Archive for Robins
Reading with Robins!
A long, long time ago…
Wow, wow, wow! What a great start to our new topic. Robins and Chaffinches launched their new topic by taking part in a fantastic day of activities, which were all linked to our learning about Castles and life in a castle.
The children made knight’s helmets for their role play areas, as well as torches to light up the classroom. They also decorated some goblets and enjoyed baking crown biscuits which were delicious. They even practised their archery skills outside and took part in drama activities, using their imagination to make up stories about princes, princesses, dragons and knights.
The children were fantastic, they gave 100% to each and every task and showed lots of enthusiasm for the topic. We are looking forward to learning lots more about life a long, long time ago.
Dipping Our Toes into Anston’s Ancient Past
Robins and Chaffinches classes ventured out to explore Old Anston and to discover all about life in our village over 300 years ago! We were joined by Dr Bob Gellatly, our resident expert on all aspects of Anston’s history, who told us all about the village’s interesting past. We explored Greenlands Park and found out that it was originally a quarry whose limestone was used to rebuild the Houses of Parliament after a fire. We visited Anston Hall and discovered that the row of shops, known locally as ‘The Ponds’, was originally a large farmhouse, which belonged to Squire Wright, who lived in the Hall.
We were interested to see all the different houses on The Green and then we dropped down to explore ‘The Wells’, which provided fresh water for the village. Finally, we walked to Ryton Road to see how much it had changed in 300 years. We had a very memorable, fascinating day and the children were, once more, excellent ambassadors for our school.
Robins and Chaffinches visit Creswell Crags
What a fun-packed day at Creswell Crags! Robins and Chaffinches took part in several activities. We learnt about instruments from the Stone Age, this was a very hands on workshop and we made quite a din playing instruments made from shells, bones and antlers. We also made shelters and took part in target practice, throwing spears at a dummy reindeer. The highlight though for most of us was the visit to the caves. We imagined what life would have been like all those years ago and turned the lights off on our helmets to experience the darkness of a cave. The weather was beautiful, so we benefited from having a picnic outside in the sunshine. As always, the children were exceptionally well behaved and great ambassadors for our school.
Robins get to grips with imperative verbs and Woolly Mammoths!
Robins have had a fantastic week reading the book, ‘How To Wash A Woolly Mammoth’. We have written instructions on how to make a Woolly Mammoth from a milk bottle and we have also been making short films, giving instructions on how to wash a cuddly toy.
In order to be successful, we had to use imperative verbs (be bossy!) and use time conjunctions too. See if you can hear any!
We also finished our fabulous week by visiting the woods, where Mr Wirth made a fire for us and we toasted lumps of ‘Woolly Mammoth’ on a stick.
We’re going on a Woolly Mammoth hunt!
As part of our investigation into Stone Age life, Robins and Chaffinches classes went on an exploration of Anston Stones Wood, what an exciting time we had!
The children took part in many activities, including exploring Dead Man’s cave, making woodland music, creating natural sculptures, a scavenger hunt, games at the park and playing pooh sticks too.
We were joined for the day by a local councillor, Mr Ireland and Claire Moseley, a park ranger.
We learnt a lot about the early history of Anston, the excavations that have taken place and the artefacts that have been discovered there. We have used this information back in school.
We were extremely lucky with the weather and had a super day in the sunshine and a picnic on the park. There were many highlights to the day, but here are a few photos to remember the day.
Eggs-ceptional!
Here are some of the other stunning entries to our ‘Decorate an Egg’ competition. As you can see, we have some highly creative children in our school … and who doesn’t love a good egg pun?
As you can tell, our judges had an eggs-tremely difficult job, but here are some of our winners, along with their prizes:
Super Sledging! Robins and Chaffinches visit Snozone
What a fantastic way to bring our amazing topic towards an end, with a super day out at Snozone in Castleford. You can see from the photos and the videos what fun we had. This week in our science lessons, we will be investigating different materials, with a view to finding the most appropriate for making our own sledge.
As always the behaviour of the children was second to none. The children in these two classes have worked extremely hard this term and have learnt so much about the Arctic and the Antarctic, we are sure there are some future scientists and explorers in our midst!
Robins join Shackleton’s crew!
Robins are currently learning about the coldest parts of our planet, the Arctic and the Antarctic. Therefore, last week’s weather was perfect for our topic. A few days ago, we had a visit from ‘a famous person from history’, Sir Ernest Shackleton! He came to share his story about his attempt to cross the continent of Antarctica in his ship ‘The Endurance’. Sir Ernest explained very well how the ship became trapped in the ice and how with excellent leadership and teamwork the whole crew managed to survive living on the ice for nearly two years! He set several challenges and tasks for us whilst he was here, all of which were competently completed by the children.
The heavy snowfall after Shackleton’s visit was perfect for Robins, as it enabled us to re-enact more realistically the events of his famous expedition. We built ‘The Endurance’, pulled the sleds as Sir Ernest and his crew had done, made ‘Dogloos’ for the 69 dogs that were taken on the expedition and created Dogtown as Sir Ernest had ordered. We also used a very heavy rope and imagined that we were hauling one of the lifeboats across the ice, just as the 23 man crew had done. This didn’t quite go according to plan as we tipped Mrs Forbes out of the lifeboat!
The ideas and imagination that came from the children were amazing! This historic event has certainly been brought to life in Robins.
The Best Pantomime Ever!
The children in Wrens, Robins and Chaffinches celebrated the end of their topic this term with a production and performance of “Jack and the Beanstalk”. They had to design and paint the props, which was a challenge because they were so huge. The characters and narrators had lots of lines to learn but they managed really well and performed very confidently. The Jack, Cloud and Harp dancers were very entertaining and the singing was excellent. The audience loved every minute and Mr Wirth complimented the cast, saying this had been the best Infant Christmas Production ever!
