An Exciting Half-Term of Learning

This half term has been an incredibly busy and exciting one across Nessa and Kensa class, with both groups diving deep into fascinating topics and producing some truly impressive learning.

In Nessa Class, our theme has been Ancient Egypt, and the children have been fully immersed in discovering what life was like thousands of years ago along the River Nile. One of the highlights has certainly been our hands-on projects. The class worked brilliantly together to design and build their very own pyramids, exploring how these iconic structures were engineered and why they were so important in Egyptian culture. Even more impressively, the children created a large cardboard sarcophagus, complete with intricate designs and symbols inspired by the artefacts found inside real ancient tombs.

To bring history to life through creativity, the children also produced their own Egyptian-inspired artwork based on the vibrant and expressive style of contemporary Egyptian artist Hossam Dirar. Their pieces are full of colour, pattern, and personality, and we are incredibly proud of the artistic confidence they have shown.

Of course, no study of Ancient Egypt would be complete without a closer look at the hieroglyphic writing system, ancient burial traditions, and the vital role of the River Nile. The pupils have been intrigued by how people lived, farmed, travelled, and honoured their pharaohs. To add a delicious twist, we even spent time in the kitchen baking and constructing gingerbread pyramids, which brought plenty of excitement-and lovely smells-to the classroom.

Meanwhile, in Kensa Class, the focus has been on the Arctic, with the children exploring one of the most unique and extreme habitats on Earth. They have been researching Arctic animals and using what they have learned to create their own imaginative Arctic creatures. Their creative writing has been particularly impressive this term, with rich descriptions, adventurous plots and beautifully crafted ideas inspired by icy landscapes and wildlife.

Across the school, we have also continued running our popular Nintendo Switch Club, which has once again been a huge hit with pupils. The club offers a fun, social way to build teamwork, problem-solving and communication skills, and it has been wonderful to see so many children enjoying it each week. It has been a fantastic half term full of creativity, curiosity and enthusiasm-well done to everyone involved!

It's always busy at Harrowbarrow and this week is no exception. Here are some examples of what the children have been up to:

Science in Class 2
Class 2 have been investigating the difference between seeds and bulbs.


Art in Class 3
After looking at the work of artist Rachel Parker, the children designed a tile which is going to be transformed into a repeating pattern using a clever trick of quartering it, rearranging the sections and using technology to repeat their design multiple times. We look forward to sharing the final work at the end but here are a few of tiles ready for the next stage of the process.


Writing in Class 4
The children have been using a text about the fantasy world of Pandora as a stimulus for their own writing. Here are some lovely examples that show how hard the children are working to create some quality pieces of writing.:

In the terrain, foliage sprawls in every direction, only stopping when it meets one of the rivers that winds through the land. Beneath the misty sky, trees stand guard and under  the vines that trail from their branches a wilderness teems with life, above which slivers of moonlight shift and shimmer. Pandora is well known for its deadly environment. Lurking beneath vast trees with dangling vines is the camp where the humanoid inhabitants of Pandora hide. Wrapped around the branches, long, shiny vines with spikes dangle, ready to ensnare anything that touches them. All around, the small but glistening fauna float, spinning slowly. Pandora has amazing features and one of them is the Hallelujah Mountains. Hovering above the ground, the Hallelujah Mountains float over the surface of Pandora. Silky vines connect the Hallelujah mountains. Above the silky, glossy vines that to the Hallelujah mountains slide through the mist. Lurking beneath the mist, the Hallelujah Mountains meet together. Hiding beneath the vines, lay the Hallelujah mountains vailed in silver mist. By Leo

Finally, here are a some opportunities for your children outside of school:

This week in pre-school the children have completed some lovely activities in relation to showing 'Kindness'.  We made our own kindness trees where we gave affirmations of kindness and powerful statements about each other to show how that person made a positive impact on their friendships.  We also wrote for the children their own ideas of how they are kind. We decorated the trees in lots of colourful hearts, and they made such a beautiful display above our big class kindness tree.

In our creative area the water colour paints have been popular to make special cards, and also to paint some pictures of people who can help us. 

This week in our phonics, the focus of our activities was on The Police, we enjoyed sound bingo, sound stories and other phonics games.

The children have really been enthusiastic about using their name mats in the morning to practice their names, and even some of our younger children have shown the beginnings of mark making.  This is a great start in their fine motor development.

Mrs. Butlins' music lesson was enjoyed with reception class; this week we did group songs and nursery rhymes using lots of actions.

Lastly, with an increase in a sickness bug going around the pre-school and school, can I send a polite reminder that it is our policy that it must be 48hours from the last episode of sickness and/or diarrhea before a child returns to pre-school.

This is to eliminate the spread of the bug as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Pre-School Team.

The weather has given us a bit of an unsettled start to the term. We've gone from snow with later starts to the day and storms forcing us to close early. However in between we've managed to fit in lots of learning. Reception have been trying hard to improve their pencil control through drawing club and have created some lovely pictures linked to our class story 'The storm whale'. Our theme this half term is fairytales so we've started with 'Goldilocks and the three bears'. We've made collage bears and retold the story using props. Year 1 having been looking at different houses in DT and have designed and made a house for either a doll or an animal. 

The children all did an amazing job in the nativity. Here are some photos of them looking fantastic in their costumes. They all remembered their lines and said them so loudly and clearly. 

We all had a lovely day at the Eden project. We went straight down to the skating rink and had a play on the ice. We played on the sledges, cars, bikes and in the house and with the diggers. After we had some lunch whilst we watched Jays ice skating. We finished off the day by warming up by walking around the biomes. Whilst in the biomes we hunted for different colours and we managed to find every colour of the rainbow. We also got to see some geckos. The highlight of our day was climbing all the steps up to the viewing platform in the biome. It was so high and all the people below looked really small. 

We've enjoyed a variety of festive activities over the last couple of months. We've made a variety of crafts such as; robins using recycled baubles, hand print Christmas trees with the help of our families, paper chains, bead baubles for the outdoor Christmas tree and Christmas cards for our families. We enjoyed Christmas dinner with the whole school and had a party in our class. We also all had a turn at delivering the Christmas cards around the school. 

We all enjoyed some time in the snow this week. We explored the snow in different places, built mini snowmen and had a snowball fight. We were a bit chilly after so we warmed up with a nice cup of warm milk. 

This week the children have been having fun with the new resources in the outdoor area. They have we had a cafe on the go with waiters and waitresses and a building site. The builders also took a 5 minute break to go and have tea and biscuits in the cafe. 

w/e 23.1.26

It has been another packed and purposeful week for our Year 4 and Year 5 children, full of creativity, curiosity and important conversations.

In Geography, the children developed their map skills by locating the world's deserts. They used atlases and maps to identify where deserts are found and began exploring what makes these environments so unique. This learning fed beautifully into our work in English, where the children have been building their grammar knowledge in preparation for writing their own desert diaries. The children have worked hard on sentence structure and detail, getting ready to bring their diary writing to life.

Some of our children were lucky enough to attend an art workshop at the local library, where they took part in creative activities and explored different artistic techniques.

In Science, the children investigated electricity through hands-on learning. They explored complete and incomplete circuits, testing what worked and what did not by using lamps, buzzers and motors. This practical work helped them develop a clear understanding of how circuits function and encouraged lots of problem-solving and teamwork.

We also began our new DT unit, where the children will be designing and making a book cover. They have started thinking about purpose and design, and will be choosing a fastening of their choice as part of their final product.

In French, we began an exciting new unit on habitats, learning new vocabulary and listening carefully to spoken French as we explored different environments.

It has been a busy and engaging week, and we are very proud of the enthusiasm, curiosity and thoughtfulness the children have shown across all areas of learning.

w/e 23.1.26

It has been another packed and purposeful week for our Year 4 and Year 5 children, full of creativity, curiosity and important conversations.

In Geography, the children developed their map skills by locating the world's deserts. They used atlases and maps to identify where deserts are found and began exploring what makes these environments so unique. This learning fed beautifully into our work in English, where the children have been building their grammar knowledge in preparation for writing their own desert diaries. The children have worked hard on sentence structure and detail, getting ready to bring their diary writing to life.

Some of our children were lucky enough to attend an art workshop at the local library, where they took part in creative activities and explored different artistic techniques.

In Science, the children investigated electricity through hands-on learning. They explored complete and incomplete circuits, testing what worked and what did not by using lamps, buzzers and motors. This practical work helped them develop a clear understanding of how circuits function and encouraged lots of problem-solving and teamwork.

We also began our new DT unit, where the children will be designing and making a book cover. They have started thinking about purpose and design, and will be choosing a fastening of their choice as part of their final product.

In RE, the children continued their learning about racism, engaging in thoughtful discussions about fairness, respect and treating others equally. This linked well with our PSHE lessons, where we focused on staying safe and speaking out, supported by guidance from the NSPCC. The children showed maturity and care when discussing how to seek help and support.

Our guided reading sessions linked closely to both our Islands topic and our science learning about electricity. A real highlight was watching a short clip from Billy Elliot, where Billy describes dancing as feeling like electricity through your body. The children particularly enjoyed making connections between this powerful description and their scientific understanding of electrical energy.

In French, we began an exciting new unit on habitats, learning new vocabulary and listening carefully to spoken French as we explored different environments.

It has been a busy and engaging week, and we are very proud of the enthusiasm, curiosity and thoughtfulness the children have shown across all areas of learning.

Prototype Cars and Moroccan Lemonade

This week Landaviddy have been enjoying continuing to explore our enquiry question 'How far can we travel?' by building prototype cars. We learnt about the history of cars and discovered how an axle helps to turn wheels. This was a practice run prior to us making our own toy cars in a few weeks time. In Science, we investigated how objects can change shape by stretching, bending, squashing or twisting. During Geography, we learnt about land use and explored local maps, identifying different types of land use. Music with Mrs Butlin was lots of fun playing djembe drums and practising being conductors. 

In Maths, we have been revising multiples of 2, 5 and 10 and  using arrays to represent multiplications. We also worked in pairs to problem solve and calculate the cost of making a cup of lemonade, working out the coins we needed too. During English this week, we followed instructions to make Moroccan lemonade which we taste tested today! All of the children loved drinking lemonade and were able to use their senses to collect a range of amazing vocabulary to describe the experience. Next week we will be writing up our instructions. 

Congratulations to Theo for being chosen as Landaviddy's Person of the Week. 

We hope you have a terrific weekend and look forward to seeing you next week! 

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Lister and Miss Colton 

TALLAND'S BLOG 23.1.26

Well there goes week 3 of Spring Term 1? Another high energy week that's been full of learning and playing with electrics (safely of course).

Here's a breakdown of our week:

Maths:
Year 5 have been multiplying 4-digit numbers by 2- digit numbers. Next week we will be solving word problems and looking at short division. They have also completed their unit on SHAPE. 

Year 4 have been looking at factors and have been making shapes.

English:
We have continued to work on instructions. We've been learning how to develop a method which is in chronological order and has an abundance of description to help the reader.

Geography:
Talland learned about  different grid references, investigated how to use them and had to locate different places on a map.   

RE:
We looked at the story of Noah and the Arc  in more depth and thought about what on our planet is good and what is bad. Are there things we can do to help our planet?

ART:
This week, we looked at how we can use tone and texture through shading. How to hold the pencil differently to give different effects and where light and shadowing would appear on a 3D object.

SCIENCE: 
We have been exploring electricity and how to make a circuit. Talland had to make a light bulb, a buzzer and a motor turn on.

CONGRATULATIONS to Kayla, Renley and Max this week for passing their next round in 99 club and well done to Arnie for being noticed for showing our school values. He's shown real maturity of late and his work ethic is fantastic!

That's all from us in Talland this week. We hope you have a fantastic weekend and can't wait to see everyone next week.

Signing off from Mr. Langley and Mr. Bishop.

This week, we have continued learning about the story of Augustus and His Smile. We have been focusing on using the conjunction 'and', and the children came up with some wonderful descriptive sentences.

In Maths, we have been learning how to add and subtract 10 within 100. In PE, we took part in gymnastics, and in PSHE we learned about working collaboratively. The children worked in pairs and had to colour the same welly together.

In RE, we created our own prayer sandwiches, and in Music we learned how to sing using high and low voices. In Geography, we labelled the features of coasts.

Reception have been working hard on developing their fine motor skills and learning about spring. In Drawing Club, they have been writing some amazing sentences.