Reception: Birthdays
As part of our celebrations topic, we are focussing on birthdays this week. The children have enjoyed making birthday cards, birthday cakes, bracelets and birthday crowns too. They have been focussing on their fine motor skills to complete their challenges and also have been working really hard when writing their names. Well done!
Reception RE: The Birth Of Jesus
Today our Reception children began their Christmas unit in RE. We took part in a sensory story all about the birth of Jesus. We used Widget symbols for each part and used our senses to get involved with the story. The children smelt baby oil to understand that Mary was expecting a baby, we walked to show how Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem and we lit candles to show how dark it was. The children then used a drum to knock on the door to see if there was any room. We then used the sign for no. Finally, the children wrapped a baby in blankets to show the birth of Jesus. The children really enjoyed drawing parts of the story in our scrap book and enjoyed getting involved in the story all about the birth of Jesus. We can't wait for the children to act out this special story in their Nativity production in a few weeks time.
Reception: Dough Disco
Our Reception children have been developing their fine motor skills today. Their hands have been getting stronger by completing a dough disco activity. This really helps them to get ready to hold a pencil and form letters accurately.
Year 2 - English
This week we have began reading our new book ‘Prince Cinders’ , this book is a twist on Cinderella and we have really enjoyed the book so far! We have made some interesting predictions, some predicting there will be a happy ever after ending and others are not so optimistic! We are looking forward to seeing if any of us have predicted the rest of the story! We also gave the horrible bothers a grilling as we generated questions for them. It’s fair to say we are not happy with the way Prince Cinders gets treated by his mean brothers.
Year 4 - English: Researching Pompeii
It’s a new term and the start of a new English topic. All of our English this half term is based on the Romans, starting with a story with a historical setting - Escape From Pompeii. We began our topic by conducting keyword searches in order to find out a bit more about Pompeii back in 79AD and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Year 4 - Spellings: Mnemonics
This week’s spellings are pairs of homophones: words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different definitions. It’s always a tricky one teaching which spelling is which in context, so we use mnemonics, such as drawing pictures, to help us to remember.
Year 3- English- History-Understanding Mummification Through Experiment
In History, this afternoon, Year 3 continued their learning on the Ancient Egyptians with a writing stimulus focused on mummification. To support their writing unit, where they’ll explain the mummification process, the children “mummified” an orange. They cut the orange in half and removed the inside (representing the internal organs), then carefully dried it using a mixture of salt and baking soda. After removing the insides of the orange (just like the Ancient Egyptians removed internal organs), the children carefully dried the inside of the orange using salt and baking soda. This mixture acted like the natron salt the Egyptians used to preserve bodies by drawing out moisture. Next, they filled the orange with more salt and baking soda to prevent decay and dryness. Finally, they wrapped the orange carefully in strips of cloth to resemble linen bandages, just as the Egyptians would have wrapped their mummies. Over the coming days, the oranges will be left to sit, allowing the "mummification" process to take effect. The children will observe any changes and use this experience to help explain the process of mummification in their upcoming writing unit.
Year 3 - English- Identifying features of an explanation text
In English today, Year 3 looked at the main features of an explanation text. Working in small groups, they wrote step-by-step explanations for different tasks: making a sandwich, helping a plant grow, making a cup of tea, and creating a scroll using papyrus paper. This activity helped them understand how to write clear explanations and allowed them to collaborate and share ideas.
Harvest Church Service 2024
Thank you to our Wow group, EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 classes for leading our Harvest celebration at church today. I have uploaded some videos to class dojo and additional photos can be found here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/harvest-church-service-2024 It was wonderful to see so many of our families in attendance. A huge thank you to you all for coming to watch and thank you to all of our families for your continued support this half term. Thank you for all of your kind harvest donations, these can be continued to be sent in during the first week that we are back at school. Wishing you all a wonderful half term, Mrs Wilkinson
Reception: Junk Modelling
The children in Reception found a box in class. We discussed what we could do with it. The children said we could hide in it or decorate it. As a class, we decided to make a house. The children couldn’t believe that we could make a house from a recycled box! Together we painted the house and added materials to it. We then decided it was a house for the Funnybones Skeleton family.
Reception: Funnybones
This morning, our Reception class read ‘Funnybones’. Each time we heard big, little and dog skeleton we put actions in so that we all paid attention and could retell the story after. We then completed some challenges in continuous provision linked to the story. Some of the children painted skeletons, some children had to problem solve to complete a skeleton using playdough, some counted bones and matched the amount to the numeral and some practised their fine motor skills too. It has been wonderful to see lots of busy children living life in all its fullness in Reception, well done!
Year 1 English- Finding Key Information in Non-Fiction Texts
In their English lesson, Year 1 were set the challenge of answering questions by finding the relevant information within a non-fiction text. They learnt that using a contents page can be very useful in locating the specific information that you are looking for. Mrs Hegarty and I were so impressed with how they navigated the texts (looking for page numbers) and how they followed along with the reading of the text too. Well done done Year 1!