Welcome to Maple Class
Autumn 2014
Life Ed van
Maple class went to visit the Life Education van during its time at Dunkirk school. We learnt all about the parts of our body, how to keep healthy, making good choices and what can help or harm our body.
We then did some work in the ICT suite, using textease to record our learning from the visit, we practised selecting, importing and editing pictures, adding text and using the design functions.
See our work below…
We then did some work in the ICT suite, using textease to record our learning from the visit, we practised selecting, importing and editing pictures, adding text and using the design functions.
See our work below…
Erasmus and Finnish teachers visit
During the week of 5th October, Dunkirk Primary school had teachers from the Rastaala school in Finland visit. Maple class welcomed Maarit, a teacher that has been paired with Miss Elsmore for over a year, in their class for 2 days.
During Maarit’s time in class, we had a chance to ask her questions about her life, her class and her school in Finland. We explored different emotions and Maarit showed us some pictures her class had taken to show different emotions. Maarit showed us how to make emotion flowers, like her class had done. We talked about what being ‘connected’ means, and listened to ‘Rap connected’ by Benjamin Zephaniah. This inspired some musical activities where we learnt songs and accompanied the rap using body percussion and vocal sounds.
Before Maarit’s visit, as part of our English work, we had written pen pal letters that we presented to Maarit for the children in her class.
We had a fantastic time and look forward to hearing from our Finnish friends soon.
Here are some pictures to show you what we did…
During Maarit’s time in class, we had a chance to ask her questions about her life, her class and her school in Finland. We explored different emotions and Maarit showed us some pictures her class had taken to show different emotions. Maarit showed us how to make emotion flowers, like her class had done. We talked about what being ‘connected’ means, and listened to ‘Rap connected’ by Benjamin Zephaniah. This inspired some musical activities where we learnt songs and accompanied the rap using body percussion and vocal sounds.
Before Maarit’s visit, as part of our English work, we had written pen pal letters that we presented to Maarit for the children in her class.
We had a fantastic time and look forward to hearing from our Finnish friends soon.
Here are some pictures to show you what we did…
World Peace Day
Maple class joined with Rowan class at Abbey Campus create a ‘dance for peace’ in just one day.
We all explored ideas of what peace is through different dance activities. Some of the words that the children thought that peace was to do with being quiet, relaxed, and still. We used flowing, long, smooth movements in our dance. We worked together in pairs and as a whole group to be joined and unified. The day was a fantastic success and we look forward to working with Rowan Class this term on our theme work, where our classes are twinned.
The class were fantastic and the finished choreography was performed at the Peace one Day event at abbey campus on Thursday 15 October.
We all explored ideas of what peace is through different dance activities. Some of the words that the children thought that peace was to do with being quiet, relaxed, and still. We used flowing, long, smooth movements in our dance. We worked together in pairs and as a whole group to be joined and unified. The day was a fantastic success and we look forward to working with Rowan Class this term on our theme work, where our classes are twinned.
The class were fantastic and the finished choreography was performed at the Peace one Day event at abbey campus on Thursday 15 October.
Languages day
Maple Class thoroughly enjoyed Languages day at school on Monday 21 September.
We started the day focusing on Spanish as it is the language we all learn in class. We had 3 visitors from Bilborough College, who came to teach us Spanish vocabulary relating to ordering food and drink in a café. After that, we made menus for our own café, and included the price in Euros for each item.
In the afternoon, we were joined by Bertie’s Dad who came to teach us some German, as this is the language he speaks. Together with Bertie, He read to us a poem in German, about some frogs that were under the frozen lake. We tried to understand the poem from the picture clues and then we even had a go at reading some of the words in German.
Aksel’s Mum then joined us to teach us some words in French. The children were really interested to find out what their favourite words in different languages.
Here are some pictures to show our day…
We started the day focusing on Spanish as it is the language we all learn in class. We had 3 visitors from Bilborough College, who came to teach us Spanish vocabulary relating to ordering food and drink in a café. After that, we made menus for our own café, and included the price in Euros for each item.
In the afternoon, we were joined by Bertie’s Dad who came to teach us some German, as this is the language he speaks. Together with Bertie, He read to us a poem in German, about some frogs that were under the frozen lake. We tried to understand the poem from the picture clues and then we even had a go at reading some of the words in German.
Aksel’s Mum then joined us to teach us some words in French. The children were really interested to find out what their favourite words in different languages.
Here are some pictures to show our day…
Music Camp
Earlier this year 8 pupils from Cedar class went on Music camp at Ilam Hall in Derbyshire.
The camp is organised by the Nottingham Music Hub, and it is attended by many children from schools across Nottingham City.
The children had been learning a string instrument (a violin, viola or cello) during their year in Madrono class (Y4) and this is an opportunity to be immersed in musical learning, by doing many practical activities, and produce 2 performance pieces in just 2 days!
The activities include musical tuition sessions, musical orienteering, night walks, choral singing, an introduction to musical notation and rhythm. This all happens in the beautiful surroundings of Ilam Hall in the middle of stunning countryside.
The children have learnt so much, they should be really proud of themselves, spending a night away from home, being a credit to our school and having so much fun.
The camp is organised by the Nottingham Music Hub, and it is attended by many children from schools across Nottingham City.
The children had been learning a string instrument (a violin, viola or cello) during their year in Madrono class (Y4) and this is an opportunity to be immersed in musical learning, by doing many practical activities, and produce 2 performance pieces in just 2 days!
The activities include musical tuition sessions, musical orienteering, night walks, choral singing, an introduction to musical notation and rhythm. This all happens in the beautiful surroundings of Ilam Hall in the middle of stunning countryside.
The children have learnt so much, they should be really proud of themselves, spending a night away from home, being a credit to our school and having so much fun.
Lenton Martinmas Fair
Some children from Maple Class went to the Lenton Martinmas Fair. We drew shields and there were some soldiers dressed as knights fighting. Robin Hood, Maid Marion and the Sheriff were also there. There was a lantern procession using lanterns we had made at school.
Martinmas is an old festival celebrating autumn wheat seeding, killing the cattle ready for winter. It was also a time when farm labourers found new work.
Martinmas is an old festival celebrating autumn wheat seeding, killing the cattle ready for winter. It was also a time when farm labourers found new work.
We are Albert, Daniello and Giancarlo. We are creating Maple Class website this term. We have started the year studying Myths and Legends in Literacy. We have looked at Norse and Greek stories with the characters Thor and Andromeda in them.
In Maths we are learning to use the column addition technique and have learned about square and cube numbers.
Below are photos of our working walls.
In Maths we are learning to use the column addition technique and have learned about square and cube numbers.
Below are photos of our working walls.
The science of trees
We learnt all about how trees help us to breathe and how we help them to grow through carbon dioxide and oxygen. See below for our pictures of us pretending to be a tree, a human, oxygen, carbon dioxide, rain, sun and glucose.
Weddings and trees
We have been learning about trees as part of our comenius project. Each school around the world is doing the same topic and Miss Taylor is looking forward to teaching the year 3 children in Oslo all about trees. We wish we could go with her! Perhaps we can hide in her suitcase?
As Miss Taylor is getting married in January and Miss Dade is getting married in April we are also learning about weddings.
As Miss Taylor is getting married in January and Miss Dade is getting married in April we are also learning about weddings.
Cob Oven
All the classes have been helping build a Cob Oven on the allotment over the past few weeks. We have even cooked pizza and cakes in it. We had to mix clay and sand together with our feet!
Maple's animal sanctury
With Parmjit and Miss Taylor, we have been 'running' an African sanctuary. We have built everything that the animals need, researched the animals and presented our findings to the group. We placed these in order of importance - love me, inspire me, teach me, feed me and shelter me for humans and animals, as well as looking through scenarios of different animals turning up at the sanctuary with a variety of problems.
Table top zoo
We have been making a table top zoo with Mrs Wise.
Noah the parrot
We were lucky enough this week to have been visited by Miss Mandy's parrot, Noah. He let us know when we were being too loud by squawking louder than us! That's a hard thing to do...ask Miss Taylor!
Maple's pyramids
In class today we made clay bricks that were 2 cm by 2cm. We then made sand and sky backgrounds. Using animation we then built the pyramid, please have a look at our video below.
Our Egyptian Mummification Videos
We each had a go at mummifying someone in our class. We had a priest, 2 jackles, and a narrator. It was really fun.
Literacy
Adventure Stories has been this term's topic in literacy. We haev been reading all sorts of adventure stories, creating our own adventure stories, predicting what might happen next. We have compared stroies on screen and in books, we have made graphs to show how exciting stories can be. We are looking at how authors use different techinques to make stories exciting and using those techniques in our own writing. We are learning about paragraphs too.
Pollution
We have been learning all about Water, Air and Noise pollution, and making litter surveys of our local area. We are writing an information leaflet in literacy to help other people learn about pollution and what they can do to help.
Helping Plants Grow
We have been making grass heads from old tights to see how grass grows.
Maths
We have been learning about shape and position, symmetry and fractions and measuring.
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