Small Schools Week - Art Attack!

This afternoon we have been doing yet another fun and exciting activity. We have been working on collages to display on our balcony using our visions from the canal. Some of us have worked individually and some of us have worked in a group. We have been capturing aspects of the Grand Union Canal including barges, the bridge and the the background - even the Willow Tree! 

To make our collages we have been using tissue paper, coloured paper, materials, card and more. 

Small Schools Week - Kayaking

This morning our class went to the Hemel Hempstead Canoe Club to take part in a kayaking session. We were taught, on land, how to paddle accurately and how to sit in the kayak to minimise the chance of us falling out - unfortunately Mrs Orton and Callum still managed to fall in! Even so they got back in their kayak and carried on. After freely paddling around in the canal for a while we all came back together and linked up in a line - ensuring we all held on tightly to the kayaks. We then had to stand up in the kayaks - trusting our peers to hold our kayaks still. After we had all successfully completed that challenge we knelt out and gave our kayaks an Eskimo kiss, we all held our balance well and no one fell in. We had a race without our paddles to the lock and back, and then we had to pick up a paddle for our return trip.
Everyone had an fantastic morning! We want to go back!

Small Schools Week - Whole School Zoo Trip

At the zoo we split into 3 groups, again we mixed with years 3&4 for the day. We decided what we wanted to see throughout the day to ensure we all had a great day. Some groups went to the bird show - it was amazing! There was a bird called Maggie, a crane, who listened to the instructions given to her by the bird trainer, a couple of burrowing owls, parrots and others. They flew so close to us, we had to duck!
We went to the elephant talk, as a whole KS2 group, and learned the difference between the African and Asian Elephants - Asian Elephants have smaller ears, African Elephants all have tusks whereas the Asian males only have tusks and Asian elephants are a lot smaller in size.
We also went to the Sea Lion Show - we saw them do an impression of a seal and a shark. They cleared up rubbish from the pool and put it in the bin, one even pretended to die. They jumped up individually to touch the buoys in the air., unfortunately they didn't perform altogether but it was still great fun.
We all went to the farm and were able to stroke the goats and saw the pigs.
Animals we saw on our travels were: monkeys, lemurs, bears, chimpanzees, a crocodile, rhinos, hippos, penguins, wild boars and many more!
Overall it was a fantastic day out. Check it out for yourself using the link below.

www.zsl.org/zsl-whipsnade-zoo

Small Schools Week - Den Building

On Tuesday afternoon we joined forces with years 3&4 to  scavenge for materials at the woods to build dens. We split into 3 groups to complete the challenge. Our objectives were the following:
* Big enough to fit our group in the den.
* Make it waterproof.
* Make it comfortable.

Each group were given 30mins to complete their den, afterwards we went to each den and tested them out. Every single child had worked together effectively in their team and the designs were all very different, we had a free standing den, one with a gate entrance and a teepee style den.

Small Schools Week - XC

Tuesday morning, our class went to the XC! Our first activity was caving. We completed a trial run before submerging deep inside the dark caves. Miss Williams and Mrs Orton bravely managed the trial session...but chickened out on the real caving session! All of the children were much braver and completed the caving course. They had great fun! The boys went on their own and took directions at all escape holes from the instructors.

Our second activity was rock climbing! Our first task was to put on our harnesses to ensure we were safe whilst climbing. We split into two groups, boys and girls, and took it in turns in climbing different walls. Some were trickier than others. We had to listen carefully to our peers to help us find to find grips nearby. Some of the grips were hard to get hold of.  Although it was tough at times we all had great fun!

Small Schools Week - Rounders and Orienteering

Today we took part in an Interhouse rounders competition at Mrs Wilkinson's house - in betweeen games we played tennis too. We played each other once and had play offs for the overall position. Scyamore were the overall winners. This afternoon we went to the woods to go orienteering, we learned how to read maps carefully to direct us to the correct points to stamp our pegs. We split into 3 groups - Mr Bull's team unfortunately came 3rd, Miss Groves' team came 2nd and of course Miss Williams' team were champions!

iPad training

Today, Julian from Toucan came to our school and showed us an app called Hopscotch - which is a programming piece of software, it's a little bit like Scratch. We were able to create a character and move it to make shapes and drawings by programming commands. We had a challenge, we needed to make a square with one character and another character needed to move to the side of the square withoutit leaving a trail.

Maths and literacy

Today in maths, we were set a challenge to measure the playground using trundle wheels. Tomorrow we will be using our measurements collected today, to calculate the area of the playground. We have been provided with prices for three different surface areas (grass, astro-turf and spongey tarmac), using these prices, we will be finding the total cost to resurface the area. Our literacy work today was linked to our maths work, we wrote letters to Miss Worsley explaining which surface would be most suitable forthe playground - we thought carefully about the advantages and disadvantages of each surface so we could make an overall decision.

Year 6

Whilst year 5 were out at George Street last week, we were enjoying having the classroom to ourselves. We were talking about secondary schools and sharing our hopes and worries. We now feel more confident about moving on and are happy about our new schools. We only have 6 weeks left at Great Gaddesden and we intend to make the most of it!

Literacy workshop...part 2

Part two of our outstanding literacy workshop has been based around settings. Ian drew a range of images and the children decided what setting they would be, the 'cloud on a stick' came from Ollie.

Together they chose different objects that could appear in the settings. Kayleigh was a pink bush who had been in the forest for 4 years, Callum was a red tree, the size of a woodpecker with some interesting flexing branches and Ollie was a gold door in a pyramid who had been there 5 days 6 hours with a whole range of sound effects!

Having already created their own characters in part 1, the children have now got the opportunity to create a setting of their own to place their characters in.

Literacy workshop

Year 5 have been working hard already this morning using their 'ick' imagination! Author, Ian Billings, is very animated and inspirational! They have been hot seating new characters and creating their own character from a given hat. Some of the characters created are: Big Boot Bob, Shredi, Slippers. They have each given background information on their character and have had to decide on a wish and what makes them stand out.