Music
🎶 Djembe Drumming 🥁
Team Cowell enjoyed a great session this morning embracing the beat of West African drumming! They also enjoyed playing some unusual percussion instruments including some shakers made from goats’ toenails.
English
We had a fun start to the week yesterday with some role play in English. We made a conscience alley to help our main character ‘Leon’ decide whether he should volunteer to take part in the magic show and get inside the box or not. This is a part in our core text English book.
Science
In Science we are looking at plants. We have dissected some tulips to show the petals, stem, male and female reproductive parts and sorted them. We are looking at how seeds are distributed and germinated.
Maths
We have started our new maths topic ‘Mass’. We have enjoyed using the measuring scales to weigh various items around the classroom. We used our division facts to help us calculate the value of each interval on the scale.
Oriental Museum
We had a lovely trip to the Oriental Museum. We learned lots of exciting things about Japan.
To show our understanding of kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, we had a go at mending some broken tiles using gold glue. Then everyone was able to decorate their tiles as you can see in these photos.
P.E.
We had a very busy morning at Parkside taking part in a Tennis festival 🎾
The children worked their way round a carousel of activities practising different skills including sending and receiving the ball, aiming at different targets and a tennis themed obstacle course which included balancing and moving at speed whilst keeping control of the ball.
History
We enjoyed our trip yesterday to Binchester Roman Fort. The children demonstrated their excellent knowledge of the Romans from work completed in school and found out more about everyday life for a Roman soldier.
We took part in a number of activities including writing using Roman Numerals, cleaning artefacts, making mosaics and making their own clay pots.
PSHE
As part of our PSHE lesson we have been looking at the very important topic of ‘Money Matters’.
Our curriculum is designed to provide a range of opportunities for children to learn outside the classroom so this week, we went to Lidl to put into practise everything we have learned.
Our first task was to work in groups to explore the prices of products, looking at value and premium brands and calculating the differences in price. We realised that some brands are cheaper than others and sometimes it is better to buy ‘in bulk’ or buy items (particularly fruit, vegetables and dairy products) singularly rather than pre-packed to get better value for money.
Our second task was to budget. Each group were given £5 and a list of ingredients to make 1 meal for a family of 4. The aim was to buy everything on our list whilst keeping track of our spending to make sure we did not exceed our £5 limit.
During this task, we used our maths skills to calculate totals and change and had to make substitutions of some items that were not available to us within our budget.
All food purchased was donated to the foodbank collection point within store and was collected later that day by the members of Willington Methodist Church foodbank.
Flat Stanley First Aid
Today we had a brilliant workshop with Flat Stan First Aid where we learnt how to keep ourselves and others safe and what to do if we or another person is injured. We looked at dangers we may experience in and outside of the home and how to care for ourselves and others covering areas including, bumps, bruises and grazes, choking, burns and nose bleeds. We all looked at what to do if someone isn’t breathing and practised how to perform chest compressions correctly.
PE. Gymnastics
In our gymnastics lessons we looked at performing key shapes including star, pike, arch, dish, front support and back support. We thought about performing as a gymnast showing tension and extension in our bodies.
Celebrating 150 Years
To celebrate our school being open for 150 years we had a fun filled day. We got to find out about what life was like in our village and at school 150 years ago. We really enjoyed singing some pit songs and trying on some different costumes. We enjoyed a workshop from some visitors from Beamish Museum.
Liz Million Visitor
We enjoyed our workshop with Liz Million yesterday. She talked to us about how she became an illustrator, where she gets her inspiration from and how she uses basic 2D shapes as a guide. Linking to the work we have been doing in English, Liz showed us how to draw a wolf and we produced some fantastic drawings of our own.
RE
Christianity, we had an excellent morning at St Catherine’s Church. Team Cowell impressed with their knowledge of various symbols within the church and enjoyed finding out about the significance of receiving Communion and the symbolism behind the colours of the vestments. At the end we enjoyed a short time to sketch an item or area of the Church we were most interested in.
Geography
We have looked at our surrounding area in Geography. We have considered it’s history and development over time. We then recreated our own 3D designs of them. Team Cowell have had a fun time this afternoon finishing off their Messy Maps in Geography. They look great!
History
For History we have been learning about the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. We have looked at the artifacts found to tell us about the people who lived in those times and how they would have lived. We had a great morning yesterday with our Stone Age Workshop. We discussed how methods and tools changed over time from the Stone Age to the Iron Age and how this changed the way of life for the people who lived during the different periods of time. We had a go at using different methods and tools to light fires and we worked in groups to build our own shelters. 🔥 🏕
