Countess Way NSPCC Fundraiser!

By Mrs S Taylor20th June 2016

A HUGE well done to all the children and families at Countess Way who ran on Friday for our NSPCC Fundraiser. The day was a massive success and I am so proud of the children’s resilience and belief in one another as they ran!

We have had a fantastic amount of sponsorship money in as well so thank you parents for all your support in organising this. Your children truly worked hard for every penny of that sponsorship!

I am delighted to announce that as a school we ran not one marathon… but 9!!! What an amazing achievement! Below are the ‘stats’ of what we ran so please celebrate these superb results with your families at home. There are a couple of Year3/4 who will be running this week due to being on a school trip so we will add their laps in too.

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Thank you again for all your support for this event. More action pictures will be uploaded by class teachers!

 

 

Creating our own Sea Life Centre

By V Holloway24th May 2016

Year 1 have started the create and communicate stage of their project this week. Our question is:

Can I create a Sea Life Centre ‘style’ tank and evaluate it?

The children have the option to create a tank for either a sea turtle, jellyfish or octopus. They will need to use all of their knowledge from the collect and connect stages of our project, including our ignite trip to create a suitable environment for their chosen sea creature.

We have started by creating success criterias for the different animal habitats, as well as a whole class success criteria for what a good Sea Life Centre tank needs to include. We watched a clip called ‘Austins Butterfly’ which showed the importance of peer marking, having clear, manageable next steps and making lots of drafts to grow our learning. Year 1 discussed how this will need lots of determination and a growth mindset in order to grow their tank design several times.

Here are some photos of us working on our 1st drafts:

We hope to eventually turn our designs into models and will discuss what we have included and explain why!

Fishy Environments…

By V Holloway10th May 2016

As we move to the ‘Connect’ stage of our Under The Sea project, the environments in year 1 have been getting deeper and deeper under water! Using lots of different art skills, including cutting, painting and create patterns, year 1 have started to make our classroom into an under the sea adventure!

We will keep adding to our environment as we continue our project..

Preparing for Walking with Giants!

By V Holloway10th May 2016

Year 1 have been busy preparing for our walking with giants festival by practising their dance moves. Today they showed high levels of engagement and super determination when learning their dance routine! We have also been busy learning some new songs in our class! We can’t wait to share all our hard work with you on the 1st July!

 

Gone fishing…

By V Holloway20th April 2016

Year 1 on Countess Way had an amazing ignite trip to the Sea Life Centre on Monday! We saw so many different types of fish and sea creatures! Some of our highlights were:

  • touching starfish!
  • looking at the octopus
  • watching the seahorses
  • learning about the difference between skate and stingrays
  • walking through the tunnel, watching sharks and turtles swim around us
  • seeing the amazing colours, shapes and sizes of all the different fish
  • watching the jellyfish
  • the 4d cinema experience

It was such a busy and we learnt an unbelievable amount about different sea creatures. We have not only collected lots of new knowledge about Under The Sea, it has also inspired us and motivated us to learn more!

We have used some of our new knowledge to write What Am I? riddles about different seas creatures, can you solve this one written by 1e:

I have 3 hearts.

I have blue blood.

I spray ink to escape from predators.

What Am I?

 

Year 1 were all fantastic Brooklands Farm ambassadors, they opened their eyes, ears and dialogue to grow and share their knowledge of under the sea. They also opened their hearts to the members of the public and other schools which were there, by being polite and patient. Well Done year 1!

 

A massive thank you to the parent helpers who came with us on this trip, it couldn’t have happened without you. We hope you enjoyed your day with us!

 

Pictures to follow soon!

Sea Life Centre

By V Holloway15th April 2016

Year 1 on Countess Way are going to Birmingham Sea Life Centre on Monday 18th April! Please come into school at 8am as we will be leaving promptly at 8.15am! Children will need to bring their lunch in a named plastic bag so we can throw all rubbish away when we are there. They will also need to be in their full school uniform.

We look forward to seeing you bright and early on Monday morning!

Under The Sea

By V Holloway15th April 2016

Wow! What an amazing first week back for the Summer Term. I have seen such high learning zones this week and have seen reciprocal relationships growing as children have been sharing their knowledge about Under the Sea.

This week we have been busy learning our talk the text for our information text about Jellyfish!

‘Did you know that a group of jellyfish is called a bloom?’

 

We have started to create our under the sea environment for our classroom and shared area using the knowledge we already had about sea creatures.

 

Today we learnt about the different parts of a fish! We labelled our fish and wrote sentences about the functions of the different parts.

‘Did you know that fish always have their eyes open because they don’t have any eyelids?’

 

We are really excited about our trip to the Sea Life Centre next week to see all these amazing creatures!