What is the crust made of?

In our second Hook week lesson, we explored what the crust of the earth is made up of. We learned that the crust is made of 5 different layers which are called the organic material, topsoil, subsoil, parent material and bedrock. Children matched each layer to their description after we’d watched some videos to help us understand about what each of the layers were made of.

Experience day

In writing, it was a perfect opportunity to complete a recount after our visit to Magna. To help us prepare for the writing day, we spent some time ordering the events in chronological order. While the children completed the activity, I could hear the children starting to use time adverbials as they ordering them which will be one of our focus areas for writing.


Once we were happy the events were in order, we used our fronted adverbials word mats to start thinking about the ones that would be most appropriate for our writing. We then shared these back and created a bank of fronted adverbials that could be used when we write our recount.

Strike, strike, strike!!

Crew Hamill and Crew Wilkinson had so much fun causing a little mischief on the streets of Carcroft whilst taking part in our very own strike. We showed a united front whilst fighting for what we believe in – a school with no uniform and a 4 day school week (no Fridays!!).

Thank you to everyone who cheered us on when they saw us and to those who gave us a beep of their horn!

Magnificent Magna

On Tuesday, we were able to explore science at Magna. This was extremely interactive and allowed children to experience lots of new things. We completed a workshop where we could investigate different types of rocks before creating a volcanic eruption. Then we built up the volcano using play dough which helped us understand the different layers. When we had finished, we took a sample just like a scientist so we could see how scientists study volcanoes and how they know how many times they’ve erupted. There was lots of walking so lots of tired legs when we returned to the coach. A great trip out to help us learn.

Composition of the Earth

To kick start Hook week, we started learning about the composition of the Earth. We learned that Earth is made of layers called the crust, the mantle and the core. We then learned about what each layer is like before completing our own learning to demonstrate what we had learned.

Crew Building

Following on from our staff crew building activity, we thought the children in Crew Marsh would enjoy it too. They have now added their own masterpieces to make a beautiful collaborative piece of art work. A lovely activity outside painting, drawing and colouring real life flowers under the lovely sunshine! What a gorgeous way to celebrate Spring and Crew!

Tectonic plates!

Today, we dived deeper into the layers of the earth and focused on the crust. We discovered that the crust is broken up into smaller pieces called tectonic plates. These tectonic plates are constantly moving but they move very slowly. We discussed how these plates used to be one and this was called Pangea but over around 350 million years it has moved and become what we know today. The 7 major tectonic plates are Pacific Plate, North American Plate, Eurasian Plate, African Plate, Antarctic Plate, Indo-Australian Plate, and South American Plate. 

Layers of the Earth

Today, we used soft clay to show the different layers of the earth. We used the different colours to represent the different layers. The yellow represented the inner core, the orange represented the outer core, the red represented the mantle and the blue and green represented the crust. We were amazed when we cut them in half to see the sections.

Let’s STRIKE!

To hook us into our learning, we are going on STRIKE! Today, we have learnt all about the coal mine strikes and the reasonings as to why these took place. We were shocked to find out that 142,000 people actually went on strike when Margaret Thatcher tried to close 20 mines in 1984. Did you know that people who didn’t go on strike were called scabs?! Inspired by what we have learnt, we are planning our own strike! We have decided that the school week should always be a 4 day week and that we shouldn’t have to come to school on Fridays. This afternoon, we have designed and created placards which we are going to use when we go on strike later in the week. Keep your eyes peeled – we may just march past your house!