We are building a huge wreath to display the Armed forces shop window in the town. All of the children are making poppies to decorate the wreath. We can’t wait to see the finished piece and we love supporting the soldiers on Remembrance Day.

Class 5 discussed what would happen if we dropped our eggs from a height. We talked about gravity and how it would make the eggs fall quickly and crack. The children used paper tubes to enclose their eggs. Some children connected a parachute to their structure and others wrapped their eggs in soft materials. We found that once the eggs were enclosed and dropped from a height they did not crack.

Year 2 children have been learning about number families reinforcing concepts such as addition and subtraction. Work has been differentiated to support the whole class.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpHc2LF0Bew&w=560&h=315]

Year 2 have been making tetrahedrons using dowls and elastic bands. This activity involved so much learning. For instance the children discussed the properties of 3D shapes, they had to utilise their dexterity and resilience to join the dowls with elastic bands and they had to communicate and cooperate with their partner to finish the task. They did a fantastic job and moved on to joining the tetrahedrons together. We then discussed the value of this shape in an engineering sense and looked at examples of structures that utilised tetrahedrons.

All the children took part on the RSPB’s schools big bird watch. The children really enjoyed spotting and then identifying the various species of bird. It was certainly a beautiful day to be outside. The children were excellent at spotting the birds. We will send our results to the RSPB to help them with their monitoring of bird populations. Well done everyone!

Our topic in history is Learning about Bishop Auckland in the past and how things have changed. The children have been looking at how Newton Viaduct and how the use of this structure has changed over the years, trains used to cross it and now cars. The children have looked carefully at the design and made their own versions in stem work using lego, card, blocks and polydron. The children’s challenge is then to make sure their viaduct will withstand a small amount of weight. Here we go!

This week in  Class 5 we have been admiring the brand new reading books. We have had lots of time to read the books. We have also been discussing our favourite reading book and the reasons why we like that particular book. Here you can see the children holding their favourite reading books.