Our fossils

Here are some of our fossils we created using clay and plaster of Paris. We thought about how fossils are made over a very long period of time as we carried a similar process but in just a few minutes! 

The picture isn't great, but if you look closely you should just be able to make out some prehistoric creatures. 

Caythorpe jigsaw puzzle

In our corridor, above the hall door, the whole school jigsaw puzzle is finally up. Children have been eagerly looking up, trying to spot their puzzle piece. 

Thank you to Mrs Laing who helped by creating the large colourful school logo. 

Oliver!

Here are some our wanted posters for Fagin or Bill Sikes (two of the baddies in Oliver Twist). We wrote character descriptions and details of the crimes they committed. We then presented them in wanted poster style and made them look old. 

On Friday we also got chance to use our new laptops. We decided to choose a piece of our Oliver work from our literacy books that we were proud of or enjoyed the most, to present using ICT. We had to make some editing and improvements as we typed upour work and the thought about how we wanted to set our work out. 

Remembrance poetry

On Remembrance Day, we wrote poetry on the theme of war. We wrote abstract nouns poems on themes such as about anger, hate or hope. 

Here are some of our displays, including the one of our remembrance poems. 

In the corridor between our two classes, we have displayed some of our victorian invention prototypes, based on real victorian inventions such as the sewing machine, penny farthing and light bulb. 

Week 1

A busy first week back after our half term holiday...

In literacy we have been learning about the story of Oliver Twist, writing parts of the story and thinking about what it tells us about the Victorians. On Friday in our extended writing we wrote character descriptions of Fagin. We used a clip from a film to help us, writing about Oliver meeting Fagin for the first time. The children have worked so hard on using effective vocabulary, varying sentence openers and also building a picture of a villainous character. 

In science, we have moved in from our forces topic to learning about evolution. On Tursday afternoon we found out about how fossils are formed and then got chance to make dinosaur fossils. 

In maths we have been busy learning to tell the time, read timetables and calculate time duration. 

On Wednesday afternoon we enjoyed taking part in a mini netball tournament between oparnhem class and Holy Cross class. We haven't quite finished the tournament yet but have really enjoyed playing in mini competitions. 

(If I remember this week. I'll take some photos of some of our writing and fossils to put on the blog to show you. Any members of Arnhem class who read this- please remind me!!)

Our work

Here are some of our Southwell workhouse non-chronological reports. 

We also looked at creating our own art work inspired by the industrial advancements in the Victorian era. We looked at art work showing how towns and cities had become industrialised and created our own work, including factories, workhouses, railways and town houses. 

Week 7 science

This week in science we investigated water resistance and the resistance in other liquids. We first of all considered what it is like to walk in water.

We then carried out a mini investigation, observing what happened when we dropped a coin in a container of water, oil or golden syrup. 

We talked about the forces of gravity and how in the different liquids, the upthrust changed, resulting in the coin taking a different amount of time to get to the bottom. 

We introduced the word viscous and recorded our observations. 

We then investigated water resistance using blutac.

Finally we got a can of full fat cola and a diet cola and predicted whether they would sink or float. 

 We were surprised when the full fat can sank and the diet floated. We learnt that this was because of the sugar in the full fat cola.

Week 5

A highlight from the week was definitely our trip to Southwell workhouse on Tuesday (see previous blog post). The children thoroughly enjoyed dressing up and taking on the role of real Victorian children who went to the Workhouse in the 1840s. Each child received a mini identity card giving them the name, age and some information about the child such as reasons for going to the workhouse and if they went with any family or if they were orphans. 

The children have produced some great work already based on their experience at Southwell. In history with Mrs Allott, the boys and girls worked separately to plan and deliver presentations based on what they learnt at Southwell. On the day, the children had slightly different experiences in order to reflect what it would have been like for boys and girls. 

In literacy, the children wrote recounts in the role of their Victorian character, detailing their experiences on their first day at the Workhouse, including their journey there. They were really enthusiastic about their writing and have produced some fabulous work. 

Other things we have been getting up to this week:

- in maths we have been learning to multiply accurately using a column method

- we have been enjoying reading a poem a day, talking about what we like about the poem and often what we find a bit strange. We particularly enjoyed the poems which forced Miss Chadwick to try and rap- unsuccessfully! 

- in science we have started to investigate air resistance. We made parachutes but haven't quite had time to test them yet- will do this next week and let you know how we get on. 

Parents evening sign up sheet is on our door, please come and write your name if you would like to see me. However, please let me know if these time aren't convenient and we can arrange an alternative.  Miss Chadwick

Southwell workhouse

Today Arnhem and Holy Cross classes went to Southwell workhouse as part of our learning about the Victorians. For the morning we took on the role of real Victorian children, experiencing what it would have been like to live and work in the workhouse. We dressed up and then boys and girls split up as they would have had different experiences in the workhouse. 

Here are some photos from our day. We will be doing follow up work in class over the next week and will hopefully get some work up on our blog soon! 

Gravity fields trip

On Friday Arnhem class and Holy Cross class went to the Gravity Fields Festival in Grantham. We had six different science themed activities and workshops  over the day which we thoroughly enjoyed.  These included a show called Glorious Blood, visiting the 17th Century Apothecary and learning about the physics of the fairground (including the opportunity to go on two fairground rides!)

Here are some photos of our day: