Today - Friday 2nd July - Jaguars have been finishing their passion projects.
Moe chose to do his about coding. Here is a link to his game: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/547855402
Today - Monday 21st June - Jaguars had an RSE/PSHE lesson about puberty, and how their bodies will begin to change over the next few years. They were extremely respectful of each other, and asked lots of brilliant questions!
If you want to know more about what we covered, you can find our RSE policy here. Alternatively, you can watch the recorded Parent Café that was held in May about our RSE curriculum here.
This week it rained a lot, following some very warm weather! On Friday 18th June we went to the woodlands - we made a fire, and did all sorts of awesome activities! We used clay to make characters, melted metal into cuttlefish shell moulds and learned how to safely make fire.
On Friday 11th June, some of our children went to meet a local historian. They asked her lots of questions about Brooke, and how she became interested in its past. They discovered there was a beautiful hall, which was demolished after it fell into ruin following its use during WW2. You can still see the lake, and remnants of the kitchen gardens.
We have been working on developing our own proposal for a new school in Brooke! We have looked at plans and maps of the area, the development boundary, and the roles of different people in the planning process. On the afternoon of Thursday 10th June, we invited parents onto the school playground to look at our projects, models and listen to our ideas.
On Wednesday 19th May, we had a virtual Crucial Crew event. These events teach young people about safety in a wide range of situations. Usually we visit in person, and have workshops from organisations like the RNLI, Fire Service, NSPCC, Ambulance Service and UK Power Networks. This year's event was virtual and was led by the police. They talked to us about how to stay safe online, when playing games or using apps like TikTok or Snapchat. We learned about being safe and sensible when sharing information online, making sure we tell an adult if we see online bullying or things that worry us, and what criminal responsibility means when we reach the age of 10. We watched an NSPCC video about the dangers of sharing photographs online, and what the consequences of that could be.
It's so important to learn about these things, especially in a safe and familiar environment like school, where we can ask lots of questions and have open discussions about any worries or concerns! The children will often want to discuss them further at home too, and lots of ideas for how to talk about misconceptions or worries can be found here.
On Thursday 13th May we had a local wildlife enthusiast visit us at school. He helped us to set up a moth trap, which we then opened on Friday morning. We had caught one moth! Using magnifying glasses and The Norfolk Moths website, we identified the species.
Also on Friday, we researched different species of moth and made wire sculptures of moths too.
This is all linked to our learning around 'Moth' by Isabel Thomas - a stunning book about adaptation and evolution.
In maths, we have revisited and revised addition and subtraction and will be moving on to multiplication next week, to see how we can further challenge ourselves.
And it's May! The children have been learning about Charles Darwin and his theories of evolution. They interviewed different members of the community (you can see a summary of the article they wrote on the 30th April newsletter) to find out what people with different beliefs thought of evolution.
We learned lots of interesting things from Evolutionary Scientist Dr Ben Garrod, Reverend Lynn, the Catholic church, Sarvanander from the Norwich Buddhist Centre, Paul Dunning - head of the Norwich Diocese.
We are now (4th May) looking at the unbelievable truth! Can we wrap truths about Charles Darwin in elaborate tales, and then face a panel to see if they can spot them?
In science we are learning about adaptations and how they have occurred to reflect habitats and changing environments.
We will move on to looking at the lifecycles of animals and plants, which will lead us into PSHE-linked science and changes to our bodies as we develop through puberty.
On Friday 23rd April we headed off to the woodlands! There were lots of different activities on offer!
On Wednesday 14th April, we investigated Darwin's finches and how he developed his theories about natural selection and adaptation by studying the different beaks of the finches on the Galapagos Islands!
And in writing... we are learning all about the life and discoveries of Charles Darwin.
You can see our Togetherness video below. We worked really hard to be in time with each other!
Monday 22nd March saw us investigating 3D shapes. We used sticks and clay to represent vertices and edges.
This week we have been continuing to learn more about plate tectonics and all the landforms they create!
We planned and produced stop motion animations to demonstrate the different plate boundaries. We layered flour and sand and used card to mimic the movement of plates and how folds are created. We heated tin, and then poured it into water to demonstrate how lava behaves.
Monday 8th March saw us all back at school together! So exciting!
We've had a really busy week - focussing on The Alchemist's Letter, which also prompted some 'magical' science experiments!
We watched as a flame lit a line of smoke to re-light a candle; we played with the density of different liquids to create beautiful patterns; we extracted the DNA strands from bananas; and we built catapults to hurl beanbags mind-blowing distances!
Our class book, following half term, is The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane.
On Friday 26th February, we made seismometers! These are used to help detect and measure earthquakes! Those at home and in school all worked really well to create working machines!
It's Wellbeing Wednesday 24th February and we have been working on our lettering and calligraphy skills - combining this with motivational quotes! Daniel taught me something with his: The Emu is on the Australian Coat of Arms because they are a symbol of Progress, since they cannot walk backwards.
Monday 22nd February marked back to school for the second half of the Spring term!
We've had a busy start. For the next few weeks we will be learning about earthquakes. Our topic - The Evolution of Us - started with us trying to gain a good understand of how Earth itself formed and evolved, and how its different elements impact humankind.
Have a look at the beginning of our writing unit centred around earthquakes below - we had to sketch a before and after, and then use a range of exciting descriptive vocabulary to add more detail to each!
It's Friday 12th February, which means it's the end of half-term and the beginning of a holiday! It's been a very strange half-term, but there have been so many moments, here are a few I'd like to share...
Check out our Padlet https://padlet.com/head433/celebrationfriday Where you can see a celebration of learning from across the school!
Monday 8th February brought snow days! We made sure we really enjoyed them!
On Monday 25th January, guest speaker John Overton from South Norfolk Council joined our whole-school assembly! He talked RUBBISH! I.e. bin collections, recycling, and how incredibly hard our binmen work!
Year 5 and 6 thought some of the information about recycling on the council's website was confusing, so they designed some helpful guides so we know what we can (and can't) put in our rainbow of bins!
A couple of weeks ago, those of us in school joined those at home in making fossils! They turned out AWESOME (see below). So in DT, we're making boxes to display/store our fossils.
We made volcanoes! As part of our learning about tectonic plates, we started to learn about volcanoes. Our challenge was to try and create our own, and our own reaction.
One of our challenges this week, was the learn about the different layers of the Earth - from the inner core to the crust - and create a diagram/ representation of what we've learned. We even had one made from colour-ordered football cards!
As we have been learning about our Earth's layers, fossils and rocks, we decided to design an experiment that would allow us to see how the layers of rocks and soil filter water. Those working at home and in school both shared their results.
Our Topic - The Evolution of Us - has started by looking at what our Earth looked like many years ago, and what we have around us now that can give us clues! Fossils!
We have researched and classified different types of fossil, and even had a go at making some of our own during the week of 11th January. Have a look below to see what we created in school, and what was made by those working at home!
We decided to start the year with a small project about Positivity: 2020 in review! Here are a few of the submissions so far...
Have a look at Tom's fantastic yearbook here!
Poppy's magical memory box!
Bella's incredible efforts!
There were lots of mixed emotions this week when we finished reading our class book, Crater Lake. We really enjoyed the suspense and the humour, as well as the original plot and interesting characters!
In the final week of term, we decided to work in small groups and create Crater Lake: The Game! Here are a few of our final designs.
Our homework project this term has been based around Ancient Egypt. This isn't an area we have looked at in school, and the children were so enthusiastic to learn about it! Here are a few of the incredible outcomes.
On Monday 7th December we made our nativity characters out of clay! We are so proud of them.
Today we finished our biographies about astronauts! 2nd December.
Our Class Book - Crater Lake by Jennifer Killick
Friday 27th saw us head the woodlands! It was misty, but stunning, and we captured some brilliant shots, while creating our natural solar system art!
As we've been researching and learning about different astronauts, we decided to try some astronaut food!
We have really enjoyed music this term. As well as covering hambone, we have been using rhythm and our voices to create raps. Here is one fantastic example, edited and recorded by Daniel!
On Thursday 12th November we learned a little more about what it takes to become an astronaut! Check out our skills...
In music, we have been writing and performing our own poetry raps to a beat.
Today, Wednesday 11th November, is remembrance day. To mark this important date, Jaguars read In Flanders Fields and discussed its meaning. We then chose the words that resonated with us the most, and created our own blackout poetry. We also used tissue paper to make our own poppies.
Friday 6th November saw us practising our cutting skills! We have been researching planets and will be making 3D versions from card.
We're settling back in well after half term, and have been busy producing drawings and descriptive writing inspired by a short film 'Road's End'.
Some of our writing has made it on to the class gallery wall, because we worked really hard or achieved some tricky personal targets!
This half term we are jetting off into Space! On Monday 2nd November, we revised the names of the planets and other objects in our Solar System, and thought about their distances from the Sun.
We had a brilliant time at the woodlands on Friday 9th October. We enjoyed brownies, hot chocolate and used iPads to create our own short films!
Thursday 8th October was our Harvest assembly. You can see our artwork here.
We tried brusho today! The children really enjoyed it and were very creative!
We have been learning Japanese stab binding, and have started to bind our own home/school journals! It's very tricky, but the children have worked really hard and picked up the skills quickly.
Science this week was all about growing crystals! On Thursday 1st October, Jaguars looked at dependent and independent variables - they experimented by changing the size or shape of the sponge, or the concentration of the solution they made, to see what impact it has on their crystals.
On Friday 25th September, Jaguars were lucky enough to be part of 2,000 young people across our region, who watched Chris Lubbe talk about his experiences during Apartheid and when working with Nelson Mandela.
We spent the morning responding to what we had learned. It was incredibly humbling, and informative, and we want to share our thanks with Chris.
In science (24th September) we investigated the effect salt has on the melting point of ice.
We learned that salt actually raises the melting point of ice, meaning that when we placed ice in a saturated salt solution, or in just salt, it stayed as ice for much longer than when placed in just water.
We have been really focused on music so far this year, and have had lessons with Pete and Miss McGowan, and we have listened to a range of music from all sorts of genres and artists! With Miss McGowan on Wednesday 23rd September, we created and recorded a hambone piece in small groups!
We have been reading some Letters From Afar in Jaguars, sent by an explorer Isabelle, who travels the world and sends stunning illustrated recounts to us! We wanted to write back, so the children chose somewhere in Norfolk to learn more about and tell Isabelle about!
Most of us are now finished, and here a few stunning examples!
As part of that learning, we have been practising our drawing skills and on Friday 11th September we drew continuous line drawings of our landmarks. They are brilliant!
This year, across the school, the children have 'independent journals' that run alongside their usual writing and maths books. They will have free reign over how they lay out and present the work in these books, which will range from art, geography and history, to photos of things they have made or done. We made a start today (Monday 7th September) with some observational drawings and really enjoyed experimenting - have a look and see what you think!
