27 September 2024

Orcas


What a windy and occasionally wet session we had today, but nothing we couldn’t manage!


We began with Mrs Popay leading Worship by the Waves which focused on one of our school values - perseverance. 


After that, we began discussion on the topic of converting units of measurement, this week we were focusing on length. The children were given a tape measure and the task of drawing a circle in the sand which was 5 feet in diameter. We discussed how this could be converted to centimetres and metres. The children then had the job - like the inmates at Camp Green Lake - to dig a hole 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Some children worked collaboratively and some worked independently. After a period of time the children then went back to their holes and wrote a diary entry from the point of view of different characters within the story. 


When we were back in school the children typed up their diary entries and they were added to their extended writing books. 

Puffins
Despite the general weather conditions, we knew that it would not be too bad in the lee of the dunes, and with only a few showers forecast we decided to spend the morning on the beach.  We were right - and some children even said that they wanted to take coats off because they were too warm!
We watched the wild sea and then wrote some descriptive sentences about the waves in our journals, standing up and sharing our thoughts with each other.
In science we are looking at our senses.  This week we focussed mainly on sight, and used a range of blindfolds to experience some of the challenges that people who are partially sighted face.  We learnt how to help people who are partially sighted by offering our arm to guide them, rather than pulling them along.  We realised that there is a lot of trust involved in relying on others to keep us safe.  We then moved on to an introduction to hearing and sound, looking at how the waves move, and thinking about sound waves and their similarities.  We played a game of 'squeak little mouse' to try and discriminate where sound was coming from - some found it easier than others!
After some playtime (and investigating/helping the Orcas digging their holes) we dodged the showers on the way back up the hill.
Starfish
We continued the story ‘Starfish at the Beach’ by Lindy and Tom Schneider this week. 

After listening to the story, we spoke about how doing something little can still make a difference.  We recapped some starfish facts from last week and then each member of Starfish class told a Starfish fact about someone else.  Mrs Popay  read us some facts about real starfish and then we had a go at writing something about a starfish.

We looked at our toy starfish and made our own sand starfish with our hands, some children tried to make a starfish with their feet too!   In the story there is a seagull, we spoke about how there are different types of sea birds and we looked at pictures in some books and said how they were different.

We used dice in maths at beach school today.  The Nursery children practised counting the spots and saying the number and the Reception children practised their doubling by doubling the number of spots.

After maths we did some letter writing practise in the sand the Reception children also practised reading some words.  

Before we went back to school we moved along the shoreline in different ways: walking, jumping, side stepping and running and then sat and watched the tide coming in.