Design Technology provides children with unique opportunities to develop skills, knowledge and understanding of designing and making functional products for particular purposes and uses. The children in Year 2 are choosing one of the famous people they have studied and design and make a gift for them. As part of this task, they have the opportunity to stretch their imaginations, to design and problem solve and to understand the needs of other people.
During our Commando Joe lessons we have been thinking about the Lion King film. Today one of the characters was stranded in unknown territory. It was our job to work as a team to cross the river and rescue our friend without touching the floor!
Some awesome team work and communication skills from Class 3 today 
We now recycle batteries in school, the box is situated in the Office reception area.
Mrs Davidson has assembled an incredible team of Eco-warriors to be our new Eco-Committee! They will meet once every half term to think of new green ways to improve our school.
In their first meeting, the committee decided they are going to be ‘light savers’ and it is their job to turn off the classroom lights before lunch and home time to save some wasted energy.
We have studied the way the slaves were treated and how they became slaves. This week we began to look at their journey to freedom.
We had a lovely art lesson looking at sketching symbols of freedom. The children chose up to 3 symbols to represent freedom such as birds flying, chains breaking and following the constellations.
Here are some examples of our work:
On January 24th the Year 5 Dodgeball team attended the annual festival at Boldon School. They faced off against Hedworth Lane, East Boldon, Forest View and Biddick Hall in a bid for the much coveted gold medals.
Selected at random from widespread interest in Year 5, the side have been attending a few weeks of after-school sessions with Mr Houmark. Designed to get them into the game, working as a team and planning their tactics for use against other schools.
After a tough start against both East Boldon teams, they fought back with wins against Biddick Hall and Forest View. Eventually finishing 5th in the group. Over the coming week, the school will decide upon a new sport to offer after-school for KS2.
In literacy, this term we are studying the story Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers.
We explored the beginning of the story through drama – trying to recreate the scenes from the story and contemplate how the characters might be feeling and what they might be thinking.
The children were able to generate some amazing adjectives to describe how the penguin might feel when he was lost.
They were also able to imagine how the boy felt when he opened the door to see a penguin there and what he might have thought.
As part of our Come fly with me ..to the Arctic topic we have found out about some Inuit art.
There are many huge structures across the very north of Canada called Inukshuk (pronounced I-nook-shook). These structures are built from huge rocks and look a little like people.
These landmarks were used to mark special places, as sign posts and to mark good hunting or fishing spots.
The children used wooden blocks to create their own inukshuk working with a partner to share and develop ideas.
The children came across the word “blubber”
During our work on Arctic animals we carried out an experiment to see how a seal’s blubber can protect it from the icy Arctic seas.
We first explored how long we could keep our hand in ice cold water – which was not long at all!
Then we used plastic bags to simulate the animal skins and lard to be blubber and tested again how long we could keep our hands in the water.
The children were amazed that they could no longer feel the coldness at all! We found that the icy water didn’t feel quite so cold when our hand was surrounded by a layer of fat.
In our Dimensions theme this term we have been learning about the Arctic. We have been learning about the animals and people who live in the Arctic. We have learnt about the Inuit people; what the eat, wear, where they live and some of their pastimes.
We have learnt that traditionally Inuit women would have “throat singing” competitions to pass the time while the men were away hunting.
Throat singing is a tricky skill of repeating the sound just a second after the other person has made it, while keeping a beat and rhythm. The first one to stop for breath or giggle is out.
We had our own “throat singing” competition to see who could keep making noises longest. The children had a great time making some very strange and loud noises and also were amazed when we watched a video of some throat singers and how lovely their music was.
See below for more:
Inuit Throat Singing in Year 1 (1)
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