English

Darwin’s Dragons – Lindsay Galvin (Spring 2023)

In Grebes we are reading Darwin’s Dragons, a work of historical fiction with fantasy elements by Lindsay Galvin. Here is the blurb:

Syms Covington has landed the job of a lifetime – cabin boy and fiddler on Charles Darwin’s Beagle – but when he is separated from the crew during a storm, his life takes a truly extraordinary turn.

Shipwrecked on a Galapagos island, he makes a discovery that could change the world – and make his fortune. But should he share his find, or will it lead to the extinction of a legendary species?

There’s one person who could help, but he’s busy writing a book …

Kingfishers English

Kingfishers are enjoying this book as part of the school topic of ‘Dragons’.

Each week the chapters they read are used as a starting point to build on reading skills including; inference and retrieval. They are also developing their vocabulary and writing skills using what they read from the book as a focus.

Kingfishers Reduce Plastic Usage

Every Wednesday Kingfishers watch the news. One week they were shocked to see the mountains of plastic ready to be recycled. They were even more shocked to hear that this recycling was often transported to other countries.

As a result, they have researched what we can do to REDUCE the amount of plastic we use.

They shared a story book with the whole school along with some videos showing the impact plastic has on Sealife. They spent time creating some persuasive writing encouraging everyone to reduce their plastic usage and ways in which they could do this.

Kingfishers presented their work in a school assembly.

Somebody Swallowed StanleyDownload
AssemblyDownload

Bonfire Poetry

Last week we undertook some cross-curricular learning incorporating our history topic of the gunpowder plot into our literacy topic. On the Friday, we were lucky enough attend a forest school session where we had a bonfire, sang campfire songs and tried marshmallows. We then used our experiences of the bonfire to inspire our writing of poetry. We concentrated on our senses and considered the sights, smells, tastes, feels and sounds of the bonfire when writing our poems. The year 2 children tried their hands at acrostic poetry whist the Year 1 children wrote some wonderful descriptive poetry. The Year 2 children also produced some wonderful creative writing after looking at photos and videos of fireworks.

Kingfishers recount of our harvest festival

Grebes Class Assembly 22.9.22

Grebes worked with Mrs Feeley to prepare a play based on the book The Rabbit Listened. We discussed the different approaches the animals took when they saw Taylor was sad – for example, the bear shouted and roared and the hyena tried to laugh it off. The rabbit, however, simply stayed close and listened until Taylor was ready to shout, cry, remember, laugh, etc. This is a highly recommended book for developing empathy. Which animal are you most like when you see someone is upset?

The Rabbit ListenedDownload

Literacy in Bitterns

In Bitterns we have been learning all about traditional tales and fairy tales in literacy. The first story we looked at was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have enjoyed taking part in lots of drama activities and writing descriptions about the characters from the story. One day when we came into school we discovered our classroom was a crime scene and the evidence left was three bowls of porridge and a picture of a broken chair. We had lots of fun writing police reports about what we had discovered. 

Bitterns Bonfire Poetry

In Bitterns we have been writing bonfire poetry focusing on our senses. We were lucky enough to experience a bonfire within a forest school session alongside Herons class. This experience has helped us to be able to describe the sights, smells and sounds of a crackling bonfire when writing. We loved watching the fire with  one child commenting that the flames were ‘dancing’. 

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