Willowbank School, KilmarnockAs part of the National Trust’s ’50 things to do before you’re 11¾’ initiative, we have chosen two activities from the suggestion list to complete this term. Yesterday we tackled activity #13 – make a mud creation! We were very responsible when outdoors by following the instructions given to us and listening carefully to what our challenges were.
Sean created ‘Mud Buns’, Gemma and Skye made a ‘Pine Pie’ and Nicole and Valo made ‘Leaf Soup’!
The Beech class enjoyed joining in with the rest of the secondary department as we raised awareness for Macmillan Cancer Support. Each class bought or made cake for us all to try and we had a bit of a boogie. It was a fun afternoon! We were effective contributors as we all participated in our own way.
The Beech class have been working hard on their numeracy ILP targets in class. We are focusing on number recognition, ordering numbers, matching numbers to their value and using mathematical language and Gemma has started work on addition! We were very successful learners as we worked hard to achieve our targets.
As part of our mini-topic, the Beech class are venturing round the world to explore different cultures and cuisines to help us create a world recipe book. This week we have been exploring Italy!
We learned some Italian words and phrases, learned about (and made) volcanoes just like Mount Vesuvius, took part in some spaghetti themed STEM activities and even made our very own spaghetti Bolognese 
We were very successful learners completing all the different activities!
We all had an exceptional day at the FoW fun day that was organised for the whole school last week. As a class of animal lovers (mostly all of us!) we were delighted to have the chance to be up close and personal with a variety of different animals including owls, ponies, rabbits and ducks!
There was also an opportunity to get our face painted and play games in our PE hall which had a bouncy castle set up in it! We were all effective contributors as we waited our turn and helped each other out to take part.
Here are some of the ways we have used numbers and celebrated the joy of maths this week!
We are in Italy this week as part of our mini-topic! We made pizza’s by counting the number of different ingredients customers wanted on their pizza
The girls enjoyed counting and sorting the different shaped ingredients.
We did some work on Roman numerals by taking part in a code-breaking treasure hunt.
We listened to some numbers in Italian and played some parachute games using Italian numbers!
Gemma using our daily calendar to find the date
Sean practising counting out cups for his friends at snack time and giving them out to his friends.
Numberblocks time!
We used our number knowledge in cookery this week to measure out ingredients needed to make lemonade and truffles.
Gemma and Nicole utilised their money handling skills at our weekly tuck shop!
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The Beech class were delighted to participate in a pet therapy session with Kelly and Poppy this week! All pupils really enjoyed interacting with Poppy and learning about how to take care of her. Lyle, Gemma and Sean especially enjoyed working with and playing with Poppy and were very responsible citizens when they followed instructions and used gentle hands.
team building!
Chill time and sensory ICT
Making our superhero themes class charter!
Our posh London tea party to start off our new topic which explores food around the world. This week we are in London!
Banksy project. 
Lyle and Gemma hosted a tuck shop for the primary department! We made our own freshly squeezed lemonade. 
Music lessons have started in the Beech class – Sean is our lead musician! We are learning to play a tune on the bells this week.
Pupils enjoyed a relaxed, summer themed sensory assembly. We made symmetrical butterflies, a sandy beach scene, a shiny summer sunshine and took part in a summer-themed relay race! Some pupils took advantage of the summer movie that was on in the background to get some well-earned rest.
The weather hasn’t been our friend this week but we made the most of any sunshine we had by completing some fun challenges out in our garden.
We were very effective contributors as we each took part in a different challenge.
Here are some of our favourite photos:
