Expedition in MI

15th May 2024Stacey McClare

In our expedition lesson today we compared the Egyptians diet to our diet today. We recapped primary and secondary sources then explored different pictures to explore an Egyptians way of life and their diet. We found out that the Egyptians were farmers, growing crops like wheat and barley for bread and beer along with fruit and vegetables. We explored the different types of fruit and vegetables that they would grow then thought about our lives today in Doncaster and what farmers grow today. We discussed importing and exporting food into and out of the UK and how this compares to the Egyptian way of life. Also we discussed the animals that were raised on farms in the Egyptian times and compared them to what we eat today. We thought about why the Egyptians may have eaten more ducks and geese linking to the River Nile and we discussed if we eat in the same way. 

We moved onto thinking about the River Nile, using the learning from our previous lesson to support us. We thought about how the Egyptians caught fish, the size of the nets and what this tells us about the size of the fish in the River Nile. We discussed the advances in technology and machinery and how fishing hasn’t necessarily changed, but the methods of fishing have. Next we moved onto thinking about an Egyptian banquet and what would be included. We compared this back to a typical banquet today and the types of foods we would have. We then discussed the differences in food between the rich and poor people along with what they would drink… beer! This fascinated us!

We then had a go at producing our own Egyptian banquet…


We then thought about the following question… Do you think that the Ancient Egyptians were as healthy as people living in Britain today? We used the sentence starter below to help us. 

I think that the Ancient Egyptians were / were not as healthy as people living in Britain today because …..

Finally we challenged our thinking a little further and discussed if we think it was mostly luck, skill or a combination of both that helped the Ancient Egyptians to eat so well? Our anchor chart shows our thoughts.

Maths in MI

14th May 2024Stacey McClare

Our do now allowed us to recap our work on time, using past and to on an analogue clock. We then moved onto our new unit- statistics. We explored pictograms today which we really enjoyed. In magic maths we played lots of games to practise our times tables then we recapped some work on fractions. Some great maths learning in MI today 🙂

Book talk continues in MI

14th May 2024Stacey McClare

We loved our entry ticket today where we tried to work on our fluency and speed by reading as many words as we could in 1 minute. It was important we didn’t read too fast as Mrs McClare would be asking questions after reading! Once we had read, we shared something that had happened with our partners then with our table, then with the whole crew. Mrs McClare asked us some questions too, “what verb was used instead of said? What does the word disguise mean? Can you put the word into your own sentence? Who else has to have a disguise? What is a corpse? What is a vow of secrecy? Why is this important after what we read yesterday? Do you agree with secrecy?’ We then unpicked any vocabulary we had text marked. We then read the text again using a chorus read and read around the robin. We really tried to use the punctuation when reading, pausing at commas, using expression for speech and taking a breath after a full stop. Our reasons to read really showcased that we had understood what we had read and our exit ticket allowed us to make predictions about the next part of the story. A great session in MI today 🙂

Mental Health Week continues in MI

14th May 2024Stacey McClare

In crew today we reflected on the piece of work we started yesterday before recapping bullying, what bullying is and how bullying can affect our mental health causing negative feelings. We linked our discussions back to our session last week and to our expert session. We then discussed that different feelings are experienced in different parts of our bodies. We looked at a variety of different feelings including being angry, shy, proud, confident, bored and happy then thought about which parts of our body tell us when we have these feelings. We discussed when we get sweaty hands or shaking hands, butterflies in our tummy, our heart beating quickly, seeing red and also feeling tearful. We shared times we have felt these different things. We then moved onto thinking about why? We discussed that when we experience uncomfortable feelings, it is our body’s way of saying that we need to change the situation. We discussed the different things we may do. Some of these included sharing our feelings with a trusted friend or adult, writing down how we feel, drawing an image or doodling to show our feelings or doing something positive like walking. From here we moved onto body image where we discussed that our feelings can be affected when we feel like we need to look a certain way, wear certain clothes and have our hair a certain way. We discussed that this can cause us to have low self esteem as we don’t feel good enough. We also discussed how the media can have a massive impact on this too.

We then continued to work on some of the work for our final product 🙂 We are really enjoying our crew sessions 🙂

Book talk in MI

13th May 2024Stacey McClare

Our entry ticket today allowed us to recap the story so far, we used pictures from the story to help us and we shared what we remembered with our partner and the whole crew. We then used the information we had just heard and discussed to read a variety of sentences from the story out loud with our partner. We ordered these sentences to show the order in which they happened. Everyone read outloud in a read around the robin. Mrs McClare then asked us a variety of questions on other parts of the story to ensure we could remember other main parts, this included information on the characters, the setting and some of the previous language we had come across that is on our reading anchor chart. We recapped word class too! We then looked at our new language for the next part of the story and used some pictures to help us visualise these words a little better. 

Next we started to read the text, Mrs McClare read the first 2 sentences where she tried to use the punctuation accurately when reading. She still tried to work on her expression and fluency too, these are things we have been working on over the last few weeks. We then read with our partners and text marked our new vocabulary. Mrs McClare asked us to underline any other language that we wanted to discuss further or language we were unfamiliar with. During the second round of reading we read independently and tried to really work on the speed of our reading. Mrs McClare then read the text, questioning us as she read. Why did the tailor have to be blindfolded? What does ‘large bonus’ mean? How can you tell the tailor’s work was good? We then moved onto our reasons to read, using the text to support our answers and thoughts. 

Our exit ticket allowed us to think about the thoughts of 2 of the characters. We created speech between them, using our writing lessons to support us with this. Some of us even went for green standard where we explained our answers further, using the text to do this. 

Mental Health Week in MI

13th May 2024Stacey McClare

Last Thursday we continued our work on mental health and started to think about what positive and negative feelings are. We discussed that feelings can be both comfortable and uncomfortable. We talked about how all feelings are important and aren’t ever described as good or bad. From here we started to think about negative feelings. We discussed the way in which the feeling is uncomfortable, what the feeling is telling us and what we should do. We referred back to our expert visit and thought about some of the points he had raised and discussed. Next we discussed how negative feelings can be feelings of worry and feelings of pressure. We tried to think of times when we had felt this and some of us shared our experiences. From here we explored a picture, we thought about what was happening in the picture, how someone may feel if the situation was happening to them, the positive and negative feelings involved and how the feelings should be addressed and how. It was important we discussed how negative feelings can be turned into a positive and the small changes we can put in place to do this. 

This moved us nicely onto today’s crew session where we thought more about ourselves and our own mental health. We created our own display that shows who we are. This piece of work will be part of our final product for our current expedition and will really showcase us as individuals. We haven’t finished this yet, but you can see it coming together nicely…

Mental health discussions continue in MI

8th May 2024Stacey McClare

In crew this morning we reflected on our expert visit yesterday and created an anchor chart all about mental health. We then watched some clips to further develop our knowledge. The main thing we took away from these videos is that talking is so important. We discussed some of the different things that can be done to help someone with a mental health issue and how everyone is different. Some great discussions MI 🙂