In Crew Gray, we have started learning how to play the guitar! We are excited to continue developing this new skill and are already making fantastic progress, watch this space…
Music lessons in Crew Gray
Category : Curriculum
Incredible Inventions on Roald Dahl Day!
This afternoon for our science lesson, Crew McLoughlin let their imaginations run wild and became inventors to dream up their very own crazy inventions, inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From zipable chocolate bars to unlimited sweet machines, the ideas were as magical as a Roald Dahl story itself.
Crew McLoughlin worked in mini crews to sketch, design, and name their inventions. Each group was challenged to think not only about what their creation would do, but also why we needed it.
Once the inventions were designed, in true Dragon’s Den style, we presented our designs to the rest of the crew. With confidence and plenty of imagination, the children sold their ideas as if they were about to launch them in the real world. We were all blown away by the originality and enthusiasm of every team, making our decision a very tough one indeed.
At the end, the crew voted for their favourite sales pitch. The winning teams walked away with the sweetest prize of all—chocolate, of course!
Roald Dahl Day: Maths, Mischief & Multiples!
We had so much fun immersing ourselves in all things Roald Dahl. Our lessons were themed around his books, and one of our favourites was the The Twits arithmetic challenge!
We worked in teams to solve tricky riddles based on Mr. and Mrs. Twit’s silly pranks. To crack the codes, we had to use our knowledge of common multiples – it made maths even more exciting!
It was a brilliant way to learn while exploring the weird and wonderful world of Roald Dahl.
Roald Dahl Day
Crew Ramsay have been working in mini crews on their tables, carefully using fine motor skills to create a green paper chain to resemble a crocodile from the linked text “The Enormous Crocodile”. They challenged themselves to see who could create the longest one. Table 2 came out in first place, however, in true crew style we decided to make one enormous crocodile by adding everyone’s together and created a “crew crocodile”.
Exploring Shadows
Today in case study two we began to explore shadows. We used torches to explore how shadows are formed and how the distance and position of the light source affects the length of the shadows.
Then we learnt how the Romans used shadows to tell the time using sundials. The sun made the gnomon cast a shadow and this told them what time of the day it was. Finally we had a go at making our own sundials. Unfortunately the sun wasn’t shining so we had to test them out inside using the torches.
Inventions
After a quick recap of last weeks lesson, Crew Ramsay have been designing their own inventions. Miss Shields modelled her own invention before children were able to work independently on their own. We had cupcake machines, a machine that built castles, a machine that dropped balloons from the ceiling or made birthday cakes on demand.
Computers of the past
Year 6, started the lesson with a game of bingo to help us recap key vocabulary that had been covered in previous lessons. Children then had an opportunity to play a computer game that would have been found in arcades in 1981. As you can imagine, they didn’t give it raving reviews considering it was considerably slower than the games they play. The graphics were quite simple and the music was very basic. This allowed us to start thinking about computers from the past and how they’ve evolved. We briefly discussed some of the first computers and historical figures from the computer world before they started to set up their slides in preparation for creating a presentation of their chosen area. This will continue into next week and then children will present their research to the rest of the crew.
Lights, Lorax, Action!
This week in Crew Rankin, we kicked off our new writing unit all about The Lorax!
We started with an exciting experience day lesson where we watched the beginning of the film and then worked in groups to re-enact different scenes. It was so much fun bringing the story to life – we had to use lots of teamwork, expression, and creativity to perform our scenes. Everyone got involved and we really enjoyed stepping into the characters’ shoes. We can’t wait to explore the story further in our writing!
Classifying Plants
Crew Rankin were great scientists today! They began by exploring some real life plants, having a look at each of them in turn and identifying notices about them. We then came together as a crew and shared what we noticed – different shaped leaves, different colours, the different way they grow etc. We then looked at classification keys and how we can use these to identify types of plants. As a crew, we worked on organising the plants we had just looked at with a classification key. Finally, we used what we had learned about the plants characteristics to create a crew classification chart.
Variables
Year 4 has continued their knowledge of variables today by starting to make a timetables quiz. Our session today was a guided session as it required lots of thinking power. We worked side by side to build the code, however, next week children will get an opportunity to work independently on building the code.
