Keepy Uppy
‘Being Healthy’ themed week continues today as we welcome Tutti Frutti and their football themed production, ‘Keepy Uppy’ – perfectly timed after England’s World Cup win last night.
Egyptian Inventions and much more……..
Year 4 have been very busy continuing on with our topic ‘Ancient Egypt.’
As part of a DT lesson, the children learnt all about an invention created by the Egyptians to carry water – a shaduf.
How did the Egyptian farmers water their crops?
To lift the water from the canal the Egyptians used a shaduf.
A shaduf is a large pole balanced on a crossbeam, a rope and bucket on one end and a heavy counter weight at the other. By pulling the rope it lowered the bucket into the canal. The farmer then raised the bucket of water by pulling down on the weight. He then swung the pole around and emptied the bucket onto the field.
This lead us on to designing our own shaduf. 
Once the design process had been completed, it was time to start constructing. The children faced several challenges during this stage and had to find ways to overcome them.
“How will it stand up?”
“We need to make it sturdy and secure.”
Time to test the shadufs. Will they carry water from one place to another?
Success!
As well as making shadufs, Year 4 have enjoyed other Egyptian activities including painting their (now dry) Scarab beetles.
Mummifying apples
In Ancient Egypt, the Afterlife was extremely important. A person could gain access to the Afterlife after they had died by doing good deeds. Their body needed to be preserved so they could enjoy the Afterlife for a long, long time so Egyptians used the mummification process to do this.
We had a go in class! (With apples, not people, of course!)
To find the best substance for mummification (in Ancient Egypt, they used a salt mixture) we weighed out two different ingredients for our experiment: salt and sugar.
We also had an apple set aside that wouldn’t have any substance poured on it. Ask you child why this control group is so important.
Next, we weighed our apples to find a baseline measure.
We will weigh them again at certain intervals to see if they have lost or gained weight.
The best substance for mummification will be the substance that draws out the apple’s moisture and stops it rotting.
We’re going to make notes about whether the apple has decreased in mass and whether is has changed in appearance.
Every group worked brilliantly in their teams – well done, Year 3!
Sports day access
Roundhegians have confirmed we will be using their main pitch, closest to the club house, for our sports day next Tuesday. Access is via Chelwood Drive, off Street Lane.
As in previous years, we would be grateful to any parents who are able to lend and assemble gazebos for the children to sit under during the day.
Make-A-Wish skipping challenge day
We will conclude our Being Healthy themed week with an opportunity to raise money for our school charity, Make-A-Wish, and a chance for all children to try to beat their own personal skipping challenge set at the start of the week.
Being healthy themed week
Do you want to find out more about what your child is taught in our drug education lessons? This learning forms part of our Living and Learning curriculum but is supplemented by visitors, in particular d:side, during our themed week.
Being healthy themed week
We’re gearing up for a busy, active Being Healthy themed week, next week.
With lots of activities and visitors planned for the children, there are also some ways for you to get involved. Firstly we have our health fair on Monday after school, open to all children and parent/carers.
Ocean Awareness Day
The whole school took to the seas on Wednesday 20 June, exploring the world’s oceans for the day and what is currently happening to them.
Reception created some fantastic art using plastic bags and some of them chose to do some writing set in the ocean. Here’s a taster of Freya’s story for you:
Once upon a time there was a whale called Shamoo. She loved being in the water especially in the sea and making friends. She loved going on adventures around the whole sea…
Year 1 and 2 investigated how salty our seas are working with our Polar Ambassador, Terry Kirk.
They also created some fantastic wave art using watercolour and wrote some lovely ocean shape poems.
Year 3 and 4 also wrote shape poems and they learnt about what lives in the deepest parts of our ocean, even creating their own weird and wonderful deep ocean creatures.
Year 3 and 4 thought about the effect of plastic on our oceans and use the bottle tops we’d collected from the milk we have every day to create their own plastic ocean art in order to raise awareness of just how much plastic we get through as a school.
In Year 5 and 6, they investigated how we explore under the sea and debugged some coding in order to make a submarine automatically photograph underwater creatures. They also learnt about what plastic does to our ocean and the creatures that live in it. Over two days, Mr Catherall and Miss Rushbrooke collected an alarming amount of plastic from school and the adult who work here. Using this, Year 5 and 6 created a collage of an ocean creature, again to raise awareness of just how much plastic we use everyday.
Year 6 also worked together to write a letter to Kirkstall market asking them to stop using plastic bags as it’s a great place for people to shop without plastic but the bags they provide make this difficult.
It was a great day which taught us a lot and got us thinking about what we could do to help look after our planet and the other creatures that live here.
Musical mood!
We’ve had a marvellous musical morning! The children listened to two different pieces of music (Morning Mood by Grieg and O Fortuna by Carl Orff). We discussed how the music made us feel and how we could represent our feelings using different colours and mark making.
Here are some comments from our discussion:
“I would use red because you go red in the face when you are sad and red is angry.”
“The song made me feel calm and made me think of whales in the ocean.”
“It made me think of erupting volcanoes!”
We had a fantastic morning filled with conversation and the arts!
Talk to your child about what colour they are feeling.
Water safety
From this year, schools are required to publish how many Year 6 pupils have met the national curriculum requirements relating to swimming and water safety.
National Curriculum requirements for swimming and water safety:
- swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
- use a range of strokes effectively
- perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.
Following recent consultation about these attainment targets, and to ensure that all Year 6 children have met National Curriculum requirements for water safety, the class will be taking part in a water safety session on Friday 13 July.