A special visitor!

This week the children have had a very special visitor spend the morning with them to help launch their topic of Extreme Survival. Mark Wood, a real life explorer, came to share his adventure stories with the children! Mark was a pupil at Stivichall Primary School and since that time has had the most amazing life. An established polar explorer and adventurer, in 2011/2012 Mark attempted to ski solo and unsupported to the North and South Geographic Poles in an incredible feat of physical and mental endurance. He can also count climbing Mount Everest, cycling across the USA and New Zealand, Alaskan dog sledding, heading up a BBC Top Gear expedition and supporting educational projects world wide on his list of achievements. What an amazing man! 

The children were mesmerised by his stories, videos and photographs of his expeditions but were particularly fascinated by the real Polar Bear tooth he brought along! If you would like to read more about Mark and his adventures then please visit his website http://www.markwoodexplorer.com. The children will be following up his visit with activities and work relating to his visit and life in polar regions.

In Science the children have been investigating magnets. They have learned how magnets were discovered and the types of things they are used for, especially toys! The children then had the chance to design a toy or game of their own that used magnets to make it exciting. We had some wonderful creations! We also investigated how magnets help people find their way around by being inside compasses. The children then made their own compass using a paper clip, a piece of cork and some water.

During Christmas Art Morning the class split into two and half of the children visited class 1S while the other half of 1S came into 3P. The role of the children in 3P was to help the younger ones with their christmas craft activity. We began by making peppermint creams which involved masses of icing sugar! It definitely looked like it had been snowing in the classroom that day! After break we made christmas gift boxes to put our peppermint creams in along with a paper hat and a joke. The children did find making the boxes a bit tricky but I was extremely impressed with how determined they were to get it right. Well done year one and three!

In English the children have been learning about the importance of instructions and how to write them well. We began by looking at lots of different types of instructions and the types of features they all contain such as bullet points, numbering, imperative (bossy) verbs and time connectives. We then looked at how instructions can be interactive and watched a video on how to make a paper hat.

The children then had a go at making the paper hat but with a twist. In pairs one had to do the paper folding and the other held a microphone to be the presenter. We watched a couple of the videos at the end of the lesson and I was super impressed with the confident  presenting skills and effective language the children used! Blue Peter presenters have class 3P children ready to step into their shoes!