Writing Workshop – A Virtual Visit
Yesterday in Year 3/4, we had an amazing writing workshop with visiting author Adam Bushnell.
Each Year 3/4 class had approximately an hour’s creative writing all about Ancient Greek myths. The workshop was held via Zoom, which is proving to be effective in engaging our children.
Adam Bushnell was a primary school teacher and is now a published author of both fiction and academia. He works as a ‘visiting author’ in the UK and internationally delivering writing workshops and staff training. He is the author of fifteen books of children’s fiction including and he has recorded audio versions of some of these books. His first novel, ‘Quests in Epica’ was released in the summer of 2016 and was illustrated by multi award winning illustrator Ross Collins.
He has written The Kings of Ancient Greece – a great book for the children to read all about classic Greek myths.
Some feedback from 3/4 children:
“I loved it! He was really fun and full of facts. I wrote my own Greek myth too!”
“He made me want to write my best myth.”
“He brought the Ancient Greeks to life – almost!”
Thank you to Adam who inspired our children at Scholes.
Ask your child about the virtual visit so they can share their experiences with you.
Author Visit Adam Bushnell
We had great fun today when we had a zoom chat with author, Adam Bushnell.
He helped us to create our own mythical creatures and heroes so we could plan our own Greek myths.
3,4O: Super Scientists
We continued our learning about sound by carrying out an investigation into the relationship between volume and vibrations.
First, we observed the vibrations when we played the musical instruments louder or fainter.
We found that the louder the volume, the bigger the vibrations – remember, the vibrations cause particles in the air to vibrate which in turn creates sound.
Then, we carried out a more scientific investigation using a decibel metre. Decibels are the unit we use to measure sound. We played the instruments and recorded the volume.
Finally, just like scientists would, we created a graph to show our results. Take a look at a few of ours…
New books!
Recently, we made a significant investment in some new ‘dip in’ books for all classes across KS2.
It was very exciting when they were delivered and our book shelves are now full to the brim with exciting and engaging non-fiction / poetry books.
We spent some time this week enjoying them – it was awesome to share what we were learning with other people in the class.
3,4O: certificates
We’ve enjoyed another great week in 3,4O. We’ve been historians, writers, mathematicians, athletes, friends, team mates – the list could go on!
Here are this week’s certificate winners…
For great learning…
Ethan – You’ve smashed your learning across all subjects this week. You’re ready to learn and you always try your hardest.
For living and learning…
Jessica – You’re a great friend to many people and a generally awesome member of Team 3,4O. Keep being kind!
For sport and physical activity…
Harry – For demonstrating excellent teamwork during our PE lessons. You are passionate about sport and help others to enjoy it, too.
For Times Table Rockstars…
Noah – You consistently use TTR to improve your times table recall and have done for some time. Keep it up!
Living and Learning: Relationships
Here is the picture of our Relationships – Living and Learning from today.
The children were demonstrating how threads of friendship get stronger the more they do things that support the friendship.
We discussed aspects of friendship:
- not laughing if they didn’t get a goal or basket
- checking they were ok if they fell over and
- being good learning friends meant working as a group
- not bossing everyone in the group
- making sure people were listened to, respected and heard
Living and Learning: Friends
Over the next few weeks, our Living and Learning topic is RSE (Relationships and Sex Education).
In class, we read some scenarios about friendships and discussed the good bits about each one. We asked – What makes a good friend?
Here are some of our thoughts ….
Cameron
Sam
Lily
Arthur
Harrison
And Georgia
Certificates 3,4E
This week’s certificates go to these wonderful children:
For Great Learning: Dolly – for trying so very hard with column subtraction all week with super progress.
Sport and physical activity: Bobby D – Good attacking and defending skills in hockey – a great effort!
For Great living and learning skills: Georgia – for always taking a safe risk in class by putting her hand up and asking and answering questions.
TTRS – Aaron Ranasinghe for effort and dedication to times tables practice this week.
3,4O: Marvellous Maths
This week, we’ve been learning / recapping column subtraction. Take a look at this page on our website which tells you all about how we teach calculations in school.
The maths was impressive, but something else impressed me more – our attitude! We were resilient, resourceful and really took responsibility for our learning. In one lesson, Mr Catherall and Mrs Thorn didn’t even need to be there – we were teaching each other, choosing our own challenges and asking for quick interventions from an adult. What an awesome place to learn 3,4O is!
Well done, everyone.
History: How did Ancient Greece influence us?
Today, we continued to be historians by thinking about the ways in which Ancient Greece has influenced us.
We’d already learnt about Greek democracy and how we adapted and improved this aspect of Greek life. And, this week, we’ve been learning about the ancient Olympic games during our reading sessions.
This afternoon, we went on a hunt around the playground to find out loads of interesting facts about how Ancient Greek life has influenced ours.
Ask your child what they found interesting.
At the end of our lesson, we like to reflect on our learning. Here’s what two members of our class had to say:
‘I enjoyed this lesson because we got to go outside and find information out – we helped our friends, too’
‘I enjoyed this lesson because it was challenging’