The Chronicle

This week, Junior 6 have been studying the Evolution of Humans and the ideas of various evolutionary theorists that suggest the different development points over millions of years. The children have found additional facts at home and then have created some fantastic posters explaining the changes to the brain, hips, feet, and, most importantly, thumbs that have led to our current stage of evolution. The children have also considered that our evolution won’t stop here… and they have gone on to create an image of what they believe we will look like in another million years. Various ideas include extended thumbs with which to play computer games, and extended downward sloping necks due to extended phone/screen use! There have been some very interesting ideas!

J5 enjoyed their P.E lessons in the glorious sun this week. They have all been excited to visit the Book Fair, as we have many avid readers, and have chosen a range of books and stationery. In Science, they have continued to learn about the Human Life Cycle and have designed an array of posters showing how to keep healthy in old age. Captain speeches have now been recorded and will be shown to the school next week!

Summer has definitely arrived in Junior 4 this week! In Science we have been using the great outdoors to learn about the amazing varieties of different plants we have in and around Crackley Hall. Our preconceptions about plants and what their features are have been challenged; we have learnt that moss takes in its water through leaves rather than roots, ferns reproduce using the spores on the underside of their leaves and conifers’ cones help protect the seeds needed for reproduction. The beauty and wonder of the natural world was appreciated even more when we used our careful observational skills to draw plants around the school. It’s amazing how much we learnt just by taking our time to look at the world really carefully.

This week Junior 3 have been learning all about turns and angles in their new topic on Shape. We have given and followed instructions on making turns and even worked out that we make 7 anticlockwise turns on our way from the classroom to the playground. We also got out our right-angle finders and had great fun finding all of the right angles in the classroom and on the playground. We know that 90 degrees is a right angle and we used this to calculate how many degrees for a half-turn, a three-quarter turn and a full-turn. Now we know why those stunts are called 360’s! We have also been developing our skills in DT using a running stitch to join the parts of our pencil cases. There were a few run-away needles and knots but we got there in the end. 

Healthy Eating has played a big part of our Science lessons this week as the children have been learning all about Food Groups and ways to keep our bodies and minds as healthy as we can. We have found out WHY it is so important for our planet to eat less meat, although the reasons weren’t obvious at first, until the memory of our lock down topic of Deforestation surfaced. Food for thought.

We found out all about different food likes and dislikes, allergies and how a little of the ‘naughty’ foods can be of benefit to our well-being, as well as how rice is a staple carbohydrate food for huge areas of the planet. We also discovered that pasta (one of the favourites) is actually made from wheat, oil and eggs.

Our own veggie garden is looking packed with goodness and watering is an ongoing activity with all the amazing weather……get ready for summer!

Junior 1 have been flying high in their History lessons, as they have begun to learn about the history of flight. This week, it was the turn of the Montgolfier brothers from France who launched the first flight of a hot air balloon in 1783, paving the way for further human exploration of the sky. At the start of the lesson, the children watched black and white clips on the interactive whiteboard to see early attempts to fly. There was much laughter in the classrooms as they watched the failed attempts of people trying to jump into the air with wings attached to their arms! This led to some interesting discussion about how a hot air balloon is powered and what makes it lift up into the sky. Everyone then made their own hot air balloon to take home. In Science, we have been looking at the different parts of a plant and we then labelled them correctly. The children have all been given a broad bean in a bag (with a wet paper towel), to discover how it develops. We will be looking very closely to see whether the root or the shoot appears first! Finally, we have all been thinking about our daddy, ready for Sunday and everyone has made a card for the special person in their life. They have also made a tasty treat for them to enjoy on their special day. We would like to wish every daddy a very happy Father’s Day this weekend.

What another busy week we have had in Reception! Continuing to investigate our topic of summer, we learned about the importance of using sun cream not only on hot sunny days, but cloudy ones too.  We really enjoyed designing our own ‘Sun Safety’ posters promoting wearing a t-shirt, sun cream and a hat to protect our skin! Sharing things fairly and equally has generated lots of great mathematical discussions in Maths lessons; and in RE we have continued to reflect on the importance of prayers and praying. Our week ended with us making some Father’s Day cards for our fantastic daddies; but sshhh, they’re a surprise for Sunday!