles 2nd, James, the Duke of York, scared Londoners and Samuel Pepys to create a big picture of the event, then tested our knowledge with a quiz about the key facts.

Nursery make some noise!

 in Class One / English by

Nursery have had a wonderful week exploring sounds. They used instruments and everyday objects and explored how different sounds can be made. They had a go at making quiet and loud sounds using beaters made from different materials.

Writing Instructions in Years 3 + 4

 in Class Three / English / Whole School by

Have you ever tried to follow the instructions for making a Lego model and faced all kinds of difficulties?

This week, Class 3 have been learning all about how to write clear, detailed and precise instructions so that the reader is able to follow the instructions and have a very successful outcome.  We have been talking though each stage of the process of making a jam sandwich so that the reader doesn’t make any mistakes like: butter both sides of the bread, or put a dollop of jam in the centre of each slice and not spread across the whole surface of the slice.

We have also talked about the key features of good instructions which has included using imperative verbs, adverbs and time or adverbial openers.  The instructions also need to be in chronological order.  Year 4 have extended their work to include modal verbs.  If you have any trouble understanding any of these terms – ask anyone in Class 3!

Here we are making our sandwiches – this is called ‘Talk for Writing’! it is where we rehearse our ideas with our talking partners so that we are ready to put our ideas onto paper.  Look out for our amazing written instructions coming very soon…..!

World Book Day Wonders

 in Church / Class Four / Class One / Class Three / Class Two / English by

Here are a selection of our amazing sock puppets of special book characters made to celebrate World Book Day 2022. We came together as a school to share our puppets and awarded prizes of £5 book tokens, kindly donated by FOLS.

We all loved your creativity and marveled at the many different ways you thought of to decorate your puppets. Thank you for all your hard work. 

In Assembly, Rev Bryan’s told us all about one of the most famous books in the world – The Bible. It is made up of different types of writing like poems, letters and biographies and was written by lots of different men and women. He showed us some Bibles written in different languages too – the one pictured below is in Hebrew.

After school, FOLS held a second hand book and hot chocolate stall – it was really popular and was great to see such a buzz around books with children recommending titles to each other and spotting books by authors they love – all for a bargain price! Thank you to FOLS for running this and to all who kindly donated and bought such lovely quality books which have now found new homes.

 

Reading Buddies

 in Class Four / Class One / English by

Year 6 visited EYFS today to hear their Reception buddies read.  Reception were thrilled to have the opportunity to share books with their friends and Year 6 were incredibly positive and inspiring reading role models.

Class 2 Trip to Beatrix Potter World and Brockhole

 in Class Two / English / History / Science by

What a brilliant day we have had on our school trip!

The first part of the day was spent at Beatrix Potter World where we met Tim the Gardener and even Beatrix Potter herself. We learnt lots about her life, the inspirations behind her books and the characters featured in them. We also had fun completing an activity trail and loved exploring Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Then we hopped back onto the bus and made our way to Brockhole. We enjoyed our picnic lunch (indoors) and then learnt about some of the animals and their habitats featured in Beatrix Potter’s books through the centre’s new exhibition. Despite the weather we braved the outdoors and had a great time exploring the grounds. We identified physical and human features and completed the Beatrix Potter trail to find out more about the animals in her books.

Beauty and The Beast

 in Class Four / Class One / Class Three / Class Two / English by

Reception children all the way up to Year 6 really have had the most magical theatre experience today! The Dukes Theatre is always so welcoming, their well judged performances are a joy and this year was no exception. The action packed story was a more modern version with funny jokes to entertain the children with details keep the adults smiling too including details of magic and wonder! The children were keen to join in with audience participation including clapping along and letting the actors know if they agreed with their plans! Here is what some of the children had to say…

“The Beast was rather scary and the Dung Song at the start was great!”

“I liked it when the Beast and Bella were planting flowers and their friendship was growing too.”

“I was sitting on an end and so the Beast came really close to me!”

“My favourite bit was the dog as he spoke the word woof and he was called Nigel!”

 

Poetry Performances!

 in Class Four / English by

For anti-bullying week, class 4 have been working on some anti-bullying poetry. We have been inspired by spoken-word poets from around the world, listening closely to the ways in which they take their poems and perform them with passion, rhythm and emphasis.

Using the starter of “To this day….”, we generated ideas about how bullying might make a person feel. What would they think about looking back? How would it affect their lives? Using this, we constructed a poem with the ability to swap and change lines around to ensure we included rhythm and impact. We also made sure to finish our poems on a high note, celebrating the wonderful things that make us all special and unique.

Everyone has had an opportunity to perform their poem to an audience, but you might like to request a private performance of your own at home!