What an exciting week we are having. We have dressed as crazy scientists and had a good laugh at everyone’s creations. Sami dressed as Dr David Banner, with an Incredible Hulk costume beneath his doctors outfit! During our science lessons we have been helping the Three Little Pigs with their problems: what is the best material to build a house with – it needs to be strong enough to stop the Big Bad Wolf from blowing it down (or Mrs Day’s hairdryer)? What is the best material for a roof – it needs to be waterproof? We will also need to test some curtains for the pigs – which material stops the light from getting through to their bedroom and waking them up too early?

Year 1 wre lucky enough to take part in a BeeBot Workshop led by Jo Gill from STEM Cumbria. We spent the whole morning programming our Bee Bots to move forwards and backwards counting the steps we had to take along a route; we made the robots turn and go through tunnels made by wooden bricks; we also de-bugged our programmes when they didn’t work. Using the Bee Bots and making them follow a route is an early form of computer programming.

Day One of Science week…

Our baby rabbits are really growing fast. We are enjoying cuddling them in story time.

Can you splat the plural rules?

Pond Life

Can you match the contractions?

Contractions

Are they real or fake?

Buried Treasure

Help to open the treasure chest by using the sounds to make the words.

Deep Sea Phonics

Sing along to The Long and Short Vowel Song

Long and Short Vowels

How many new words can you make using our new suffixes?

Big Brown Bear

Year 5 have had a fantastic day at Walby Farm Park. There was a tour and talk about the farm animals and the reasons behind keeping them. We saw some impressive Clydesdale horses, called Mollie and Alice, that we had seen in pictures when we were researching the history of farming. We had a milking competition, watched a ferret show, groomed a pony, met some small furry and feathered animals, collected eggs, fed a lamb and tickled some goats!

The other part of the day was spent making bread. We talked about how much wheat is grown and the amount of space it takes to grow enough for two loaves of bread. The children weighed out and made the dough before choosing their own design of mini loaf to bring home.

There was even time to play on the biggest indoor slides in Cumbria!

We learned a lot, made something and played with our friends; a great day out! Thank you to Mrs Holgate and Mr Black for coming, we hope you enjoyed the day too.

Year 4 had a fantastic afternoon thinking about the differences between our modern day British food and the food that the Ancient Greeks ate! We asked questions such as “Why didn’t the Greeks eat certain meats and so much fish?”. We then had time to try lots of Greek food and thought about their taste, texture, aroma and appearance! We dressed up in fabulous costumes and then took part in some mini Olympic games…. Middleton house were the champions!

Year 1 helped Mrs Day to deliver an assembly on bullying in school. There are sometimes incidents in school where children are mean or selfish towards each other. These can be easily resolved with a chat. Bullying is a  much more serious issue and occurs when these small quarrels become relentless and happen everday. We performed some little scenes for each day of the week. We talked about how sad and scared bullying would make us feel.

Bullying doesn’t happen at St Mary’s but if any child felt they were being bullied they should talk to a member of the Safeguarding Team or their class teacher.

Remember we are BUDDIES and not BULLIES.

This year for Sports Relief we cycled, ran and walked. Altogether we raised £1343 and altogether covered 900.4km either running or on bike.  We are very proud of your efforts both physically and raising such a huge amount of money for Sports Relief.  Well Done!

Wow – the children in this group have been exploring computers and looking at the parts inside a computer today.  The insides were a little dusty but the components were fascinating to explore.