Thank you to everyone who brought in an item from the past to share with the class. It was so lovely to hear about each of the special items and the history of them. We very much took ownership of our presentations and loved showing the items to our audience.

Whilst presenting we had to consider our audience by making sure we faced them and used a clear voice. As part of the audience we had to look, listen and show respect to the person who was presenting. We all did a great job!

   

    

     

     

     

     

     

     

This week we completed our last painting. We mixed the colours red and yellow together to make orange. We used these colours and the skill of blending to create a sunset. Next week we will add some birds to finish off our artwork.

Look out for our display showing all of our hard work in the corridor next week!

We have been focusing on functional writing over the past couple of weeks and linking this to our Food and Health topic. This week we wrote a set of instructions explaining the steps needed to brush your teeth properly.

There are lots and lots of photos this week because we have just had so much fun and excitement!

On Wednesday and Thursday our grown ups came to our Open Afternoon. We have been learning about The Past and have shown a particular interest in toys and games from the past. We learned about different games and how old they are, some were even 2000 years old!

To prepare for our open afternoons we made a cup and ball game. We decorated our own cups, attached the string and then made the ball with kitchen foil. We found it tricky to get the ball into the cup and had to learn to give it a good swing!

 

Thank you to the grown ups who attended our open afternoon. We loved having you in to visit and hope you enjoyed playing the games we had prepared.

On Thursday we had a lovely surprise! The Fire Service came to visit us with their fire engine. We learned what it is like to be a fire fighter and also what we should do if there was a fire. We were able to explore the fire engine and learned about the different equipment they have on the engine. The most exciting part was holding the hose, there were many excited faces and even a few trying to secretly soak themselves with the hose!

Thank you very much to Mrs Denholm’s husband and his crew for bringing the fire engine to Crookfur.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

    

On Friday we celebrated Valentine’s Day by thinking about kind compliments we could say to each other. We could take a heart to someone in the class if we felt it was a complement we wanted to give them.

We also had the option to make a Valentine’s Card for someone special.

It was not just Valentine’s Day on Friday but also BREAK THE RULES DAY!

We were so excited to break the rules and show each other what we were wearing and share the rules we had broken with each other.

Mrs Agnew, Mrs Denholm and Mrs Wotherspoon got a little mixed up about the message and wore school uniform, silly us!

In PE this term we are learning about Rebound Games. This involves thinking about how we move our body and control it and also using a variety of equipment. This week we explored this with tennis racquets and tennis balls. The main focus was controlling the tennis ball either with our hands or with the racquet.

We started getting used to controlling the ball by rolling it to our partner and back. Some of us realised we had to give it more of a push and others realised they had pushed the ball too hard.

We then used the racquets to do the same thing.

It was then time to work on our own and really focus on holding the racquet properly and then balance the tennis ball on the racquet, this was tricky, especially when we started moving too.

We completed this lesson by moving the ball around the Muga with the tennis racquet. We again had to think about the amount of power we were using to ensure the ball rolled but didn’t roll too far away.

We have continued with our block of learning about painting and over the past couple of weeks have made a Seascape. We stuck with blue and yellow to make green and had a go at blending the colours to make it look like the sea. We then drew and cut out fish to add to the Seascape and are looking forward to creating a display with our amazing art work very soon!

The children had shown an interest in birds whilst exploring in the garden area and had made many comments about not many birds visiting us there!  We decided to make some bird feeders to attract the birds to come. We learned about the importance of helping look after birds in the winter time and how it can be harder for them to find food on their own.

We have been using different non-fiction books to find information and learn facts about different types of birds, their features and how we can help look after them. We have been exploring the internet using websites such as BBC bitesize and Earth Kids to help us learn. The children have shown a keen interest in learning about David Attenborough and have many questions about him and his role as a biologist! Many were curious if I (Mrs Dickie) was of a similar age!!!

The children participated in some experiential bird experiences outdoors on the school grounds. Our games focused on listening, looking and attention skills to help us become better bird watchers! The children collaborated well together.

We spent some time as a class discussing what we already know about birds and creating a list of some questions that we have that we’d like to find out on our learning journey together.

“Do all birds fly?”

“What do they eat?”

“How do they open their eggs when they hatch?”

Before heading out to do our bird watching, we carried out some data handling experiences so that we could record our information whilst bird watching using tally marks.

Then we headed outdoors for some bird watching! The children found a spot on top of the hill that was particularly good for bird watching, some children climbed trees to get a better view and others used binoculars to look closely for them. We looked for gulls, magpies, starlings, crows and robins as these tend to be the most popular around here. As a whole, gulls and crows were spotted the most on this day!

Today we had a visit from the Dams to Darnley Country Park Ranger Rennie. He explained all about the important work he does to help look after the animals and wildlife. He shared lots of very interesting facts about different types of birds that are found at the nature park – 141 in total! The children were able to share some of their own knowledge of birds and ask questions to further their understanding. Many of the children are now keen to have a visit there, if you are looking for anywhere to go at the weekends

We’ll be continuing our learning journey next week by carrying out some drawing and writing about our visitor and recording some key facts that we have learned.