: Blog items
Date: 16th Mar 2021 @ 9:34am
As I’m sure you have heard on the news, there has been extensive discussion about the environmental impact the HS2 development will have, including requiring the clearance of established and crucially important woodland habitats along its path. To mitigate the impact of this habitat removal, the HS2 project commissioned a nursery in Wales to grow several thousand oak trees that were supposed to be planted as new woodlands. However, despite growing the trees and them now being ready to go to their new homes, no plans to plant them were ever made, making it a double disaster that woodland has been cleared, but the new trees have never been planted.
After hearing about this through word of mouth, a few amazing guys in Liverpool raised some money to buy 3000 of these little oak trees from the nursery, who had to cover their basic costs, and those guys spread the word to find homes for all of these trees. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust heard about it and asked across their Nature Friendly Schools network. Westminster Primary is our Local Nature Friendly school and they spread the word to other Blackpool primary schools. It is these baby trees that our school received and altogether 33 schools across Lancashire, Manchester & North Merseyside offered homes for around 800 of these rescued trees.
They are all oak trees. Oak trees can live for several hundred years. So when we plant our little trees we are planting a legacy that will live far into the future, and provide a truly valuable habitat for insects and birds. By giving homes to these little trees we are doing a wonderful thing for nature.
The Eco Warriors helped plant them around the school grounds.
Date: 15th Mar 2021 @ 7:19pm
Throughout the last lockdown, some children continued to recieve their weekly Music Lessons via Zoom from Blackpool Music Service, including Guitar and Drumming. These two Musical Maestros achieved their Silver awards for guitar. Their effort, commitment, persistence and hardwork resulted in them achieving their next Guitar award! Well done and keep playing.
Date: 15th Mar 2021 @ 12:15pm
On Friday Year 4 were introduced to their new topic in History, which is the Romans. They completed a research task using the chrome books to find out information on the Roman Empire, when the Romans invaded Britain and who Boudicca was.
Date: 14th Mar 2021 @ 2:00pm
What a great first week back we have had in Reception. The children have settled back into school and are eager to learn. This week we have introduced our new topic 'Let's Go Wild' and the children have enjoyed learning about different animals, what they need to survive and the different habitats they live in. We have also been busy in continuous provison making animals, practicing our reading, writing sentences, comparing and ordering numbers and role playing animal stories with our friends. Have a look at some of our amazing work!
Date: 12th Mar 2021 @ 4:06pm
Today we began looking at our Science unit of 'Classification'. We discussed what classification was and why scientists needed a system when classifying living things. As a challenge, we were given a range of vertebrates and invertebrates and asked to think how we would group them. Some of us chose to group them as mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Some of us grouped them as living things that live in water, on land and in the sky. We will spend the next lesson looking at more scientific ways to group living things.
Date: 12th Mar 2021 @ 7:55am
This week in Cedar, we have been learning about 2D shapes. We learnt their names and their different properties.
We also have fun making 2D shapes using wooden lollisticks, geoboards and pegboards.
Holly Class Forest School Fun!
Date: 11th Mar 2021 @ 8:47pm
It was a very breezy day but Holly Class wrapped up warm and ventured out to take part in Forest School.
First, we warmed up by playing running games and hide a seek and then we used our beady eyes to look for circles in the environment. We found them everywhere, on a bench, on logs and canes, at the bird stop, in plant pots and even in the pond (which had lots of frog spawn!). We then went exploring, trampiing through the soggy grass, raking the mud to plant grass seeds and building towers and seats to sit on using the logs. Alfie even found a frog! The children worked together, helping each other to lift, build, carry and explore.
By the time it was time to go, we were all very muddy and and very hungry. Before we went to lunch, Mrs McAllister hosed all the children down which was to their absolute delight!
Date: 11th Mar 2021 @ 4:43pm
What a fun week that was! The children have had such a brilliant time being back together again and have really enjoyed interacting with each other. They have been engaged in so many different types of play including collabrative play, imaginative play and they have even worked together to solve a problem or two! Have a look at the photos to see the wonderful learning we have been doing this week.
Date: 11th Mar 2021 @ 2:58pm
We all logged into the Chromebooks and went onto:
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor
Firstly we changed the background area and found a sprite to match our setting. Then we used the script area to begin to programme our characters to move forwards and backwards, make a sound and change colour. Everyone worked really well and had great success manipulating the blocks. We also talked about online safety because its really important that everyone stays safe using the internet - it's a great resources and lots of fun, when used sensibly.
Date: 11th Mar 2021 @ 2:54pm
Not only do we have to remember our PE Kit for Wednesday (Royal Ballet), we also need it on Thursday for invasion games with Mr. Willets. This should be a white T-shirt and black shorts with pumps. It was great fun to get hot and increase our heart rate in the hall with our class. We need to make sure we are keeping ourselves fit and healthy both inside and outside of school. This will also help contribute to the Road to Tokyo goal for Boundary of physical activity.
Date: 10th Mar 2021 @ 7:34pm
Today we learnt all about Amelia Earhart. We found out she was born a long time ago in 1897, over 100 years ago! We discussed how life might have been different then and looked at some pictures to give us clues. We learnt how Amelia loved exploring and nature, and liked to collect frogs and insects!
We talked through Amelias timeline and how she loved to fly after her very first airplane ride! We then learnt Amelia has a very important goal, to become the first solo female pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean. She worked hard to achieve this goal and we discussed what characteristics Amelia showed through this time in her life. Finally we looked at Amelias last challenge, and what happened to her and her navigator during this flight.
“Amelia’s first plane was called ‘The Canary,’ because it was yellow!”
“The weather was not nice! It rained and there was thunder and lightning.”
“I think Amelia vanished because her plane ran out of petrol.”
“I think they lost control of the plane.”
“She set off from Canada and landed in Ireland.”
Date: 10th Mar 2021 @ 4:24pm
This week in PSHE, we have been looking closely at making the right choices in class. We have identified appropriate behaviour during lesson time and break time and in some circumstances when it may be during both. We then learned about positive and negative consequences for our choices and how we can celebrate good choices during our Cedar Time.
Cedar children have been making great choices this week and had fun celebrating by the different choices of activity each day.
Date: 9th Mar 2021 @ 8:43pm
As part of our Art learning this half term, Year Two have begun to explore the work of two famous artists, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. This week we explored the later work of Henri Mattise. We discovered that as he became older, Matisse suffered from ill health which prevented him from painting. He began to cut into coloured paper with scissors and in doing this he invented a new medium, 'carving into colour'.
Taking inspiration from Matisse's artwork we created our own pieces using only scissors and coloured paper. We had to carefully consider lines, colour and shape when creating our masterpieces.
Date: 9th Mar 2021 @ 8:20pm
This week Year Two were finally all back together in the classroom and we were so happy to see each other. To support our Science topic on plants, we had fun planting sunflower seeds. We are going to take care of these in school until the weather gets a little warmer. Then we will be sending them home and seeing who can grow the tallest sunflower. Good luck everyone!
Date: 9th Mar 2021 @ 5:26pm
Year 4 have had a wonderful WOW afternoon in Geography. The children tasted lots of wonderful food from around the world such as: Mango, brioche, pizza, prawn crackers, dark chocolate and other exciting foods. We discussed where the food was from and spoke about trade and the differing weather conditions which enables certain food to be grown in a specific country.
Quel temps fait-il? (What is the weather?)
Date: 9th Mar 2021 @ 4:08pm
Our French learning continued this week and we started to learn how to answer the question: Quel temps fait-il? (which translates in English to 'What is the weather?') We started by revising classroom instructions and greetings before moving on to learn nine phrases that describe different types of weather.
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 9:51pm
What a wonderful day we had today! Everyone settled back into our class routines so smoothly- lining up in the payground this morning, listening and sitting sensibly during assembly and sharing their lockdown stories with their friends.
We had fun learning about our new topic 'Let's Go Wild!' and even had an animal treasure hunt outiside in the afternoon. Take a look at some of the activites we did today, including reading and writiing, ordering numbers and matching quantities and creating animal patterns.
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 8:26pm
What a fantastic day Willow Class have had back at school. The children came in smiling eager to get learning. They lined up beautifully outside and enjoyed sharing their lockdown stories with their teacher and friends over breakfast. The children had a great time finding out all about our new topic 'Let's Go Wild' and even enjoyed an animal treasure hunt in the garden in the afternoon. They enjoyed working in the different areas of the classroom; practicing our reading, writing words and captions at the phonics table, exploring the spring table, painting, ordering numbers and counting out the correct quantity. What a great start everyone!
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 8:10pm
Today we were extremely happy to welcome back our wondeful Year 6 pupils. It was so lovely to see them all again, back in class where they belong. We spent the morning going through what lockdown life has been like and what they had enjoyed about home-schooling. In the afternoon, we began our Art topic - sketching. We began by practising using different sketching styles, such as cross-hatching, stippling and blending. We were then introduced to the artist Stephen Wiltshire and studied several of his pieces of art before attempting them ourselves. Some of the results were stunning!!
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 6:43pm
Welcome back Year 1!
Today we welcomed back our Year 1 children and it was lovely to see lots of smiling faces on the playground bright and early this morning! We have had a lovely day and spent lots of time talking about our emotions and feelings about coming back to school.
This afternoon we then built on our online learning for our Science topic this half term - plants! We firstly recapped on the learning we completed at home, comparing wild flowers and garden flowers and talking about why people plant flowers in their gardens.
We looked at some Chrysanthemum flowers and talked about the different parts of the plant and their purpose. We then completed lots of different activities, including drawing and labelling plants in our own garden, putting mixed up flowers back together and labelling the parts of a plant, talking about the purpose of each part.
Finally we planted our sunflower seeds. We talked about what our sunflower seeds need and how we can help them to grow big and strong. We are looking forward to measuring our sunflowers when they begin to grow!
The Whole Gang Is Back Together!
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 4:46pm
What a wonderful first day back we have had in Nursery! All the children came back so well and have picked up exactly where they left off way back in December! They have remembered the rules and routines and were so excited to see each other! We are so happy to have everyone back and it was so great to see all your smiling faces.
Year Three and Four loved their first lesson with the Royal Ballet!
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 4:43pm
Year Three and Year Four really enjoyed their first lessons this year with Sarah and Rob from the Royal Ballet! They learnt all about the Royal Ballet School at White Lodge and how ballet and lots of its terminology originates from France.
The children learnt some of the main ballet positions and their dance was linked to light which is one of the current Science topics in Lower Key Stage Two. Children learning at home also joined in with the Zoom lesson.
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 4:15pm
Our first day as a full class since December and a super science lesson about the human timeline. We started by looking at ourselves in the mirror and thinking about how our appearance would be different in 10 years. We then thought about how it would be different in 70 years! We looked at pictures of teachers from when they were young - it was very difficult to work out who they were! Finally, we learned the 6 stages of human development and created a human timeline.
Amazing Ancient Greek Projects!
Date: 8th Mar 2021 @ 4:14pm
Year Five have come back to school today with some excellent Ancient Greek projects which they are now presenting to rest of the class and sharing all of their learning. The projects range from ICT presentations to models, posters and information books.
Topics include: Greek gods, food, homes, beliefs and clothing. The children were extremely proud to show the rest of the class their superb work! Well done Year Five!
Date: 5th Mar 2021 @ 5:24pm
The Nursery children had a wonderful time at Forest School. They listened to the story Goldilocks and The Three Bears and then made porridge for the bears. They splashed in muddy puddles, built towers by balancing wooden logs, did some super mark making by painting water on to wood, tested out their balance on the obstacle course and had a yummy flapjack for snack! We know they enjoyed themselves beacuse they came back covered in mud!
