Enrichment fortnight

What an exciting way to start the enhancement fortnight!  We boarded Mulbarton airlines with Pilot Theobald and took off on our flight to the Galapagos Islands.  We experienced the take-off, in-flight refreshment trolley walk through and landing.  Once safely departed we went off to listen to a story ‘We’re sailing to Galapagos’ by Laurie Krebs. 

 We watched some clips of Sir David Attenborough in the Galapagos Islands to learn more about them e.g. how they were formed, the endangered species that inhabit the island and the species that are yet to be discovered.  The children then enjoyed drawing and collaging an animal from the island e.g. the Galapagos tortoise, the Blue footed Booby bird, Frigate bird or a Black Iguana.

We have enjoyed a science day on Wednesday this week when we have looked closely at Sea Bream, Sardines, Tiger Prawns and Scallops.  We learnt about their anatomy and then cut them open to explore this more closely.  The children were very brave and fascinated about the internal parts and then sketched and labelled the parts of a fish. 

We became explorers like Sir David Attenborough and went off around the school site to investigate the insects that live in our school and attempt to record this by tallying.  We discovered butterflies, wood louse, ladybirds, grasshoppers, worms, ants and spiders to name but a few.  Looking through magnifying glasses to observe them closely was interesting and exciting. 

Then we explored the school grounds to sketch and record the different plant species that we have around our school.  The children were very engaged and excited at discovering so many different types of flowers and plants.

 We had a lovely last full week in year 1. On Monday it was our school history day and year 1 dressed as the medieval era. The whole school went onto the upper school playground and we made a human time line from Reception who were dressed as cavemen to year 6 who were dressed as people from the 70s.  They all had some super costumes. We started off by learning about castles and knights and learnt about jousting and banquets. The children designed their own shields and crowns and we also made flags with our house team logo. We carried on the next day with a jousting tournament using foam javelins and the children took their flags to cheer on their house teams. We also had a mini banquet with lots of fruits and crisps in the class room.

On Wednesday we had an Art and RE day. We learnt about Islam and looked at the Quran and a prayer mat. We then designed our own prayer mats and made scrolls with a prayer, wish or hope for the future.

In the afternoon we learnt about Islamic art and focussed on Moroccan tiles. The children designed their own tile on a foam sheet and used a block printing technique to print it.

Samba workshop

We had a fantastic memorable experience to start our Rio de Vida topic. Norwich Samba Band came in to do a workshop with all their drums, maracas and cowbells.

Royal Wedding

We had our very own Royal Wedding in the church on Tuesday.The children loved dressing up as wedding guests, bridesmaids, page boys and members of the royal family. Reverend Andrew North wrote the ceremony script with lots of humour and the children re-enacted the wedding.

Multi-skills

We had great fun at the  Multi-skills festival at Eastern and Otley College this week. The children enjoyed playing a variety of skills based team games.

Cityscapes

We have been busy painting our cityscapes of Norwich using sketches and photos taken from the top of Mousehold Heath when on our school trip.

Aren't they amazing! We looked at artists Paul Klee and Ton Schulton for inspiration. They also use bright colours and paint cityscapes in blocks of colour with an abstract style. They drew out their cityscapes carefully last week and had great fun carefully mixing different shades of colours to paint them. Once finished they used a black pen to redraw the outlines and finish then off.

School Trip to Norwich

We had such a fantastic school trip top Norwich as part of our 'Bright Lights, Big City' topic. we went to Norwich Fire Station where the firemen showed around the station, inside a fire engine and explained how all the tools and hoses work. Then the children went outside and practised spraying the hose. Some groups saw the water rescue boat too and children and grownups were chosen to try on the firefighter outfits. They got a call out 10 minutes before we were due to leave but that was an exciting thing to see how they all get ready and into the fire engine quickly.We had out lunch at Eaton Park Community centre and then had a run around outside. Later we went to Mousehold heath for a spectacular view of the city.

Tea Party with the Queen!

We have had a fantastic start to our new ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ topic. On Tuesday we came dressed in our best party clothes because we had been invited to a tea party with the Queen. We spent the morning making ham, cheese and jam sandwiches with little flags in, we made bunting to decorate and also learned about the role of the Queen and the Royal family. In the afternoon the hall was all set up for our afternoon tea and the Queens arrival, we even made her a throne and a red carpet. We had cups and saucers laid out and lots of the children tried tea with their sandwiches and party rings. The Queen couldn’t stay for the whole afternoon because she is very busy and her driver was waiting but after that we went outside for games. The games included cricket, croquet, hoopla, skipping, skittles and welly tossing.