Spring 1
This half term our topic is 'Paws, Claws and Whiskers'.
Week 1 - Pets
This week we have started our 'Paws, Claws and Whiskers topic by looking at 'Pets'. Children have been learning about different kinds of animals that people have as pets and talking about pets they have at home. On Thursday we visited 'Pets At Home' and got to see some dogs, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, rats and fish. We also had a look at some of the things that you can buy in the shop for animals such as food, beds, cages and toys. Also this week we started our new P.E. lesson with a Sunderland AFC coach. Our first lesson involved us using an obstacle course where we had to jump, climb and balance. We had lots of fun as you can see from the pictures below.
Week 2 - Pets
We have had another great week in Class 9 this week. We have continued to look at pets and talk about different animals. On Thursday the children got a lovely surprise when it started to snow outside. They were eager to get out and play in the winter weather so we spent a little time outside with them before coming inside for a nice hot chocolate to warm us up.
Also on Thursday we used our bus session to visit 'Bryson's Animal Shelter'. Firstly we would like to thank you and some of the other school staff for the kind donations of food, toys and money that were sent in. The ladies who we met in the shelter were very grateful for all of the donations and wanted us to pass on their thanks as well. The children really enjoyed visiting the animals in the shelter, we managed to meet Rusty, Sasha and Sadhu the dogs as well as Snowy, Levi, Yoshi and Simba the cats. Many of the other animals were out on dog walks or had taken shelter from the cold however we also got to see some of the horses and donkeys from the comfort and warmth of the school bus as we left.
Week 3 - Sportsability
This week on Tuesday the children attended a Sportsability event where they got to try out a range of sporting activities alongside other local primary schools. The children really enjoyed the Tennis, Volleyball, Kurling and Boccia activities. During the Boccia activity children took part in a competitive challenge where they were given 6 balls to score points. They had three zones that they could land the ball in to score either 1, 5 or 10 points, too far or too short and they score 0. All of the children did really well and three of them managed to score over 40 points which was fantastic! Have a look at some of the pictures from the day below.
Week 4 - Arts Award
Its been another busy week in Class 9 this week, the children have enjoyed learning about money in our Math lessons and we have completed lots of phonics and fine motor skills work linked to our animal topic in Literacy lessons.
On Thursday we had a lovely visit to Broomhouse Farm where we got to see some of the pigs and piglets including 'Big Dave' who the children love, we also saw the chickens, ducks, sheep and turkeys. The children enjoyed a drink and snack in the cafe as well.
Finally, over the next term the children will be working towards earning their own Discover Level Arts Award. To achieve an Arts Award Discover the children will need to collect evidence in an individual arts log of their experiences of taking part in arts activities, researching artists or craftspeople and their work as well as sharing their arts discoveries. So far this half term we have looked at several famous artists and used them and their methods as inspiration for own own art work.
So far the children have looked at and created work inspired by Georges Seurat (Pointillism), Andy Warhol (Pop Art) and Piet Mondrian (Abstract). Have a look at them completing some of their work below:
Week 5 - Cheese Sandwiches
This week in Class 9 the children have been showing the improvements they have made in being able to follow instructions in our Literacy/Cookery sessions. This half term the children have been following the same instructions each week to make a cheese sandwich. At the start of the half term the children needed lots of support using the grater to grate the cheese and the knife for spreading and cutting but this week they showed how much progress they have made by completing most of the process independently. Next week we will remove the instructions for most of the children and see if they can gather resources and make the sandwich independently.
Also on Thursday this week the children had a visit to Pets Corner at Jesmond Dene. Pets Corner has animals of all shapes and sizes including alpacas, pot-bellied pigs, goats and sheep alongside rabbits, colourful birds and much more! The children really enjoyed seeing the animals and had a giggle at the chickens who appeared to be staging a break out as you can see in the pictures below. It reminded us of the film 'Chicken Run'!
Week 6
Its hard to believe but we are at the end of another half term and half way through the school year already. Overall it has been another lovely half term in Class 9.
This week, as part of their Arts Award, the children have started to look at different types of art and we used our Thursday bus session to visit our first piece of sculpture. We picked a lovely one to start with by visiting the soldier statue 'Tommy' in Seaham. The children really loved seeing him, looking at the different parts of the statue and feeling what he was made from. Have a look at a couple of photos we took below.
Next half term we will visit other statues and sculptures in and around the local area.
We hope you have a lovely half term break and look forward to seeing the children back at school on
Monday 25th February.
