Year 1 have had a fun packed day at Northumberland Zoo today. We looked closely at some minibeasts and watched a birds of prey display. We explored the zoo, wandering through ‘Wallaby Walkabout’ and ‘Lemur Woods’. The children saw many animals that they had not encountered before, such as capybaras, lemurs, tapirs, otters, snow leopards and prairie dogs. The children were particularly interested in watching the fruit bats at feeding time!
As part of our dimensions topic ‘War of The Worlds’ year 5 went on a trip to Eden Camp.
The children learnt how the modern history museum was originally a prisoner of war camp. They explored the the different huts which covered different aspect of the war, starting with the rise of the Nazi Party, Hitler and The Outbreak of War. Other topics include: Rationing, Evacuees, The Blitz, Air Raid, Animals at War and Women at War ect.
The trip allowed the children to deepen their understanding of history and the impact of WWI & WWII. Overall, they had a great day out with a few ice creams and gifts from the gift shop.
As part of our topic Unity in the Community, Year One had a lovely morning, meeting with members of the Boldon Heritage Group on Monday. The children found out about the mining history of Boldon and listened to some lovely first hand stories about working in the coal mines and other tales of how life was different in the past in homes and at school. We also learnt about the groups project to develop a permanent memorial in our town to commemorate soldiers and miners. The children asked lots of questions and were super representatives of our school. Our thanks to Boldon Heritage group and in particular Sean, Pam, Mick, Brenda and Gavin.
Today, Years 3 and 4 went on a trip to the Great North Museum (Hancock) in Newcastle to take part in lots of different exciting activities related to animals and their habitats.
First, they completed a workshop called The Wild Escape, where they learned about all of the animals local to our area and the various habitats they live; uplands, lowlands, woodlands, seas and coasts. They had to choose an animal, think about how it had adapted to its environment and then think of how they could use their adaptations to escape!
Then, they were lucky enough to be one of the first school groups to visit MythQuest, which is a new interactive treasure hunt type activity in the museum, where children have to follow the clues, make decisions about what happens in the story, and collect rubbings on the way. All of the children worked so well in their teams and all achieved ‘Hero’ Status!
Finally, they received a lesson on biro art from Jane Lee McCracken which will become part of her online exhibition ‘Where did all the animals go?’
On Wednesday the Year 5 children went on a trip the Hancock Museum. They had great fun walking to the metro in the snow and looking around the museum. The children have been learning about the Egyptians so we’re fascinated by all of the artefacts and the real-life mummy.
Year 3 enjoyed a jam-packed day of computing yesterday when Mr Robert from the OpenZone visited to do some fairground-themed coding!
The children worked in pairs to follow the instructions to build the Lego models, then attached the Lego SPIKE hubs, motors, lights and sensors. Finally, they used the iPads to program their models to move. They could make their models spin around, change the speed and direction, some lit up, and some even played music and had sound effects.
Once they all completed the carousel model and were confident using the software, the children moved on to create another. There were Ferris Wheels, ticket machines and swings. The children had a fantastic time and learned a lot about programming at the same time.
Scroll down to see some videos of our work.
Children from KS1 and KS2 took a wintry Christmas walk to St Nicholas’ Church this morning. Once there, the children sung some of their favourite Christmas songs in this beautiful environment and talked with Rev. Paul about how Christians celebrate Christmas.
Rev. Paul was very impressed with some of the questions relating to the church itself.
All of the children were so impeccably behaved and are a real credit to our school!
Thank you Rev Paul.
Year 3 enjoyed a trip to Sunderland today to take part in a Live Tales workshop.
They discussed the essentials of storytelling, and learned that no idea is a bad idea when we are being creative!
They worked together to come up with a character, a sidekick, a setting and an introduction to the story before finishing it off independently. The children had such fantastic ideas and it was lovely to see them writing freely!
We are looking forward to receiving our stories in the post in the next few weeks.
Year 5 had a visit from The Word today. They developed their coding skills on Scratch and made a game. They had to choose various sprites ‘characters’ and programmed them to move around. The children worked really hard and I think we have some future coders in the making!
Check out the link to see their work: https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/32129916
Year 1 have been learning about fairy tales as part of our Dimensions topic, Happily Ever After.
We had a fabulous time hunting for the missing nursery rhymes at Seven Stories, Newcastle. The children were captivated by Lawrence’s storytelling and so enthusiastic to complete the challenge set by the Crooked Man!