Class Blog for Tregeagle

Merry Christmas

We are at the end of a long Autumn term and have spent some wel deserved time feeling festive with Christmas Challenge Cup and our final Christmas community engagements

On Tuesday, we found the time for a Geography field trip to compare land use in local woodland wit that of the Amazon rainforest. The children made use of their iPads to collect evidence and back in the classroom, we analysed their findings to draw conclusions for their comparisons.

We hope you have a lovely Christmas break.
Mr Twaite and Mrs W

ART

In this week’s step in our textile unit, the children mixed acrylic paint to match their mood boards and added this to their glue covered patterned material. They used their learning of the colour wheel to mix primary colours to make secondary colours and the results were great. Aside from a few blobs of paint on the carpet, the unit of work is on course to be completed next week, when we wash out the glue to reveal the patterns created.

Christmas Play

I have sent home slips with request for costumes and props for our Christmas play. Please do not buy anything new, we are asking for the children to bring in any suitable items they already have at home. If you are struggling to find any, please let us know by Wednesday 5th and we will find/make something in school.

Singing
Mrs Butlin was very impressed with the children again this week. Their enthusiasm and desire to learn our Christmas play songs is evident for all to hear and makes it a real joy to work with them. We are encouraging the children to take their song sheets home so they can continue to practice the songs at home too.

Dancing
Mrs Phillips has been teaching the class a dance as part of the play. As always, any kind of expressive art is met with gusto and positivity from everyone. That the dance requires “attitude” is only a bonus as you can see from the photos.

Enjoy the weekend,
Mr Twaite and Mrs W

Autumn 2

Writing and Science
We are writing a biography in English about Sir David Attenborough and the children are able to draw on their learning from science to supplement their research. We are currently exploring the features of writing for required for this genre and developing a bank of useful and challenging vocabulary to apply in their independent writing. For publishing their biographies, the class have asked if they can send their completed work to David Attenborough so they have set the bar high!

ART
This week, we have been using our previous weeks’ learning to create a pattern inspired by William Morris which we will transfer to textile to try our hand at batik. Rather than using melted wax, we are substituting this with PVA glue and using acrylic paint. So far, we have some fantastic rainforest inspired patterns which will be coloured using the themes from the children’s mood boards created earlier this half term.

Personal Development
On Friday morning, we had a visit from South West Water to talk about sustainability and pollution. The children learnt ways to preserve water, found out about the effects of plastic pollution on the environment and waterways in particular and learnt how sewage is treated to help limit pollution. The children were delighted to be able to use their knowledge of the water cycle and relished informing the trainer that Earth’s water is a finite resource.

Enjoy the weekend,
Mr Twaite and Mrs W

Learning

Our first week back has been full of energy and the children's books are brimming with great examples of their learning.

I have included some examples of how our new editing stations are working, the children really enjoy the focus it gives for them to physically move to a new area in the classroom which has a different focus for them to consider .

Our new approach to guided reading is working well, with the class approaching their reading with their detective hats on to find clues and hidden meanings in the texts.

Last week of Autumn 1

We have come to the end of our enquiry “Changes to Children’s Lives through times”. This week, we captured the knowledge gained from different subjects so the children can see how their learning as historians, scientists and artists have progressed. I have included some photos of the final pieces of art the children have produced at the end of our drawing unit, they have also been uploaded to their SeeSaw journals so you can admire them from home.

On Tuesday, we joined the Primary Futures team for another round of Guess My Job. The children asked some brilliant questions to try and gauge which jobs the visitor have within the Aviation Industry. This time, despite some great interrogating questions, we did not manage to guess the Air Traffic Controller and Pilot trainer, however this did not dampen any spirits. The children remembered our trip to Bodmin Airfield last year and the visit to the control tower so had some experiences to link the jobs to. As always, these meetings inspire and aspire, and we have had some god conversations around how education pathways can lead to jobs and how gender no longer act as a barrier for dream jobs.

After half term, we are moving the time table around so PE will be Mondays and Thursdays. We hope to have outdoor PE on Mondays so please wear joggers and jumpers, for Thursday’s sessions we will be in the village hall so shorts under joggers might be a good option.

I hope you have a lovely break next week. Look forward to seeing everyone back Monday 4ht November.
Mr Twaite and Mrs W

Image Gallery

Documents

Autumn 1

PSHE
We are coming to the end of our first unit - Being Me - and for the past 2 weeks, we have been exploring Democracy and British Values. This week, we looked in particular at how our daily life at school is influenced by democracy and how each pupil in the class has a role to fulfil. We know that the children have lots of empathy and lots of in-depth knowledge of each but it was a real surprise to see how quickly they organised each other to fit the roles of: nurturer, organiser, problem solver, encourager and ideas people and how little disagreement this caused - what a great bunch of children they are!

LIBRARY VAN
The library van turned up Friday morning and this time it was the job of Year 6 to find the 50 books from the library to exchange. Following the selection, they had a discussion around who should visit the van as only 3 were allowed and they used their skills from PSHE to find the fair selection. So we now have a new stock of exciting library books to supplement our book band books. It was great to see the different selections chosen and how their recent and upcoming learning was reflected in this. They chose Benjamin Zephaniah stories inspired by their poetry work during Black History Month, they chose historically inspired books from the Victorian era and a selection of geographical books to support our upcoming enquiry about Rainforests. They also chose some dyslexia friendly books printed with yellow pages as they know some of their peers use coloured overlays to support reading.

PRIMARY FUTURES
We are joining the Primary Futures team on Tuesday for a STEM inspired session all about aviation. It will follow the familiar pattern of the children asking Yes/No questions following the clue provided to find out which jobs the volunteers have. We are looking forward to another brilliant morning and finding out more about jobs in aviation.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

Workshop

Monday we had a visit from BIFFA to take part in their Planet Waste workshop. During the session we learnt how to develop good waste management behaviours including the 3Rs. It was a very informative hour finding out about every day materials and how these are recycled and turned into new products. As always, the children listened attentively and asked lots of brilliant questions to find out further information.

Harvest Festival
Mrs Phillips wrote a Harvest rap inspired by the enormous turnip to the theme tune from Fresh Prince of Belair. The children had lots of fun performing this so we have agreed that it should be our new Harvest Festival contribution which we will enhance by actions and costumes for next year – Thank You Mrs Phillips!

Coast Guard Visit
Friday afternoon Canute class had a visit from the Coast Guard during our PE lesson. Part of the visit included looking around the call out vehicle parked on the playground. Needless to say, this became something of a distraction to Tregeagle class and before long, they were found sneaking along the playground with knees bend to appear Canute-sized so they too could get the opportunity to in. Their ingenuity was rewarded with a space among the KS1 children and inclusion in the talk!

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

Autumn 1

Maths
Routines are firmly now embedded and the children are confidently navigating and manipulating their prior knowledge and applying this to support new learning. We have completed the place value unit and are exploring addition and subtraction for Year 3, 4 and 5 while the Year 6 children are recapping addition, subtraction multiplication and division by exploring the conceptual ideas in depth to make sure their procedural knowledge is sound

Writing
We have come to the end of sentence stacking lessons and the children are now planning and writing their independent piece of writing. Our first piece this year is a narrative based on empathy and friendship. Once these are complete, we will publish their final works and share them with Canute class in our reading assembly.

History
We continue to explore how children’s lives have changed through the years and this week we have investigated the work of Lord Shaftesbury in introducing working rights bills to protect child workers in Victorian times. There is lots of new vocabulary to learn for this unit of work, so we are finding different ways to recap and retrieve learning to make sure concepts are embedded and lodged in the long-term memory.

PE
In rounders, we upped the skill level as the children had the chance to use the rounders bat for striking. It was great to watch how their technique improved across the session with much further strikes giving the fielders a good workout.

ART
This week, we have investigated how rubbings can create textures to make frottages. Inspired by Max Ernst, we used a variety of materials to create the textured rubbings which the children then used to create their frottage with great results.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

We had a brilliant trip to Wheal Martyn on Tuesday to find out more about working lives during the Victorian times. The children have a SeeSaw lesson uploaded with photos and a summary of our learning from the day so head over to your child’s account to find out more.
In Science, Mrs Phillips continues the journey of Light, with the older children studying reflective materials and properties alongside refraction. The younger children are exploring how light travels in straight lines and cast shadows. The sunshine has been useful for some of the experiments, however for the most we have been using torches for a more reliable light source.
Next week, Thursday 3rd October, the Year 6 children are visiting Fowey River Academy for their transition day. The children need to be in school by 8:40 with a coat as they are crossing on the ferry.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

PE
The sunshine and weaker winds have been a welcome change this week making our lessons less challenging. In our 2 PE lessons, we are focusing on striking and fielding – rounders – and net/wall games – basketball. For rounders, we have started the journey with refreshers for striking the ball, pairing up to bowl and strike using their iPads to film each other to analyse their techniques and reflect on improvements and progress. On Friday, we had our first full game on the school field and it was great to see how the teams supported each other with tips and techniques and game plans modelling competitive spirit and sportsmanship.

HISTORY
We continue to investigate and interrogate historical sources to find out more about children’s lives. With a specific focus on continuity and change, the children are now looking at working lives of children in the Tudor era. They are making good use of reading skills to make inferences and deductions in their interrogating of primary and secondary sources leading to some fantastic observations and questions. On Friday we discussed what childhood might be like if Tudor era working conditions still existed in our modern world.

WHEAL MARTYN
Tuesday we are at Wheal Martyn to supplement our classroom learning. We leave school at 9am and will return for the end of the day. Children need a packed lunch (unless you have requested a school packed lunch, must wear school uniform and suitable shoes for walking, bring a coat, snack and enough water for the day.

Have a lovely weekend, Mrs W