Collective and Partitive Nouns

Today, Crew Hamill took part in a range of activities in mini crews to consolidate our learning on collective nouns (that are used for a group) and partitive nouns (that are used to tell us how much of something we have). We began by playing one of our favourite games – corners – in which we went to a side of the room depending on whether the noun we were showed was collective or partitive. Following this, we worked in mini crews to organise a list of nouns into groups – one group of collective nouns and one group of partitive nouns. Our next activity was to match up the collective or partitive noun to the single noun it belonged to (e.g. flock of -> sheep). We then completed a kahoot! quiz which assessed our learning and completed an exit ticket to independently demonstrate what we had learned and could remember.

Common and Proper Nouns

To consolidate our learning on common and proper nouns, Crew Hamill took part in a practical grammar lesson. We began by playing corners. Miss Hamill showed us a selection of nouns on the board and we had to decide whether they were a common (general) noun or a proper (specific) noun that needed a capital letter. Once we had done this, we recapped looking at these nouns within a sentence and how we would decide which was which. Miss Hamill had disguised the capital letters to make it that little bit more tricky for us but we were able to work in mini crews to underline proper nouns and circle common nouns within the same sentence. We then took part in a kahoot! quiz to assess how much we had remembered.

Estimating numbers to 10000

To consolidate our learning, Crew Hamill took part in a practical lesson in which we became a number line to 10,000 in order to deepen our understanding on how to estimate numbers on a number line. We began by each being a different number, starting with our start and end numbers (0 and 10,000) and adding in the interval half way (5000) and half way again (2500 and 7500). Remaining children were then given a number between 0 and 10,000 and had to decide where they would place themselves along the line, thinking carefully about which of our interval numbers they would stand between and which one they would be closer to based on the value of their number. Once we had done this, we then worked in mini crews to mark on different interval values on number lines to 10,000 and placed a range of numbers where we estimated they belonged onto each line.

Are you cut out for space?

On Monday, Crew Hamill began focusing on a new text which was an extra from An Astronaut’s Handbook. Our extract focused on what an astronaut was and where they travel to – space. We started our session by watching a video of Richard Branson and his team travelling into space, allowing us to see what it would be like to launch into space in a rocket. We then travelled to the blue room to immerse ourselves into a similar situation – a confined, dark space with the lights of the milky way and stars. We then listened as Miss Hamill read through the text for the first time, pulling out different vocabulary words and ensuring we understood what we were reading. Following this, we went back to class and skimmed and scanned the text for words, phrases and sentences that we felt comfortable reading. We then re-read the text as a whole crew with everyone joining in when they reached a highlighted word, phrase or sentence. Finally, we text marked our extract, underlining and defining key vocabulary, starring the key information and drawing an exclamation mark when we thought there was an important fact.

UKS2 Family Learning

Thank you to all the parents who joined us for our first family learning session of the term. It was lovely to see so many children and parents taking part in the space quiz and having some lighthearted fun along the way blind tasting the space-themed named sweet treats. Well done to our winning team who got to take home a bar of galaxy!

xp outdoors

Crew Hamill was amazing today in xp outdoors. We did a bit of bug hunting where we found loads of amazing creatures and then we climbed some trees before ending our session with playing a game of 123 where are you?

Strengthening Crew

This week, our Crew Guiding Question was: How can crew be strengthened through acts of service?

We discussed what it meant to be part of a crew and how we could make this stronger by doing an act of service for others – something that would make them smile! 🙂 Following this, we decided that we were going to bake a tasty treat and create positive postcards to hand out to people around school that have done something kind that we are thankful for. This included the ladies in the office who work tirelessly to keep the school running, the ladies in the kitchen who prepare all our meals and some of the teachers who we feel helped us on a personal level.

We certainly felt like a solidified, happy crew once we had finished!

Space Art

Today, Crew Hamill proved what fabulous artists they are by fully engaging themselves in a painting of either the Sun or the Moon. After researching the artist Andy Warhol, we used our inspiration to create images of the Sun or Moon in outer space. We used a variety of skills and tools in order to produce these including the use of varying brush strokes, dabbing of a sponge and flicking of a toothbrush to create different elements of our image.

Wonderdome

To kick start our expedition, Upper Key Stage 2 were whisked off to the Milky Way within the amazing Wonderdome. We were able to fully immerse ourselves into our solar system, exploring each of the planets and learning in-depth information about the Sun, Earth and Moon. Matt, our space expert, was extremely knowledgable about all things space – past, present and future. We were able to discover that Earth is the only planet that humans can live on as it is in the habitable zone (also known as the Goldilocks zone) where the conditions – temperature, water and oxygen – are just right! We were also taught about the first astronauts to travel into space and land on the moon. Did you know there were THREE astronauts? Interestingly, it wasn’t just Neil Armstrong (the first man to step on the Moon) but it was also Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the Moon’s surface alongside Neil, and Michael Collins, who stayed in the space craft to keep it safe. We were excited to find out that there will be another attempt to travel to the Moon next year, with 4 new astronauts set to orbit the moon!