Bears@taddy

 The Bears have really shown off their oracy skills this morning. We have been inspired by our story 'Leo and the Octopus'. Leo meets an octopus at the aquarium and decides to research them so that he can have a better understanding. Not only does Leo learn about the characteristics of octopuses but also about friendship- something he doesn't have much experience of.  We have learnt so many facts about Octopuses through our story as well as our own research. Today, we decided to do our own narration of a documentary about Octopuses. The children worked in groups to write a script- writing down the facts they have gathered to go with the muted documentary. They then presented to the rest of the class, doing their best David Attenborough impressions!                                   

  On Tuesday afternoon, the Infants and Juniors joined together and split into 3 groups to explore Internet Safety. The children each visited 3 workshops. The children discussed how they use the internet; sites they visit, games they play and things that they watch. From these discussions, we then explored problems that may be encountered, such as unknown people 'befriending' them, age restrictions on certain games as well as inappropriate content appearing when searching the web. The children know that they should always tell a trusted adult if anything that they see when using the internet makes them feel uncomfortable or worried.  The children listened and discussed the story- 'The Magic window' where a girl had access to a magic window where she could discovered lots of wonderful things. However one day she saw something that made her feel upset. The girl didn't know what to do about it until eventually she discussed it with a special grown up. We discussed how

 This afternoon, we learnt about what a city is. We discussed and found out what is special about cities and what we would expect them to be like. The children compared life in the city to life in Taddington- comparing the amount of people, traffic, types of transport and different types of buildings and landmarks that may be in a city. We also found out on google maps where are closest cities to Taddington are as well as recapping where the capital cities of the U.K. are found on the map.  We then decided to build are own 3D city. The children created roads, buildings and physical features then painted them. Next, we will put our city together and make labels for the key features.                                                              

 The children were so excited to being going to Buxton Community School to take part in the sports festival there. Taddington was the first school to arrive and eagerly awaited to find out which other schools would be joining us. The children were desperate to get started and stuck into all the exciting activities.  The children played a variety of team games, including: 'bridge', 'rock, paper, scissors', 'balloons', 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' and 'island hop' which all helped to develop lots of different skills. We were so delighted with the way the children conducted themselves and the way the threw themselves into the different activities. We had a fantastic morning and can't wait for the next event.

 In RE this week, Year 1 and 2 explored some Biblical history, looking at how hated tax collectors were. We explored Christians believing that Jesus was a friend to everyone, despite their reputation or their actions. The children learnt that Jesus had 12 very close friends (disciples) and that one of them was a tax collector.  We then went on to explore the idea of choosing 12 people to help you change the world. We discussed what qualities we might like to see in somebody who could help change the world, and who might make our list of '12 World-Changers'. We then split into 3 groups, each compiling their own list. This is the final list that we compiled as a class after debating the pros and cons of each person.

 It has a brilliant start to the new year with our children excited and motivated to get stuck in to our new topic 'Bright lights, big city'.  Over the past few days we have been learning about landmarks, both locally and further afield in the U.K.  Yesterday, the children really enjoyed researching the local landmarks on Google Earth, finding 'Poole's Cavern', 'Magpie Mine', 'Buxton museum' and Chatsworth house.  This afternoon, we've been finding out about different types of landmarks and their purposes.  The children worked in groups to create different types of landmarks before sharing them with the rest of the class. Monuments- statues Places of worship- a church        Physical features Entertainment venues- Cardiff stadium Engineering structures- Blackpool tower