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.

May has been all about Sir Francis Drake!
We have enjoyed learning all about why he is famous, especially in our locality.
Our topic culminated in a fantastic trip to Buckland Abbey today in the sunshine. We drove via Tavistock and spotted the statue on the roundabout. Then we had a tour of the house and found out lots about Sir Francis Drake and his extraordinary life. We also got to dress up in Tudor clothes and learnt how to wear ruffs, doublets and shifts!
Have a look at our wonderful photos.

In Science we have learned about plants and enjoyed dissecting seeds and bulbs. Then we planted some seeds in different conditions and observed what happened. 
In Art we are learning all about Van Gogh and discussing his work. We have been sketching pictures of the sunflowers and we are painting them in the style of the artist ready for our art exhibition in June.

The weather has been so lovely this month! This has made outdoor learning even more lovely. A group called Tavy Workforce came to the school and cleared our pond area so that we could enjoy some pond dipping. We also went on a class trip to Burrator reservoir and the surrounding woodlands to learn more about wild plants and trees and the importance of forests. We celebrated VE day with a lovely picnic on the feild.

In maths we have been counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10 and we have also been sharing, grouping and making arrays. 

In art we have designed and printed patterns in the style of the designer Oral Kiely.

This week has mainly been about the Year 6 class who have been sitting their end of Key Stage tests AKA SATs. It was a busy week starting with a hearty breakfast in the dining room at the Junior school of cereals, toast, pancakes , brioche and crumpets! They then sat papers testing their spelling, punctuation and grammar, reading and maths (they had to take three maths papers!)
All of the children were impeccably behaved and were calm throughout.
Big thanks to the adults who helped to make everything go so smoothly- Mrs David, Miss Cunningham, Mrs Fraser, Miss Jenkins and Mrs Pearce.
Take a look at the photograph below which shows how happy the Year 6 were when it was all over!
We were absolutely delighted to share our recent Ofsted report when the final draft was finished at the end of last week. Some of favourite quotes from the report are: "Pupils at Copper Valley Infant and Nursery Academy are vibrant, confident and happy individuals. They flourish in the nurturing and respectful culture of the school." and "There is a clear focus on strengthening pupils' vocabulary and confidence in using language."
Thank you to all members of staff from both academies who supported each other to help to achieve this super report , to the parents who completed the parent survey and to the wonderful children at the Infant and Nursery school.

We started the term by talking about what we thought we'd need to do to grow plants. We then watched a short story which explained how to grow a bean. We then planted some beans. We learnt about honey bees and why they’re important. We also learnt about how and why they make honey. As we found out that they need flowers we decided to plant some sunflowers. We also did lots of bee activities including making bee models, bee puppets and painting pictures of bees and flowers. We then used our phonic skills to write sentences about bees.

The following week we went on a minibeast hunt during forest school and looked closely at what we found. We identified what they were and then asked questions about them. We then watched some short video clips and looked at some non-fiction books to find the answers to the questions we asked. We wrote sentences about them and sorted pictures into sets according to whether they were insects or not. 

Over the last week we've been focusing on how to be a good friend. Myself and Mrs Feakins have modelled various scenarios and the children have discussed whether we were being good friends or not. They then came up with ideas of how we could be better friends. They were then given various activities to do with a partner where they had to focus on listening to each other and helping each other. I was very impressed with how they worked together to create minibeast pictures. They were all very kind and worked together brilliantly. There have been many other opportunities for the children to work together during continuous provision. 

In PE we've been learning to throw and catch beanbags accurately by putting one foot forward. We've been enjoying getting outside and have been playing football, building obstacle courses and practising riding 2 wheeled bikes. I'm so impressed with the children's determination as many of them can now ride these without stabilisers.

Another busy week has passed at Copper Valley. On Thursday we joined the rest of the Nation to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe day. Some of the Juniors joined a webinar to learn about VE Day along with hundreds of other schools across the country. We talked about how thankful we were that we hadn't experienced what war was like and how important and precious peace is. We all enjoyed a picnic lunch in the style of a 'street party'. 
On Friday the Year 1 class enjoyed a trip to Burrator and visited the Discovery Centre there.
The sun shone brightly in Callington on Saturday as they celebrated the annual Mayfest. This year the theme for the giant was flying creatures. We had a fabulous ostrich with an incredibly tall neck We also had some colourful bugs to dance around alongside our big bird. Thank you to Mr and Mrs Symons and Oli for helping to transport the ostrich to and from the school as it was no mean feat! Thank you to Ivy, Imogen, Charlie, Oscar, Sophie, Henry, Freya, Serena, Aria, Ethan and Logan  who took part in the parade and represented the schools brilliantly. Additional thanks go to Miss Thomas, Mrs Wright,  Mrs Cansdale and Mrs Symons for also taking part in the procession.
Recent fundraising efforts by your good selves has resulted in a new football kit for the upper juniors (The one which Mrs Pearce got for us is sized for the lower juniors.) I thought that you might like to see it being modelled by some Y4 pupils - who will soon be upper juniors!

March

In  March we celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as characters from our favourite books. We had a special Careers Day where we had workshops with members of the community who told us about their jobs and let us experience activities linked to them. In science we explored out senses and did practical investigations to test our sense of taste and hearing. In art we completed our Brianna McCarthy collage work which is now on display for all passers by to see in the corridor.

April

In April we produced some beautiful writing and painting along the theme of spring. We returned to our learning about the abstract artist called Alma Thomas and created daffodil pictures in her style. We began learning related to our new big question 'Why should forests be protected?'. We are now learning about printing techniques in art and will be using these to print patterns in the style of the fabric designer Orla Kiely. We have been learning to measure length, weight and capacity in maths.

Welcome back to school, we hope you had a great Easter break.

We completed our art unit (sketching) by using all the skills we had learnt to draw the view from our school playground. (stippling/shading/cross hatching/drawing different types of lines and patterns) . The weather was nice so we sat on the steps and used clipboards. Our pictures are brilliant!
We have now started a new art unit (painting). We have been exploring the work of artist Vincent van Gogh and discussing our likes and dislikes. We will be learning lots of new skills in the coming weeks in order to create our own masterpieces ready for our art exhibition after half term.

We also finished our 'Where do we Live?' topic and enjoyed a trip to the park looking out for physical and human features along the way.
We also undertook traffic surveys and discussed what we noticed.
Finally we looked at the features of a local seaside town and compared them to those in our immediate locality.

We also finished our music unit by putting all the notes that we had learnt together to play 'Hot Cross Buns'. We were brilliant at it and even Miss Evans managed to play it!

We are looking forward to our new learning about Sir Francis Drake this half term and our trip to Buckland Abbey at the end of May.
Watch this space for photos!

It has been a busy first two weeks of the summer term. Both Year 4 and Year 5 have had trips to Cotehele. Year 4 took inspirations from this beautiful setting to create some poetry whilst Year 5 explored the wildlife found in the orchard and the pond. They also received complimentary comments from the general public who were also visiting.
On Thursday we had some fantastic volunteers from "Tavy Task Force". They worked tirelessly in the hottest day of the year so far. The result was a pond (at the Infant and Nursery school) which is now usable by the children Year 1 didn't waste any time trying it out (see the lovely pictures below.) Thank you to Ken Tripp for organising this for us.
We've had 27 donations in the last 30 days, thanks to our supporters using #easyfundraising when they make online purchases! Please keep up the good work, your donations are very appreciated. It's never too late to sign up and help us if you haven't already. Plus, join today and we could win a £250 donation: https://join.easyfundraising.org.uk/copper-valley-infant-and-nursery-academy/4wkcsu/c2s/128FF5bb/CE949/facebook/27
Thursday 8th May is the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Pupils can come to school dressed in red, white and blue. There will be lots of opportunities to learn about VE Day during the day.
I hope that you all enjoy the bank holiday.

After learning about farm animals we went to visit Ferry farm. We had a great time meeting and learning about the chickens and sheep. We enjoyed a walk in the woods where we collected interesting natural objects and also had great fun exploring the farm vehicles.

We learnt about why Christians celebrate Easter and then had great fun hunting for chocolate eggs outside.

February was a short month with half term but we still managed to have fun learning new things.

After half term we introduced our new question - 'Where Do We Live?'. We wrote some questions about what we would like to find out including 'Where does the Tamar river start and finish?'.
Then we learnt about the difference between physical and human features to help us when exploring our local area.
In DT we completed our aeroplanes, have a look at the photos, they are fabulous!
In music we are learning to play the glockenspiel. We have learnt how to play B and A and we are hoping to be able to play 'Hot Cross Buns' in time for Easter!
In art we have started a new unit on drawing and sketchbooks. This week we practised drawing different types of lines and patterns.
In literacy we have been writing poems based on the book 'I Love Bugs' by Emma Dodd. We wrote some amazing poems of our own called 'I Love Pets.'

In science we have continued to learn about different groups of vertebrates and their characteristics. We sorted animals by vertebrate group and by their diet. We have also written fact files about animals including lots of scientific language. 
In maths we have been focusing on calculations using numbers within 20. In our Mastering Number sessions we have been exploring odd and even numbers.
We have concluded our geography learning about 'What will you fins where the land meets the sea' by reflecting on how human activity is changing what we can find at the water's edge. We read a story called 'Clean Up!' and saw videos and images of the effect plastic pollution is having on the sea and the animals that live in it.
In art we have created paintings in the style of the abstract artist Alma Thomas. It has been great fun to experiment with her style and to use a combination of brush painting and printing with paints to achieve the final pieces we are happy with. We are now moving onto the skill of collage. We have begun this with a class collage of the sunset over the sea. We chose cool colours for the sea and warm colours for the sun and sunset sky. 
February also brought us Online Safety Day. This fit well with our term's computing learning which has been all about online safety. We have used the Digiduck stories from Childnet as a way to explore the themes of online safety.
We now have a new history big question 'How do we know about dinosaurs?'. We have already discovered that special scientists called paleontologists learn about prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs through studying fossils.