Journey Stories

In English Penguin class are learning all about journey stories and specifically ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers. To help the children with writing their own journey story they hot seated both the boy and the alien characters understanding what it may feel like to be stuck on the moon.

The 7 Habits

Penguin Class have been learning how to use the 7 Habits in their daily life and learning at school. In Habit 3 ‘Put First Things First’ the class learnt about how you have your ‘big rocks’ in life (reading at home, doing homework, brushing your teeth) and then once they are completed you will have time for all the activities in life that you may want to do like playing on your iPad or going to a friend’s birthday party. To remind the children of Habit 3 they painted rocks to take home.

Leader in Me

For the first 8 days of the Autumn term we have been introducing all the children to the 7 habits and our new whole school project: The Leader in Me.
Please see the link to our daily newsletters which introduced parents to each habit and our celebration day on Friday.
We are seeking to teach children that they are the leader of themselves and with the 7 habits they can become leaders of others.

https://www.queenemmaschool.org.uk/parent-information/important-information/letters-newsletters

Pond

We were so excited to see the fire brigade coming to help up fill up our pond! Some of us even got to wear the fire fighter’s helmet and jacket! A great big thank you to the Cambridge fire service.

Arts Festival

On Tuesday 2^nd July, Queen Emma enjoyed an Arts Festival where all classes enjoyed a mix of art, English and musical activities. We had a great day (as you can see by the pictures below).

Nursery enjoyed a musical sessions with Rat-a-Tat and lots of outdoors activities. Reception and KS1 listened to local group Shake, Rattle and Roll who brought  a range of exciting musical instruments in. Year 1 also had an amazing morning working together to paint outside. Year 2 created some weird and wonderful magical potions and investigated ‘The Air we Breathe.’

KS2 enjoyed a musical performance from members of St John’s Choir. Year 3 also loved a recorder workshop and made beautiful natural clay faces. Year 4 decorated tiles with stunning Islamic patterns and Year 5 made origami to hang in school. Year 6 enjoyed a performance from The King’s Men at Queen Edith before making dreamcatchers.

Special thanks must go to volunteers from the community who came in to run some of the activities. It was greatly appreciated and the whole day was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

KS1 Well-being Morning

As part of Well-being Wednesday in KS1, we have had a fantastic morning taking part in a variety of different sporting activities in order to look after our physical well-being. There were 6 different activities:

Obstacle course

Sprint

Parachute games

Balancing a ball on a racquet

Right on target! Throwing bean bags to a target

Water relay

Well done KS1 on a fantastic morning. You worked really well as a team
Thank you to the Year 6 Sports Leaders and the staff who helped make the morning run smoothly.

Seeds

Penguin class got very messy exploring seeds during their science lesson. We learnt that all plants that have seeds are a fruit. Some fruits have internal seeds and others like strawberries have their seeds externally. We then planted some of these seeds. I wonder if any of them will grow in our country?

Multiplication and Division

We have been learning about groups to help us to understand multiplication and division. First we made groups using objects like pasta and lollypop sticks, then we went to make the groups using house point counters in rows and columns to create arrays.

For example, 3 groups of 2 are 6. 2 groups of 3 are 6.
10 divided by 2, how many groups of 2 in 10?

Art

The year 2’s were busy mixing colours to create different values; lighter colours were tints and darker ones were hues. We then shared our work and discussed it using our new art vocabulary! Fabulous work year 2’s!

Ice

Year 2 have spent a chilly lesson exploring ice. Things that we discovered and wanted answering were;

• Ice can melt and turns slippery when handled. The warmth from our hands make the ice melt which turns the ice into water. This is a reversible change.
• Ice shrinks when it melts.
• Some of the ice was opaque and other pieces were transparent. Why is this?
• Salt speeds up the melting process if put onto ice.
• Some ice is bumpy and rough but it can also be smooth.

Fire Dance

Penguin class have been busy creating a dance based upon fire. We came up with a variety of movements that represented a burning ember, to a roaring fire and then slowly the fire dying out. We have also listened to the classical piece of music titled ‘Ritual Fire Dance’by Manuel da Falla basing our movements upon the dynamics of the music. Finally we used paper flames to help us with our movements. We can’t wait to perform it to another class!

Fairy Tale Maps

Penguin class have been exploring maps and will eventually make their own fairy tale map, relating to their topic of ‘Traditional Tales.’ The children looked at a variety of maps and discussed their similarities and differences. They also went on an epic journey on google maps, travelling all over the world and exploring far flung cities.

Story Telling Afternoon

Year 2 invited parents and carers to come in for a story telling afternoon. There were lots of fun activities enjoyed.