Today we have been busy learning about kindness through our story ‘The Rainbow Fish’. We discussed the impact of being kind on the people around us and went on to begin a FWB Art project. Here we are sponge painting our fish ready to add the scales and eyes tomorrow! We will be creating a Kindness Fish Tank Display. This display will remind us to be kind to each other, as a good crew. Well done guys, beautiful crew building and beautiful work!
What a fantastic start we have had to our first week back in Crew McLoughlin! And we’re only part way through the week! 😄
We have been busy getting back into the swing of school, reconnecting with our friends and beginning to explore our crew guiding question:
How can we work together to achieve an end goal?
Miss McLoughlin was super impressed this morning when some of the children could already remember our guiding question! We have been discovering that reaching an end goal takes teamwork, perseverance, listening, concentration and sometimes a few attempts before we get there.
🍬 The Jelly Baby Challenge
We completed our Jelly Baby Challenge and the children were SO excited! Their challenge was to work together to keep their jelly babies safe while resisting the temptation to eat them. Amazingly, our jelly babies survived… although there were definitely a few very suspicious sniffs and licks! 😂
🎶 Copycat Orchestra
We put our listening and attention skills to the test with Copycat Orchestra. The children had to listen carefully, concentrate and copy the sounds and actions. It was lots of fun and a great way to practise the skills we need when working effectively as a crew.
➕ Maths Board Game
We have also been developing our arithmetic skills through a maths board game. The children tackled challenges, shared their thinking and enjoyed a little bit of friendly competition along the way!
Fun at Break
There has been plenty of time for fun too! The toy cars and playing on the tyres have been a big favourite, alongside lots of imaginative games of mums and dads. It has been lovely to see the children settling back into routines, enjoying their play and reconnecting with one another.
📖 Who Are We?
We read My Name Is Not Refugee and used it as a starting point to think about identity and what makes each of us unique. The children then created their own identity portraits, using adjectives to describe themselves. It was wonderful to see the range of thoughtful and positive words they chose!
🎢 Marble Run Rollercoasters
Our marble run rollercoasters have really tested our teamwork skills! Working successfully as mini crews was trickier than we thought and we definitely discovered that achieving an end goal doesn’t always happen straight away. But we’re not giving up! After our debrief, we’ll be having another go tomorrow. We’ll think about what worked, what didn’t and what we can change to make our teamwork even stronger.
And this is only so far… there is still plenty more to come this week! We can’t wait to see what else Crew McLoughlin can achieve together. 💪🌟
Crew White put their teamwork skills to the test with the Spaghetti and Marshmallow Challenge. Working in small groups, the children were given a simple collection of materials – spaghetti, 1m of masking tape and a marshmallow. Their challenge? To build the tallest freestanding structure could that could hold one marshmallow.
It wasn’t as easy as it looked! There were collapsing towers, changing plans and plenty of problems to solve along the way. The challenge gave us a great opportunity to think about what it really means to be Crew: listening to everyone’s ideas, communicating clearly, persevering when things go wrong and making sure nobody becomes a passenger.
We learned that the first idea isn’t always the best one and that sometimes, when the learning gets tough, taking a breather can really help. We had to adapt, learn from our mistakes and try again – an important lesson as we begin Year 6.
We have had lots of fun over the last couple of days settling in to our new classroom with our new grown ups. We have welcomed some new members of our crew to Carcroft Primary School and we are so excited about our year ahead!
We have spent time familiarising ourselves with the classroom environment and the resources within it, making sure that we are being our kindest selves by sharing with our friends, and we have been working really hard on showing our beautiful sitting on the carpet, making sure that we are ‘Being Kind’ at all times to the grown ups and our peers.
Today we supported each other to feel confident when completing the crew challenge. We used words of encouragement and positivity to support each other. We loved this!
As our crew checkin in yesterday, we each shared a fact about ourselves and created a human web. We held the string, shared a fact and then passed the string on. Once everyone had shared, we noticed that when one person pulled the string, we all felt the pull. This task showed us how we are all connected as a crew!
What better way to begin a new year than by facing a challenge together?
Today, Crew White took on the climbing apparatus, challenging themselves to travel across, over and under obstacles, balance at different heights and find their own routes through the course. For some, the biggest challenge was physical. For others, it was finding the courage to try something that initially felt uncomfortable or frightening. We saw children overcome fears, take sensible risks and discover that they were capable of more than they first thought.
Most importantly, nobody climbed alone. Crew mates encouraged one another, offered advice, celebrated successes and supported those who needed a little more confidence.
It was a fitting way to begin our Year 6 journey and explore our question:
How can we help everyone reach the top of the mountain?
There will be plenty of different ‘mountains’ to climb this year. Today reminded us that reaching the top isn’t just about our own success; being Crew means helping others get there too.
Well done Crew White!
We kicked off our Year 4 math journey today with an energetic carousel of maths games and challenges!
What an absolutely BRILLIANT day we have had at the XP Trust Sports Day🤩 Carcroft youngsters, you absolutely blew us away with your professionalism, sportsmanship and all round talents🙌🏻 Everyone had a wonderful time and we even came 2ND – woohoo🥳 A huge thank you to the other schools, staff and everybody who ran the event today. BRING ON XP TRUST SPORTS DAY 2027🤪❤️💙💚🤍
Crew McLoughlin and Crew Gray recently took part in an exciting Forest School challenge using the game Go Find It Too! Working in small groups, the children were given cards showing different objects, colours, textures, and features to find in the natural environment. They explored the Forest School area carefully, searching for items that matched the cards while demonstrating excellent teamwork, communication, and observation skills. The challenge encouraged the children to work together, discuss their ideas, and look closely at the world around them, helping to develop their problem-solving skills while enjoying outdoor learning. Everyone showed great enthusiasm and determination throughout the activity, making it a fun and successful challenge for all involved. 🌿🔍🍂
