Why do we have a skeleton?

30th January 2025Laura Godley

Today in expedition we have discussed the differences between vertebrates and invertebrates. We used our reading skills to retrieve information, by playing fastest finger first and discussing our findings. Some of the facts really surprised us when reading. We then explored the types of skeletons linking these to vertebrates and invertebrates. We then tested our understanding so far with a quick quiz!

We then worked to sort animals into the two groupings based on what we had discovered – vertebrates and invertebrates. Moving onto the human skeleton, we explored how many bones an adult human skeleton has and looked at what a skeleton does. Did you know that an adult has 206 bones but as a baby, we have 300! We linked our skeleton to the digestive process, thinking about the organs that are protected by our bones. We assessed our understanding with a Kahoot quiz, it was very close with only a point between Mason and Declan!

Reading in MI

29th January 2025Stacey McClare

Today we used the text well to find answers in our reading lesson. We used our skimming and scanning skills along with APE to answer questions in our reasons to read. We worked well with our partner searching for clues and backing up our answers with evidence from the text. Our exit ticket allowed us to order events from the story.

How do we group animals?

28th January 2025Ruth Shields

In our expedition lesson (science), we have been learning about grouping animals. We learned (through some reading) that the scientific word for this is taxonomy and that the reason we do this is because we like things to be organised and orderly.

We discussed some ways that animals could be grouped and looked at some examples. Children then had an opportunity to group some animals using a Venn diagram. After this, they were given a larger group of animals where they worked in pairs to decide how they could be grouped. Children were able to show a good understanding of how they could be grouped differently and it was great to see them using language such as vertebrate, invertebrate, mammals, warm blooded or cold blooded. We’re now ready to move on to classification.

XP Outdoors

28th January 2025Tracy Haddock

Today Crew Hamill made baskets from strips of papers and then added their own finishing touches to them. They practiced their weaving techniques and they even helped the rest of their crew if they got stuck. Fantastic crew work today!

Reading Fluency

23rd January 2025Ruth Shields

In reading we have been having a huge focus of prosody(fluency) and ensuring that we are reading a text how it should be read. This has involved lots of echo reading and time to practice reading before answering some questions about the text. It has been great to see some children having the confidence to stand up when it’s their turn to perform. We have also introduced feedback focused on the positives and what we enjoyed from the group reading.

Book Talk

23rd January 2025Laura Hamill

Crew Hamill have LOVED reading this week and it has been so good to see their positive attitudes and active participation during reading. We began by looking at a book that is linked to our current expedition: Black and British. We looked at the cover of the book, as well as the blurb, and had an excellent discussion on what we thought the book might be about, what genre it was and what the purpose of it was. We were excited to learn that it contained lots of real life stories about Black people in Britain and how this had changed the world we live in today. Following this, we focused on one of the stories – Black Americans in Britain – and learned all about 4 amazing Americans who have come to Britain and influenced life for the better. Our favourite was Henry ‘Box’ Brown who mailed himself in a small, wooden box in order to escape slavery! We have worked really hard this week on our automaticity in reading which has tested our ability to read words automatically, without the need for sounding out. We have also focused on our words per minute and have challenged ourselves to hit the Year 6 target of 185 words per minute! Finally, we were split into two groups – one working with Miss Hamill and the other working independently in pairs – to answer some retrieval questions about the book. Miss Hamill was really impressed at our ability to do this accurately!

Compare Mixed Numbers

23rd January 2025Laura Hamill

To help consolidate our understanding of mixed numbers (a number with a whole and a fraction), Crew Hamill worked with cubes to build each of our numbers so that we had visual representations that we could then compare. We found the visual very helpful and this helped us to access our demonstration element of our lesson in which we completed sheets relating to the comparison of mixed numbers in our maths books.

Counting 2

22nd January 2025Sarah Mcglone

Our new friend number 2 needed our help! He wanted the boys and girls in nursery to help him do his food shopping but before we could, he reminded us that he only liked to buy things in twos. We had to look carefully at the food and make sure that we counted out 2 of the items he had asked for, before putting them into the shopping trolley.

We were all really supportive of each other, and we helped our friends check that they had accurately counted out 2 food items.