Check out what we have been up to this week in Upper Key Stage Two!

It has been a busy week in Crew Shields as we started our Case Study 2 for expedition. The children have been exploring healthy foods and took part in a blind food tasting activity. They were not impressed with the pickled onion food option, in most cases this got the thumbs down. 👎This was followed by an investigation into the amount of sugar that drinks contain. The visual representation of the amount of sugar was quite shocking for them. Yesterday, the children started using this knowledge to plan a healthy lunch option that contains each of the food groups. 🍜 🍲 There were some great discussions taking place and negotiations as they came to final decisions on what they should include. I’m looking forward to hearing their pitch next week. More to follow on that… 😀

This week has flown by in Crew Mc! Just one week left till half term 😱

Writing- Crew Mc authors✍📖

We started the week finishing off writing up to plot point 10 of Gravity.

• 

• 

…but we didn’t stop there. We have turned into authors, where we have began planning writing the ending scenes with our very own ideas for our independent write! We definitely got creative and helped each other with the planning process.

What ideas have we come up with so far? In plot point 13 Sandra Bullock escapes from her shuttle onto an island and later sees herself on TV as a missing person. She blacks out and the ending finds her back in the rocket ready to launch. Then some children went titanic style- a noise of a creaking rocking chair – Sandra is an old woman retelling her story of when she was an astronaut. I am so impressed! We also have thought carefully for each plot point leading up to this, looking at our writing rubric to create our own targets. We’ve considered both grammatical features and certain boombastics to build tension.

Watch this space for when we start writing!

Our HoWL average this week is 3! We have improved from last week so we get a spin of the HoWLopoly wheel!🤩

I know Crew Mcloughlin can do better than this and at the minute some of us are letting the rest of the Crew down by not working as hard and being kind. On Monday we are also going to reflect on our attendance as a Crew as this is slipping at the moment.

Have a lovely weekend Crew! 😊

In Crew Gerrard, we have been working hard on multiplying decimals. We have enjoyed the challenge of transferring our knowledge of multiplying 4 digit numbers by 1 digit. We thought this was going to be really tricky, but we were really confident by the end of it!

• 

• 

In writing, we have continued to work together to write on Gravity after making a return to this piece. The children have now worked on planning their independent write. In order to feel confident and think of different endings, we worked collaboratively to think of ideas. This was such a lovely atmosphere, as the children supported each other and built on the different ideas. Then we planned our own individual pieces, ready to begin writing next week, which I am really excited to read!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

We have also continued to work on our sketches during expedition. Next week, we will be moving on to using different mediums, which I know that Crew Gerrard are excited about. Here are some examples!

• 

• 

• 

This week has been a week where I think that Crew Gerrard are quite tired and are ready for their break. We have one week to go guys and I wonder if we can ensure that our HoWL average for the week is secure (3 or above)? This week we have averaged 2.8 and I know that we can finish this half term on a really strong score! Have a great weekend 😆

Wow! What a busy week we have had in Crew Marsh, not only has our crew grown in size, we have also moved crew bases!! However, the new challenges we faced we conquered head first and sitting here typing this blog, I feel like we have achieved so much this week.

I have been so impressed with Crew Marsh’s expedition learning – we have learnt about the importance of a balanced and varied diet. This included looking at the different food groups and seeing what the advice is for how much fish, fruit and veg. We then applied this knowledge to designing pack lunches in groups, which needed to be balanced and varied and creating colourful posters telling people why we should eat a balanced and varied diet and the benefits of this.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

We have had a busy week in Crew Wilson, with lots of focus on our expedition learning!

Highlights of the Week:

Maths: We have been exploring the different ways we can write number sentences. It was very tricky to start with but we quickly realised that when we write addition and number sentences, the numbers just swap around. We even learnt a new word for this – commutativity! We’ve been working hard at applying this new concept to our maths problems, thinking carefully about what the question is asking us to do and finding the correct method to find the answer.

Writing: We have been using our writing lessons to inform our expedition work, working hard to write chunks of sense about different farm animals in the UK. We used this weeks non-fiction writing as a practice because soon we will be writing fact files about the animals we discovered in Africa which will be part of our final product – an information board in Flamingo Land!

Expedition: We have been investigating different animals and their food chains in expedition this week, using vocabulary such as producer, consumer, predator, carnivore, herbivore and omnivore! We used our research skills to find out information about the different animals and have used what we found to inform our writing! We also had a very exciting Zoom call with a Penguin handler from the Deep in Hull! We got to look inside the penguin enclosure, meet some of the penguins and ask any questions that we had, it was so fun!

Howl Average:

We have ended the week on a 3.5 – a massive improvement from where we were at the beginning of the week. As we come into our final week of the half term we really need to think about how we can demonstrate our Howls in every lesson throughout the day. We are a very chatty crew and it has impacted on our learning time, so we definitely need to focus and save our talking for designated social times!

Learning Legend:

Our learning legend this week is Finn as he has demonstrated a great improvement with his attitude towards his learning over the last few weeks. Whilst his handwriting needs a little work, Finn tries really hard to make beautiful work every time and can correct his own mistakes without being prompted. Finn is working really hard at home to develop his reading pace and is flying through our phonics lessons – proof that practice really does make a huge difference! Finn has also consistently helped other pupils when he can see they are struggling or need a bit of support, keep it up Finn, you are a valuable asset to Crew Wilson! 

Highlight of the week:

I am so proud of all of the children in Crew Welburn this week. Every single child has worked hard to get smart, and they have all been really kind to each other. This is what I like to see!
We have had an exciting week in expedition this week as we started a new case study about the UK and farm animals. We worked really hard in mini crews to collect information about the different animals using videos, and from this, we created fact files to go and share with foundation stage as they are learning about farm animals too. I am so impressed with the sentences that the children built for their fact files, and the scientific knowledge that they included too. Take a look at some of our drafts below…👀👀

HOWL Heroes:

Work Hard: Charlie

Get Smart: Charlie

Be Kind: Kairen

My learning legend for this week is Harriet Lewis. Harriet has worked hard to improve her behaviour in school over the last week so that she can get smart in lessons. Harriet has tried hard to follow adult instructions first time, and has met minimum expectations in each of her lessons. Keep this up Harriet, we are really impressed at how hard you have worked over the last week. 

HOWL Score: 3.3 Well done Crew Welburn!

This week’s HOWL average: 3.2 Well done Crew Welburn, this is amazing!

The children in crew this week have been great! They have worked further on being kind and really looked closely at what this means to them. We pledged as a crew to support one another in and out of the classroom.
We have continued on with our expedition learning and the children have had a great time learning about the animals of the UK.

With our expedition focusing upon the different continents of the world, the children experienced a live video call from within the penguin enclosure at the Deep in Hull.
Both children and staff thoroughly enjoyed finding out about penguins and their environment. But most of all we enjoyed observing the cheeky penguins on camera.

Our final expedition piece of the year (a fact file board) will be showcased at Flamingo Land Zoo near Malton for the entire summer!
The children will be unveiling their work on the 13th July to the park staff, which will then be put up within the park to inform visitors about the animals and their habitats. The children are already on with designing this board and are so excited to have their beautiful work in the public eye. Definitely making myself and Carcroft school proud!

Our favourite time of the week fast approached and we couldn’t believe how quickly swimming came back around. We started the session by discussing safety at the beach and the signs to look for if there is danger. We then continued to move up groups, which again shows the amazing progress we are making. More children are getting into deeper parts of the pool and are showing how confident they are. We have more children retrieving the rings and a number were able to swim 25 metres without touching the floor – on their front and backs! It was another difficult choice for Swimming Super Star, but they are:

Keegan for showing fantastic listening skills in order to improve (Crew G)! 😀

Lucas for continuing to improve and show great progress in his new group (Crew G)! 😁

Grace for showing fantastic bravery when jumping in the deep end and retrieving the rings – she never gave up (Crew Mc)! 😃

Olivia for having such a fantastic attitude to swimming and just being a really positive influence in your group (Crew Mc)! 😄

I continue to be amazed by how proud each child is of their achievements! 😆

Hi Everyone, Following on from the vote sent out last week the majority of you voted for the prom to take place between 5.30 – 7.30 on Wednesday 14th July. Thanks Crew Fox