Reception: Muddy Monday
Our Reception children braved the cold today and went in search of twigs and sticks to create our own Stick Men at Jack Keys. We will be focussing on this story throughout this week and we will be making our own Stick Men to help us retell the story.
Year 3 - English- Discovering Bear Island
Today, Year 3 worked in pairs to explore the book "The Last Bear." They made predictions and inferences about the story based on the front cover of the book. Next, they looked at the double-page illustration (map) of Bear Island. The children debated whether it was a real place and explored the map, identifying locations like Tromso and Svalbard. We used Google to research the island and discovered that it is a small, uninhabited island in the Arctic Ocean. The children were fascinated to learn that there is a Bear Island in Norway, not far from the UK.
Year 1 English- Story Planning
In English, Year 1 have been story planning. They have been innovating a scene from the Gruffalo which can be added into the original story. They have worked hard with their rhyming and came up with some brilliant ideas. We have had bears running away because the mouse has said that he is meeting the Gruffalo by the lair and his favourite food is chopped up bear, we have had the same but with the mouse meeting the Gruffalo by a trunk with his favourite food being fried skunk and so on.. Well done Year 1!
Reception: Birthdays
As part of our celebrations topic, we are focussing on birthdays this week. The children have enjoyed making birthday cards, birthday cakes, bracelets and birthday crowns too. They have been focussing on their fine motor skills to complete their challenges and also have been working really hard when writing their names. Well done!
Year 3- Guided Reading-A Poppy is to Remember
For our guided reading session today, Year 3 listened to a story "A Poppy is to Remember" by Heather Patterson and Ron Lightburn. This story helped the children understand the significance of Remembrance Day and the symbolism of the poppy. We reflected on the sacrifices made by soldiers for peace, listening to John McCrae's poem, In Flanders Fields.
Reception RE: The Birth Of Jesus
Today our Reception children began their Christmas unit in RE. We took part in a sensory story all about the birth of Jesus. We used Widget symbols for each part and used our senses to get involved with the story. The children smelt baby oil to understand that Mary was expecting a baby, we walked to show how Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem and we lit candles to show how dark it was. The children then used a drum to knock on the door to see if there was any room. We then used the sign for no. Finally, the children wrapped a baby in blankets to show the birth of Jesus. The children really enjoyed drawing parts of the story in our scrap book and enjoyed getting involved in the story all about the birth of Jesus. We can't wait for the children to act out this special story in their Nativity production in a few weeks time.
Reception: Dough Disco
Our Reception children have been developing their fine motor skills today. Their hands have been getting stronger by completing a dough disco activity. This really helps them to get ready to hold a pencil and form letters accurately.
Year 2 - English
This week we have began reading our new book ‘Prince Cinders’ , this book is a twist on Cinderella and we have really enjoyed the book so far! We have made some interesting predictions, some predicting there will be a happy ever after ending and others are not so optimistic! We are looking forward to seeing if any of us have predicted the rest of the story! We also gave the horrible bothers a grilling as we generated questions for them. It’s fair to say we are not happy with the way Prince Cinders gets treated by his mean brothers.
Year 4 - English: Researching Pompeii
It’s a new term and the start of a new English topic. All of our English this half term is based on the Romans, starting with a story with a historical setting - Escape From Pompeii. We began our topic by conducting keyword searches in order to find out a bit more about Pompeii back in 79AD and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Year 4 - Spellings: Mnemonics
This week’s spellings are pairs of homophones: words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different definitions. It’s always a tricky one teaching which spelling is which in context, so we use mnemonics, such as drawing pictures, to help us to remember.
Year 3- English- History-Understanding Mummification Through Experiment
In History, this afternoon, Year 3 continued their learning on the Ancient Egyptians with a writing stimulus focused on mummification. To support their writing unit, where they’ll explain the mummification process, the children “mummified” an orange. They cut the orange in half and removed the inside (representing the internal organs), then carefully dried it using a mixture of salt and baking soda. After removing the insides of the orange (just like the Ancient Egyptians removed internal organs), the children carefully dried the inside of the orange using salt and baking soda. This mixture acted like the natron salt the Egyptians used to preserve bodies by drawing out moisture. Next, they filled the orange with more salt and baking soda to prevent decay and dryness. Finally, they wrapped the orange carefully in strips of cloth to resemble linen bandages, just as the Egyptians would have wrapped their mummies. Over the coming days, the oranges will be left to sit, allowing the "mummification" process to take effect. The children will observe any changes and use this experience to help explain the process of mummification in their upcoming writing unit.
Year 3 - English- Identifying features of an explanation text
In English today, Year 3 looked at the main features of an explanation text. Working in small groups, they wrote step-by-step explanations for different tasks: making a sandwich, helping a plant grow, making a cup of tea, and creating a scroll using papyrus paper. This activity helped them understand how to write clear explanations and allowed them to collaborate and share ideas.
Harvest Church Service 2024
Thank you to our Wow group, EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 classes for leading our Harvest celebration at church today. I have uploaded some videos to class dojo and additional photos can be found here: https://stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/harvest-church-service-2024 It was wonderful to see so many of our families in attendance. A huge thank you to you all for coming to watch and thank you to all of our families for your continued support this half term. Thank you for all of your kind harvest donations, these can be continued to be sent in during the first week that we are back at school. Wishing you all a wonderful half term, Mrs Wilkinson
Reception: Junk Modelling
The children in Reception found a box in class. We discussed what we could do with it. The children said we could hide in it or decorate it. As a class, we decided to make a house. The children couldn’t believe that we could make a house from a recycled box! Together we painted the house and added materials to it. We then decided it was a house for the Funnybones Skeleton family.
Reception: Funnybones
This morning, our Reception class read ‘Funnybones’. Each time we heard big, little and dog skeleton we put actions in so that we all paid attention and could retell the story after. We then completed some challenges in continuous provision linked to the story. Some of the children painted skeletons, some children had to problem solve to complete a skeleton using playdough, some counted bones and matched the amount to the numeral and some practised their fine motor skills too. It has been wonderful to see lots of busy children living life in all its fullness in Reception, well done!
Year 1 English- Finding Key Information in Non-Fiction Texts
In their English lesson, Year 1 were set the challenge of answering questions by finding the relevant information within a non-fiction text. They learnt that using a contents page can be very useful in locating the specific information that you are looking for. Mrs Hegarty and I were so impressed with how they navigated the texts (looking for page numbers) and how they followed along with the reading of the text too. Well done done Year 1!
Year 2 - Caption Writing
In English, we are preparing to write our non-chronological reports. Over the past two weeks, we have been practicing the writing techniques that we will need to use in our reports. Today we learnt what a caption is and the purpose of them. We then had a go at writing our own for various pictures.
KS1- Book Explorers
This week in Book Explorers, we read a lovely book all about friendship called ‘The Best Gift of All.’ This story is set in the Autumn and features lots of Autumn animals. We learnt about how all of these animals were amazing friends to the rabbit when she wasn’t feeling very well. We then made some wonderful Autumn wreaths to take home.
National Poetry Day in Year 4
As part of National Poetry Day, Year 4 have written their very own poems based on The Amazon Rainforest. They developed their use of both similes and metaphors to up level their examples. We recited the poems and gave peer evaluations. Once we had finished, we wrote the poems again for a poetry competition called Wonder Verse in which the best poems are selected and published in an actual poetry book. We can’t wait to hear if any of our poems make it to publication so we've got everything crossed. Happy National Poetry Day.!
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Year 3- Class Worship-How important is it to know about the author behind the book?
During our class worship, Year 3 explored a story from Picture News about a book vending machine at Linlithgow Academy in Scotland. The machine offers children access to a diverse selection of over seventy books. The children discussed their preferred books and authors and why they liked them, with suggestions including humorous books, books that enhance vocabulary, and books that provide insights into historical events. We thanked God for allowing us to read books and learn from them, including the Bible and books written by other people.
Year 4 - English : Information Texts
We have started our first non-fiction unit in English this week. We will be making good use of the rich geography knowledge we have gained about the Amazon Rainforest in order to create information texts over the next couple of weeks. We began by researching the Amazon using a range of secondary sources such as fact files and websites. We then looked at a number of examples of information texts and spent time identifying key features, such as subheadings and text boxes.
Reception: Speaking and Listening
We have been really focusing on our listening skills this week. We looked at our proof of listening rules as part of our Oracy session. The children know to sit properly, look at the speaker and listen carefully. Some of our children were very brave and became the speaker. They came to the front and sat on the speaker podium or stood on it to tell the children some news. They used clear voices and worked on how loud they were talking so everyone could hear.
KS1 After School Club- Book Explorers
This week in Book Explorers, we read some monster themed stories and created our own monster themed bookmark.
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Year 2 - Time Conjunctions
In Year 2, we have been reminding ourselves of time conjunctions and how they are used in our writing. We discussed how time conjunctions help us to order events in this case the events in our story ‘Caterpillar Shoes’. The children identified appropriate time conjunctions and then began to use them to retell our story.
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Year 4 - Writing Metaphors in Poetry
We are currently studying similes and metaphors in free-form poetry and, today, we started writing our own poems. We used images, word banks and oral rehearsal to create metaphors about the Amazon rainforest. Our finished poems will be entered into a poetry competition with a chance of them being published.
Reception- Eye Spy Phonics
In phonics the children made a circle, inside the circle were some objects. Norman the puppet was saying initial sounds and the children were finding the objects that began with that sound.
Year 1 Writing
Year 1 have been working hard on their writing, particularly their letter formation. In their handwriting lessons, they have learnt how to form the precursive i, l, t, a, o and c and they have been practising this in both their handwriting books and in the writing area. They have also been working hard in their phonics and English lessons to apply their knowledge of the Phase 3 phonemes to their writing. Well done Year 1.
Reception-Phonics
In our phonics lesson we used our magic finger pens to create the movements ‘down the ladder’, ‘curly caterpillar’ and ‘bouncy ball’ to get us ready for writing and forming letters. We then used glitter to practise making these marks.
Year 3- English- Diary Entry
Continuing our English work, this morning Year 3 wrote their diary entries from the perspective of Rhodopis. They focused on using noun phrases, descriptive language, and time connectives. Fantastic effort from our super writers!
Year 4 English - Planning a narrative based on The Explorer
As part of our English lessons, we are reading The Explorer by Jaqueline Wilson which is set in the South American rainforest. Today we have started to write our own narrative linked to a specific success criteria which included using fronted adverbials for time and place. We can’t wait to carry this on over the next few weeks to produce a final piece.
Year 3- Handwriting-
Over the last two weeks, we have been placing a strong focus on handwriting, particularly focussing on letter joins and overall presentation. Year 3 have been working incredibly hard to join their letters and form them correctly . We are super proud of their dedication and hardwork.
Year 6 - Alice in Wonderland Workshop
After watching the Alice in Wonderland production, year 6 were lucky enough to take part in a workshop with the cast. They had a discussion about what goes into making a good show: costumes, direction, technology, acting and got to have a go at some of these elements themselves. Hopefully, some of the knowledge they have gained from this experience will be carried forward into their own performance at the end of the year.
Reception: Outdoors
Our Reception children explore outdoors in all weathers. We are trying really hard to put on our puddle suits and wellies independently. The children have enjoyed playing on our bikes, in our superhero cave, in our mud kitchen and sandpit and with our resources under our canopy.
Reception: Our First Day Group 1
This morning we welcomed our first group to Reception. They were superstars and settled in really well. They enjoyed exploring our indoor classroom today. We are so glad they have joined our St Barnabas family.
Reception: Our First Day Group 2
This afternoon we welcomed our second group to Reception. They were superstars and settled in really well. They enjoyed exploring our indoor classroom today. We are so glad they have joined our St Barnabas family.
Summer Reading Challenge 2024
This morning, Angela came in to invite us all to join in with ‘The Summer Reading Challenge 2024- Marvellous Makers’. This is a national reading activity, which aims to encourage a love of reading in children and develop their literacy skills throughout the summer. To get started, drop in to either Darwen or Blackburn Library. Angela told us that once you’re enrolled, each member needs to read 6 library books (or eBooks/eAudio), with stickers or a prize being awarded for each book that is read and returned. Prizes will include origami paper and pencil crayons. Those who complete the scheme (all 6 books), will receive a medal and a certificate that they can bring into school in September and have presented in Friday celebration worship. Angela asked us why it would be amazing if we all completed the Summer Reading Challenge. Our children said that reading can help us to learn new words, increase our imagination, get us excited so our hearts will beat fast and help us to challenge our brains. We look forward to hopefully presenting lots of ‘Summer Reading Challenge’ certificates and medals in September. Extra Information To enrol, simply go to your nearest Blackburn with Darwen library and complete an application form between 1st July & 30th September. Enrolment in the scheme is free of charge, and involves children borrowing books on a library card. If your child does not yet have a library card, we would encourage you to take this opportunity to enrol them as a library member. This is a quick process, and you will simply be asked to complete and sign another form. However, those children without library cards may still join the Summer Reading Challenge, and temporary arrangements will be put in place to allow them to borrow books.
Year 1 English
This week, Year 1 have explored riddles. They have practised writing their own clues using adjectives, verbs, adverbs, similes and conjunctions. They are now really excited to write their own riddle containing all of the grammatical features that they have been practising. Well done Year 1!
Year 6 - Perfecting Our Performance
Well, all we can say is that the parents of these talented performers are in for a treat! The children have been working hard to develop their acting, singing and dancing skills. The performance is coming along nicely and Year 6 can’t wait to entertain their teachers and families. Bring on the show!
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Reception: Muddy Monday
Reception enjoyed our Muddy Monday session at Whitehall Park. After our growth mindset assembly today, we made sure we used our growth mindset instead of our fixed mindset to challenge ourselves and take risks. The children really engaged with this and it was wonderful to see how far they have come since they started with us. Well done!
Reception: Our New Classroom
The children in Reception have loved our new outdoor canopy that was built last week. This has extended our classroom to provide an outdoor area that the children can access in all weathers. Our indoor classroom has also had a refresh and the children have loved exploring all of the areas!
Year 5 - Balanced Arguments
Year 5 have begun researching one of the most debated topics - should animals be kept in Zoo’s? The children found out a number of alarming facts that are against Zoo’s such as: that animals have 1800 times less space in zoos than in the wild and animals are not evolving the way they should. But found many compelling reasons why animals should be kept in zoos such as: they live longer, stop species becoming extinct and it can advance medicine. The children will use these arguments to create their own balanced argument.
Year 6 - The Jungle Book
The Year 6 class put their acting skills to the test this week as we began pulling our end of year performance together. The children have been working on learning their lines and they are now perfecting their reactions and movements on stage. Just three weeks to go!
Reception: Muddy Monday
Reception had a very busy forest school session today. They enjoyed exploring in the shaded area of Jacks Keys. They found a fox hole and enjoyed exploring and creating their own storylines. They made houses for different animals and roleplayed a story about a fox coming out during the night. Some of our children climbed trees and managed to climb higher than usual. We are so proud of the children and love seeing how far they have come. Super perseverance, challenge and determination was seen from them all!
Year 3- English- Zoom session from Tom Roberts-Author of the The Great Realisation poem and film. ·
Performance poet Tom Roberts also known as Tom Foolery shared his journey into poetry and explained his creative process during a Zoom session with Year 3 today. He emphasized the importance of focusing on subjects that matter to you at the moment, whether personal or universal, making the work more engaging. He shared valuable advice from a former teacher about structuring a poem. Instead of thinking of a poem as having a beginning, middle, and end, he approaches it as a progression from stability to instability, and finally to resolution. During the session, Tom delighted the children by reading two poems: "The Great Realisation" and "The World Awaits" – the latter from his second book. To make the experience even more special, he included the names of the children while performing. Year 3 loved it! Inspired by this session, the children will now use Tom's approach to structure their poems on the theme of refugees.
English- Year 3- Refugees from Sudan and Libya
Today in Year 3, we welcomed two refugees. Zinab from Libya and Samah from Sudan. They both had to leave their families because it was not safe in their countries. Zinab and Samah told us about their struggles and worries about fitting in here in the UK. They were very grateful to the UK for providing them with housing and support. They also reminded us to be thankful that we don't have wars, and that we have safe places to stay and food to eat. The question and answer session helped the children understand the challenges refugees face, which they could then portray in their writing.
Year 6 - Computing
This week during computing, Year 6 created their own advertising campaign and a website to match. The children explored many creative tools to make their adverts appealing to their audience and make people want to read their campaigns. The children used their amazing creative skills to personalise their adverts.
Year 3- English- My name is not a Refugee
This week, Year 3 began their new writing unit based on the book titled "My Name is Not Refugee." At first, the children predicted that the story might be about a child starting school, going swimming, or on a family holiday. However, after learning the title, they felt sad for the little boy and his mum. In today's lesson, the children were asked to think of five items they would take if they had to leave their home and never come back. They suggested items like jumpers, snacks, teddies, books, games, sleeping bags, toothpaste, and torches. Narrowing it down to just five items was extremely difficult for them. They realised that a mobile phone would lose its battery and become useless, a sleeping bag might be helpful if they couldn't find a place to sleep, but they were still concerned about staying warm and finding food. The children then wrote responses to questions based on the story.
Year 4 English - The Mousehole Cat
In our English session this morning we have been focusing on our new class novel ‘The Mousehole Cat’ by Antonia Barber. After sharing more of the story, our objective was to sequence and discuss events using a story map. The children first discussed their ideas, working in pairs to sequence pictures. Then then created a whole class word bank that included key vocabulary from the story. Finally they wrote a paragraph for each picture. The children produced some lovely writing during the session with lots of complex sentence, uplevelling their work as they went along.
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Year 1 English- Creating a Non-Fiction Book About BeWILDerwood
This week in their English lessons, Year 1 have been working on their own Non-Fiction book about BeWILDerwood. Year 1 visited BeWILDerwood before the holidays and we thought that the trip and our experiences of it would be a good stimulus for writing. The children have created their own book with a front cover, contents page and three further pages about the activities that BeWILDerwood offer. On these pages, the children made sure that they included a heading, picture and a very informative caption. They have really enjoyed this-well done Year 1.
Year 5 - Geography
Year 5 have been exploring and investigating the world’s most famous earthquakes around the world. The children located them on a map and created a report detailing how severe they were, location and damage.
Year 1 and 2 visit BeWILDerwood
Our Year 1 and 2 classes had a fantastic time at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. They showed lots of courage when taking part in a variety of challenging activities such as den building, wobbly wires, slippery slopes, the mish mash maze, the broken bridge, storytelling and crafts. For all of the photos, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/year-1-2-bewilderwood-trip-may-2024
Performing Arts Club
Our young thespians are working hard to learn their lines in our weekly focussed script-reading sessions. The end of year performance is fast approaching and so the performers are making those final tweaks to perfect their roles. Eight weeks to go!
Year 1 English- Non-Fiction Books
As part of their English unit, Year 1 have been exploring the features of non-fiction books. After seeing and reading a number of non-fiction books and familiarising themselves with the features, they independently looked for the features in a non-fiction book themselves. They looked for the title page, the contents page, the glossary, labels, captions and headings. They are looking forward to creating their own information booklet on BeWILDerwood after visiting on Thursday.
Year 5 - Art
Year 5, created a poetic portrait in the style of Pablo Picasso. The children created a diamanté poem about their recent residential trip and traced their poem over the top of their one line portrait.
Reception, Year 1 and Year 2- Story and Craft Club
Today in Story and Craft Club, our school librarian Matthew chose the story, ‘A SUPERPOWER LIKE MINE’ by Dr Ranj and Miss Flynn read it to some of the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children. The story was all about a little girl called Femi who discovers all the special powers that her, her friends, and the incredible people around her, bring out in one another every day. We had a great discussion about the superpowers that we all have such as being creative, imaginative, kind, caring, amazing at solving problems, loving, helpful and an extremely good friend and then the librarians helped the children to make their own superhero mask.
Year 1- Performance Poetry
Today, Year 1 recited and performed the poem ‘Oh Dear’ by Michael Rosen. They have been working on their performance skills and today they did brilliantly at putting these into practice during their performance. They worked hard to project their voice, speak clearly and with expression and use the appropriate facial expressions. Well done Year 1!
Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 Story and Craft Club
Yesterday lunch time, the school librarians led a story and craft club for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. The children listened to ‘No-BOT The Robot With No Bottom’ and then did some robot crafts. The children came up with some wonderful names for their robots such as Rainbow, Simon, Love-Bot and Pow-Bot.
Year 3- Class Meeting-What school trips would you like to go on in future?
Miles took the role of a leader and Sonny took notes during our school council class meeting today. We discussed our last action about how to promote reading, and the most popular vote was to revisit Darwen Library. This week, the communication team wants to know ' What school trips would you like to go on in future?' The four choices were: Theme Park, Beach Visit, Museum/Art Gallery, or Football Match. Year 3 voted for a beach trip as their favourite option.
Year 3- English- David Attenborough- Use nouns and pronouns appropriately to avoid repetition.
This afternoon, Year 3 explored the fascinating journey of David Attenborough's life. They discovered details about his early years and education, then wrote a brief paragraph, ensuring they used nouns and pronouns to prevent repetition. They also learned that Sir David is celebrating his 98th birthday today, so they wanted to extend warm wishes for a fantastic day and many more years of greatness to come.
Reception and KS1- Story and Craft Club
At lunchtime today, Miss Flynn and the school librarians led a story and craft club for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. They read ‘Room on the Broom’ and then led a craft activity which involved the children decorating their own witches hat. Both the school librarians and the children in the infants really enjoyed themselves.
Year 5 - Creative Writing
Year 5 have been working extremely hard on their creative writing. We have been focusing on the book The invention of Hugo Cabret and the children created their own journal extract from the perspective of the main character; conveying his emotions and feelings as the main character’s invention comes to life. The children used lots of complex grammar to convey their emotions and senses to create atmosphere within their writing.
Year 3 - Persuasive Text- Why should you visit North America?
Year 3 have been learning how to write persuasively in the past week and a half. They've been using words like "could," "should," and "must" to convince people to visit North America. In geography, they've been learning a lot about North America, which helped them with their research. They've also been incorporating subordinate clauses in their writing using phrases like "Because North America has diverse landscapes." Now they're ready to show their persuasive writing to a wider audience and convince them to travel to North America.
Year 2 Performance Poetry
Mrs Ham had the privilege of teaching Year 2 for a performance poetry lesson. In English the children have been exploring a poem called The Fight of the Year by poet Roger McGough which imagines the transition from winter to spring as a boxing match. Roger reads the poem like he is a commentator at a boxing match to help build excitement. We had lots of fun adding expression and actions to the poem first as a whole class and then in pairs. Some children showed lots of courage by performing the poem in front of the class and we had some wonderful encouraging comments and ways to improve from the audience. Great work Year 2!
Year 1 English- The prefix ‘un’
In English, Year 1 explored the meaning of the prefix ‘un.’ They learnt that when ‘un’ is added to the front of a root word, it changes its meaning to mean the opposite (not). For example, unfair means not fair and unkind means not kind. The children got given either the root word or the root word with ‘un’ added to it and they had to find each other. Then they had to write some sentences using words with the prefix ‘un’ e.g. It is untrue that my name is Bobby. It is unfair to leave someone out of a game.
Year 2 English
As we continue to explore our new book Winter’s Child, we gathered a range of vocabulary. We used vocabulary from the book and our own vocabulary to describe the different settings in the book. Once we had created our bank of vocabulary, we then put them into sentences. We tried very hard to make sure every sentence had capital letters and full stops. The setting descriptions that we wrote are amazing. They are full of expanded noun phrases and similes to really help the reader imagine the setting.
Reception: Stories Jesus Told
This week, the children in Reception listened to the parable, ‘The Wise and Foolish Builders’. The parable explained how you should listen to Jesus. The children enjoyed pretending to listen and not listen to see what happened when building a house on a hard and soft surface.
Scholastic Book Fair
Good morning, A huge thank you to you all for supporting our Scholastic book fair. Our sales total for the fair was £484.84. We are always rewarded with 40% of the sales so we have £193.94 to spend on books for our school library. Our next fair will visit school on 13th November 2024 which is the perfect time to purchase books ready for Christmas.
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Year 5 - Fairtrade Letters
This week Year 5 received a special letter on behalf of the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street in recognition of their persuasive writing to purchase more Fairtrade products. The children wrote a letter detailing the worldwide benefits of Fairtrade and they have been writing to persuade the Prime Minister to promote the purchasing of Fairtrade. Our letter states that our letters have been forwarded to the Department for Business and Trade to make them aware of our views and options. Well done Year 5 for making a stand and trying to make a difference!
Reception: Rhyme time
We welcomed our grown ups to our rhyme time this morning and enjoyed singing some new songs and old favourites. It was lovely to see those who could come along. Rhyme and story time will begin again on 17th April at 9am.
Year 2 - English
Before we begin writing our sequel to ‘The Journey’, we needed to ensure we have a good understanding of the story. We created a storyboard to recall all of the important events that had happened in the story so far.
Reception Rhyme time
It was a lovely rhyme time this week, we sang some of our favourite songs and enjoyed a story. Thank you to those grown ups who attended this morning, as always there is tea and coffee for those who are able to come along with us.
Year 4 - English: Technical Vocabulary
Our English unit is linked to our science work at the moment, which falls perfectly in line with British Science Week! In Year 4, we are currently learning to write an explanation text about how circuits work. In this lesson, we were selecting key scientific vocabulary to answer a specific question. We then used our chosen vocabulary to craft a paragraph to explain what a circuit is and how it works.
Year 1- Exploring Recounts
Today in English, Year 1 read a recount in groups using their phonic knowledge to decode it and then acted this out as though they were the person who had written it. We then thought about what language features we had noticed within the recount texts such as time conjunctions, first person pronouns (I, we) and how they are written in the past tense.
Year 2 - English
This week in English we are continuing to work with our new book ‘Journey’. Today we used our previous learning of how to use speech and new learning of subordinating conjunctions. The children created conversions the characters in the book could have. Within their speech, the children were challenged to include subordinating conjunctions. The speech the children wrote was brilliant!
World Book Day- Dress as a word
Happy world book day! The children have loved seeing all of our staff team dressed as different words and have had great fun guessing their lords. We have had some brilliant challenging vocabulary from onomatopoeia to metamorphosis! Can you guess the words?
Year 3- World Book Day- Dress as a word.
Year 3 are dressed as words to celebrate 'World Book Day'. We have seen costumes depicting scientists, courageous, confident individuals, heroes, exhausted characters, and even camouflaged.
Reception World Book Day
Reception have loved taking part in lots of World Book Day activities. They enjoyed playing a quiz in Miss Flynn’s special assembly, winning lots of prizes. They have also been drawing book covers of their favourite stories, can you guess some of them?
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Year 4 English - Non-Fiction - Explanation Texts
Today we started our new English unit with a focus on Non- Fiction -Explanation texts. We identified the key features within two texts looking at subordinating conjunctions. This unit links well to both of our science and DT units as we can work towards writing an explanation text on how a circuit works.
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World Book Day in Year 4
What a wonderful World Book Day! We have had a day packed full of enjoyment and the opportunity to showcase our love of books and reading. From reading our new class novel to book tasting to hearing Miss Flynn sharing one of her favourite stories with us, we have loved every second. Thank you to Miss Flynn for organising and the librarians for making the World Book Day Assembly so interactive and fun! Also a special mention for Annabelle who won the WBD bookmark competition for Key Stage 2.
Year 6 World Book Day
Year 6 have had a fantastic World Book Day! After a fantastic assembly led by Miss Flynn, as a year group, year 6 developed their own dictionary. They found the meaning of their word, wrote a sentence containing that word and provided some symbolic imagery to enhance the meaning. In addition, year 6 also took part in a ‘book tasting’ session and added book titles to their wish lists that they took home. They followed a three stage process when choosing their books: do I like the front cover? Do I like the sound of the story from the blurb? And finally, can I access the language inside the book?
Year 1- Mrs Ham Reads to Year One on World Book Day
Year One loved listening to Mrs Ham, our headteacher, read them stories today as part of our World Book Day celebrations. Mrs Ham read, ‘When Cookie Crumbled’ and ‘When Jelly Had a Wobble.’ We talked about times when we have felt anxious or nervous like Jelly and how we can show kindness to our friends to reassure them if they feeling anxious or worried. We also reflected on how it is great to be unique and express ourselves however we like, just like the cookie.
World Book Day in Year 1
Year 1 made a fantastic effort for World Book Day. They all dressed as a word of their choice such as palaeontologist, scientist, energetic, artistic, athletic, heroic, fairytale and confused. We had a vocabulary parade where each of the children came into the middle of the circle and the rest of the class had three guesses to try to figure out the word that the person was representing. Well done Year 1!
World Book Day- Reading for Pleasure
As part of our World Book Day celebrations, all of our teachers and teaching assistants swapped classes and read to a group of children in a different year group. The children loved being read to by a different adult to usual and our teaching staff thoroughly enjoyed promoting reading for pleasure.
KS2 World Book Day Assembly
Thank you to our wonderful KS2 children for their fantastic engagement with this morning’s World Book Day assembly. Mrs Ham introduced the assembly by telling the children all about the word that she had come dressed as which was ‘onomatopoeia.’ The children then watched a video published by the literacy trust which gave them some top tips for choosing an appropriate book such as deciding if the genre is of interest to them, reading the blurb and ensuring that there are no more than 5 words that they can’t understand on the first page. They then joined in with a three part quiz. During the first round, the children had to identify the title of a book by looking at the front cover. This included book titles such as The Naughtiest Unicorn, Grimwood, Mac B Kid Spy, The Storey Treehouse collection, The Accidental Prime Minister, The Babysitters Club, Loki and Breakfast Club Adventures. The second round consisted of guessing the authors of certain books such as J.K. Rowling, Andy Stanton and Francesca Simon and the third round consisted of playing emoji Pictionary with books such as Goldfish Boy, There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom, Ninja Kid and Daisy and the Trouble With. All of the books that were on the quiz are books that we have in our library so we are hoping that our children now feel inspired to sample a book that they haven’t yet read. The librarians also awarded Annabelle and Miley with their book token as they were the KS2 winners of our ‘Design a Bookmark with Your Favourite Book Title’ competition. Annabelle‘s bookmark showed her love of the ‘The 13 Storey Treehouse’ collection of books and Miley’s showed her love of the ‘Daisy and the Trouble With’ collection of books.
KS1 World Book Day Assembly
Thank you to our wonderful KS1 children for their fantastic enthusiasm and excitement in this morning’s World Book Day assembly. Mrs Ham introduced the worship by telling the children all about the word that she had come dressed as which was ‘onomatopoeia.’ The children then joined in with a picture book quiz. During the first round, the children had to identify the title of a book by looking at the front cover. This included book titles such as The The Smartest Giant in Town, Elmer, The Squirrels Who Squabbled, Who Pooed in my Loo, My Dad is a Grizzly Bear and The Highway Rat. The second round consisted of playing emoji Pictionary with books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Giraffes Can’t Dance, The Gruffalo and The Tiger Who Came to Tea. All of the books that were on the quiz were books that we have in our library so we are hoping that our children now feel inspired to sample a book that they haven’t yet read. Our librarians also awarded Emily and Molly with their book tokens as they were the KS1 winners of our ‘Design a Bookmark with Your Favourite Book Title’ competition.Molly’s bookmark showed her love of the ‘Who Pooed in my Loo?’ picture book and Emily’s showed her love of ‘Stickman.’
Year 2 - World Book Day
We had an action packed World Book Day. Here we are enjoying our book tasting towards the end of the day. This was a nice opportunity to relax and enjoy a good book. We had a selection of books for the children to choose from whilst enjoying juice and biscuits. Any books the children liked, were added to their book shelf of favourite books.
KS2 Author Visit
Yesterday, the children in KS2 were lucky enough to have a visit from Richard Alker. Richard is the author of the book ‘My Grandad vs the Fangazoo’. The children were truly immersed in his session and had many questions to ask Richard about his life and how he became an author. During the session, he discussed various things: what inspired him to write, character development, simple strategies he uses when writing and finally the children had the chance to listen to a book reading. Thank you Richard!
KS1 Author Visit
This morning, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 had a visit from children’s author, R.K.Alker. He told us that he hadn’t always been an author but he had also worked in many other professions. Whilst working as a paramedic, he had hurt his leg and could no longer do this anymore so he was suddenly struck by the idea of becoming a children’s author. He believes that God has called him to become a children's author. It was something that he’d dreamed of for 30 years and became incredibly excited by the idea. He told us that he writes a story by writing it and then going back to edit and improve it by making sure that he’s told the author who, what, where, when, why and how, using his his five senses and re-reading his writing to check it makes sense. He then read chapter 7 of his story, ‘My Grandad Vs the FangaZOO’ and we met a mischievous little boy called Zac who set off the emergency alarm on the aeroplane. Rich then did a question and answer session. Renee asked how many books Rich had published, Jack asked what Rich’s favourite part of his story was, Isaac asked how long it took Rich to write a book, Cassidy asked where Rich had got his inspiration for writing from, Lottie asked how long Rich had been writing books and Elijah had asked what Stretch the Dragon (who features in Rich’s story) likes to do at the weekend.
World Book Day Competition
A few weeks ago, our school librarians set a whole school competition. This was to design a bookmark with their favourite book and explain why. Today, the school librarians and our English link governor have been judging our World Book Day competition ready to announce in our World Book Day assembly tomorrow.
KS2- Author Visit-R.K. Alker
To celebrate World Book Day and foster a love for reading, we welcomed children's book author RK Alker today. He shared insights into his journey before becoming an author, recounting experiences such as growing chillies and collaborating with celebrities like Gordon Ramsay. Before pursuing writing, RK worked as an ambulance man until a leg injury led him to reconsider his career path. Inspired by his daughters, he fulfilled his lifelong dream of writing a book. During his talk, RK emphasised the importance of creative writing prompts and utilising the five senses to enhance writing. He introduced the children to his character Stretch the Dragon by reading chapter 7 from his current best-selling book 'My Grandad Vs the Fanga Zoo,' leaving it on a cliffhanger. RK hopes to get a word he made up, 'oopositollogy' (which means the opposite of opposite), into a dictionary one day. To end the visit, RK told funny jokes that had the children laughing their socks off.
Year 3- English-Use questions to open a story.
Before starting their new writing unit, Year 3 were given a fun challenge. Working together in groups, they were tasked with using their imagination to construct something from the objects available to them, such as elastic bands, wood, hoops, sticks and canvas. The children were guided through a series of questions to help them brainstorm ideas for their story's opening paragraph. They were encouraged to imagine their creation as something enormous, suddenly appearing in an unexpected location of their choosing and for example, envisioning an immense car stranded on a remote beach or a colossal metal house situated on a zebra crossing in the heart of London.
Reception: Imagine That Educational Visit
Wow, what a fantastic day our Ducklings had today. We visited Imagine That in Liverpool and had lots of fun! The children did lots of experiments with dry ice, made magical snow and made slime too. They used their imaginations in the roleplay area, painted a car, explored the creative area and made their own magnets. They were well behaved and represented the school beautifully!
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Year 1 Phonics
Year 1 are working hard in their phonics lessons. This week, they have been focusing on the graphemes 'oy' and 'ou.' They read several words containing these two graphemes, wrote several words and dictated sentences with these two graphemes and recognised whereabouts in a word we usually see them so that they can make more informed choices in their spelling of words with these sounds in them. Well done Year One!
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Year 1- Planning an Instructional Text
Today, Year 1 have worked in teams to plan their instructional text. They gathered the equipment that they needed e.g. hurdles, hula hoop, cones, beanbags, basket balls, footballs, quoits and skipping ropes and used these to create an obstacle course. Year 1 then practised using their obstacle course so that they were able to give instructions to follow their obstacle course clearly. Tomorrow, the children will write their set of instructions.
Year 4 - English: Grammar
In Year 4, we started our new novel this week: The Firework-Maker’s Daughter. We began the topic with some grammar work on word types and created a fast poem about fireworks. The class really enjoyed creating their poems and a few children chose to perform theirs for the class.
Year One- Listening and Following Instructions
To kickstart their new English unit on instructions, Year One had to listen to a series of instructions and carry them out. They thoroughly enjoyed this and were absolutely incredible at it. They did this in the context of creating and then completing an obstacle course. E.g. Firstly, crawl under the hurdle. Secondly, run between the cones. Next, put the hula hoop over your head. After that, side gallop to the quoit. Then, throw the quoit in the air and catch it. Finally, drop the quoit and run back to your team. Year One spotted that instructions need both a time conjunction and a verb. They will also learn about using adverbs as part of their instructional writing and retelling too. What a fantastic start to our unit and even better that it was during mental health week as we know how important exercise is to keep us happy and healthy.
Year 5 - Information text
Year 5 completed their information text about the four main peaks in the United Kingdom. The children researched all the four peaks and wrote some amazing facts about them with a report style.
Year 3- Reading- A live reading session with Jane Considine
WOW! Year 3 have just had the pleasure of joining a live session with the amazing author Jane Considine. She read aloud the book Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. The children absolutely loved it.
Aladdin Pantomime
This afternoon our whole school family enjoyed a wonderful production of Aladdin by M&M productions. Oh no they didn't! Oh yes they did! It was fabulous to see all of the children joining in through cheering, booing, singing and dancing along to the songs. They particularly enjoyed Mr Prescott and Mr Norris' dancing! The cast said they had never had a school who joined in so well and who all stood up and danced at the end! Thank you so much to our FOSB for their donation and to all of your parent contributions, as without your support, we wouldn't be able to provide such exciting enrichment activities.We hope this has inspired some of our children to audition for our upcoming Barney's Got Talent show next half term. What a fabulous way to end a brilliant week of 'achieving great things' at St Barnabas!
Year 2 - English
As we continue learning with our book Traction Man, today we got into the role of Traction Man. We took turns being interviewed as Traction Man where we had to answer various questions posed by a partner. We wrote our responses into pieces of dialogue written in the first person.
Year 4 - English: Debate
In Year 4, we have made a great start on our debate topic. We looked at statements linked to deforestation and decided whether each one was an argument for or against. We find far more arguments against deforestation than for it.
Year 3- Class Meeting- National Storytelling Week
Today, James led the class meeting while Alfie took notes. We reviewed the actions from our previous meeting, set by the communication team. The primary focus was on the key question: If we had a trolley outside at playtimes with healthy snacks, would you use it? The majority of the classes voted a definite yes. Mrs. Ham took action and listened to what the students wanted, and now KS2 get fruit for break time. In our latest class meeting, we kicked off National Storytelling Week by discussing the question, "How can we enhance the enjoyment of reading in our school? The children voted in favour of revisiting Darwen Library and meeting the authors of their favourite books.
Reception: Super writing
Our Ducklings have been writing sentences this week. We are super proud of their progress!
Year 1- Planning a Story
Year 1 have been working on their own versions of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’ They had to change the original settings of the story to those of their own e.g. A desert, zoo, candy/sweet shop, beach, school and farm and change the animal from a bear to one of their own e.g. an elephant, dog, parrot, lion or dragon. Now, they are ready to get to work writing up their new version of the story.
Year 4 English - Debating Deforestation
We started our new English unit today which focuses on Debate. The debate will be all about the deforestation of the rainforest. In today’s lesson, we watched clips about deforestation and made notes on our whiteboards. Then we worked in groups to mind map what deforestation is and the impact it has on planet earth. Next we will highlight the points ‘for’ and ‘against’
Year 4 - Writing Dilemma Stories
In English in Year 4, we have been reading The Balaclava Boy. This week we are writing our own versions. The children have come up with some great storylines about ‘iPhone Boys’, ‘Lipgloss Girls’ and ‘The Pokémon Crew’. The children have been crafting each sentence carefully to build an exciting text of their own. We can’t wait to read the finished pieces.
Year 1 Phonics
Year 1 are working really hard in their phonics lessons to learn the alternative ways of reading and writing sounds that they already know. Today we recapped the ‘ew’ grapheme in stew, flew, crew, grew and screw before learning the ‘ue’ grapheme that is used in words such as rescue, due, true, flue and clue.
Year 3- Class Worship- Is an e-reader better than a book?
Today in class worship, we watched this week's story on reading. Year 3 had the opportunity to read from cereal boxes, leaflets, letters, magazines, game instructions, and emails. Some children like reading on screens, especially cereal boxes during breakfast. But most think reading from a real book is better because you can touch and feel it, and some books have cool stuff you can touch and smell. We acknowledged that learning to read requires perseverance and resilience, qualities for which we can take responsibility and we are lucky to have many chances to read. Books can take us to new and exciting places, and we're thankful for the gift of reading, thanking God for everything, especially the ability to learn to read.
Year 6 English
In English, year 6 are building up to writing their very own opening to ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’. Today, we focused on dialogue and how it can allow the reader to develop a better understanding of individual characters.
Reception: Rhyme and Story Time
Our Ducklings enjoyed their first rhyme and story time of 2024. We sang lots of songs and read Oi, Frog! The children enjoyed joining in with the rhyming couplets. Rhyme and story time continues next week at 9am. Our Reception parents, toddlers and pre school children from our community are welcome to join us.
Year 4 English - Exploring the meaning of new vocabulary in context
In our English session today, we have been exploring the meaning of new vocabulary in context. We are starting to read Balaclava Boy by Jenny Robson as our class novel in Year 4, but before we get any further we having been using PTV ( Pre Teach Vocabulary) to identify and explore less familiar words. We broke each word down looking at syllables, is it short, medium or long and what you do with it? What does it do? The children worked really well in their pairs and moved onto putting the words into their own complex sentences with an adverb starter.
Rhyme time and Story time returns
Reception parents and carers are welcome to come and join us for rhyme and story time. Younger siblings, preschool children and toddlers are more than welcome to join us too. This half term rhyme time will be on Wednesday 17th, 24th and 31st January between 9-9.30am in our school hall.
Year 3 English- Performing Poetry
Year 3 have been learning about shape poems this week. They chose a poem to write out in a specific shape according to what the poem was about. They then rehearsed their poem in pairs, adding expression and actions. Finally they performed their shape poem to the rest of the class. They were all super brave and even those that didn't really want to do it got up and performed. Rev Ben will be so pleased to hear how Year 3 have shown courage this week, after reflecting in Worship on Tuesday how Jesus is always there to support and encourage us during scary times.
Year 4 English - identifying and discussing dilemmas
In our English session we have started our new unit - Stories with Dilemmas but first we needed to identify what a dilemma was! We looked at moral dilemmas based on the clip ‘French Roast’ and then highlighted consequences. Afterwards we looked at poems that each have a dilemma and tried to identify these. It was great to see the children fully engaged and immersed in speaking and listening activities too.
Year 1-Using Purple Mash on the tablets
Year 1 have been using the tablets to complete their 2dos on Purple Mash today. They really enjoyed using the tablets in class and we’re looking forward to using them more in the coming weeks. They completed challenges linked with 2D and 3D shapes and linked to spelling common exception words.
Whole School -Design Technology- Christmas Fayre
This term in Design and Technology (D.T.), children from every class have been busy creating special things with a purpose. They showed off their creations at our school's Christmas fayre. Reception made cute Christmas decorations, Year 1 made Christmas-themed characters that move from a book, Year 2 put together yummy fruit kebabs, Year 3 crafted pouches, Year 4 made stockings, Year 5 created comfy cushions, and Year 6 invented their own steady hand game. Everyone should be proud of what they made because when parents and visitors saw the products, they were amazed! Each class did a fantastic job turning their creativity into awesome projects.
Reception: Rev Ben Visit
Our Ducklings had a visit from Rev Ben today. Rev Ben brought in some figures to tell us about the Christmas story. Christians believe that Jesus is the star of the story. We need to really think about Jesus and if we listen really carefully to the story, it can change us from the inside out if we let it. Rev Ben finished his visit with a special thank you prayer. Thank you Rev Ben for visiting our class, we always enjoy your visits.
Year 5 - Poetry
Year 5 have been sharing their Alchemist letter poems with the class. The children finished their narrative poems and used lots of poetic techniques such as pitch and tone to make their narrative poems have lots of drama.
Y4 English - The Diary of a Roman Soldier
Over the past few weeks, the children have been working hard on sentence stacking to develop their diary writing skills. We focused on the life of a Roman soldier and our success criteria included using personification, adverbs, fronted adverbials and inverted commas. They have now published these on the chrome books and we look forward to passing them on to another class to read and evaluate.
Reception Nativity
We are so proud of our Ducklings who performed the Nativity today. Their singing was beautiful and they told the story using their loud, clear voices. Their confidence shone and it was enjoyed by all!
Year 4 - Our No Pens Day Show & Tell
On Wednesday Year 4 marked No Pens Day with a bit of show and tell. The children were invited to bring an object or photo in to represent a hobby they enjoy doing out of school. They all had one minute to talk about their hobby, and then accept three questions. The children showed great preparation and oracy skills when presenting about their hobbies. We had some fantastic questions too, demonstrating super listening skills.
Scholastic book fair
A huge thank you to everybody who visited and purchased a book at our Scholastic book fair. We have been given £458 in rewards to spend on new books so our librarians and Miss Flynn have been busy labelling our new books to be put in our library for our children to choose. Thank you for your support as always, Mrs Wilkinson
Year 1- No Pens Day
As part of ‘No Pens Day,’ Year One learnt the the days of the week using British Sign Language. We then played a game where I signed a day of the week and they had to sign back the day that either comes before or after it. Hopefully they can now teach someone else how to sign the days of the week too. Well done Year 1!
Rhyme and story time begins again in January 2024!
Reception’s rhyme time and story time will begin again on Wednesday 17th January 2024. Rhyme time is not on for the rest of December due to our Christmas nativity rehearsals and performance and our Christmas fair. Preschool children are more than welcome to join us and refreshments will be served afterwards.
Year 1- Can you create a rhyming pair?
Year 1 have been working extremely hard in their English lessons. They have been generating and matching their rhyming pairs such as lair and bear, log and frog, mud and pud, poop and soup, high and pie, hole and mole, rake and cake and trunk and skunk. They have been using these rhyming couplets to create their own scene such as ‘Where are you meeting him? Here by this lair and his favourite food is roasted bear. Roasted bear? I’m off, said the bear’ and ‘Where are you meeting him? Here by this log and his favourite food is chopped hedgehog. Chopped hedgehog? I’m off said the hedgehog.’ We are so impressed, well done Year 1.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Poems
The class are LOVING our linking work. We have a couple of pieces ready to send to St Matthew’s now, including these poems we’ve been working on. We have been thinking about the things we love and the things that make us unique. We hope Kestrels Class enjoy reading them.
Year 3- English- Story prediction activity- 'The Last Bear'
In English today, the children made predictions based on the cover and title of 'The Last Bear' book. They made predictions about who the characters might be, what themes the story could have, where it takes place, and what genre it falls into. Following this, Year 3 explored the map of Bear Island. Initially sceptical about its existence, we researched on Google, and the children were fascinated to discover that Bear Island is situated within the confines of the Norwegian and Barents Seas.
Year 4 - English: Researching Roman Soldiers
Year 4 had a great time exploring the Roman history box today. The children watched videos, examined artefacts and researched from information books to find out about what life was like for a Roman soldier in Britain during the 1st century AD. They will be using these facts to help them write in role throughout this English topic.
Scholastic book fair
Our Scholastic Book fair will be back in school on 20th and 21st November after school. Children will be visiting the fair over the next few days and will bring home a wish list of potential books they’d like to buy at the fair. You can purchase books at the fair from 3.30-4.30pm next Monday and Tuesday (20th and 21st). It is the perfect time to purchase books ready for Christmas! Card payments will only be accepted, we unfortunately cannot accept cash.
Year 4 Visit the Book Fair
Today Year 4 were given the opportunity to visit the book fair in order to complete their wish lists. The children really enjoyed looking at the blurbs to get a good idea of what each book was about. It was lovely for them to engage with their peers and discuss why they had made certain choices about books.
World nursery rhyme week rhyme time
This week is world nursery rhyme week, so we celebrated this in our rhyme time! All of the Reception children took part and sang five nursery rhymes and they were then awarded with a special certificate! Well done Reception class! Thank you to all of the parents, carers, younger siblings and pre-school children who joined us.
Reception: Odd socks and shoes day
Our ducklings enjoyed wearing odd socks and shoes to launch anti-bullying week. We described what a good friend is and how we can be kind to each other.
World Kindness Day
On World Kindness Day, we share with you some of our entries to the competition that Blackburn with Darwen were running as part of the Children’s Literature Festival on the theme of kindness. Well done to our wonderfully talented children.
World Kindness Day
On World Kindness Day, we share with you some of our entries to the competition that Blackburn with Darwen were running as part of the Children’s Literature Festival on the theme of kindness. Well done to our wonderfully talented children.
Y4 English - Escape from Pompeii
In our English session this morning we have been looking at how the characters may have felt whilst observing Mount Vesuvius erupting and thinking of metaphors to describe the monster. We up levelled our sentences with physical and emotional vocabulary, fronted adverbials and synonyms for watched.
Year 1- Can you use the clues to predict which story we will be focusing on next?
Today, year 1 had to solve some clues involving rhyme to work out the location of the item they were looking for or the name of the item itself that they were looking for. After solving the rhymes, they found a wooded area which they thought meant that the setting of the story was a woodland or forest, some oranges with a black centre which they decided must have been eyes\eyeballs, a mouth with teeth which they decided must belong to some form of mammal and a paw with claws which they decided must belong to a mammal with paws and claws. Using this evidence, they predicted which story they thought that we might be focusing on as part of our English unit. Some children thought it was Goldilocks and the Three Bears because of the forest setting and the sharp claws, some children thought it might be the hungry caterpillar because of the woodland setting, some children predicted that it would be Little Red Riding Hood because of the forest setting and because they thought that the paws with claws belonged to a fox, one children predicted that it was My Dad is a Grizzly Bear because of the forest setting and because of the paws with claws and some other children predicted the Gruffalo because of the forest setting, the sharp claws and teeth and the orange eyes.
Y4 English - The Escape from Pompeii
As part of our English sessions, we have been reading The Escape from Pompeii which directly links to our history topic on the Romans. Each day we have been using sentence stacking with a different focus in order to build our stories.
Reception: Remembrance Day
Reception have been learning all about Remembrance Day. They created poppies in provision using playdough, creative materials, felt tips and paint.
Reception circle time- sharing news
Today, Reception class took part in circle time and each child shared some news with the class. We were so impressed with their speaking, recall of detail and waiting for their turn. Lovely to see, Reception!
Year 1 English
Year 1 are preparing to write their non-chronological reports. Today, they were set the challenge of matching a caption to its correct picture. They then wrote their own captions for some animal pictures using capital letters, full stops and some of the vocabulary that they have learnt in their science lessons such as mammal, amphibian, bird, reptile, fish, hairy, scaly, fury, slimy, herbivore, omnivore and carnivore.
Rhyme and Story time begins Wednesday 1st November
Our rhyme and story time starts again tomorrow, Wednesday 1st November from 9-9.30am. Parents, carers and family members are more than welcome to join us with their children from Reception class only. Preschool children, toddlers and babies are also more than welcome to attend.
Year 2 English
This morning, we introduced our new book for English this half term. We are reading Jack and the Baked Beanstalk. The is a classic fairytale with a twisted plot. We revealed the front cover and generated questions using our question hand. This encouraged us to use a range of openers for our questions such as ‘Who, What, Where, When, Why’. The children had lots of different questions based on their initial reactions to the title and cover.
Year 5 - Publishers
Last year, the children who are now in year 6 sent their poems to 'Poetry Towers' to get them published. Today, they were absolutely thrilled to finally hold a book containing their own published poems.
Year 4 Information Texts - All About the Amazon
Over the past few weeks in our English lessons, we have been looking at information texts. We have looked at the features, vocabulary and how to build sentences using quantifiers and openers. We have learnt so many new things about tribes, animals, plants and deforestation. Our final pieces of writing include all of the above and they are all beautifully presented.
Year 3 - Darwen Library-Librarian Detectives
Year 3 had another exciting visit to the library, where the children had the opportunity to explore and discover the collection of books and audiobooks the library has to offer. They were in absolute awe with the range of books the library had. They particularly enjoyed the role of detecting and becoming a member of the library.
Year 5 - Darwen Library Visit
Today, Year 5 visited Darwen library. The children explored a variety of book genres and delved deeper into books they wouldn’t normally read. The children learnt and understood the many benefits of the library and how it operates. The library promoted a love for reading and the children loved reading and enjoyed time talking about their favourite books and authors.
Year 1- Creating and Writing Questions
Year 1 have been busy creating and writing sentences using the 6 key questions words (who, what, when, where, why and how). They have worked hard to ensure that their questions have capital letters, fingers spaces and questions marks and start with one of the question words. They came up with questions such as ‘What do they eat?’ ‘Where do they live?’ ‘How much do they weigh?’ ‘How long do they live for?’ ‘How do they move?’ ‘When do they sleep? and ‘What type of animal are they?’ Tomorrow they will answer questions similar to these by recalling information from film clips and eventually they will use these sorts of questions in a non-chronological report.
Year 6 Library Visit
Yesterday, year 6 visited Darwen library to take part in a session with the author of the ‘Loki’ books, Louie Stowell. During the session, the children were made aware of the author’s inspiration and had the chance to create some illustrations from the book. Year 6 were an absolute credit to the school and asked some amazing questions. A special mention to Jay who won some original illustrations from the author.
Reception- Rhyme time.
Just before lunch Miss Baxendale got the rhyme time bag out. We had so much fun singing in different voices and acting out the rhymes. It was so lovely to see everyone joining in. What a bunch of superstars!
Reception: Owl Babies
This week our Ducklings have been learning how to print and make creations using a variety of resources. We read the story of owl babies and then they created Sarah, Percy, Bill and Mummy owl. Super creations and paintings!
Year 5 - Library visit
Today year 5 got to experience a workshop that was being hosted by Louie Stowell. She explained and promoted her series of books - Loki and engaged with all the children answering questions about her achievements. The children took part in creating their own god’s while replicating the main characters from her book series.
Year 1 meet Author and Illustrator Ursula Hurst
Year 1 had an amazing morning meeting author and illustrator Ursula Hurst at Darwen library. They enjoyed looking at lots of the books that Ursula has illustrated over the years such as Roo and Sarge to the rescue, The Angry Giant, Zed Ted, Bea and Monah Lot. Ursula also read us a story called Drawing Hope which she was both the author and illustrator of. It was about a young girl called Hope who loved drawing and painting and had a dream of turning the gloomy town in which she lived into a bright and colourful place and with the help of Mrs Green, she did just that. Year 1 loved seeing how the town and characters turned from grey with lots of worries to bright and worry free throughout the story. Thank you to Darwen Library for such a wonderful opportunity and to Ursula Hurst for inspiring our children.
Year 3- Children's Literature Festival
Today, the Year 3 class walked down to Darwen Library to join in the celebration of the Children's Literature Festival. They had the pleasure of meeting Christina Gambita, an author known for her diverse range of books covering topics such as pollination, healthy eating, plastic pollution, teamwork, mathematical concepts, history, and safeguarding. Ms. Gambita read her book 'Roo and Sarge' to the class which the children thoroughly enjoyed. She also talked about the importance of kindness and how we should be kind to everyone. The children also learnt how to say their names using sign language, which was a wonderful experience.
Year 1- illustration Worksop with Ursula Hurst
After meeting Ursula Hurst and looking at many of her illustrations in various children’s books including her very own book, ‘Drawing Hope,’ Year 1 had a lesson in illustration. Ursula showed the children how to create different characters with expressions such as sad, shocked and happy and various hairstyles and clothing. Thank you to Darwen library for this wonderful opportunity.
Year 4 - Children’s Literature Festival
After a blustery walk to Darwen Library, Year 4 enjoyed a great afternoon meeting Louie Stowell, author of the popular children’s book series, Loki. They had great fun learning about the characters, taking part in the ‘which character are you’ quiz, drawing the main character and asking the author questions.
Year 4 - Information Texts
In Year 4 this week, we started our new English topic: Information Texts. We spent our first lesson recording what we already knew about the Amazon rainforest, and then we researched some facts around a specific category.
Year 2 - Library visit
We had an amazing time during our visit to Darwen Library. We were lucky enough to spend time with Ursula Hurst as she delivered a workshop for us. Ursula is a fabulous illustrator known for her book illustrations and murals of which many can be found in local primary schools. The children loved listening to her stories and seeing how she made words come to life. Then the children had their chance to become illustrators as they learnt how to draw different characters with different emotions. Ursula showed us some simple tricks to really emphasise our characters expressions. It was a brilliant opportunity for the children which they engaged really well with and had a lovely afternoon!
Year 4 Art - Willow plate painting
Our art focus for this week has been on willow plate painting which originates from China. We adapted the design to go with our topic of the Amazon and our class novel The Explorer. The children used different shades and added pictures of planes, trees, characters and animals. The end result was a collection of wonderful examples.
Year 2 - Report Research
Our report writing continued this morning as we researched minibeasts. We used different sources such as non-fiction books and the internet. The children collected lots of interesting facts that they will be able to include in their non-chronological report. Did you know most caterpillars have 12 eyes?
Year 2- English
Our English objective this morning was to identify features of a non-chronological report. We looked at various reports and found similarities and differences between them. They had lots of features in common which we highlighted so we could clearly see them. We created a list of features that a chronological report must include. When we write our own report we will use our list as our own checklist to ensure we have all the features to create a superb report.
Year 1 Phonics
Year 1 are working incredibly hard in their daily phonics lessons. They are recapping several phase 3 sounds before we move on to phase 4&5 and we are starting to see some great progress in their reading and writing, Well done Year 1.
Year 2 - Storyboards
This week in Year 2, we have continued our hard work in English. We have been looking at the short film ‘Caterpillar Shoes’. I’m sure the children will be able to tell you all about the events in the short story. The children became experts at recalling the different events of the story. This allowed us to create our own storyboards retelling the ‘Caterpillar Shoes’ story. The children recalled each event, wrote their sentence describing the event and drew a picture to show what was happening. A key focus of our storyboards, was to ensure we included time conjunctions at the beginning of each sentence. By using a variety of time conjunctions such as ‘Firstly, After that and Finally’ it allowed us to write in chronological order. The end results are superb! The children have produced great examples and should be very proud of their hard work.
Year 1- Completing our Challenges
This week, Year 1 have been busy completing challenges in the areas. They have used their knowledge of the different animal groups to classify animals in the investigation area, completed number sequences in the maths area, used warm and cool colours to colour in pictures in the creative area, consolidated the sounds ‘ng’ and ‘th’ in the phonics and writing area, completed a jigsaw containing the 7 continents in the construction area and used their observations of the shapes and sizes of the continents to make them on the peg boards e.g. making Asia very big and Australia much smaller.
Year 1- Precursive handwriting
Year 1 have been working hard in their handwriting sessions to form percursive letters. They have been learning how to form the letters i, l, t, u, w, e, c, o and a. Well done Year 1.
Year 6 English
Year 6 have been working extremely hard on their chapter endings this week. They have been writing a chapter, inspired by chapter 2 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, ‘The Vanishing Glass’, and are looking to apply various features in their writing. They are aiming to build a very clear picture of Uncle Vernon and Harry through the use of speech and figurative language and are looking to move the narrative on by using a range of cohesive devices in their work. Well done Year 6!
Year 2- Handwriting
What a bunch of fantastic handwriters!
Reception: Elmer
This week, our Ducklings have read the story of Elmer. We learnt how we are all special and unique. We then created our own Elmer’s using playdough, created unique marks on Elmer and used the colours to create our own elephants for Elmer day.
Reception: RE
Last week our Ducklings learnt about the creation story. Following on from this, we learnt about how we are all unique and how God made us all to be special. We looked at our hands and fingerprints and learnt how nobody is the same as us! God made us all special. We read a story called ‘When God made you’.
Reception: Phonics
Our Ducklings have been listening to sounds in the environment. The children heard birds tweeting, cars, children and the rain. Super listening skills!
Reception: The Colour Monster
Our Ducklings have read the story ‘The Colour Monster’. They have explored the feelings of calm, love, fear, happiness and sadness. The children have created a feelings jar, painted their own colour monsters and discussed when they have experienced different feelings.
Year 4 - Developing Handwriting
Handwriting practice has begun in Year 4 with formation of the letter “f”. And what a letter to start with! Hooks, descenders, flicks, it has them all, but we have made great progress in just one 15 minute session.
Year 2- English
Year 2 have been busy applying capital letters and full stops in the correct places.
The Jungle Book
Years 1-6 have had an amazing morning watching The Jungle Book production. They joined in so well and were transfixed throughout. Our Year 6 children got to take part in a special workshop afterwards where they learnt about the different roles that are needed in a theatre production as they will be performing The Jungle Book at the end of the year. A huge thank you to our FOSB for their generous donation towards the cost of the production and a massive thank you to you all for supporting our FOSB events. Without your generosity we wouldn’t be able to provide these sort of memorable opportunities for our children, as our school budget is very tight. For all of the photos, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-gallery-category/our-gallery
Jungle Book Performance
The whole school enjoyed a performance of the Jungle Book today by the talented individuals from M&M Theatrical Productions. The children had such a good time and year 6 were lucky enough to take part in a workshop with the cast. The children were taught about what goes into making a successful performance and even had the opportunity to carry out some acting for themselves.
Reception: First day at school
We are so proud of our Ducklings on their first day at school. They have all been superstars. They have been making new friends, exploring our classroom and doing lots of super talking. What a super start to their school journey!
Year 1 English and Phonics: The Prefix ‘re’
Year 1 have been learning about the prefix ‘re’ through our Bug Club Phonics resources today and have written different words using this prefix. They understand that ‘re’ means to do again and have enjoyed spelling different words on the smart board today.
Year 4 Exploring Newspaper Reports
This week in English we have been exploring newspaper reports and looking for key features. The children then became newsreaders to report their news article.
Year 2 - Reading wish list for year 3
Year 2 have created their wish list of library books for Year 3. The children have selected their favourite books and designed their own poster and explained why they would like to read that book.
Year 2 - Explanation Texts
As part of our English unit the children wrote amazing explanation texts on hot and cold places around the world (linking with our geography unit) The children chose to compare the climate and tourist attractions of both Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Reykjavík in Iceland. The children loved comparing these locations and wrote explanation texts comparing the climates.
Year 5- Reading- In Year 6, I Would Like To Read....
Year 5 have made a list of books they want to read in Year 6. They chose these books by reading the descriptions, listening to recommendations from their friends, and thinking about their favourite authors.
Year 1 Science Investigating Smells
Year 1 have been learning about the different human senses in science and this week we were focussing on smell and describing what different items smelt like. The children really enjoyed investigating what nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, lemon, coffee and some other different dried herbs smelt like. They recorded the information from our investigation in a table using adjectives to describe the different smells.
Year 5 - English- Poetry Competition
A few weeks ago, Year 5 participated in a poetry competition, and today they received exciting news. Their poems will be published in a book, and the school will receive a complimentary copy of the book in September. To celebrate their achievement, the children were presented with certificates and bookmarks for their entries. It's absolutely fantastic!
Year 6 English
Year 6 have been building up to writing a recount in the style of the main character from ‘The London Eye Mystery’. In order to do this, they have been using drama to develop idiom-rich conversations that they can use in their writing.
Summer Reading Challenge
This morning, Angela from Blackburn and Darwen library service, came to talk to us all about an exciting Summer reading challenge and the wonderful prizes that can be won for reading 6 books over the holidays. Dear Parent / Carer, Your child has been invited to join Ready, Set, Read! the Summer Reading Challenge 2023. This is a national library reading game, which will introduce your child to the joy of reading for pleasure and help to develop his/her literacy skills throughout the summer holidays. Once enrolled each member reads 6 library books (or eBooks / eAudio), with stickers or a prize awarded for each book that is read and returned. Those who complete the scheme will receive a medal and a certificate. To enrol, simply come to your nearest Blackburn with Darwen library and complete an application form between 1st July & 30th September. Your nearest library is: Darwen Library, Knott St, Darwen, BB3 3BU. Website & map: www.blackburn.gov.uk/libraries/libraries-blackburn-darwen/blackburn-central-library Enrolment in the scheme is free of charge, and involves children borrowing books on a library card. If your child does not yet have a library card, we would encourage you to take this opportunity to enrol them as a library member. This is a quick process, and you will simply be asked to complete and sign another form. However, those children without library cards may still join the Summer Reading Challenge, and temporary arrangements will be put in place to allow them to borrow books. We look forward to welcoming you and your family to our libraries during the summer. Yours faithfully, Adele Karwat, Service Manager: Libraries & Archives
Year 1 Handwriting
Year 1 are working very hard to improve their cursive handwriting. We are very proud of you Year 1. Keep up the amazing work and concentration.
Reception- Superstar writers!
Reception have been learning about African Animals and amazing facts about them. This afternoon we drew our favourite African animal and wrote amazing facts about them!
Year 1 English- Collecting Adjectives and Writing Noun Phrases
Year 1 watched the Literacy Shed clip ‘Something Fishy,’ and collected adjectives to describe some of the sea creatures. They described the fish as bright, luminous, stripy, sock-like, boomerang-like, small and fast, the shark as evil, scary, frightening, humongous, large, hungry, ravenous, starving, creepy, angry, nasty, unkind, terrifying, powerful, strong and dark blue and they they described the octopus as springy, bouncy, t-shirt like, bunny-like, kangaroo-like, light blue, stripy, spotty and long legged. Then they chose their two favourite adjectives to write a noun phrase. Well done Year 1.
Year 1 Phonics Revision
This week, Year 1 have been working really hard to revise their sounds during phonics lessons through a selection of activities including alien and real word games. We have looked at different graphemes that make the same sound and how to read and write these words too. They have completed their Year 1 phonics quizzes and we are very proud of them and how well they have done.
Year 6 English
Year 6 started work on their detective narrative this week. They have started to analyse conventions of a detective narrative and discussed the use of red herrings, which are intended to be misleading and create more excitement for the reader.
Year 5- English- Refugees
In English today, we studied refugees. We watched videos and saw pictures of people who had to leave their homes because of war. We shared our feelings and thoughts about it. In the next two weeks, we'll be writing a debate on this topic.
Year 5- Bringing poetry to life
In English today, the children have been working in groups exploring poetic techniques. They have created sentences that include similes, personification, onomatopoeia and imagery.
Year 4 English - Information Texts
In our English lesson today we have been developing our ideas for question research. We looked at ‘Viking Weapons’ and ‘Viking Jobs’. The children added lots of detail to their research banks and then selected relevant key pictures and captions.,
Year 1-Adjectives and nouns
Year 1 have been exploring adjectives and nouns. They watched the Literacy Shed clip ‘Marshmallow’ and listed some of the features of the monster such as eyes, tentacles, teeth, horns and ears. We talked about how these are nouns. They then described the features using adjectives. They then went on to create their own monster and described the monster’s features using adjectives. We had stripy bodies, sharp and pointy teeth, shark like teeth, pencil like teeth, razor sharp teeth, comfy fur, soft, multicoloured fur, bulging, yellow eyes, bright red eyes, a bumpy tail and bendy tentacles. They tried to use two adjectives and separated them with a comma. Well done Year 1.
Year 1- When should I use a capital letter?
Year 1 have been learning when to use capital letters. As well as using them at the start of a sentence, Year 1 have been learning that capital letters are needed for the names of people, places, days of the week and the personal pronoun, ‘I’. First, they corrected some sentences to make sure that they included capital letters correctly and then they went on to create some of their own sentences using capital letters. Well done Year 1.
Year 1 Writing a Short Narrative
This week we have finished writing our short narrative for the ‘Dogs Don’t Do Ballet’ story and the children have used images to help them structure their sentences. They have been saying it out loud first and tried hard to use the correct punctuation at the beginning and end of their sentences.
Year 4 English - Exploring Fact Files
In our English session this morning we have started our new Non-Fiction unit on Fact Files. We explored various examples all about the Vikings as this is what we are studying in our History lessons. We discussed what they are for, their purpose and what a good one looks like.
Rhyme time Notice
Thank you to everybody who has attended our weekly rhyme times and story times. Today is the last one for this half term and they will recommence after the holidays on Wednesday 21st June.
Junior Librarians
Today, Annabel brought her favourite story to share with our librarians. The children really enjoyed listening to the story. You can find the 13 story treehouse in our library- why don’t you read it as I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as our librarians!
Reception-Phonics
We have recapping our digraphs in phonics. We have been using phonics play to read words and then decide whether the word is a ‘real’ or a ‘nonsense word’. The children have also been writing a sentence about the kings coronation, they wrote ‘The king has a crown’, they did this independently if they could using their phonics sound mats.
Year 2 - Creative Writing
During our writing unit the children have been sorting their own sequel adventure to the amazing story A Winter’s Child. The children based their writing on their characters drawing a magical door and then writing about what would be on the other side of that magical door. All the children used really exciting vocabulary and lots of technical grammar skills to make their writing exciting and griping for the reader. A huge focus on presentation and handwriting has been instilled into the children and the examples show some beautifully presented work.
Year 1- Handwriting Heroes
Year 1 have been trying so hard with their handwriting as it is difficult to form cursive letters. We can see so much improvement. Well done Year 1!
Year 5 - Pen Licence
Over the past few weeks, we have focussed on handwriting. Thinking about presentation, letter formation and writing legibly and accurately. This week, some of the children have been granted a pen licence to use instead of a pencil when writing in class.
Year 6 English
In English, year 6 have been working hard on identifying features of writing a formal review. They have been analysing the structure of the text, the use of cohesive devices and the use of persuasive language. All of these skills will prove beneficial when they come to writing their own formal review of ‘The Lion King’ that they watched during their trip to London.
Year 3 English
Year 3 have been looking at a biography text all about Sir David Attenborough. Their challenge was to highlight ‘key facts’ from the text. We then built on this, using the same text, they had to decide if certain key facts were true or false. Year 3 really impressed us by how well they were able to locate and recall information from the text while confidently expressing their answers, giving reasons why they thought the fact was true or false. Well done year 3!
Scholastic Book Fair
Thank you to everybody who visited our book fair. As a result of your purchases, we have got a total of £716.11 in rewards to spend on books for our classes and school library. The fair will be back between 16th-21st November which will be the perfect time to purchase books ready for Christmas.
Year 2 - Exploring Drama Techniques
In year 2 we have started our new unit based on A Winters Child. The children explored many drama techniques and retold the story of the child and conveyed many emotions during their acting to influence their writing. The children were amazing and really embedded the characters they were playing and this really helped to make emotion jump off their page with their writing.
Year 4 - Science: Presenting our findings
On Monday, Year 4 did a great job of creating their own group presentations to explain how sound is made, how it travels and how it is received by the human ear.
Year 4 - A great start to our new English topic
In Year 4, we have started our new English topic based on the book ‘How to be a Viking’ by Cressida Cowell. We had great fun using clues to predict events in the story and using the dice to summarise events in the story.
Reception: Rhyme Time
Reception have had a wonderful Easter rhyme time this week. Baby chicks visited our rhyme time. The children all held the chicks and they sang to them as well. The chicks also joined in with our Easter story time.
Year 1 Planning Recounts
Today Year 1 were planning their recounts ready to write tomorrow. They have chosen a special celebration to write about and many children had photos of their special event to help them plan their recount. We planned an example about a birthday party together before the children went off to carry out their own plans in their books.
Year 6- The Lion King in the West End
Our Year 6 class and other members of our performing arts club, will be performing their own version of the Lion King at the end of the year. What better way to get some inspiration and tips than to watch The Lion King in the West End at the Lyceum Theatre. All of the children and staff thoroughly enjoyed the performance and were fascinated by the imaginative set changes, amazing costumes and fabulous acting, dancing and singing. We are full of ideas and inspiration for our Lion along production now and can’t wait to perform it.
Year 6- The Houses of Parliament
Our Year 6 class were so fortunate to be able to visit the Houses of Parliament to learn all about our British Values and in particular, democracy and the rule of law. We had a tour and watched a live debate in the House of Commons. Some of our group saw our current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, previous PM’s Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Teresa May, as well as Matt Hancock, who the children recognised from ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here’! The Foreign Secretary of State, James Cleverly, also stopped to speak to us and asked us where we were from and if we were enjoying our visit. We visited Westminster Hall, which we recognised from seeing on the news when the Queen was lying in State after her sad death. We then took part in a workshop about how laws are created and we learnt all about Parliament and the houses of Commons and Lords through a fun quiz. We also got to explore democracy through voting and debating. Finally we were visited by our local Member of Parliament, Jake Berry, and had a great question and answer session. We are so proud of the thoughtful questions the children asked him and how they stood up to ask their questions, just like they do in the House of Commons. We are sure that we have a few future MPs amongst our Year 6 class!
London 2023
We are off! Our Year 6 children, Mrs Ham, Mrs Price, Mr Prescott and Mr Tierney are so excited for their trip to London. We can’t wait to visit the Natural History Museum, Houses of Parliament tour and workshop, Lion King Musical, Science Museum, Imperial War Museum and a tour of London sights.
Reception - Designing a Superhero Comic
Today Reception class received a very special letter from Captain America. He had left some of his superhero comics for us to look at. We then designed our own superhero and Supertato inspired comic strips. The children tried really hard to sequence a story and used speech bubbles too. Well done Reception class!
Year 2: Class Worship
During class worship, we had a look the impact that Roald Dahl’s books have on the modern day world. We discussed whether these books should be rewritten to fit in with new rules and regulations in today's society. Children were of the opinion that they: represent a time period, are historical and are still very funny and appealing. Therefore we agreed that they should not be rewritten.
Reception - Signs of Spring
This week we have been learning about the Seasons of the year. We discussed signs of Spring and observed the weather outside. Children went on a ‘Spring Hunt’ outside and recorded their findings. We looked at flowers and made ‘petal soup’ - the children loved carefully measuring using the teapots and teacups.
Year 5- Explanation text about Volcanoes and Earthquakes
Over the course of two weeks, Year 5 has learnt the features of an explanation text and written their text all about earthquakes and volcanoes. They have used their learning from their Geography lessons. They have explained the cause of earthquakes, identified famous volcanoes and explained the short and long-term effects of natural disasters.
Year 3: Scholastic Book Fair!
This morning, Year Three visited the Scholastic Book Fair, where they completed their book wishlist. The children spent some time exploring the different books at the fair and then choose their top 3 books , to add to their wish lists. Each child also received their £1 book token from World Book Day!
Year 4 English - Play scripts - Storyboards
In our English session this morning we have been preparing a story board for our play scripts that we will write next week. We have focused this on our class novel - The Firework Makers Daughter and Chapter 5 which takes place in Razvani’s grotto.
Year 1- Sound of the day!
Today’s sound of the day ‘z’. We sounded out lots of words with the ‘z’ sound. Super sounding out year 1!
Year 2 - Creative Writing
In year 2, we have been focusing on the wordless book, The Journey written by Aaron Becker. We have been focusing mainly on using our senses to create a description for the forest image. The children explored the school grounds in the woodland areas and used all their senses to influence their creative writing.
Year 1 Phonics Different Ways of Making the ‘ea’ Sound
Last week in phonics we looked at the different ways to make the phase 5 ‘ea’ sound and practised reading and writing words with these different graphemes. We also played some Bug Club games to see if we could read words with different amounts of syllables in them using the various different ways to make the ‘ea’ sound and looked back at the ‘ee’ sound they learnt in Reception last year.
Year 6 English
In year 6, we have been looking at the features of a non chronological report so that we can include them in our own writing and ensure we are writing for a purpose. This included the visible features and the choice of language used to set an appropriate tone.
Year 1- Phonics
A bunch of superstars practicing our ‘v’ sound this morning.
Reception: Mother’s Day Celebration
It was wonderful to welcome our Mummies and Nannies into Reception today. The children painted pictures and explained why they loved their Mummies and sang some songs. Thank you for being such wonderful ladies, have a fabulous day on Sunday!
World Book Day Competition
During World Book Day, we held a whole school competition to create a book cover. All of the entries were excellent! Well done to: Cassidy in Year 1 Nevaeh in Year 2 Matthew in Year 4 Sienna in Year 5 Charlotte in Year 6 The children will all receive a £5 voucher to spend at our Scholastic book fair which will be at school between 15th-21st March. A huge well done to our winners and for everyone who took part. Just a reminder that our author Raysa Farah’s book is still available on parent pay to purchase. The last date to purchase the book will be next Friday.
Verse speaking competition
This afternoon some of our super talented children took part in a verse speaking competition at QEGS, with other local schools in our school improvement group. They each had to perform a poem in front of a large audition and a judge called Paul Jenkins, who is a poet. We are so proud of them as they showed lots of courage and performed with confidence. A huge well done to Freya for winning her category. We really enjoyed listening to Paul perform his poems and it was wonderful to watch the other children perform too.
Scrooge by Charles Dickens
This morning all of the children enjoyed watching a theatrical production of Scrooge, which is a stage adaptation of the classic story 'A Christmas Carol', which was written by Charles Dickens. We were so proud of how well they joined in and the performers said they were a fantastic audience and couldn’t praise our school enough for the warm welcome they received. The children said 'It was even better than the film', 'It was amazing', 'I loved the songs' 'Everyone needs to show kindness' and our Year 6 children said this had made them even more excited to go and see the Lion King in London with school in a couple of weeks! The classic story highlighted our school focus on kindness as mean Scrooge learnt to be kind after being visited by three spirits who showed him the error of his ways. A huge well done to Daisy for showing lots of courage when she was chosen to join the actors on stage. Thank you so much FOSB for paying for the performance. It was a delight to see the childrens' faces as they were a picture and made several of our staff team, including myself, rather emotional watching them. What a great end to world book day week!
Year 1 Traditional Tales
Today we looked at different traditional tale settings, book titles and characters. Year 1 then tried to spot different objects and characters that might feature in a traditional tale. A great start to the beginning of our new English unit this half term.
World Book Day- Staff Swap
As part of our World Book Day celebrations, our teaching assistants swapped classes and read a bedtime story to the children. It was lovely to see different staff members in each class and the children enjoyed seeing a new face too. Our FOSB donated chocolates for every child to enjoy whilst they listened to the story. Thank you.
Year 3 World Book Day - Stories that fill our Happy Tank
To celebrate World Book Day, Year 3 have been sharing their favourite bedtime stories and thinking about the stories that fill up their Happy Tank. Each child has created a book review, for their favourite book. We then shared our book reviews with the rest of the class, to give each other recommendations of books and authors!
World Book Day 2023
Today we celebrated world book day to show how amazing books are and the theme of this year’s celebration is bedtime stories and stories that fill our happy tank. During worship, Mrs Wilkinson, our reading leader, shared a variety of books through ‘the masked book’ quiz. Our school librarians shared clues from their favourite bedtime stories and asked the school to guess their book. Mrs Ham showed us one of her favourite stories, Oliver Twist, and read a 'Little people, big dreams' book about the author Charles Dickens. We learnt how he developed his love of books and became a successful author, writing stories with powerful messages. We are looking forward to a production of one of Charles Dickens famous stories tomorrow, A Christmas Carol, but in a special adaptation called Scrooge. Charles Dickens wanted everyone to know that everyday can feel like Christmas, if we show kindness and fill up each other's happy tanks. Children enjoyed stories from other teachers across the school who shared their favourite bedtime stories or stories that fill their happy tank. A special author came into school to read her latest book. The lion who lost its mane. She shared her amazing story and the message behind the story and her inspiration for making her book. Throughout the day children completed many activities to celebrate this year's themes for world book day, favourite bedtime stories or stories that fill your happy tank. This included: competitions for creating the best book cover, creating art work and reading their favourite stories to each other. Thank you to Mrs Speak, our English link Governor for joining us in our special World Book Day Worship. Happy World Book Day 2023!
Year 2 World Book Day
Today year 2 celebrated work book day by dressing in our pyjamas. We enjoyed collective worship with children sharing their favourite bedtime stories. In class, we completed many activities and shared all of our favourite bedtime stories that fill our happy tanks. We enjoyed listening to stories being read to us from other teachers across the school and enjoyed all the fun activities we completed today. Happy World Book Day!
EYFS & KS1: Author visit
EYFS and Key Stage 1 enjoyed an author visit this afternoon. Raysa Farah came into school to read her story, ‘A cub without a mane’. She explained how her son has leukaemia and lost his hair. Whilst in hospital, she decided to write her book. Raysa explained that no matter how you look, you are still special and a wonderful person. Our children had the opportunity to ask questions. Darcy asked if she had written any other books. Raysa said she had written one other book and it is awaiting approval to be published. Raysa is also a florist so Daisy asked if she liked making flowers. Lyla asked how long it took for Raysa to write her story. Raysa explained it took around a month to write. Eliza asked if Raysa drew the pictures. Raysa explained the role of an illustrator. Her publisher found an illustrator. Raysa then asked the children to draw anything that makes them happy and feel good. We loved your visit and the children left feeling inspired- thank you so much. Raysa’s book will be available to buy on parent pay for a discounted price. Further information to follow.
Reception - World Book Day
Reception class loved celebrating World Book Day! We dressed in our pyjamas and discussed our favourite bedtime stories. We made stick men inspired by Julia Donaldson’s book 'Stick Man' and created Hungry Caterpillar collages using natural materials we found around our school grounds. We met the author of ‘The cub without a mane’ and listened to her read the book. We then got a chance to ask questions about the illustrations and why she wanted to write her very first book. We have also had the chance to enter the school competition by designing our own book covers. We have had a fantastic day celebrating reading and our love of stories!
Years 3 & 4: Author Visit
Years 3 and 4 enjoyed an author visit this afternoon. Raysa Farah came into school to read her story, ‘A cub without a mane’. She explained how her son has leukaemia and lost his hair. Whilst in hospital, she decided to write her book. Raysa explained that no matter how you look, you are still special and a wonderful person. Our children had the opportunity to ask questions. Mason asked how old her little boy is who is poorly. Raysa told the children that he is aged 3. Hamza asked what happens when you have leukaemia. Raysa explained that you are given medication. When Raysa’s little boy was in hospital, that was the time that she wrote her story. Leonora asked how did her older boy feel. Raysa said that he was angry and upset but once everything was explained, he was happy and really looked after his younger brother. Alice asked if Raysa has written any other books. Raysa explained that she had written a story about a mouse that has lost its squeak which is about speech difficulties. Year 4 told Raysa about a story that they have been reading about speech difficulties and explained how there are 4 different adults who sometimes help or hinder children with speech impairments! Finn told Raysa that he had cut his hair off to raise money to create a wig for cancer. We loved your visit and the children left feeling inspired- thank you so much. Raysa’s book will be available to buy on parent pay for a discounted price. Further information to follow.
World Book Day in Year 4
What an amazing World Book Day 2023 we have had in Year 4. Designing book covers, author visits, looking at a new class novel - The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh, role play and even a special read from Mrs Lyons who shared her favourite short stories. We have packed so much into one day and Year 4 have had a fantastic time sharing all things WBD2023
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Year 3 World Book Day: Design your own book cover competition
To celebrate World Book Day, the whole school have taken part in a 'Design your own book cover' competition. The book cover could be a favourite book, or a book that the children might want to write themselves one day! Year 3 loved creating their own entries and we have had such a variety of book covers, from 'Space Boy' to 'World War Ant'!
Years 5 & 6: Author visit
Years 5 and 6 enjoyed an author visit this afternoon. Raysa Farah came into school to read her story, ‘A cub without a mane’. She explained how her son has leukaemia and lost his hair. Whilst in hospital, she decided to write her book. Raysa explained that no matter how you look, you are still special and a wonderful person. Our children had the opportunity to ask questions. Jake asked if her little boy’s hair was growing back. Raysa said that it was. It is very short but it is growing back. It’s not as curly but it is wavy. Lucy asked Raysa if her children liked her book. Raysa said that her eldest, Adam absolutely loves it- he is in reception. Kaylen asked ‘what inspired you to be a florist?’ Raysa explained that she wanted to be a florist since she was 4. Her Mum and Dad loved gardening and she remembered being in the garden from childhood. Raysa went to university first to study psychology but still wanted to be a florist. When she met her husband, she told him her dream and within a month, he created the business and from social media, it became a huge success. We loved your visit and the children left feeling inspired- thank you so much. Raysa’s book will be available to buy on parent pay for a discounted price. Further information to follow.
World Book Day: The Cub Without a Mane
Today, we welcomed Raysa Farah into our school to read and talk about her new book as part of our World Book Day celebration. Raysa is a successful florist who has now written a story after her little boy was diagnosed with leukaemia. 'My little boy S'aad was diagnosed with ALL in Spring 2022 at the age of two. From this experience I have found strength in writing an empowerment book for children and their carers. I want to help empower young children to feel like they’ve got a voice. The book follows a lion cub who loses his big, wild mane after developing leukaemia, but shows bravery to continue being himself and not let his illness get him down'. If you would like to order a copy of the book Raysa has offered a special price of £6.50, payment can be made through ParentPay. Thank you, Mrs Wilkinson
Year 1 World Book Day
A super start to the day in Year 1 for World Book Day! The children were all wearing their pyjamas and bought their own books in to celebrate their love of reading bedtime stories and to share with the class. They enjoyed being read to by Mrs Pendlebury and they helped retell the Gruffalo story as a whole class. It was super to look back at this book and for them to retell and remember the words from our story writing in Autumn 2. They then had a chocolate snack (thank you FOSB) whilst listening to another favourite book by Julia Donaldson: Stickman.
Sharing Our Love Of Reading in Year 1
During World Book Day, Year 1 read and shared their books from home and our school library with great enthusiasm. They each stood up in front of the whole class to show their chosen book that either ‘fills their happy tank’ or is a great bedtime read. The children read and shared their books with their friends and designed a book cover for their favourite book too as part of a competition. In the afternoon an author came in to read their new children’s story to them and they were able to ask questions and take part in an activity celebrating their uniqueness in their house groups. We also made book buddies that they have taken home with them today amongst other activities.
World Book Day Year 6
Year 6 have celebrated World Book Day by having a story read to them by Mrs Hegarty; taking part in a book cover competition; producing an outstanding piece of writing based on our English unit and topped it off by showing amazing respect and asking thoughtful questions during our author visit. A huge well done year 6!
Year 5- World Book Day- Happy Reading
The Year 5 students have had an absolute blast celebrating 'World Book Day'. The children came dressed in their pyjamas which linked to the theme 'Bedtime Stories'. We carried out a series of fun activities to inspire everyone to pick up a book and read. We started the day with the whole school worship, we played guess the book and listened to Mrs. Ham read about her favourite author Charles Dickens. We also joined BBC live to listen to stories read by Michael Rosen and Kevin Tsang. We also had a visit from an author Raysa Farah who read her story, 'A cub without a mane'. The children had the opportunity to ask the author questions related to the book and her life. In the afternoon, we had a blind date with a book. The children were all given a book to unwrap and discuss the cover and blurb of the book with their partners. We then gathered what the children thought of the cover and blurb, some of the children said they would never pick the book based on the cover and blurb. However, after 10 minutes of reading the book the children wanted to know what happens next. The moral of the activity was to never judge a book by its cover. We also got creative and drew pictures of our favourite characters. Finally, we started to write a story together as a class which demonstrates the power and joy of reading.
World Book Day- Staff Swap
As part of our World Book Day celebrations, our teaching assistants swapped classes and read a bedtime story to the children. It was lovely to see different staff members in each class and the children enjoyed seeing a new face too. Our FOSB donated chocolates for every child to enjoy whilst they listened to the story. Thank you.
Reception: Rhyme time and Story time
We enjoyed our first rhyme and story time since half term. The children enjoyed singing a variety of nursery rhymes and we listened to ‘The tiger who came to tea’. Thank you to all of the grown ups who came and it was lovely to see some of our preschool children too. Rhyme time and story time continues next Wednesday at 9am and reception families and preschool children are welcome to join us.
Live Production of Scrooge
Dear Parents and Carers, on Friday morning we have M&M theatrical productions in school performing Charles Dickens, Scrooge to all of the children. We are really looking forward to the performance and it is a great way to end World Book Day Week. A huge thank you to our FOSB for paying for the production so that all of our children can enjoy a live theatre performance. There will be no celebration worship this Friday so Values points will be rolled over to next week. If your child has an out of school award, please bring it in next week. On Friday Darwen Tower house team (yellow) have voted to have a non-uniform day and disco for achieving the most values points last half term. They can come to school in their non-uniform and they will have a disco and sweets at break time.
Year 4 English -The Firework Makers Daughter
As part of our English unit, we are looking at The Firework Makers daughter. We have met various characters and today we focused on how to write a diary extract in the role of one of the main characters- Lila and her journey to Mount Merapi to find the Royal Sulphur.
Year 5- English- Letter from the Prime Minister
The Year 5 class has been thrilled to learn that our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has taken time out of his busy schedule to reply to their letters. Last term, the children researched the impact of carbon emissions on fairtrade farmers and our planet. After collating their findings, the children decided to take action and wrote a persuasive letter to the Prime Minister to make a change. The Prime Minister was pleased to hear that young people like ourselves are thinking hard about the future of our planet. He also highlighted that the UK Government is going to continue to tackle carbon emissions. Since 1990, the UK reduced emissions by at least 44%.
World Book Day Information
Next Thursday, 2nd March we will be celebrating World Book Day. This year the theme is bedtime stories and stories that can fill your happy tank. We would love for all children to come dressed all cosy and warm in their pyjamas. Children will take part in a variety of exciting book related activities and competitions and will listen to stories throughout the day. There will also be a book cover competition which the children will complete in school where the children will have the chance to win a £5 book voucher. During World Book Day, a local author, Raysa Farah will visit each class. Once Raysa has been into school, the children will have the opportunity to purchase her book 'The cub that lost its mane' for a discounted price. Further information will be sent out after World Book Day. The children will all receive a £1 token. This can be used at our book fair which will be held between 15-21st March. Between the 15-17th March, the children will all have the opportunity to look at the books in school and they will create a 'wish list' which will be sent home. You can then purchase these books either using the web address on the wish list or by coming into school to purchase books on Monday 21st March and Tuesday 22nd March from 3.30pm. Payment will only be able to be taken by card or contactless payment. We can't wait to celebrate next week and further promote our love of reading.
Year 1- Darwen Library Visit
Today we walked to Darwen town centre to visit the library. It was a super trip and everyone enjoyed exploring the different areas of the junior library. There are over 4000 books in the junior library and every child found at least one book that they enjoyed reading, from shark books and comic books to stories about horses or beast quests. We had a librarian explain about the different areas of the library and she read the class a story linked to our new English unit: Traditional Tales. Over half the class got their new library membership cards too!
Year 4 - Creating Word Webs
In English, we were very excited to start our new class novel, The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, and began by exploring the new vocabulary we came across using a word web.
Year 1- Analysing rhymes
In English we carried on with our traditional rhymes from yesterday but today we analysed some rhymes. We highlighted rhyming words, punctuation, capital letters and repetition.
Year 1- Traditional rhymes
In English we are now looking at traditional rhymes. This morning we’ve used a rhyme time bag and different props to help us remember and sing some traditional rhymes.
Year 2 - Interview role play
During our English lessons we are looking to write an interview with Traction Man. We used role play methods to inform our writing and discussed many ideas, got into character and generated vocabulary and expressive techniques.
Rhyme and Story time
Our rhyme and story time has finished for this half term. Please join us again on 1st March 2023 between 9-9.30am. Reception class families are more than welcome to attend and we also welcome preschool children. Refreshments will be served after.
Year 5- Persuasive Writing- Letters to the Prime Minister
Over the past two weeks, the children have been researching climate emissions at great length to understand the need to support Fairtrade farmers. Farmers are most affected by climate change. It not only threatens their future but also the food that they produce for our country. The Year 5 class put their points, and evidence collated on paper and have written a persuasive letter to the Prime minister to convince the government to make a change.
Year 1-Bossy verbs
Yesterday we went on a walk to Jack’s Key to find a suitable route to write instructions for Reception class to guide them on a walk. Today we looked at bossy verbs and acted some out in practice for our instruction writing tomorrow.
Year 2 - Designing finger puppets
In year 2 this week we have been designing our own finger puppets in DT. We have looked at a variety of methods to create a strong and sturdy puppet and linked this in nicely with our English unit of Traction Man. The children have designed their own villain that Traction Man will face and this forms a basis for our interview writing unit.
Year 3: Performing our own dialogue!
Over the past few weeks, Year 3 have been looking at the clip 'Soar'. The story begins with a young girl called Mara. A thirteen-year-old who dreams of one day becoming an airplane designer. But every day, she test flies her model airplanes in the fields behind her house and every day, they crash. She is feeling downhearted and wants to give up, until a young boy falls from the sky and changes everything! We have been discussing how even though there is no dialogue in the clip, we can still follow the characters and understand their journey. In this lesson, we started to create our own dialogue for the story in pairs! This was also a great opportunity for the children to practice their performance and drama skills! Next week, we will be planning and writing our own playscripts for 'Soar'.
Reception- Our Forest School Restaurant
We built a shelter in our mud kitchen area. The children wanted to create a restaurant, they came up with dishes such as mud pie, pizza and spaghetti to serve in their restaurant. The children also asked for some chalk to create their own chalkboard menu. They then invited children in and served them their creations. What brilliant imaginative play reception!
Year 1- Amazing handwriting
Year 1 have been having a go at cursive handwriting and getting ready to apply it into their work.
Year 3 English- Making Predictions
Year 3 have started looking at a new English topic. They watched a short video which contained no words, they then made predictions on how the characters mindset impacted the story.
Reception: Rhyme time
We had a brilliant rhyme and story time this morning in Reception. Thank you to our Mummies and Grandma’s who came today. Rhyme time is on every Wednesday morning at 9am. Preschool children and parents from Reception are welcome to join us.
Year 4 - Handwriting Practice
We are working hard on improving our handwriting and the hard work is really paying off! Keep up the good work, Year 4!
Year 4 - Planning a Narrative
We have really enjoyed planning our own dilemma stories today in Year 4. We used the plot from the story The Balaclava Boy and innovated it to plan an updated version of the story. Instead of balaclavas, there were lots of mentions of iPhones and Fitbits.
Year 1- Writing using our phonics
Continuing with the story ‘we’re going on a bear hunt’ we had a go at writing sentences independently. We all had a sound mat and used our phonics to sound out our sentences. I was very impressed Year 1!
Year 5- Facts and Opinions
In writing this week, Year 5 has started a new writing unit. They will develop their voices by producing a persuasive letter to encourage parents and families to buy fairtrade products. Prior to that the children have been identifying statistics from a range of sources and identifying facts and opinions.
Year 1- Capital letters,full stops and exclamation marks.
This morning in English we focused on the bear hunt story. Today’s task was to put in the punctuation that was missing. Year 1 felt really grown up because they all used a purple polishing pen for the first time today.
Year 6 English
Year 6, have been working hard on their independent writes in English. They have begun their emotion-driven narrative based on the novel ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ and have made a superb start. Keep it up year 6!
Year 4 - Exploring Vocabulary
This week in English, we have started our new text focus: The Balaclava Boy. We began by exploring a variety of dilemmas and then moved on to using P.T.V. to understand new vocabulary used in the story.
Reception: Phonics
The children in Reception have been working really hard on their formation and sentence writing. Well done!
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Year 5- A Visitor From The Local Library
Year 5 had a fantastic morning with Angela. Angela works for Blackburn with Darwen Libraries. She came to our classroom to encourage our children to join and visit the Library for free. The children were amazed to learn about the services offered by the Library. You can get help with homework, research an area that you have an interest in and school holiday activities, and out-of-school hours, for all age groups. Angela finished the session by reading one of David Walliams's popular story books, 'The World's Worst Children'.
Year 2 - Creative writing
This week year have finished their creative writing. They have written their own twisted tale based on Jack and the baked bean stalk. They have been extremely creative and their presentation and efforts have shown within their work.
Year 6 English
Today, year 6 have been summarising the key events from the first chapter of ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ in order to plan the beginning of their own emotion-driven narrative.
Reception Stickman
This week, the children have been looking at the stickman story. They have been superstars at creating stickman pictures including, drawing Stickman’s Lady Love and his family tree. They showed good understanding, as they were able to tell us their favourite parts of the story. Some children even had a go at writing Stickman’s name.
Year 4 - Publishing our Writing
This week in English, Year 4 have been publishing their writing using Google Docs and they’ve loved it. It’s wonderful to see everyone taking such pride in their work.
Year 5 - English- Planning a new scene
Today, in writing, Year 5 have been planning a new scene for the film Oliver Twist.
Year 2 - Creative writing
In year 2 we have worked really hard on our presentation and creative flare within writing. We are all really proud of our work.
Year 5 - English- Analysing a film clip
Over the next few weeks, the children will be writing a short narrative based on the film 'Oliver Twist. In our English lesson today, the class explored the historical context of Oliver Twist, learning about the Victorian Era and the author Charles Dickens. The children then moved on to analysing a film clip and creating their own sentences using expanded noun phrases and adverbs.
Rhyme Time starts again on 11th January
Reception’s rhyme time and story time will begin again on Wednesday 11th January. Preschool children are more than welcome to join us and refreshments will be served afterwards.
Rhyme Time starts again on 11th January
Reception’s rhyme time and story time will begin again on Wednesday 11th January. Preschool children are more than welcome to join us and refreshments will be served afterwards.
Year 4 Researching Roman Life
This week in English, Year 4 have been researching life in Ancient Rome in preparation for our 'Day in the Life of a Roman Soldier' diary entry. We have loved handling artefacts and using text books to find out more about the Roman way of life.
Years 5 and 6- World Cup Writing Lesson
To celebrate the start of the football 2022 World Cup, Years 5 and 6 took part in a live World Cup writing lesson in association with Pobble and Vocabulary Ninja this morning. The sport-themed writing lesson added all the pace, enthusiasm and passion of football into their writing! ⚽️ What a great way to kick off the World Cup and we are looking forward to cheering England on this afternoon in their first game against Iran. Come on England! ⚽️
Reception: Birthday Celebration
Today, the children in Reception read Kipper’s birthday. We looked at what happens at a party and the importance of a birthday invitation. They found out why it is important to have the correct number of candles on a cake. The children are preparing for a toy party on Friday by creating necklaces, crowns and cakes.
Reception: Rhyme Time
This week the children celebrated world nursery rhyme week. We sang lots of different rhymes including the big ship sails, 5 little speckled frogs and down in the jungle. We did lots of super singing and dancing. We finished our rhyme time with a story called ‘The Leaf Thief’.
Reception - Fantastic Phonics
Reception are doing so well learning new graphemes each week and remembering them. Today they learnt the grapheme ‘h’ and thought of lots of words that begin with this sound. Then they practised writing the letter in their phonics books, well done!
Year 1-Super phonics
Year 1 have been working really hard in phonics. Today’s new sound was “oa”. I'm so proud of all of your sounding out and blending year 1!
Reception Rhyme Time
Reception have had another rhyme time session today. They joined in well using the instruments and sang along to the different nursery rhymes from the rhyme time bag. The best songs were ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm’ and ‘5 Cheeky Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.’ We ended with a story, ‘A squash and a squeeze’.
Librarian Club
Our librarians have been very busy today. They have tidied the library and read stories to key stage one at lunchtime. It has been wonderful to see how enthusiastic they all are.
Year 3 English: The Last Bear
This term, Year 3 will be writing their own adventure/mystery stories, based on the novel 'The Last Bear' By Hannah Gold. On Monday, we explored the text title and front cover and thought about what the main themes in the text might be. We then explored the setting of the story 'Bear Island'. We discussed whereabouts Bear Island may be located and explored the island, using google maps.
English- Year 5 - Poems
This week in English, the children have started their writing unit on classical narrative poems. In their lesson today the children in Year 5 worked in mixed-ability groups, with a ‘group leader’ in each who was confident at performing poetry. This way they supported each other to bring ' The Highwayman' poem to life.
Year 1- English Hunting for the Gruffalo
On Monday we went for a walk to Whitehall park to hunt for clues to introduce this term's story for English. We hunted high and low for clues of the story until we found the Gruffalo.
Escape to Pompeii - English -Year 4
In English this week, we have started a new story called ‘Escape from Pompeii’ by Christina Bali’s. In todays session, we have focused on conveying the thoughts and feelings of a character from the story. We looked at how Tranio would feel about living in the beautiful city of Pompeii, developing our own sentences around this.
Meet our Key Stage 1 Librarians
Here are our wonderful key stage one librarians. They all had to write Mrs Wilkinson a letter stating why they think they would be a good librarian. The children really impressed Mrs Wilkinson and are excited about starting their new role next half term.
Meet our Key Stage 2 Librarians
Here are our wonderful key stage two librarians. They all had to write Mrs Wilkinson a letter stating why they think they would be a good librarian. The children really impressed Mrs Wilkinson and are excited about starting their new role next half term.
Handwriting- Year 5
Today in handwriting, the children have demonstrated an understanding of the spelling words in context by using the words appropriately in sentences.
Year 3- Story Writing
Today, Year 3 have had a go at writing their own versions of some fairytale stories. We watched some clips of these stories to remind us , and then the children had a go at re-writing these stories with their own ideas. The children then read out their stories to the class.
Reading- Year 5- Scholastic Schools Live
Today we chose to go live for our reading session and listen to Hughie and Freddie. In this special session, the boys read their book 'Friends Are Amazing', a picture book celebrating the importance of friendship. They also spoke about raising £250,000 for the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, and their top tips for being an amazing friend.
Year 3 English
Year 3 have been continuing writing their stories around Cinderella of the Nile. We focused on the ending of the story. We discussed the importance of checking our work once we have finished and using the Thesaurus to find better words for our description. Some of the children were confident enough to read out their stories to the class and share their ideas.
Year 4 English - Information Texts
Today in English we have been identifying the key features within an information text. The children selected examples of these key features from two texts about the Amazon - one about the Awa tribe and one about deforestation which links directly to our Geography study on The Amazon.
English-Non-fiction text- Year 5
Over the next few weeks, the children will create an information text about Ancient Maya which links with their History topic. In today's lesson, the children explored a variety of non-fiction text, (newspapers, articles and magazines) and identified the common features.
Year 4 Attending the Literature Festival
On Tuesday, Year 4 walked to Darwen Library Theatre to take part in the Literature Festival. We listened to a local poet called Rappaman, who shared a collection of poems with us and had us all participating.
Year 1- English
In English year 1 have been looking at the features of an information text.
Year 3 Super Spelling!
This week in spelling, Year 3 are focusing on words ending in -el. In class, we introduced our new spelling rule and completed the spelling zone and dots and dashes activity. Throughout the week, we will complete a variety of different spelling activities focusing on the spelling rule, ready for our quiz on Friday!
Year 3 Darwen Library Visit
Year 3 have had a fantastic morning at Darwen Library! The class took part in a workshop with children’s author Dan Worsley. Dan spoke to the children about how he became an author and what inspires him to write! We then had the pleasure of listening to some of Dan’s short stories. The children also had the opportunity to ask Dan questions about his job and how to write a book! The class loved listening to Dan and were inspired by his enthusiasm and enjoyment for creative writing and story telling!
Willow Plate Painting Year 4 Art
We have been looking at Willow painting in our art session this week. We observed how to use tint to recreate a traditional design with undiluted ink and water wash to add lighter tones. The children selected three main parts from our class novel - The Explorer, sketched these out and then transferred the design to a paper plate. We are so happy with the end results.
Reception: Mark making
The children have been practising their mark making this week. They have continued to learn how to use a pencil or felt tip and how to hold it correctly. They practised making lines, spirals, wavy and zig zag lines. We have also had a go at dough disco to develop our fine motor skills.
Year 1- writing sentences
Year 1 have been writing sentences for the beginning of the story “Lost and found”.
Descriptive writing- English- Year 5
This term, the children have been introduced to stories originating in popular culture ' Rainplayer' and 'The Chocolate Tree'. They have made predictions based on a story read so far and shown their understanding through discussion and writing. In our lesson today, the children used new and exciting vocabulary to describe their characters for their narrative.
Year 3- English
Year 3 have been using their text to locate information about a specific character from their story. Focusing on setting out smart sentences and sharing equipment with a partner. Great work Year 3.
Year 3 English - Using Dictionaries
Year 3 have started their new unit in English and have been busy working with a partner to find specific words using a dictionary and writing the meanings they find. Remembering those important capital letters and full stops when copying a sentence.
Year 1- Lost and found
This week year 1 have been a bunch of of superstars! We have looked at the story lost and found. In English we have acted out the story and identified the main characters.
Reception: Phase 1 Phonics
Today, Reception went on a listening walk. They listened and identified different sounds that they could hear. They then tried to make the sounds that they had heard. Albie heard children playing, Eli heard the wind, Fletcher heard a football bouncing, Roman heard Year 2 children playing and Charlie heard the birds tweeting. Super listening!
Reception: the colour monster
Today, the children in Reception have read the colour monster. We have started to talk about the different emotions and our feelings. We learnt what fear, calm and anxious means. The children created a collage of each emotion and we will be focussing on this story this week. Super work!
Loving Library time!
Today is National Read a Book Day! We have loved choosing our first reading book of the year from our updated library. We have used the ‘recommended reads’ and ‘new to the library’ displays, that our amazing librarians created, to help us to choose an exciting new book. We can’t wait to read them! We also learnt lots of library skills such as how to put the books back with the spine facing out and in alphabetical order.
Summer reading challenge
Don’t forget to sign your child up to the 2022 #SummerReadingChallenge at one of our local Darwen or Blackburn libraries. The challenge is FREE. If you send in your certificate in September, we will present it to your child in Celebration Worship. #welovetoread #summerfun
Year 3 - Making storybooks with moving parts
Year 3 have been finishing making their storybooks with moving parts that they started in DT lessons. They have used lever and linkage mechanisms and lift-the-flap effects.
Year 6 Oliver Production
On the hottest day on record, our Year 6 children put on a fabulous production of Oliver. They blew us away with their amazing acting, singing and dancing. We are so proud of how well each child learned their lines, encouraged each other and gave it their all. Wow, I am so incredibly proud of each and every single one of our amazing Year 6 children! What a way to end their time at St Barnabas! Thank you so much to their parents for the support with learning lines, songs and costumes. A huge thank you to Mr Prescott for his dedication and for working really hard with the children on their lines, acting and songs. Thanks to Miss Craig, Lily and Jack for their amazing props. Thank you to Mrs Wilkinson for filming and to our FOSB for serving much needed refreshments. I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching the children the songs although I don’t think I will get them out of my head for months. I’m sure you will be the same too. It’s been great to see them all let themselves go and enjoy themselves. Here is the link to the photos: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/oliver-production-year-6-2022 Here is the link to the video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FJRaZf-_Ivg Our whole school family watched the dress rehearsal this morning and they loved it. Well done to all of Year 6 for a fantastic performance on the hottest day of the year!
Year 2 Spelling
This week in spelling, the children are focusing on words with the ee sound spelt ey. First, we watched a video, introducing our spelling rule for the week. We then looked at some words with this rule, like donkey, money and key. Finally, we completed the ‘Spelling Zone’ and ‘Dots and Dashes’ activity in our spelling books! We will carry on learning about this rule, ready for our spelling quiz on Friday!
Year 2 Blackpool Trip!
Year 2 had a fantastic day at Blackpool on Tuesday! Our class topic this term is ‘Beside the Seaside’ so the aim of the trip was for the children to experience a day at the seaside and think about the activities that we do now at the seaside and comparing this to the Victorian’s. We played on the beach, listened to a talk about beach safety, went to the the top of Blackpool Tower and walked along The North Pier! The children showed so much respect to the general public and represented St Barnabas brilliantly! Well done Year 2!
Newspaper Reports- The 5W’s and 1H
In our English lesson today, we looked at identifying key points using : When? Who? Where? What? Why and How? The children highlighted and analysed these examples using the WAGOLL piece and then moved on to writing their own opening paragraph.
Year 4 - Features of Newspaper Reports
Year 4 have just started looking at newspapers and have done a great job of identifying features of a newspaper report. They have worked so well collaboratively, encouraging and supporting each other.
Darwen Library- Summer Reading Challenge 2022
This morning, Angela who works at Darwen library visited school to invite us all to participate in ‘The Summer Reading Challenge 2022.’ The challenge is free of charge and involves children reading 6 library books between 1st July and 30th September, including picture books and audio books. There are various prizes awarded for each book that is read and returned, and those who complete the challenge will receive a certificate and a medal. If your child completes the challenge, we would love for them to be bring these into school so that we can present them during whole school celebration worship. Anglea told us that there is something for everyone at the library. However, if there is a specific book that the children are looking for but they don’t have it, it’s her promise that they will get it for them on request. If your child does not yet have a library card, the library can quickly and easily enrol them as a library member for free and no ID is required. Children without library cards may still join the Summer Reading Challenge, please enquire at Darwen Library about this. We hope that as many of our children as possible will take on the challenge. Happy reading!
Year 2 English: Making predictions!
In year 2, our topic this term is 'Beside the Seaside'. This week in English, we started a brand new unit. The class were given the book cover for the story that we will be exploring over the next couple of weeks. The children then made their own Title predictions, based on evidence from the front cover. The class are so excited to find out the Title of the story and explore the main character!
Year 6 watch Matilda in the West End
Year 6 enjoyed a lovely meal together in Covent Garden and watched some of the street entertainers. They then watched Matilda the Musical at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End. We had the first four front rows so were so close to the stage. The children’s faces were priceless as they were so mesmerised by the production and in particular the child actors and actresses. We hope it’s given them some ideas and confidence for their Oliver production.
Year 3 English - Drama - Hot seating
Year 3 have been inferring the Hare’s thoughts and feelings from the fable “ The Hare and The Tortoise”. Today they thought of questions to ask the Hare in role during a Hot-seating activity.
Year 3 English - Fables
In English, Year 3 have been retelling the story of The Hare and The Tortoise to each other using sequenced pictures as a prompt.
Poetry- Year 5
The children have been comparing poems and explaining their preferences. They have been identifying where they differ and are similar by giving a deeper appreciation and understanding of them. Thinking about the ways in which the poets have approached their subject matter.
Story and Craft Club
In story and craft club, we listened to a book called, ‘The Night Before Father’s Day.’ We discussed the special people in our lives and how we can make them feel loved. We then created a card for them.
Year 4 - Investigating Information Texts
In our English lessons, Year 4 have been looking at the structure of information texts and identifying key features.
Year 4 Information Texts - Ancient Egypt
We have been looking at Information texts in English this week. We have started our sessions by looking at key elements of texts and summarising key information under headings such as mummification, gods, Tutankhamen and the pyramids.
KS2 SATS
The children have all enjoyed their pre SATS continental breakfast this morning. We have been blown away by their calm demeanours and positive attitudes towards this week, you are all absolute superstars!
Reception Writing
Reception have been really blowing our socks off with their writing. This week in the mark making area, they have been labelling baby farm animals. They have been sounding out the words and using the sound mats to help them write more independently.
Year 2 English: Editing and improving our work!
Over the past few weeks, Year 2 have been busy writing their own diary entries, from the character 'Kevin's' perspective, in the story 'The Koala who Could'. We have been working on improving and editing our work in class. The children worked in pairs to roll the dice and select a particular diary entry feature to check.
Year 6 English
Year 6 have been working hard on Editing their setting descriptions, their have had to ensure all learning practice is appropriately included in their writing.
Year 4- Using drama to improve a piece of narrative
In English, we have been looking at The Black Hat by Maia Walczak. Today we used drama to reenact the part where the boy wades through the deep, dark woods and then finds a mysterious hat. What will happen? Who knows?
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English- Year 5
In English, we have been reading and analysing the book ' The Invention of Hugo Cabaret'. This week, we summarised the story so far in small groups.
Year 2 visit Darwen Library
Year 2 really enjoyed listening to a story and learning about how they can become a member of Darwen Library.
Darwen Rotary Club - Create a gift for the Queen Competition
Good Morning, As you can see from the poster, we have a fantastic competition being run by Darwen Rotary Club, and we would love for the children in our school to take part. We are inviting the children to create a gift for the Queen to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee, this is to be completed at home. The gift can be of any style they wish. We are looking for originality and inspiration from the children. Possible ideas are a poem, a song, a model, a piece of artwork - the list goes on! Please can all gifts be completed and brought into school ready for judging by Wednesday 11th May. We will judge the best 10 pieces for KS1 and the best 10 for KS2 and then arrange for a Rotarian to call into school and choose the final 3 winners for each category. There will be prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places from each Key Stage. All the winning entries from each school will then go on display in Darwen Market Hall on the Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend, and on Saturday 4th June, 2 overall winners (1 for KS1 and 1 for KS2) will be selected from all the 1st place entries and the winners will win a tiled mural for their school! This is a very exciting opportunity and we would love for our children to get involved, if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask. We look forward to seeing some fantastic gifts for the Queen! Mrs Govan- Art and Design Leader
Year 6 Writing
Year 6 have been building their writing skills by incorporating figurative language. They were encouraged to edit their own work, making improvements where needed.
Year 1- Exploring Information Books
Year 1 have been reading information books, finding the answers to questions in information books and exploring the features of information books. They looked for the headings, captions, fact boxes, index, glossary and contents page. They are now working on their own information books to showcase their knowledge and understanding of the Victorians.
Year 1 Phonics
In the phonics area, some of the children have been independently practising the reading of words with the ai, ay, a-e and ey graphemes as this is what they’ve been learning in their phonics sessions.
Reading and Writing- Year 5
Year 5 have been mesmerised by our new book ‘ The Invention of Hugo Cabret’. The book is beautifully and illustrated by Brian Selznick. Throughout the week, the children have been annotating their own picture from the story inferring and deducing about what they think is happening. The children have also created a semantic map to help with their unknown vocabulary.
Reception: Easter Story Writing
We have been practising our Phonics by rewriting parts of the Easter story. The children have tried really hard to apply their learning. Well done, we are really proud of you!
Science- The Digestive System
In science today, Year 4 have worked so hard to produce some amazing, informative posters on the digestive system. The standard of their work was fantastic! Each child worked on a key function, finding information from their books, key texts and chrome books. They also added diagrams to explain.
Reception- Author visit
Reception really enjoyed their visit from the author and illustrator Sean Perkins today. The children loved listening to his picture book ‘Oscar and Ben,’ meeting the characters and joining in with a song about the book.
Author and Illustrator Sean Perkins visits St Barnabas
Today, Year 1 and Year 2 thoroughly enjoyed a visit from the local author and illustrator Sean Perkins. The children absolutely loved listening to his picture book ‘Oscar and Ben,’ meeting the characters and joining in with a song about the book. The children described the characters as mischievous, cheeky and sneaky as they got up to lots of mischief on their adventures.
Year 3 English - Drama
Year 3 English - using Drama to explore the thoughts and feelings of the main character, Omri, in “The Indian in the Cupboard”.
The Balaclava Boy
In our English sessions we have been reading ‘The Balaclava Boy’ for stories with dilemmas. Today we have been looking at inferring how characters feel and what they may be thinking at certain points in the story. We even had a visit from a real life balaclava boy.
Hybrid text- Year 5
Year 5 has been inspired by Professor Branestawm inventions and have come up with ideas for their own designs. They have worked exceptionally well and produced some amazing writing: an explanation text, information text and a persuasive text ( hybrid text).
English - Persuasive Leaflets about Darwen
We have been working extremely hard over the past few weeks to develop our understanding of persuasive texts. Today we added the final touches to our Darwen leaflets, checking that we have used persuasive devices and created interesting content, which is appealing to the audience. Thank you to Mrs Ham and our Head and Deputy Girls for deciding on two overall winners. Well done to Oscar and Wilson. Every single child produced a quality piece of writing which they should be very proud of. They included many of the landmarks or places of interest in Darwen after researching them.
World Book Day
Developing setting descriptions using ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker as a stimulus. Using printing skills to produce a collaborative piece of art work to illustrate our chosen setting.
Year 1- World Book Day
Year 1 enjoyed World Book day yesterday. As a whole school, we were focusing on the story ‘Journey by Aaron Becker.’ In the story the girl visited lots of settings such as a medieval city and the woods. Year 1 brainstormed ideas for their own settings. They came up with ideas such as a water park, a cave, a fairground, a toy museum, and a jungle. They even came up with ideas that meant that we would need to go back in time such as the Victorian times and the time when dinosaurs were alive. Eventually, we settled on a candy land. They then brainstormed ideas for getting to their destination. The girl in the video used a hot air balloon, boat and magic carpet. Year 1 came up with lots of ideas such as a witch’s broomstick, a zip line, a quad bike, a helicopter, a unicorn and a surfboard. We decided on a quad bike. Year 1 then did a piece of collaborative artwork to showcase their candy land setting and wrote some wonderful descriptive phrases to describe the setting using adjectives. Year 1 also took part in the whole school competition and decorated their own bunting with their favourite book. We had bunting decorated with The Gruffalo, Oi Frog, The Gingerbread Man, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, The Day the Crayon’s Quit, The Scarecrows’ Wedding, Funny Bones, The Runaway Pea, Rumpelstiltskin, Lost and Found, Stickman and Peace at Last. We can’t wait to have our bunting displayed in the library. We are hoping that it will encourage other children to choose our favourite book and take it home to read as their library book.
Librarians- Whole School Competition
Today at lunchtime, our librarians judged our whole school World Book Day competition which was to decorate bunting with your favourite book. They were blown away by so many wonderful efforts and found it very difficult to pick one winner per year group. However, they are have all been displayed In our library. We had a wide variety of books such as Stick Man, The Gruffalo, The Scarecrows’ Wedding, Oi Frog, The Snail and the whale, Dog Man, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Naughtiest Unicorn, The 39-Storey Treehouse, Harry Potter, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Beast Quest, Tom Gates, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners and many others. A great effort by our whole school- well done!
Whole School World Book Day Display
We have created a display in the library to showcase all of the wonderful work that our whole school produced on World Book Day. Each class created a setting inspired by the story ‘Journey by Aaron Becker,’ and described this setting using descriptive phrases. As we look at the writing produced from Reception to Year 6, we can see more ambitious vocabulary being used and more complex language features. KS1 worked hard to create noun phrases and Year 2 used there’s in a list using commas. As we move into KS2, we can see language features such as similes, metaphors, expanded noun phrases and onomatopoeia.
World Book Day Assembly
Miss Flynn, our Reading leader led a special World Book Day Assembly this morning. We watched a special voucher rap and learnt how we can get free books using our World Book Day voucher and Miss Flynn shared her top suggestions for each year group. We then looked at a wordless story called The Journey by the Aaron Becker. The little girl in the story had a magic red pencil that she used to draw different types of transport that took her on a magical journey. Miss Flynn challenged each class to create their own St Barnabas journey and to use their imaginations to create their own settings and form of transport. We can’t wait to see what they produce as we had some amazingly imaginative ideas during our assembly. Our library leaders told everyone about a favourite book bunting competition that every child will take part in today. We can't wait to see the entries and there will be a winner from each class announced on Monday in Worship. This afternoon class teachers will be swapping classes to read to a different year group. The children will enjoy fair trade hot chocolate and marshmallows whilst snuggling up in their pyjamas and listening to a story.
Year 2 World Book Day
We have had a fun filled day in Year 2, celebrating all things reading! We shared our favourite books, authors and characters with each other and designed our own book covers! We also completed a piece of artwork for our whole school reading display, focused around the beautiful wordless picture book ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker.
Year 2 English: Persuasion
This week in Year 2, we started our new English unit on persuasive writing. We have looked at how Disney persuade us to visit Disney Land, with the use of exciting leaflets and advertisements! We are building up to writing our own creative writing piece, where the children will be persuading parents and carers to keep a dinosaur as a pet!
World Book Day in Year 4
Today we celebrated the 25th anniversary of World Book Day. We started with a fantastic worship when we watched MC Grammar perform a rap. In class we looked at Journey by Aaron Becker and then thought of alternative examples of transport and settings. The children loved taking part and it was an absolute pleasure to see them so enthused. This afternoon, Miss Ashworth came in to read to the class whilst they enjoyed a lively fair trade hot chocolate. What a day! #WorldBookDay #booklover #reading
Year 3 World Book Day
Year 3 began the day in a special assembly watching a video clip of the book by Aaron Becker, called “Journey”. Once in class, we discussed the character and voted on a setting and a vehicle for our descriptive writing. We chose the setting to be Hogwarts and the vehicle for the girl to be a train. We produced artwork for a display in the school library, together with some descriptive phrases from some of the children’s writing. Miss Flynn came to read a story to the class at 2.30pm whilst Mrs Hargreaves went into the Reception class to read a story to them. We ended the day by listening to a further instalment of The Indian in the Cupboard” which is our class novel this half term.
World Book Day- Different teacher story time & fair trade hot chocolate
This afternoon each class enjoyed a story read by a different teacher whilst snuggled up in their pyjamas drinking fair trade hot chocolate and marshmallows. We love reading at St Barnabas!
Year 5- World Book Day
We have had a great day today for World Book Day and everyone looked so brilliant in their pjs and oodies /snuggies. We have been creating our own setting and transport based on the book Journey by Aaron Becker and the art work has been absolutely fantastic! I have also sent home a £1 book voucher for each child. Happy World Book Day
Year 6- World Book Day
Year 6 had a brilliant day celebrating World Book Day, they started a creative writing piece, did some image printing, read stories and were even treated to a hot chocolate!
Reception World Book Day
Reception had a brilliant day dressed all cosy in their pyjamas for World Book Day.
Reception Rhyme Time
It was so lovely to have parents back in school joining us for our morning Rhyme Time with Reception. We have missed our weekly sing songs in the hall and the children were so pleased to see everyone. Thank you to everyone who joined us and we will hopefully see you all again next week for some more rhymes and fun!
Love of Reading
February is the month of ‘Love of Reading’ and today in Year 4 we have chosen our new class novel. Over the past few days we have looked at a selection of five books and their blurbs. Today we chose ‘ A Place Called Perfect’ by Helena Duggan. We can’t wait to get stuck into it on Monday.
Year 2 English- Dinosaurs!
We introduced our new English unit today in Year 2! We thought about the reasons for and against keeping a dinosaur as a pet and gathered some different facts about dinosaurs! We even had some dinosaurs leaping onto our tables, when exploring an augmented reality book!
Superheroes topic launched in Reception!
Today we have launched our brand new Superheroes topic in Reception. We read the story of Supertato. The evil pea has been causing lots of trouble for the teachers in Reception. The children have created their own Supertato characters and have been designing jails and capes to defeat the evil pea. The evil pea has been hiding all day in our classroom but our Superheroes have been brilliant at locating him! What a super start to the new half term!
Information Booklets- Year 5
This week in English, Year 5 have created information booklets which include more than one text type about the Solar System. For example, a non- chronological report and an explanation text. The explanation text has been applied using diagrams which describes a process of how the Earth orbits the Sun and how planets rotate around the Sun. The booklets will be displayed in our school library and other classes.
Year 2 Non-chronological reports
This week, Year 2 have been busy gathering facts about Neil Armstrong and Space, ready for when we write our non-chronological reports!
Year 4 Perform Poetry
Year 4 have had great fun practising intonation and adding gestures to their poetry performances. They have been learning verses from the poem The Pied Piper and using actions and voices to help their audience understand. Super partner work, Year 4!
Year 1 English- Constructing our own set of instructions.
Year 1 have been busy creating their own obstacle courses. Tomorrow, they will be writing a set of instructions to explain how to use it.
Year 3 - English Play Scripts
Year 3 have been acting out and narrating the story of “The Hare and the Tortoise”.
Year 1- Instructions
Over the last few days, Year 1 have been following, reading and looking at the features of instruction texts. We have looked at time conjunctions, imperative verbs and adverbs. On Thursday, we will start to construct and write our own set of instructions. We will be creating our own obstacle courses and constructing a sequence of steps for them.
Year 3 English - Play Scripts
Year 3 have been acting out the story of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”.
Y4 Creative Writing
This week, Year 4 have been writing their innovated fairy tales based on The Pied Piper. We are so proud of the creativity in their ideas. No two stories are the same.
Year 2 English: Read all about it!
Year 2 have been exploring the features of a newspaper report today in English. We read a variety of different news paper articles, in preparation for writing our own newspaper reports, about The Disappearing Moon!
Reception: super writing
We have been blown away by the super writing from our Reception class. They are trying really hard in Phonics and have enjoyed writing facts about different sea creatures.
Reception - Rock pools
This week we have read the story ‘Sharing a shell’ by Julia Donaldson which is about the creatures that live in a rock pool. The children really enjoyed the story and have had their own rock pool in the small world area. They have been busy acting out the story with their friends and have talked lots about the creatures we might find there.
Year 6 English
Year 6 have been looking for clues to identify the owner of a lost bag, using tentative language to describe their findings.
Year 1 English- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Last week in Year 1, we created a story map for ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ and now we can retell the story from our memory. Over the last couple of days, we have been changing the first three settings (the grass, river and mud) to develop our own versions of the story. Some of the settings we have had are swamps, meadows, deserts, candy shops, and farms. We can’t wait to get started with writing our new stories. Well done year 1!
Reception: the Rainbow fish
This week, Reception are learning all about the rainbow fish. They have been creating their own fish using different collage materials, discussing how the characters may feel in the story and they have been writing describing words about the rainbow fish. The children have also enjoyed creating their own watercolour pictures using wax crayons and water paint.
Year 2 English: Man on The Moon!
We started our new English unit this week in Year 2! Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring the character of Bob, as an astronaut who works on The Moon! We will be writing our own stories based on Bob and The Disappearing Moon. Today, we generated some questions about Bob and wrote down everything that we have learnt so far, about his character.
Explanation Texts - How is a circuit made?
In our English lesson today, we looked at how we can explain how a circuit can be made. We used conjunctions to create sentences with subordinate clauses, thinking about use of commas and technical language.
Year 2 Author Virtual Visit!
On Friday 3rd December, Year 2 took part in a virtual visit, with author and illustrator Nick Sharratt. Nick read his new book 'Oh No! Shark in the Snow!' to the class and the children took part in a illustrating workshop with Nick. It was lovely to see the children so engaged and excited to meet and listen to Nick!
Year 1- Great Fire of London Workshop
Year 1 throughly enjoyed a visit from The Freshwater Theatre company this afternoon. Alison the facilitator was amazing and she took the children back in time to 1666 where they heard from Mary Porter who had experienced the fire first hand. They took part in various drama activities to really bring the topic alive. It was a wonderful experience.
World Nursery Rhyme Week
Today, the children took part in Wold Nursery Rhyme week during our weekly rhyme time. We enjoyed singing and dancing to lots of different nursery rhymes. The children all received a certificate at the end. Thank you to everybody who came, we hope you had as much fun as we did!
Planning a Recount
Yesterday in English, we started our plan for our recount - to write a diary entry about our visit to Darwen Cemetery to look at the memorial and war graves. We ordered the photos that were taken on our walk and then wrote sentences next to these about what we want to include in our diary, including thoughts and feelings and time words.
Year 1- The Gruffalo
Year 1 have been focusing on the story of The Gruffalo in their English lessons. We have been working on a story map in pictures to help us recall the story and we’ve been describing the character of the Gruffalo. We can’t wait to post a video of us telling the story when we’ve finished our whole story map! We have also played a ‘roll and draw’ game in our continuous provision time against a partner showing super turn taking and understanding of the Gruffalo’s characteristics.
Historical Settings- Year 5
This half term, Year 5 will be exploring a range of stories with a historical setting. This week, we have been reading and watching parts of Oliver Twist as stimulus.
Year 4 Word Webs
We love discovering new words in Year 4! And when we do discover them, we know just how to explore them. Give us a dictionary and a word web and we’re on our way!
Year 4’s Riddle Investigation
Year 4 have had great fun solving and writing their own animal riddles this week. They’re absolute whizzes at writing similes too.
Year 2 Harvest Poetry
Over the past few weeks, Year 2 have been learning about harvest in English and have written their own acrostic poems around the theme of Harvest. During our KS1 worship this morning, Year 2 performed some of their poems and talked about the meaning and importance of Harvest!
Year 5 - English
Year 5 hard at work, on a persuasive writing piece. Did you know that by 2020 the number of plastics in the sea will be higher than the number of fish? We strongly believe that is up to us as individuals to do something about the usage of plastic. Reuse, Recycle, Reduce and Rethink!
Year 5 - Guided Reading
Over the past few weeks, Year 5 have been working extremely hard during their guided reading sessions. We have explored a variety of text ranging from non- fiction, adventure and mystery.
Dazzling drama in Year 3
Year 3 had great fun this Wellbeing Wednesday, learning all about spatial awareness in performing arts with Miss Anderton from Junior Jam. We love Wellbeing Wednesdays!
Deforestation debates
We have been working hard on our ‘Deforestation Debate’ in Year 4 today. So far, we have looked at key language, points for and against and how a piece is structured. We have very different opinions and this has been highlighted in our discussions throughout the week.
Guided reading
During guided reading, we have been using LBQ for retrieval of information. In our independent groups, we have been loving our class novel “Nightfall on the Somme” Whilst sequencing event and answering open ended questions about the text. In the two guided groups, we have been working on deduction and inference using information texts.
Dropping y and adding i to change root words
In year 6, our special spelling focus this week has been dropping y and adding i before adding suffixes to root words. The children have done brilliantly with their team teaching and are really applying their spellings to their independent writes.