The Shire

In the Shire this week, pupils have been working on their topic 'we are thinkers', and continuing to explore the theme of communication since Victorian times. Children in Year 2 have been creating an interesting museum, programming the sphero indis to navigate a timeline of items of written communication such as emails, letters, text, etc. 

Year 1 pupils have been creating a museum of speaking and listening communication, using rotatory phones, phones, car phones and mobile phones. They programmed the bee-bot to navigate around communication items.

The Pixies

As part of our materials topic, the Pixies looked at how paper is made. They enjoyed discovering the process of how paper starts out as a tree. The main topic this week was making papier mache penguins, which sparked a mini-learning journey about Penguins. They learnt what penguins eat, what they look like and that they come from eggs. They were amazed to learn that penguins don't only live in snowy cold climates and that you can find penguins on the beach in Cape Town, South Africa.

The pixies baked Valentines heart shaped cookies this week.

The Dragons

In the Dragons this week, pupils have been finishing their 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' work. They have loved their writing linked to the book. The dragons have been designing rooms for a chocolate making factory and making models of machines for DT. The machines they made in DT have working levers and linkages.

The Dragons have been finishing up the IT challenge with Mr Speller with the Sphero Bolts.

A group have made fruity frozen yogurt lollies linked to the 'changing shapes of matter' topic. They studied freezing, melting and changing shapes of liquids when making the lollies and carefully observed what happened at different temperatures. They look forward to using the new kitchen next term for regular cooking sessions. 

Dragons have had their last swimming session, they have loved the lessons and have made good progress.

The Wizards

In D&T, the Wizards have continued building their musicians with cam mechanisms. They followed the instructions carefully and worked well in their groups. This led to the children designing and creating their own model (using a cam mechanism) with a range of different materials.

Thomas was the class expert and completed his own whale model as well as helping other children in the class fix any problems they had. 

This week in Science, the children have been using our inflatable models of the sun and Earth to explain how we get day and night and the seasons. They have also talked about how our solar system works, using a model to explain how the sun is at the centre of the solar system and how its gravitational pull keeps planets orbiting it.