Year 1 Miro have been celebrating Pancake Day today.  First we learned all about what Pancake Day was, why it is celebrated and how Pancake Day is celebrated.  We then designed on paper our own pancakes with some delicious toppings such as marshmallows, lemon, chocolate spread, lemon juice, sprinkles, syrup, strawberries, bananas

Next we made our own ‘playdough’ pancakes and painted a special design on them.  Finally, we pretended to toss pancakes – we were going to have pancake races outside but the wet and cold weather changed our minds so we took turns to toss a pretend pancake in the classroom.

All in all we had a wonderful afternoon learning about Pancake Day.  I look forward to hearing from the children tomorrow what toppings they had on their pancakes when they went home!

Mr McIntosh

Only One You

Today in KS1 P4C club, the children listened to the story "Only One You". It made us think about whether it was good to be different to everybody else, and whether there was a time when it wasn't good to be different or to stand out.

Children then decorated their own pebbles in their own individual ways.

Comparing real rockets with illustrations

In Cassatt class, we have been comparing real rockets with rockets depicted in stories, such as the Bear's rocket in "Whatever Next". We shared our ideas during carpet time, suggesting that "the real rocket has windows" and "the box isn't a cylinder but the real one is". 

After much discussion, it was decided that the box needed to have wings and a pointy end "to help it go through the air", windows "so the astronauts can see where they're going" and extra boosters "to make it go faster, because the box is the wrong shape so it needs more power"

With all this decided upon, our engineers got to work!

 During this choosing time, children also labelled rocket pictures with their chosen features, and pondered over what the Bear in the box rocket might say as he flies up into space in his new an improved rocket...

Rinah thinks he might say

"I wonder how it will look like when I go into space"

Lewis adds that he might say 

"I'm so excited, it's so exciting!

One small step for man...

This week, the children have been enjoying our new Space topic! The space station role play areas have been a real hit, and the children have embarked on many expeditions into the unknown.

"Fire, fire! There's a space fire!" shouts Heath!

Daisy, logging the incident

Jimmy and Aron, keeping watch

Morphing Images - Waving Figure

Using the software Zu3D on the iPads and inspired by classic animations like Morph and Wallace and Gromit, we produced a stop-motion style film with a waving plasticine model complete with music, titles and credits.

 Here are some of the results.

Georgia and Theo's Wicked Witch

Jayden, Jesus, Ben and Dan's Film

Courtney, Joseph and Elizabeth's Film

Morphing Images - Mythical beasts

Using the software Sculpt3D on the iPads, we immersed ourselves in a mythical land and created our own mythical beasts.  Delving into our imagination and inspired by our literacy, we created our creatures adding our own shapes, features, colours and textures developing our knowledge of the software along the way.

Here are some of the results.

The Clock Struck... uh oh!

Hickory Dickory Dock

The mouse ran up the clock

The clock... didn't strike one

The mouse couldn't climb down

What a mysterious clock!

Something mysterious has been happening in the Early Years garden! Early on Wednesday morning, our outside clock had been sectioned off with police tape. Upon closer inspection, the little mouse who had run up to the top couldn't come down, as the clock couldn't strike one... the 1 on the clock was missing! Children examined the evidence and found, eggshell, footprints and a bucket amongst other clues. 

Popular theories include "Humpty Dumpty accidentally knocked it off" and "The Grand Old Duke of York made his men do it as a trick"! The mystery continues...

Reading buddies

Cassatt loved having a visit from their reading buddies in year 3!

The children in year 3 brought stories for us to hear and share.

To litter or not to litter?

In P4C this week we have been discussing littering. We looked at pictures of beautiful gardens with litter in them and discussed what we thought had happened and why. We also talked about whether we should pick up the rubbish and whether the person should have dropped it in the first place.

We used litter pickers to pick up Pom poms on our 'messy' garden area and made signs to tell people not to litter.