2019/20
And 'Sow' It Begins!
Our new learning experience is all about plants. Children will begin by going on a 'plant hunt' and exploring plants that they can find around the school grounds. They will compare the similarities and differences between plants and identify parts of a plant. They will learn about the basic needs of a plant and carry out experiments to identify the best conditions for plants to grow healthily. They will observe the growth of a plant and will then begin to look at the life cycle of a plant. They will explore each stage of a plant's life cycle in detail and then create an explanation text about plant growth.
Excellent Explorers!
Our new learning experience is a history based experience all about famous explorers from the past. We will begin by ensuring everyone knows the difference between past and present. We will look at toys and technology from the past and compare them with items from the present. We will then sequence events from our own lives into chronological order.
Then, we will start doing some exploring of our own! We will begin to learn facts about famous explorers such as Neil Armstrong and Christopher Columbus and we will find out about famous historical events including the moon landing. We will choose an explorer to research and sequence key events from their life. The final outcome will be to create a newspaper article about a historic event linked to a famous explorer.
We started this learning experience by thinking about things that happened in the past. We compared toys from the past and toys from the present and then created a timeline of our lives.
We started to learn about the lives of Neil Armstrong and Christopher Columbus. We created timelines for each of them and then made comparisons between the two famous explorers.
We imagined we were Neil Armstrong and started thinking about the things we would take in our rocket if we went to space!
We applied all of our skills to create news paper reports about the moon landing. Everyone worked so hard and their reports are fantastic!!
Busy Bee-Bots!
Our new learning experience is based on computing. Children will begin by exploring the bee-bots and attempt to program them to reach a given destination. During the learning experience, children will learn how to use directional language, give precise instructions and understand what algorithms are. They will code and debug their bee-bot and use logical reasoning to predict its behaviour. Children will have the opportunity to design and create their own map for the bee-bot. They will also create challenges for each other and give directional instructions to an on-screen robot. The final outcome will be for children to correctly program their bee-bot in order for it to reach a given destination.
Today was our first chance to use the bee-bots. We found out what each of the buttons do and worked in teams to try to get our bee-bots to move to different points on our mats. Mrs Hanratty was really impressed with our teamwork skills!
We have designed our own beebot mats and will be using our designs to create bigger versions so that we can test out our beebot journeys!
We have been giving each other lots of instructions lately. Here are some examples of our written instructions explaining how to move the beebot around the beebot mat.
We have been using codes to create algorithms. We plan our algorithms and input the code into the beebot to test it. If it doesn’t work, we correct our algorithm and try again! We are getting really good at this.
Playful Poetry!
Willow Tree Class' new learning experience is based on poetry. Our aim is to create and perform our own poems related to Autumnal events. In order to do this, we will be exploring the different seasons and identifying special events that take place during each season. We will be looking at the physical changes that happen specifically in Autumn and finding out more about why we celebrate occasions such as Halloween and Bonfire Night.
Children will also be analysing and exploring a range of poems and poetic devices such as alliteration and onomatopoeia. We will challenge ourselves to think of exciting vocabulary related to Autumn, Halloween and Bonfire Night. We will apply all of the new skills we have learnt to write our very own poems. We will then start to think about how we can perform our poems and consider making them more exciting through the use of actions!
As a hook into our new learning experience we had a very exciting afternoon. We toasted marshmallows around the bonfire and watched some videos of amazing firework displays. We are now feeling very Autumnal and can’t wait to get started!
We loved our Autumnal walk through Mote Park! We found lots of Autumnal objects that we are going to use as inspiration for our poems.
Learning Experience 2- Land and Sea! We have been very busy during this learning experience and we have become so knowledgable about the countries within the UK as well as the world’s seven continents and five oceans. Ask us to share some interesting facts with you!
We are becoming so confident in using chips and peas to represent numbers in Maths! Our maths challenge this week is to try this at home. Lots of children have completed this already and Mrs Hanratty has been very impressed!
Our cakes are all packaged up and ready to sell at Macmillan Coffee Afternoon. We hope to see lots of you there!
Learning Experience 1- Colourful Cakes! Hot task time! I’m sure you will agree that our final cakes look delicious!!
Learning Experience 1- Colourful Cakes! Today we made, tasted and evaluated some colourful cakes. They were delicious and we’re now feeling ready for our hot task tomorrow!
Learning Experience 1- Colourful Cakes! Take a look at our first cold tasks! Our challenge was to ‘create a colourful cake’. Keep an eye on this page to see how our baking skills improve throughout this learning experience!
