Welcome to THE SMARTIES page!
Yes that what we've called ourselves...why? Because we're all BRIGHT and we're all DIFFERENT! of course!!
And what a very excellent page it is!!
Want to know...
- what your child has been up to?
- what's coming your way this term?
- how you can support your child's school work at home?
Well this is where you can find out, and much more besides.
Class News
There's always lots going on in class 4! Read on to find out!
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LEFT: Duncan, our class mascot.RIGHT: This is Alan the alien - he likes to spend the night with the lovely humans in class 4! | |
SATs WEEK
Not long now til SATs! You can see the timetable on the general information page, but you need to read on here to find out what the children will be doing in the afternoons!
I intend to get your children out in the fresh air after their tests, allowing them to relax and unwind. We are going to do some gardening!!
Please could you send your child to school with a bag of clothes which can be 'got mucky'?
We'll be making a start on re-vamping the garden area. On Wednesday 14th May there is only one test in the morning, so after play we're going to walk up to the Windmill Nursey to have a look around and see what we can buy that will attract wildlife; in particular butterflies.
LOVELY PICS OF OUR CLASSROOM DISPLAYS
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| Class 4's Nature Table | Our Feelings Monsters |
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| Pirate Week display | DT moving buggies |
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| Reading display | R.E stained glass windows |
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| What a good letter looks like! | Duncan looking dapper in Thurlstone blue! |
KINGSWOOD 2007
We had a great time again! The children were well behaved and thoroughly enjoyed all the activities.
Visit the News and events page to see more photos!
Thurlstone Trail with John Hislop and Penistone Partnership
Class four have finished working with local historian John Hislop on the Thurlstone Trail map - you may have seen our picture in the Chronicle! The map itself is fantastic. The children worked really hard and produced super sketches and poems. It is on display in school so don't miss it!
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| The children found out lots about the history of local buildings. | We got invited in to the house of one of our older friends from the village. |
Mrs Hislop told us all about Nicholas Saunderson. |
Mr Hislop telling the children all about Thurlstone bridge. Did you know it used to be a little hump-backed bridge and if you look underneath you can still see it? |
This is the mounting block outside what used to be an Inn/hostelry on the outskirts of Thurlstone. Travellers saw this as a safe-haven from highwaymen! |
The beams in this building are over 700 years old! That's even older than me! |
What's on this summer term?
It's very busy one what with SATs tests just round the corner!
- They will also be investigating separating materials and changing state.
- In literacy the children will be learning about writing persuasive texts, discussion texts and narrative stories.
- The children will be investigating Rounds in music.
- the children will be finding out about how Muslims worship.
- In ICT the children will be investigating uses for spreadsheets.
- In P.E the children will continue to work on Country Dancing and will be starting an athletics theme as well.
- Children will be exploring missdorothy.com with Mrs Ward - they will be learning about taking and managing risks.
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Not long now!
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'I can do science me!' |
Barnsley Biodiversity Trust
Colin Graham has been in to talk to us about the wide variey of natural habitats that exist in the Barnsley area. He also told us lots about bird and mammal species that are endangered or under threat. He has offered to help us develop our wild life garden so class four have put together an action plan and question we'd like answered. We've called ourselves the T BAGS! Thurlstone Biodiversity Action Group.
Watch this space for more information about our developing plans!
ROBOLAB
We have been the lucky recipiants of 15 Lego robots and 10 rather swish laptops! We've had them on loan for two weeks and have really enjoyed programming them to do lots of clever things. This was part of a computer control project and all the children had a great time despite technological hitches!
The laptops came in extremely handy in other curriculum areas too.
Here's some photos!
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The LEGO BEAST!
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The children had to programme their robot to park in a mini car parking space. |
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Not a bad effort - better than my real life parking!
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Very industrious looking aren't they?
It's harder than it looks! |
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The children had to programme their robots to use their touch bumper sensors to get round an arena. |
They all coped really well with the challenges and the technical hitches that came as part of the package! |
KELHAM ISLAND VISIT
Below are some pictures taken on our recent Kelham Island visit - we all had a fab time and learned a huge amount about the life of children in Victorian Sheffield. The kids dressed up, and even bought along authenic (well almost) Victoian dinners!
Please feel free to come and have a look at our Victorian's display!
NO CHILDREN WERE HARMED IN THE TAKING OF THESE PHOTO'S!(HONEST)
The children used slate boards and pens to practice Copperplate writing. |
Butter wouldn't melt.....! |
"We'll have none of that face pulling my lad!"
These two ragamuffins are grinding metal bars. |
The children used victorian tools to lift crucibles - right heavy they were! |
Oh dear - the cane for this grubby child - after all 'cleanliness is next to godliness'.
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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! What can I say! What a shameful bunch!
"Bow your head in shame boy!"
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That'll teach them to slouch and fiddle!
These servants have been put to work in Bannerdale Hall. |
More raggamuffins grinding.... |
....and buffing! |
Emptying slops - mmmm everyones favourate job! |
Only a brief moment to play before back to work! |
Good behaviour
The children will be awarded stickers and certificates if they are spotted doing any of the following:
- being warm and welcoming
- helping someone to calm down
- being brave or confronting a worry or fear (not in the slaying a dragon kind of way!!)
- solving problems - using their initiative
Encouraging these social skills at home will support our work here in school!
The children have also been encouraged to nominate people for Friendship Tokens. If anyone gets three tokens, they get a mini-certificate. It's all part of our mission to develop the children's understanding of what being a good friend means!
All this and the usual spelling, times tables work and everything else...we are one busy class!
WHOLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM TARGETS
The Whole School Literacy and Numeracy targets have now changed. The Literacy target is now focused on spelling, whereas the numeracy target is now focused on written methods of division . There are new displays in class so please feel free to come and have a look!
Here's one of them!
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| Literacy display | Numeracy display |
Ways you can help support work done in school
Here are a few simple things you can do to help out:
- When your child is reading, encourage them to read out loud with plenty of expression in their voices. This will help with drama work.
- Solving multi-step word problems in numeracy is always tricky. Give your child some money problems to solve.
- Encourage your child to be creative with their literacy homework - the new green books help with that!
- Please feel free to write in your child's homework diary...your comments will be much valued and I'll do may best to reply as soon as possible! The diaries need to be in every Thursday.
- Try to get your child to practice their times table as often as possible...keep it practical though...get your child to make some simple matching games.
Just a reminder
Please could you ensure you have a pair of indoor shoes and a bag to keep them in? There are still some of you that don't have indoor shoes and you walk mud into school on a regular basis! So please...get some in door shoes!!
Contact us
If you have any specific queries about class four goings-on, please feel free to come in and talk to Mrs Gibbins.
Big writing
The children are making fantastic progress with their writing.
Big Writing focuses on the principle that good quality writing contains high standards in what is known as V.C.O.P or vocab, connectives, sentence openers and punctuation.
Come in to school and see our displays!
Kingswood 2006
What a totally brilliant time we had! The weather was great and the activities we did were fantastic.
The children all behaved brilliantly and were a pleasure to spend time with!
Check out the photos...there's more to follow!
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We had lunch in a field on the way up! |
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The birthday girl eagerly awaits the cutting of the cake. |
The Leap of Faith was really scary! |
We all had a go and deserve lots of Bravery stickers! |
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| The boys are nervously awaiting their turn to experience Zip Wire | The scary Leap of Faith! | Mmmm not sure what activity this was! |
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"I challenge you to a duel" |
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| Oooh that was a close miss! | Groovy girls! | Mmmmm....not sure what to say about this one! |
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Disco fun! Don't know where we got the energy! |
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Very wet girls!
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"Just go in up to waist...."
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We had completely brilliant and very wet fun canoeing. |
What a fine figure of a man!! |
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Mr Paul Rolinson was our leader for this activity...he sure knows his stuff and made us all laugh. |
KINGSWOOD IS A GREAT ACTIVITY CENTRE! W'LL BE THERE AGAIN NEXT YEAR!!! |
