In assembly today we celebrated the wonderful pupils and families of Levens CE School who have made Boxes of Hope. Our grand total this year is 40! This is an amazing achievement and fantastic testament to the empathy and support that pupils want to offer to others this Christmas time. A huge thank you to all who put a box together this year. Your gifts will really make a difference to a child and family who do not have as much as you.
Last week we were super busy in our Maths lessons. Year One were using different representations to help deepen their understanding of addition including number bonds. Year Two were using mathematical vocabulary and symbols to compare numbers and number sentences.
In addition to our daily Maths lessons we also started our new Mastering Number lessons. These are three to four short lessons per week that focus on strengthening our understanding of number and improve our fluency with number facts.
Work has begun on our fabulous mural in the dining room!! Make sure you keep an eye on how it develops over the next few days and weeks!
Thank you once again to the Michelle Jurd Memorial Trust and to our artist, Sophie Martin!
Thank you everyone for your wonderful Harvest gifts that were distributed to Kings Foodbank last Tuesday morning.
Before leaving for the foodbank, School Councillors had been busy sorting through all the donations. They arranged them into groups according to the type of food e.g. beans, cereals, pasta, vegetables. Then we used marker pens to clearly label each tin with the expiry date before putting all the produce inside boxes and bags to carry. By doing this we were really helping reduce the work involved by all the volunteers at the foodbank.
After carrying very heavy bags though the wet streets of Kendal, we finally arrived at the Foodbank where we were met by the manager. We were extremely fortunate to be able to take a peek inside where we learnt about how the food is stocked, organised and how it benefits our community. We were also able to gather together a food package for one person to last 5 days!
Some of the School Councillors were also making enquiries about opportunities to volunteer there in the future.
Well done and thank you to our School Council for taking these donations to the Foodbank. This year, your gifts were shared between Milnthorpe and Kendal Foodbank.
Children from all across our school have been involved in planting bulbs and winter plants in our outdoor shelter, Bowfell’s outdoor area and around our school.
Our Eco Team are responsible for making sure they are regularly watered and all the children in EYFS are busy sweeping all the autumn leaves away to keep our environment looking tidy.
In English, we have been using the topic of “refugees” to guide our writing as we read “The Boy at the Back of the Class”.
As this is such an important and current topic, we have been writing a lot of persuasive pieces, encouraging people to change their minds about the issue. Even though this is a tough thing to do, it is an important life skill. It’s particularly tough when you need to argue against what you might actually believe in!
We capped our persuasive unit off with a big debate. We spent some time learning about the houses of parliament, and how debates are held and managed there. This allowed us to create our own mini-house of commons in our classroom, complete with Mace and speakers boxes! If you can believe it, there is even such a thing as a John Bercow soundboard, so Mr Dean took great delight in getting him to shout “order! order!” on demand. Everyone was referred to by their proper title of “the right honorable” and took turns to make their arguments.
Everyone should be very proud of how they conducted themselves throughout the debate. People listened carefully and respectfully to the arguments being made, and put forward some insightful counter-arguments which really helped to change minds. Well done all!
Last week, Class 3 had an amazing afternoon in the woodland exploring, playing games and undertaking challenges in the outdoors.
We began by talking about the rules of the woodland to keep ourselves and others safe from harm; and to ensure we look after this very special place. Then we embarked on a range of activities using sticks! Can you turn your stick into something else? Can you identify your stick from other people’s when they are all mixed together? Can you use one word to describe your stick?
We also enjoyed a scavenger hunt around the woodland looking for things that don’t belong in the forest. We found many objects carefully hidden around the woods.
Our final challenge involved working as a team to create small woodland homes for some animals – fox, hedgehog, owl and rabbit. They are very well sheltered in their tiny woodland dens. Can you spot any of them?
This week in Class 2 we started our new Science Topic: Animals including Humans. We worked in teams to find clues that Miss Robinson had hidden in the playground. Then we figured out that we were naming parts of the body! We came back into the classroom and worked co-operatively to draw a human and label lots of parts of the body, using the clues we had found outside to help us.
Eco team have been finding out about the Levens Greening Campaign that has just been launched in the village. This aims to encourage as many people as possible to try small ways to reduce their carbon footprint. Homes in the village have been delivered a Greening Levens Card with more details.
A village wide scarecrow festival is promoting the Greening Campaign and we wanted to be included! We are going to be having our own greening suggestions for children to achieve very soon.
Here we are with our scarecrow creation – Gerry the Gardener!
We welcomed Mr and Mrs Docker into school to tell us all about Boxes of Hope. They showed us all sorts of wonderful things to include in the boxes and let us eagerly unpack some too. We learnt about where the boxes go to and importantly what not to put in the boxes too. We hope to have a record breaking year of filled boxes this year – a lovely half term holiday activity!