Class Blog for Tregeagle

Spring

We have completed our Roman enquiry, just putting the final touches to the writing. Some of the children are writing a letter home from the perspective of a Roman soldier, asking for seeds to be sent so they can grow food in Britannica, others are writing a speech as Boudicca, to inspire the Celts to take up arms and protect their land against the Roma invaders. I am looking forward to reading the finished pieces.

Our next enquiry is "What is it like to live in a city?". We will explore the concept of settlements, making links to our Stone Age enquiry and find out how cities are different from villages and towns. The children will study human and physical geography and carry out field work as geographers; mapping our local area and comparing/contrasting this with Plymouth. We will visit Plymouth to look at land use, roads and buildings including a visit to the Box to find ou more about Plymouth's city history.

We had a fantastic day with Shaun Hewitt and the children have produced some brilliant pieces of art, many of which they will enter into the Fowey festival. This week, we are also writing poetry about the beach, so the children can chose whether to enter their art or writing for the competition.

We continue swimming on Wednesday mornings and our second PE lesson is Thursday afternoon.

Hope to see many of you in the church for Mother's Day service on Wednesday at 2pm.

Final Flurry

It has been a super busy final week trying to complete several projects before the break.
Enquiry
We are almost at the end of our study of the Roman Empire, building on our subject knowledge of this period of European and British history alongside our disciplinary knowledge of what makes a historian a historian. We have learnt how to follow orders in Latin, how the Romans brought rabbits to Britain as these were 'fast Food' for a marching army and how Britain benefitted from Roman's incredible building techniques and knowledge.
Maths
The children continue to find new and better ways to record their understanding of maths using SeeSaw. It is great to see how they all benefit from having these alternative recording methods which allows them to record themselves explaining an concept or taking a photo of how they have used concrete resources or drawn models. They have a greater sense of independence and their confidence in articulating maths concepts grows.
PE
Swimming starts after half term. Please see emails from Mrs Hughes regarding kit list and timings. We will have another PE lesson each week in addition to swimming on Thursdays so please continue to send your child to school wearing their PE kit on these days.
Borrow Box
The children have all been given a digital library card so they can access Borrow Box from Cornwall Library. We spent time Thursday afternoon logging in and navigating the system. It was brilliant to see the children's enthusiasm and delight at realising how Borrow Box give them access to a huge selection of books to read at their leisure and for their pleasure. We will give the children time at school to read for pleasure and I have provided the class with a list of recommended books suitable for their age and stage of reading skills. If you would like more information about these recommended books, please let me know.

Week 10

Writing
We have completed our sentence stacking lessons learning how to apply specific grammar aspects to write sentences so next week we are ready to plan and start writing our non-chronological reports. As we have now spent 3 weeks learning about natural disasters and volcanoes in particular, the children are full to the brim with knowledge and keen to write. We have experimented with the movement of tectonic plates to understand how these cause volcanos and earthquakes – amazing what red icing sugar and a polystyrene cup can do to help this process. I am certain I will learn some interesting aspects about how volcanos are formed, how they erupt and where in the world they are situated.
PE
We continue learning new skills in our boxing sessions and the workout is tough, but despite the challenges the children absolutely love Thursday afternoons. This wekk we have also squeezed in some Dodgeball practice in preparation for next week's tournament at Callywith College. Where we get the opportunity to compete against children from other Bridge trust schools.
Christmas play
We have started initial preparations for our play and the children will shortly have scripts printed and ready to take home to practice. Please support them to practice their lines. I will be in touch next week regarding costumes, we have plenty at school and may only need a few additional pieces.

Have a good weekend,
Mrs W

Week 9

We have launched our new enquiry "What make Earth angry?" in which we will study the formation and eruptions of volcanoes and the force of earthquakes.
GEOGRAPHY:
We have studied how volcanoes are formed, learnt about the layers of the Earth and explored how tectonic plates move. We have also used locational knowledge skills to plot active volcanoes on a world map and discovered how these create the "Ring of Fire". This is proving to be a very popular enquiry with the children. They have good prior knowledge which they can bring to our discussions and they are full of curiosity about how the world works. It is going to be a brilliant run-up to Christmas with some fantastic learning.
ART
We have studied the artist Nick Rowland and will use this to create our own painting of an erupting volcano. We have started this week by sketching, evaluating and trying how to paint without paint using SeeSaw. I have added the results below.
WRITING
Year 5/6 went to Polperro for a poetry workshop with Sally Crabtree earlier in the week. They had a fantastic day with lots of inspirational activities fueling their writing. I am certain they will have some great poems to contribute to the Bridge School Poetry Project.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

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Week 8

A whirlwind of a week.

On Tuesday, Year 5/6 went to Fowey River Academy for netball and tag rugby and the chance to play as part of a team with children from other schools. These events are important preparation for our older KS2 children so they get used to the trip across the river and being part of a much larger school community.

On Wednesday, we had a super geographical field trip to Castle an Dinas. We have been studying the hillfort and it was great to experience its location, imposing views and structure firsthand. The children explored how the fort was constructed and studied the topography of the area for further field work activities back in the classroom.

On Thursday afternoon, we had our first session of Well-Being Boxing. It was brilliant to watch the children’s engagement and participation in this, for the majority, completely new activity. I think it is fair to say they were put through their paces and by the end of the session, they were significantly less chatty! From extensive research, we know how being active benefits mental health and stimulates brain activity and we hope these sessions will support the children to discover and recognize these benefits. By incorporating lots of movement breaks throughout the day, we manage to support the children to better tackle learning activities that require focus and concentration.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

Week 7

It has been a hectic last week trying to complete pieces of writing, iron age round houses and our units of maths alongside a trip to the Royal Cornwall Museum, but we have made it!

The class had a super day at the museum on Tuesday, where they met an archaeologist who introduced them to artefacts from prehistoric Britain, helped them to make their own replica Iron Age pottery and showed them round the Stone Age exhibition. The children have been full of interesting facts and super keen to share their new-found knowledge. Very teacher rewarding to hear them talk about primary sources, replicas and original artefacts! The children have finally completed their round houses and these are ready to go home so please make sure you send in a sturdy box, bag for them after half term. They have also got their pottery from the museum trip to bring home.

On our return to school on Monday 30th October, we have another busy week lined up. On Tuesday 31st October, Y5 and Y6 will travel to Fowey River Academy in the morning to take part in netball and tag rugby activities.

On Wednesday we are all going on a trip to the Cornish Hillfort Castle an Dinas and the Stone Age Hurlers at Minions, combining history with a geography field trip studying the topography of our Cornish landscape. I have sent home details of the trip on Monday 30th October via satchel post for you to return to the school office on Monday 30th October please.

Thursday 2nd November is our first day of a 6-week Well-being Boxing block so please make sure your child comes to school wearing their PE kit. This should be fun and hopefully provide the children with an alternative way of exercise befitting both body and mind.

Have a lovely half term.
I look forward to seeing you all back in school on Monday 30th October,
Mrs W

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Week 6

This week, we have focused on Design and Technology following the plan, do review cycle of projects. Our work has involved creating a stone age outfit with design decisions based on the children's knowledge of Stone Age to Iron Age. The children chose materials according to the level of skills and tools people had access to, so some of the class chose bison or wholly mammoth pelt for outfits from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic with others choosing linen from the Bronze and Iron Age eras. We used a combination of running and looping stiches with some spectacular results.

In Science, the class continues their tour of space investigating how people survive in space including life onboard the International Space Station. next week, Mrs Phillips is serving up some dehydrated space meals for the children to try - yum!

In English, we have now completed our character descriptions and we have practised our editing skills, proofreading for spelling and punctuation errors and making improvements by finding synonyms for dull words and enhancing sentence structures. We have discussed the job of editing with our Governor Suzanne Goddard, who edits the Parish Magazine, and understanding a little better how the work we do in school links with the outside world has, as always, motivated the children.

We have Parent Consultations next week, so if you have not yet secured your slot, please contact Mrs Hughes in the office to book it.

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Week 4

It has been another busy and packed week of learning.
SCIENCE
As part of our Stone Age enquiry, the children are also exploring space trying to determine of the changes taking place on earth are echoed in space. They looked at the planets in our solar system and studied their inter-relational movements using the playground, chalk and themselves.

DT
We have started exploring how clothes were made in the iron Age and the children have designing outfits which we will make next week, learning different stiches. We are also studying Iron Age round houses and have started making clay blocks to dry out so we can use these next week to build our own roundhouses.

READING
We continue to build the skills of Reciprocal reading. We have focused on summarising this week, picking out and articulating the most important information in a text. To support this, we use the idea of a hand. The palm is the main idea of the text and the fingers represent 5 supporting ideas.

Maths
We have completed the KIRF assessments and your child will be bringing home their set of Key Instant Recall facts to practice this half term. Taking ten minutes 2/3 times a week to support your child with this will help their progress. We know home life is busy so in addition to any work they complete at home, they also have time to practice these facts 3 times a week during registration time. To help the children see their progress, we have introduced a new range of 99 Club questions. Like the times table 99 Club, this club gives the children a set number of questions to answer in a given time period. The difference is the questions are a mix of maths questions to mirror and build on their KIRFs.

I will be sending out letters next week about an upcoming trip on Tuesday 17th October to Cornwall Museum.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

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Week 3

Another whirlwind of a week. We have continued delving into the lives of Stone - Iron age people in Britain. Interrogating primary and secondary sources has helped us to understand how we know about the past. Next week, we are making links between modern day diets and the diet of prehistoric Britons to find out whether science has helped us live a healthier life today.

In maths, we continue to study Place Value in all year groups. There is a real buzz about maths in our class, it seems this is rapidly becoming a favorite subject. It is rewarding to hear the conversations the children are having about how they know they are getting better at maths - wow!

In English, we are writing a character description based on the main character from the Stone Age Boy. We have studied the vocabulary and had some great conversations about why we choose certain words to describe features and personalities. One group discussed how describing someone's face as "milky" rather than "pale" told the reader that the person's skin was also smooth and silky.
Thank you to those of you who were able to attend the Meet the Teacher event on Tuesday. We discussed the use of iPads as learning and recording tools and the use of SeeSaw as our digital platform. Our new approach to Maths teaching and I shared the expectations for daily reading at home and would appreciate it if you can find 10-15 minutes to read with your child and talk about the text to support their continued progress. If have questions about your child's daily life at school, please contact me

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Wills

Welcome back!

We have had a super positive return to school with lots of smiles, happy children and learning.
Our first Enquiry is "Who Needs Change?". We are studying prehistoric Britain so finding out what life was like in the Stone age through to the Iron age.

We have had a go at replicating bronze casting to help us think about how people might have experimented with different materials to find the ones best suited to making tools. We used jelly and chocolate and filled this in our potato mold and discovered that jelly is fairly useless for tools but tastes great!.