Today in Science, Year 3/4A have been discussing how water can contribute to the erosion of rocks, acting out the affect of water turning to ice within cracks in the rock surface when temperatures drop. The constant thawing and freezing, will eventually cause rocks to break apart. Reece was the water!

Police Officer Rebecca Steed!

Our first visit was from a very kind and friendly Police Officer named Bex! When Miss Rowe entered the classroom early one morning, she walked in to find a crime scene! Someone had covered the table in paint and knocked all the chairs over, we had no clue who did it! Reception then started to discuss who we could call if we needed help straight away; so we called the number 999 and Bex answered and came straight to help us! 


When she had arrive she picked 2 trainee officers to help try and solve this messy case. Bex talked through what an officer would do in this situation and how it would be handled. Upon inspecting the crime scene one of our trainee officers spotted something, STRANDS OF HAIR!! They started comparing the hair to those sat on the carpet to see if the culprit we were looking for was already in the room, but no success.


Clara said 'it must have happened at night then, as it isn't anyone on the carpet'- I think you are on to something there Clara! What else in our room has hair? It's not a human, it's not an animal... IT MUST BE A CUDDLY TOY. Once narrowed down, they searched the room for a cuddly toy with long, blonde hair, with a suspicious look on their face! It didn't take long to find Dolly hidden behind the bears and other cuddly toys, one other incriminating thing found on Dolly was paint, the same colour that was found at our crime scene! She was caught RED HANDED!


Bex talked about how it is not kind to ruin other peoples things and that it can get you in trouble. We learnt lots of interesting facts about Police officers and how they work hard to keep us all as safe a possible! They are safe strangers and people you can approach when lost, scared, happy or need help!


Reception worked as such a great team to figure out the case and were so enthusiastic, curious and determined when doing so. The most important thing we have learnt from this visit is that when you see a Police Officer out and about just smile and wave and they'll do it back! :) 

A fun and exciting week in Pre school. 

This week we were very lucky to have the company ' Tiny Travellers' come in and teach us all about Africa! The children got to explore different countries within Africa. They got to try on clothing, look at jewellery, play different musical instruments and also smell different pots from that area. 

We have also had a lovely time again with coach James from Kixx, we really enjoy our time with him as we learn lots of new skills and this helps us with our physical development. 

This week we have been learning about Diwali, the children have made Diya lamps out of clay and have painted them! We spoke about how Diwali is the  festival of light and how they decorate using Rangoli patterns. The children really enjoyed this! 

On Thursday we had signing again with Mr Warwick all of the children LOVE this! Please don't worry if your child is not with us on a Thursday we do record the songs and learn them throughout the week, so everyone gets to learn the words of the songs we all hum. 

We were lucky enough not to get wet during forest school this week. The child had a lot of fun exploring and finding bugs. 

This week we have been focusing on recognising numbers - 0-5- please encourage your child to do this at home - while out on walks if you see a number encourage them to tell you. Even if it's 25 that's a 2 and a 5!  

Don't forget NEXT WEEK please bring in your Christmas boxes, as we are starting our activities.

Have a lovely / safe weekend and we will see you at your next session. 

Miss Whitty and Miss Ronald :) 

Thank you so much to one of our Governors Kate and the PTA for helping the school to bring Tiny Travels to St Cleer on Monday! Tiny Travels are a company that actively promote and expose children to different cultures and experiences so that they have a greater understanding, tolerance and empathy for world wide experiences. All of our Early Years children explored the resources including instruments, objects of interest and foods! They really are wonderful young people to work with. They certainly displayed our school value of curiosity across the session.
You can find our more about Tiny Travels and what they do here: https://www.tinytravels.co.uk/ 

Women in World War 2

We have really enjoyed learning about World War 2 in our Learning Adventure.  This week we were focusing on the role which women played on the Home Front.

We learned that before World War 2, many women were not able to (or chose not to) work.  However, when the men were called up to join the war effort the country relied on women to fill the roles which were left.

We found out that women were employed as code-breakers, in munition factories, in the land army, in the women's auxillary air-force (WAAF), the women's royal navy (WREN), the air-raid precaution corps (ARP) and the women's voluntary service (WVS).

We created recruitment posters to try to persuade women to take on the different roles.  We looked at different recruitment posters from the 1940's to give us ideas and then we tried to recreate that style in our own work.  I think we did a great job! 

Tower of Babel and mustard seeds

Lorem  We are really fortunate as a class to be able to invite Deborah in to teach us RE.  Her depth of knowledge is amazing and she finds ways to relate the key points to the children in meaningful and creative ways.

This half term, she has been focusing on the key question - What kind of king is Jesus?

We have tried to recruit a king with the values that we would like, and learned a lot from different bible passages.  We have also learned all about King Herod, and were interested to learn about what the bible says about the Tower of Babel.  This week, we learned about the parable of the mustard seed.  We examined different types of seeds - and then interpreted what the parable demonstrates to us about Jesus.  We're looking forward to learning what Deborah is going to bring with her next week.

In the last couple of weeks Year 3/4A have been very busy and creative.
Year 4 have started their new Math topic on Area and Year 3, Multiplication and Division. We've been busy practising our KIRFs too, looking at the relationship between the x3 and x6 multiplication tables.

In Science, we've started to deepen our knowledge of 'rocks' and have looked closely at sedimentary rocks and fossils, creating our own from air-dried clay. Next lesson, we will carry out some tests on a selection of rocks to investigate their durability, permeability and density.

We've also started to write our own play-scripts consolidating our understanding of the WAGOLL; I'm sure some will be destined for Hollywood casting!

Year 3/4A enjoyed taking part in the Diana Award workshop today, starting our Anti-Bullying week here at St Cleer Primary. We certainly enjoyed 'making a noise'.
We also put our creative chameleon hats on and came up with a rap for the workshop competition- fingers and toes crossed!
Our rap

The Diana Award (diana-award.org.uk)

"Anti-Bullying Week 2023 takes place from 13th-17th November. This year’s theme is ‘Make a Noise about Bullying’, encouraging people to do something positive to counter the harm and hurt that bullying causes."

Anti-Bullying Week 2023 theme launch as 'Make A Noise About Bullying' (anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk)

Remembrance week  

We have had another fun week here at Pre school. Sadly the weather has been awful so every time we got outside the iPad stayed inside!

This week for our topic 'Celebrations' we have been learning about remembrance Sunday.  We made poppies. 

"Red ones for the humans and purple ones for all the animals" - C 
We watched the lovely BBC clip of the bunny ( https://www.google.com/search?q=bbc+remembrance+day+for+kids&oq=bbc+remembrance+day+for+kids&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDM4MjdqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:dcecce82,vid:jeR5JWaIcpo,st:) The children really enjoyed this, we spoke about how the bunny would be feeling and how the music and colours changed . The children used a wide range of vocabulary. 


We have been really focusing on pencil grip in preparation for us learning to write our names in the coming weeks. The children really enjoy pen disco, this is where the children listen to different genres of music and make marks to how that piece of music made them feel. We look at how they move and hold the pencil. They all seem to enjoy this, it also acts as a nice 10 minuet quiet time where they can all relax and draw. 



Next THURSDAY is forest school please bring wellies and waterproofs! 

Have a lovely weekend everyone :) 

Factor bugs

This week we started our new maths unit on multiplication and division.  We learned about multiples and found shared multiples.  Then we began our learning on factors.  We found out that factors are numbers which divide equally into another number.  We discussed how knowing our times-tables facts would be a real help when we were learning about factors.

To support our understanding we learned how to draw 'factor bugs' for different numbers.  We played a game of snakes and ladders - drawing a factor bug for each square that we landed on.  Once we had drawn a few factor bugs - we discussed how we could use factor bugs to recognise when a number was a square number - and also when a number was a prime number.
 

Living memories move to past memories and eventually move into History. Whoever you may take time to remember this weekend we hope that you remember with kindness and learn lessons from the past that can help us form a kinder today and a brighter future. Today in assembly I took the time to remember Douglas Otter (my children's great grandfather) - we remembered his words of advice to 'meet everyone with a smile'. We hope that others also meet you with a smile in your learning and relationships.

We also took the time to reflect on our school values and the British values. We talked about the importance of individual liberty interwoven with tolerance of each other even when we disagree. When we meet others with an open mind, heart and kindness all things are possible.

Well done to our year 3 and 4 children who shared their Remembrance poems with us - we are very proud of your empathy and understanding.

Congratulations to these three smiling 'Book Worms'.

Well done to Harry, Kira and Archie (Maverick too!) - keep up these amazing reading habits.

Congratulations to Willow for completing the Autumn Term 1 Reading Challenge - what a superstar! :)

Year 3/4a have experienced the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah today, sharing apple and honey which is symbolic for the 'Sweet New Year' ahead.

Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the universe, the day God created Adam and Eve (The Creation Story) and it’s celebrated as the head of the Jewish year. During this time, Jews ask for forgiveness and reflect on the past year.

As a class, we reflected on what is important to us, what we are proud of and what we aim to achieve this year.