Blog by Bryn Thornton

The children in year 3, 4 and 5 loved their trip to Hothersall Lodge on Monday! Have a look at some of the wonderful photos of everyone having fun!

The children have been consolidating some of their German speaking into sentences this week. We have learned how to express our favourite colours and how to say what we like and don't like. 
Have a listen to some of our year 4s speaking their German sentences.

Following last week's session of using charcoal for the first time, children continued to explore the medium further this week. 
We began by learning about Edgar Degas and looking at how he used light and shadow in his work.
We looked at chiaroscuro (the study of dark and light) and had a try at…

Our art topic for this half term is gestural drawings with charcoal. 

Children looked at artist Laura McKendry, who used charcoal to create texture in her drawings of dogs. 

We explored the different things we could do with charcoal to create textures including scribbling, smudging and…

Our new topic in geography this half term is earthquakes and volcanoes. 

The children kicked off the topic by learning what a volcano was. 
We then used https://www.volcanoesandearthquakes.com/ to look at all of the volcanoes and earthquakes happening in the world at the moment - as well as…

Our science topic for this half term is rocks and fossils. We began our topic by exploring the different types of rocks and learning a little about how they were formed. 
We initially sorted different rock types into 'natural' and 'manmade'.
After this, we investigated some real rocks and looked…

After weeks of designing, planning, cutting, measuring, colouring and sticking - middle school have finally completed their ongoing DT project of our cars. 

Each car has a wooden chassis and a set of speedy wheels on an axel. 

Every body was custom designed to be as aerodynamic and…

This week, middle school have been learning about poems - with a focus on Limericks. 

The children studied different kinds of poems and learned about the language used when working with poetry. We looked at a variety of limericks and learned how to write a Limerick for ourselves.

Children…

This week in music, the children have been using the charanga apps to create their own beats using percussion. This ties in with our learning in music this half term - which has been focused on rhythm, beat and pulse in songs. Whilst much of what we have already done has been played with real…

We are very excited to share that some of the children in Middle school have finished their cars in DT! They have carefully measured and cut out cardboard panels for the body of the car to make them as streamlined and aerodynamic as possible. 

These are just the first few cars that have been…

Children have been writing stories in their English this half term. 
As part of this, we have been looking at direct speech in our writing. Children participated in a variety of activities to sort direct speech and write their own sentences. Middle school are doing so well with their…

This week, middle school took part in a stone age themed day to immerse ourselves in our topic for the term. 
Children came in to sit on the furs around a fire where they listened to the sounds of the forest. 
Next, we learned about Skara Brae and how archaeologists find primary and secondary…