Class Blog for ARC

July

Hooray ... we had an amazing time on our school trip. The weather was fabulous. We arrived in the minibus and walked down to the beach where we all sat and had a morning snack. It wasn't long and everyone was in the sea. The children loved floating and splashing around. We spent some time filling our egg cartons full of interesting things that we found on the beach, including a crab shell, feather, lots of different shells, seaweed and sea glass. Before we left we built sandcastles, had a last dip in the sea and hurried back to school to enjoy an ice cream.

Our year 6's have been busy this term getting ready for their new secondary school. They have had visits from their new teachers and enjoyed spending time and meeting other students and teachers in their new setting. To celebrate the end of their time at Coppervalley Academy we are excited for our visit to the Aquarium next week.

The year 6's are also very busy preparing for their end of school goodbye assembly for their parents.

Its is a very emotional time, as we have three of our children leaving us for Secondary school and we wish them all the best in their next adventure.

June

We had a super sporting month in June. A whole week of sport activities ending with a traditional sports day with family picnic. The sun kept on shinning all week.

The Art exhibition was also in June and the children created sea pictures from the under the water theme we have been following this term. The children were very proud of their Art.

This term the weather has been lovely, so we have been taking advantage and using the outside to enrich our learning. Our garden is flourishing with growing tomatoes, basil and beautiful summer flowers. The environmental area has been a great resource to explore, climb and create dens. Looking at nature has been great fun as we found the items on our Scavenger hunts.

We are excited for July and our school trip to the beach.

May

In May, we have been enjoying some beautiful sunshine. This month, we've been focusing on developing our gross motor skills both indoors and outdoors in the warm weather. During Hall Time, we practice our climbing, balancing, and strength exercises. We have also used these skills outside.

This term, our theme has been "People Who Help Us." It has been fun learning about the jobs of veterinarians, medical professionals, police officers, firefighters, and dentists.

In Science, we have been exploring scientists and inventors, including Ole Kirk Christiansen, who invented Lego. We had a great time creating our own Lego inventions. We also learned about George Mottershead, whose dream was to build a "zoo without bars" after witnessing an elephant chained behind bars as a child. He was the founder of Chester Zoo.

Much planting has taken place this month, including cucumbers, strawberries, sunflowers, and wildflowers. We are excited to watch them grow over the next few months.

March/April in the ARC

March/ April in the ARC

In March we explored the books of Eric Carle. We investigated life cycles with a focus on butterflies which we grew from tiny caterpillars. It was fun watching them grow bigger, turn into a chrysalis and finally emerge as a butterfly. We were also able to visit Ferry Farm and check out the sheep and chickens. We investigated animal footprints and had the opportunity to sit on the farm vehicles which was great fun.
We made collages of our favourite Eric Carle creatures and explored complimentary colours. In our cooking sessions we practiced a muffin recipe, adapting to make both sweet and savory options. Just before Easter we were able to create a chocolate version complete with chocolate eggs. We completed the term with an Easter Egg hunt!
After the Easter holidays, we have enjoyed the sunny weather! Our topic this half term is 'People Who Help Us.' We have been finding out about dentists, doctors, vets. We are hoping to visit a fire station too! Our Year 6's are now beginning their transition sessions for the secondary settings; this involves visits, PSHE sessions and social stories to prepare them for the change.

February

This term, we are paying particular attention to different life cycles and engaging in the theme 'minibeasts'.

Our literacy is based around the author Eric Carle. We are having great fun with his books, engaging us in our topic in literacy, science, DT and art.

We are excited to have our caterpillars, which we hope will transform into beautiful butterflies. We have been on a minibeast hunt, and although we did not find any caterpillars outside, we found worms, centipedes, spiders, woodlice and beetles.

Our Design Technology, this term is also all about minibeasts. We are busy trying new techniques using levers and pivots so that we can then design and make our own minibeast moving picture.

Finally, we are going to be visiting a farm to continue investigating lifecycles. We are hoping to see some lambs and maybe baby chicks.

January

January in the ARC

Our topic this half term has been vehicles and journeys. We have been learning about different types of vehicles, listening to vehicle stories and taking different modes of transport.

Last Tuesday we took a train trip to Bere Ferres from Gunnislake. When we were at the station we were lucky enough to have a ride on the steam train that sits at the station. It looks quite different on the inside to the trains that we have today. When the ride was over, we ate our packed lunches while sitting in the carriage.

In Art we began the the term with colour mixing circles. We then used the circles to create vehicle collages. We think they look fantastic!

Next week we will be taking a bus trip to Tavistock. We will get a chance to play at the park and have a picnic packed lunch.

This might sound like fun but there is actually so much learning involved when we take a day out. The children have to use checklists to get themselves ready for the trip which encourages independence. We are practicing road safety skills, communication skills ( asking for tickets and liaising with the public). We can also practice our self regulation during a visit out. There are some things that our some of our children struggle with (- e.g walking past a dog.) When we go out regularly, we have a chance to support our children with the things they find tricky and often it desensitizes them so that it is no longer a big problem.

December

December was a busy month for us.

We had a successful ARC trip to Plymouth Theatre to see Raymond Briggs 'Father Christmas'. It even snowed in the theatre. The children enjoyed the show and there was much laughter throughout.

As this was the Christmas Term, we looked at why Christmas is important to Christians. We discovered that for Christians, Advent is a time for preparing for Christmas and each candle as it is lit represents Faith, Hope, Peace, and Joy. The final one is the joy that Jesus was born.

We also completed our Science module 'Animals including humans'. We looked at what is needed to keep animals and humans healthy and alive including exercise.

December was full of Art and craft including making prints from our Literacy topic - books from Julia Donaldson.

We enjoyed making our own Christmas tree, Christingle, decorations and Christmas cards.

And of course, much fun and laughter was had as we enjoyed our Christmas dinner, lovely food, crackers and our own hats that we made.

We hope you have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year.

November in the ARC

It has been a busy month in the ARC. During the week after half term we celebrated Bonfire Night - we had a go at using sparklers - it was great fun to try writing our names with them. The boys followed our safety rules brilliantly.
This month we have welcomed another new member into our ARC: Sabrina has joined us and
we are all enjoying getting to know her.
This month we have focused our literacy work on Julia Donaldson. We have been learning the stories, investigating rhymes, looking at the art work on Axel Scheffler. The children have chosen their favourite characters and turned them into prints. We are now working to create a 3D stand up model.
All of our children are enjoying the new ride on toys in the hall. We have been going up in groups to use them and we are getting really fast!

November in the ARC

October

We have had a lovely Autumn October. In Science we have been looking at Seasonal changes.
During this time we looked at how the weather can change too. By making a Water Gauge and Wind Vane we were able to make observations throughout the week. We also took a look at the daily temperature.

To check out the strength of the wind we created our own kites. We noticed that on the day we decided to trial them the wind had died down but had moments of gusty wind. At those times the kites lifted into the sky.

The temperature stayed between 15 - 17C and our rainfall rose from 5cm upto 20 cm by the end of our observations.

Throughout October we managed two Autumn walks, finding red, orange and yellow leaves. The walk was a peaceful one with the sounds of birds singing and a few last butterflies fluttering around. It was great finding the Wind turbine and watching the blades go round.

It will soon be Halloween, have a lovely halfterm and spooky halloween!