School Blog

School Council at the Foodbank

 in Church / Whole School by

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.

Caring for our environment

 in Bowfell / Class Four / Whole School by

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.

Order! Order!

 in Class Four / English by

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”.

See the source image

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!

In the Forest with Class 3

 in Class Three by

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?

The Human Body

 in Class Two / Science by

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.

Gerry the Gardener!

 in Class Four / Class One / Class Three / Class Two / Whole School by

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!

 

Boxes of Hope

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

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!

Harvest Thanks

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

This week, we have been celebrating and thanking God for our Harvest. We presented such a wonderful selection of delicious and nutritious food that members of our School Council collected from everyone during our service. We were entertained with the story of The Little Red Hen from Class 1 and with The Voices of Water poem by Tony Mitton from Class 3. We ended our service with special thank you prayers led by members of year 6.

Our School Council now have a special job of preparing and delivering our contributions to Kendal Food Bank where they will be distributed to those in our local area who need an extra hand in feeding their families who we know will be very grateful for our generosity. Thank you everyone.

Levens Hall in the Sunshine!

 in Class Two / History by

Class 2 had a wonderful time exploring the grounds and the buildings of Levens Hall as part of their local history this half term. They certainly chose the very best day weather wise to walk through the fields, seeing Mrs Mason’s cows, and crossing the tall bridges to come out near the hall. They spent some time exploring the beautiful shaped topiary trees and saw the gardeners at work on their huge crane. By the pool, Mrs Mason led relaxing mindfulness moments and the guided tour of the hall included lots of interesting facts. Our visit ended with a wonderful run around the play area. Thank you to Mrs Brown, one of our amazing Governors, for stepping in to accompany us on our visit.

Roman Numbers

 in Class Three / Maths by

We have been exploring Roman numbers this week. We know that I=1, V=5, X=10, L=50 and C=100. Romans didn’t have a zero!

We’ve enjoyed using our colourful wooden sticks to make some numbers up to 10 and then to 100 and had many different ideas about how some numbers can be made. We explained our thinking to each other and impressed our friends with lots of problem solving and mental calculations going on!

Here we are with a few of the numbers…