Personal Development
Wow! Mick really put us to the test today as we completed several different challenges. We had to work as a team to complete the variety of strength and fitness activities. We worked super hard to complete each activity but found carrying the tyre above our heads quite tricky.
Today, we were able to have a chat with an expert about our current expedition. A mental health nurse came to talk to us about mental health and their role in looking after people’s mental health. We learnt more about what our mental health is and why it is important to look after it. This linked to our expedition because if we have a healthy lifestyle, it is easier to enjoy stronger mental health. We looked at how connecting with others, being present in the moment, keeping active, helping others and keeping our minds learning new things are all strategies that we can do to avoid negative mental health concerns. Our expert told us about the network we have around us that we can turn to if we need and pointed out that a lot of what can affect our mental health is often beyond our circle of control. We even got chance to ask some of our own questions about mental health and the type of work that he has seen.
Ultimately, the best way that we can keep mentally healthy is by understanding our own mental health and not being afraid to talk to someone if things start to feel too much for us – it’s normal for people to need help!
In Re, we learned about the prayer practice of Islam. These are Wudu, facing Makkah, preparing the mind, praying solo or with others and finally recording set words. We discussed each practice and why this was important for prayer. It was great to see the children asking questions to help their understanding. We used the Islamic prayer to highlight words that described Allah. We linked this to our British Values and how we should show respect and tolerance to others with different religious beliefs to our own.
In our Scotties session this week, Mick really worked us hard to make sure we saved the castle. We had to do a variety of different exercises before we got there. We were tired by the end of the session but it was good to move our bodies and work our muscles.
Crew MW had a wonderful day on Monday! We got on a coach and went to visit Cleethorpes! As part of our expedition learning, we wanted to experience the seaside and the difference between Carcroft and Cleethorpes. We spent the day playing in the sand, building sand castles, paddling, playing with the parachute and talking about what we could see. It was so lovely to see so many happy, excited faces as we explored! We can’t wait to do our writing about what we saw.
Well done to Charlie and Finn who took part in a football tournament in Butlins last weekend.
On Tuesday, we celebrated St George’s Day with a picnic and an afternoon of learning about British Values.
In crew, we learned about Sir George and how it came to be St George’s Day. Then in the afternoon reviewed the areas of British Values before focusing on Rule of Law. We discussed how there are rules and law for the safety of everyone and ensure people are treated fairly. The crew shared some of the rules they have at home then we designed poster that had the expectations of our classroom.
Crew Hamill loved having their picnic in class on St George’s Day! We used the afternoon to learn more about who St George was and why he was so important. We then focused on the British Values – democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance. For our activities, we had a Crew Focus on tolerance. We discussed what this meant, understanding that we all don’t share the same beliefs and values but that it is important to respect the values, ideas and beliefs of others whilst not imposing our own onto them. We then thought about what the term ‘tolerance’ actually means and identified things that can impact on our own tolerance levels. We created ‘tolerance cups’, filling our cups with all of the day to day things that can niggle us and lead to us having lower tolerance levels. Once we had done this, we thought about the things that ‘make us pop’ – those things that mean our tolerance has run out and we struggle to control our emotions. Finally, we thought about what we could do to calm our brains in these situations and allow ourselves time to top our tolerance back up.
This week we have been looking at seasons and becoming more confident with dates in French. We started by looking at the four seasons, practising our pronunciation, before discussing which season each month of the year falls into.
We then spent time improving our speaking skills, as well as our listening and understanding skills, by asking our friends what their date of birth is. We used our knowledge organisers to help us construct the correct French translation to record their birthdays.
We then utilised our knowledge organisers again to translate a range of dates from English to French which supported practising to write in French.
We began a new unit by looking at life in a French school. We watched a video clip to help identify any similarities and differences between school life in France and the UK.
We then looked at new vocabulary related to instructions given in the classroom. We practised our pronunciation and understanding by creating signals to match the French pronunciation. We then worked together to match the symbols to the correct written phrase for each instruction.
To finish, we played a game of Jacques a dit (a French equivalent to Simon Says). We had to listen carefully to the instruction given to us in French before showing either a gesture or doing that action depending on whether it was prefaced with ‘Jacques a dit’ or not.
