#motivateeducatenurture #wearehistorians

We researched the features and purposes of different masks, before exploring African masks and designing our own lion creations. We then used a variety of materials and skills to bring our designs to life; from cutting and sawing to decorating and embellishing.

It’s been wonderful to watch our designs come to life in their own unique way. Finally, we shall evaluate our projects to complete the process.

We learnt about the ‘charcoal cooler’, which is a completely energy-free way of keeping green beans cool after picking. We explored how pineapples are picked and shipped all around the world from Africa. Finally, we looked at the process of making chocolate from cacao pod to bar!

We learnt about Fairtrade produce and how buying Fairtrade ensures that farmers have been paid a fair price for their produce and hard work.

The best part of our topic lesson this week had to be the chocolate tasting! We tasted Fairtrade chocolate with different compositions of cocoa. The children described the chocolate containing 85% cocoa as being ”bitter, strong and not very nice,” whereas the chocolate with 46% cocoa was “smooth, milky and just right!” There were certainly more votes for this chocolate!

#motivateeducatenurture #worldwise #communitycontributors #Fairtrade

#motivateeducatenurture #wearegymnasts

We explored the mud huts they build, the animals they keep, living off the land and their love of vibrant music and dancing. We loved having a go at the ‘Jumping Dance’ and comparing how high we could jump! Video in the comments section.

#motivateeducatenurture #worldwise #wearegeographers

Before introducing our story, we experimented with making rainbows and the children thought about their favourite weather. These experiences led us to predict that our story would be about the rain and the sun.

We then learnt the story of Lila and the Secret of Rain, whilst comparing it to another story; Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain. In the comments section below, we have shared a video of the children’s story performance.

We are now preparing for writing our own innovated African folktales so watch this space!

#motivateeducatenurture #wearereaders #wearestoryperformers #wearewriters

We have been locating different features of Africa such as; Victoria Falls, the River Nile and the pyramids of Egypt.

We ventured off on a virtual tour of the African Savanna, learning about the Big 5 and the grassy, arid landscape.

We welcomed Mrs Moules into class to share photographs and treasured items from her time spent in Kenya and Uganda. This was such a valuable way for the children to hear about firsthand experience of rural village schools, accommodation, foods and traditions. The children were amazed by how different school life can be in rural Africa, with some children walking for over an hour to reach their school with no windows and little resources.

We have been in awe of the beautifully vibrant colours within African art. The children have recreated Ndebele artwork, watercoloured Sahara landscapes and after learning about why African women carry heavy baskets on their heads, using line art and pattern to interpret their learning. The children are looking forward to our final unit in art this term- creating African pottery.

#motivateeducatenurture #weareartists #wearegeographers #worldwise

Before creating our artwork, we explored photographs of the Northern Lights, observing the colours and shapes made by this natural light occurrence.
 

Then to create the background, we used light and dark shades of watercolours, together with paint spotting. 
To create the glacial landscape, we used different layers of collage. We completed our scene by sketching a lone polar bear.

We hope you enjoy some examples of our artwork here.

We've also been learning about a fascinating animal- the penguin. To bring all of our super learning together this term, we decided to write penguin fact files, using all of the writing techniques we have learnt this term and in previous terms. 
 

Here we share some examples of our writing.

This book then inspired us to create our own 'Missing!' posters. We showed of new skills learnt this term to our grown-ups, using alliteration, different sentence types and our new vocabulary in our writing. Word mats, word lucky dips and word cubes helped our grown-ups to learn some new vocabulary too!

We finished the afternoon with another story written by the same author- William and the Missing Masterpiece.

Tomorrow we shall display our posters around the school in the hope that someone may be able to help us find the missing penguin!

Thank you to our grown-ups for joining us in class this afternoon- we loved sharing our learning with you.

We have learnt how to speak in full sentences and provide reasoning for our views, whilst using sentence stems such as; Perhaps…, In my opinion…, It would seem that…

We have been practising taking turns when talking, clearly articulating to be understood and speaking at an appropriate volume.

We have been using our Class Talk Rules to discuss and debate themes linked to our topic- Polar Explorers.

Our favourite debate this term was based on the book ‘Penguin Huddle’ when we debated whether the penguins should have stayed in Antarctica or travelled to the big city. The children had so many valuable ideas and demonstrated their ability to agree and disagree reasonably.

Here you can see some of the children’s comments.

Keep practising counting in 2's, 5's and 10's at home- counting in multiples as you climb the stairs, walk to school, brush your teeth and so much more!

Well done Amazon Class!

It was our mission to bring London to Stanton and enjoy lots of super, hands-on learning about our 'We're off to London' topic.

We came to school wearing the colours of the Union Jack flag- red, white and blue, or a London themed costume. We started the day with a London song before learning about different London landmarks. Outside, we took part in a London landmark hunt, reading and following clues, followed by ‘stepping into’ a large London map and using a compass to give directions to reach different landmarks. After exploring the book ‘Pop-Up London’, we made our own 3D maps to show the location of landmarks in our capital city.

During the afternoon, we shared the story of ‘The Naughty London Bus’ and enjoyed retelling the story in our small world play. Some children even innovated the story and told the story of the naughty black cab! The buses and cabs particularly enjoyed the baked beans!

It wouldn’t have been London Day without some Paddington themed activities so we finished off our day by modelling our very own Paddington Bears and a whole class Union Jack.

The children arrived at school to find sticky paw prints, and after close inspection using our eyes and noses, we deduced that the classroom visitor must have had marmalade covered paws! 

A little later on, we discovered a ‘London Station Lost Property’ box had been sent to our classroom. We had been asked by the station master to help return the contents to its rightful owner- a pesky character who kept losing his belongings.

Excitably delving into the box, we identified; a London map, wellington boots, stamps from around the world (including Peru), a Union Jack flag and a jar of the finest marmalade.

In groups, we used our talk sentence stems, together with our Class Talk Rules, to discuss our predictions for who the mystery character might be.

Our talk focus this week has been ‘taking turns’ by using a visual talking stick to help us. 

After sharing lots of interesting predictions, we explored our new book. The final piece to our mystery puzzle- Paddington by Michael Bond.

We are very excited to be using this wonderful story to inspire our reading and writing this term and can’t wait to share this with you over the coming weeks.

We were inspired to then write our own Great Fire of London poetry.

We hope you enjoy our performance, which can be found here: https://fb.watch/nLZjFX-QT2/ 

We experimented with watercolours, pastels, chalks and other materials to create our fiery backgrounds. We used charcoal, wax and string printing to create our rows of Tudor homes. The final stage of our art project was to collate our works of art, creating our 1666 London streets.

We hope you enjoy our gallery.

We practised using the talk skills that we have been learning this term;

• using sentence stems
• showing others that we are listening

After sharing our ideas and opinions with our group, we then voted with our feet to show whether we thought more good things or more bad things came from the fire. We then gave reasons for our decisions, trying to persuade people on the other side to change their mind.

Some of our ideas:

“I think there were more good things that came from the fire because they had a new sewage system and this got rid of the rats and the plague, and they built better houses.”

“In my opinion, the houses were better because they were made out of brick, and they were safer from the fire.”

“Perhaps lots of animals would have died, which is a bad thing because birds are good for the environment.”

“I think they would have planted more trees though, which is good for the birds.”

“In my opinion, it was more bad things because the people of London had to live in tents for 8 years and that’s a long time.”

After our debate we then reflected on our talk skills and what makes ‘good talk’. We shared the problems we had when talking in our groups; everyone talking at the same time and people not talking about the question. We used these problems to write our new Talk Rules for the class.

We had lots of fun trying on the special clothing worn by firefighters, testing the heavy helmet and learning about how this clothing protects firefighters when fighting fires or helping people in need. 

We shared the story, ‘The Dragon Who Came to Tea’ and identified all of the important messages within this book. 
The children learnt about what to do in the event of a fire; learning actions to help us remember to ‘get out, stay out and call 999’ and ‘stop, drop and roll’ 

We also learnt how to keep our own homes fire safe, including testing smoke alarms once a week. The children then made their very own ‘Noisy’ to take home to remind us to test our smoke alarms weekly. 

We also learnt about the importance of knowing our home address which I have challenged the children to learn with their grown-ups.

The children had lots of sensible ideas about keeping their homes safe which I’m sure they would love to share with you at home. 

 

We have played lots of games to get to know each other, including the wool game, making a web which symbolises how we are all connected by the things we have in common. We have lots of cats and dogs in our homes!

We have shared some super stories and written some wonderfully imaginative ‘unbelievable’ stories about the summer- why not ask your child all about their unbelievable story?

We have started to explore our new topic ’The Great Fire of London’, learning lots about what London was like in 1666. Our Tudor houses are proudly displayed, making sure they are very close together! We visited our school timeline and found this significant event in history, calculating that the blaze started 357 years ago.

We have been revisiting key maths skills this week, using sand trays and sensory bags to practise number formation and calculation.

Finally, we’ve made time to relax, rehydrate and play in our new surroundings. I am so proud of how the children have settled in and embraced returning to school. What a super week we’ve had!

Wishing you the most wonderful summer. 

Have fun, stay safe and be superstars! 

We hope you enjoy our gallery.

This story has sparked lots of dicussion about all being individual but yet all being perfect just the way we are. The children then designed their own failed projects which were a combination of two animals. They wrote their files and diary entries as their new animals. This week, the children have enjoyed finishing our unit by sculpting their failed projects and homing them inside their own little bell jars.

We hope you have enjoyed welcoming your new little pet into your homes.

Today, Amazon Class were given their new reading bear friends to take home and read with for the summer holidays and beyond. After meeting our new bears, we took them outside for a teddy bear's picnic on the field, together with a bear story.

It was so special to see the children so excited about their reading bears and I hope they enjoy reading to their bears during the summer break, remembering just how much we have loved reading in Amazon Class this year.

We have been exploring the work of sculptor, Michelle Reader, who creates sculptures using recycled materials to raise awareness of the importance of rescue, reuse, recycle.

We then used plastic bags and other plastic waste to create these stunning jellyfish, based on the story of Somebody Swallowed Stanley. 

We are so proud of our little art installation and hope you enjoy it too.

Every child showed incredible bravery as they delivered their powerful and empathetic speeches to the rest of the class, demonstrating our learning about oracy, what makes a good speech and how to be a good audience.

We were so proud of every child who performed their speech and congratulate them all for demonstrating their new skills as public speakers! A special congratulations to those children who were chosen for their outstanding performance and those who received an Earth Day badge. 

All speeches were recorded and secure QR codes shall be shared with each family to view their child's speech over the next few days.

Our topic board is brimming with the children's interpretations of what Brunel looked like and fact cards detailing facts they have learnt about Brunel's life and work. Did you know, Brunel wore a large top hat to make himself feel taller and more important?

Brunel was an engineer who designed bridges such as The Clifton Suspension bridge and he designed tunnels such as Box tunnel in Bath. He designed ships such as the SS Great Britain and he designed railways such as The Great Western Railway. We have been exploring how and why these different creations were designed by Brunel and how these inventions greatly improved travel 200 years ago and in the present day. We have got so much more to learn!

We hope you enjoy some examples in our gallery.

A huge thank you to all the parents who were able to join Amazon Class this afternoon for their summer term Stay and Read. The children loved sharing reading experiences with you, based on the book 'Ice Cream Had a Meltdown' by Michelle Robinson.

We used puffy paint to create front covers for a sequel 'Ice Cream Had a Makeover' and we used alliteration to design our dream ice creams. We even finished with a spontaneous reading of 'Meltdown' by Jill Murphy as requested by the children!

Did you know, Brunel wore a tall hat to make himself feel taller and more important? We learnt so many interesting facts and insights into this period in history and can't wait to use what we have learnt back in the classroom.

See our Facebook post with lots of super photos here: https://www.facebook.com/stantonschool/posts/pfbid02AT5gaG6pnruEb4NwZ88DJHDaMYNUPyefeKwZMDCvEHPPR5pjASfmjuYxUx7Sx8mBl

We germinated peas and beans in a bag, comparing our peas and beans in the light and those we have put in a dark cupboard.

Ready steady grow!

Earth Day is a day to be grateful for our wonderful planet and to raise awareness of taking care of our world. We have been thinking about things that cause harm to our planet and things we can do to help.

To help raise awareness, we worked in groups to read and follow instructions to make earth day cupcakes and created these happy earths to display in our corridor. This has inspired our writing this week.

The first of these books was called ‘Dear Earth’ by Isabel Otter, which inspired us to collect lots of wonderful description to describe the different parts of our Earth, from swaying, wildflower meadows to the depths of the vast ocean. We then wrote our own letters to the Earth, telling our planet how spectacularly beautiful it is.

Here you can see a small sample of the stunning description and empathy that shines through the children's writing.

Thinking about colour and texture, we selected recycled materials (drink lids and assorted plastic bags) to create our jellyfish sculptures, linking to the book we were exploring in English- 'Somebody Swallowed Stanley' by Sarah Roberts.

Our recycled jellyfish will create a stunning display in one of our school corridors to remind everyone about the importance of recycling and keeping our oceans plastic free.

Thank you Prestige Grounds for donating the grass seed.

Yang the panda currently lives at Edinburgh Zoo and this week, we have been checking in daily with our new panda friend via the Panda Cam. Whilst observing Yang in his surroundings, we’ve been learning lots of exciting facts about pandas. The children have been eager to check in with Yang each day and have asked me to share the camera link so they can watch their new friend at the weekends too! 

We’ve deducted that Yang spends most of the day eating bamboo, likes to sleep after lunch time with his paw over his face and first thing in the morning, the zoo keepers make his home all fresh for the day ahead. 

🐼 Panda Cam: https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/panda-cam/

The terracotta pots are designed to encourage crawling insects such as woodlice, and are placed at ground level in our outdoor area. The wooden boxes are placed in the raised beds and are designed to encourage flying insects such as solitary bees.

We are looking forward to carefully inspecting our bug homes to find out if any habitants have moved in!

The start of Term 4 in Amazon Class has been absolutely animal filled!

We are thoroughly enjoying learning about all things animals, including; collective nouns for groups of animals, animal A-Z, exploring different habitats, animal sketching, learning about animals with unusual names and so much more to come!

It was wonderful to welcome so many of our parents into Amazon Class last week for our stay and read afternoon for this term.

Our book focus for the afternoon was the fantastically funny ‘The Bear’s Guide to Beekeeping’ by Alex Griffiths. We had lots of fun thinking about bears from other books, exploring non-fiction books about bears and drawing and describing bear characters.

Thank you so much to those parents who were able to join us.

An example of some of the learning completed with our grown-ups.

We can't wait for our next Stay and Read afternoon! I wonder what our next book will be?

Our entries have now been bundled up and sent off to the Primary Engineering Competition. We shall wait the results with great anticipation!

A huge well done my mini-engineers- I am very proud of you!

Mrs Anderson :) 

We were treated to a tour of the vast factory, learning lots about the many roles of engineers. We tested hot air balloon fabrics, including the disappearing hole trick! The children clambered into a balloon basket and watched a noisy burner test. We even had the opportunity to play inside a partially inflated balloon envelope- so many excited children (and adults!) exploring the magic of hot air balloon creation.

Finally, we learnt about the concept of flight by working together to build and fly our very own model hot air balloons. An incredible day and learning experience had by all.

Comments from the children included;

“Best day EVER!”

“That was epic!”

“I’m going to buy a hot air balloon and become an explorer!”

“We did it! We made it fly!”

A HUGE thank you to Cameron Balloons for being so fantastic, welcoming the children and entertaining their various questions throughout the day!

Watch our photo reel video here: https://youtu.be/qWH8rhWbZoc 

We have designed toothbrushes that make teeth brushing more fun, underwater cleaning machines to remove plastic from the ocean, planting and cleaning devices for people who are disabled, bird detecting binoculars, energy saving apps and so much in between! 

Now that we have completed our designs, we welcome you to explore our engineering gallery which shall be open in the school hall on Monday 20^th February between 3 and 3:30pm. If you cannot make this time with your child, our gallery shall also be displayed when you attend Parents’ Evening in the first week after half term. Our competition entries shall be sent off following this and we shall await the results around May time!

We worked together to design, build, test wind turbines to solve the problem of renewable energy in our current world.

There was a lot of problem-solving, testing different materials and improving our designs involved in the process, but we successfully built our final working product with great pride!