Skiddaw

We were delighted to welcome back Keith Robinson from Newcastle Falcons today and he bought the drier, sunny weather with him too! Keith joined us for the first in a 5 week project, funded by Comic Relief, to raise issues of deaf awareness in sport. We spent the first session learning 10 new words in sign language and then enjoyed a session outside practising our tag rugby skills. When you meet any of Skiddaw class you might like to ask them to teach you to sign one of the new words they’ve learnt!

We weren’t in the classroom yesterday, but we were learning lots! These are some of the things the members of Skiddaw class have mentioned today about their adventures. We’ve learnt that…

…bracken and oak trees have different caterpillars feeding on them.

…tallow from animal fats can be used to make candles and that they can have grass wicks.

…hazel trees grow many smaller shoots that can be made into charcoal and for arrows.

…orange numbers on maps are contour lines and close together lines show a steep slope.

…the top of a map is north!

…at the centre of the earth is a gigantic magnet.

…our songs and shouts echoed in the caves.

…how important it is to help others and the importance of motivating a team.

…holding a hand or giving support in the dark really helps people when they are scared.

We think that’s pretty good for one day!

The seeds we planted with Darren a few months ago have grown! They are now going back to the Wilson house to be taken down to their allotment and planted there. We hope to go down and visit them soon,

Skiddaw class enjoyed a fantastic hill walking day exploring the area around Tilberthwaite near Coniston. We walked around 7 miles, viewed maps of the area, explored the wonderful Cathedral Cavern, climbed out and reappeared into the sunshine from a long and very dark tunnel! We paddled our hot and tired toes in the river before returning to school. What a wonderful day!

Have a look at our route in Google Maps

Skiddaw have enjoyed 3 weeks of athletics sessions with Dallam PE specialists. In the sunshine, we have all tried the field events of discus, javelin and shotput as well as training in sprints and longer distance track events. Mike was great at creating fun relay games and encouraging us to pace ourselves for the longer distances. We finished the series of sessions with a Levens Olympics with Jamaica, America, Great Britain and Australia teams.

We spend part of Friday afternoons “Planning” in Skiddaw class. This means the children are enabled to make choices about where they want to take their learning next. The cloakroom becomes our music studio whilst modelling of all sorts, including boxes, construction kits and playdough, are all on offer. We have access to computers and make presentations and research things that interest us – recently these have included birds and the history of people’s names! Some children choose to write stories and illustrate them, others make cards or work as a team on some of our massive jigsaw puzzles. Building models with wooden blocks is really popular at the moment as well as role play in our shop. The children develop important life skills of cooperation and collaboration alongside persevering and problem solving when following through their own plans. There is always lots of sharing and appreciation of ideas, talents and skills and the afternoon usually ends with a magical musical performance!

Skiddaw class have been working hard learning all about 2D and 3D shapes. We have made labels and models and have been using these to look at their properties. We have been using vocabulary such as vertices, edges and faces to describe 3D shape and even made some “What am I?” shape quizzes to get everyone guessing!

In science, Skiddaw class went on a plant eye spy searching the school grounds and playing fields for different shaped leaves. They found jagged edged, rounded, long and thin leaf shapes. They came back inside and used a range of media to make careful observational drawings of plants that will soon be on display in our classroom.

Year 3 and 4 spent a sunny afternoon enjoying playing Rounders at Dallam this week. They played 3 games against other teams and improved their fielding, batting and bowling skills no end. Great to see such super team work as you encouraged and celebrated successes. We scored lots and lots of rounders including some tactical half rounders too.