In Year 3, we have started to study nonsense poetry and have been familiarising ourselves with Spike Milligan’s works. Today, the children learnt his poem In the Land of the Bumbly Boo. In just one lesson, they were able to recite this entertaining poem in table groups, using just a ‘story map’ to aid their memories.
We were very impressed with their loud, clear voices and the pace at which they performed the poem. You can watch their performances by clicking on the film below.
Watch this space for the children’s own creative versions of this poem!
Year 3 have just started a new unit in Literacy called ‘Language Play’. We have been reading lots of different poems by Spike Milligan and looking and the language he uses. We love his poems because they are very silly and include a lot of nonsense words! Today we learnt one of his poems called ‘In the land of the Bumbley Boo’ by mapping out the main stages and putting actions to it. We hope you enjoy our performances!
Mrs Carter gave an assembly on March 1st for World Book Day. It is less well known that Monday April 23rd is World Book Night; designed as a celebration of reading and books. This is the second year of World Book Night and will be celebrated in the UK, Ireland, Germany and USA. April 23rd was chosen because it is the day William Shakespeare was born as well as the day he died. It is also the UNESCO International day of the book.
25 adult books have been chosen to be on the World Book Night list and these have been printed in their thousands to be given away. People had to apply to be “givers”; choosing the book they wanted to give away and stating why they wanted to be a giver. On World Book Night successful givers will have 24 copies of their chosen books to give away to readers. Mrs Brown, a BWJS parent, supply teacher and governor applied to be a giver, way back in February, and has been told that she was successful in her application. Mrs Carter was very excited when she heard! On the list of books is one of her favourite books, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and Mrs Brown will be giving away copies at the school gates on World Book Night. The aim of World Book Night is to encourage people to read so if you are not a regular reader and would like to be inspired she would be happy to pass you a copy.
This week Year 3 have been learning all about instructions. We started by looking at lots of wrtten instructions and thinking about what makes them successful. Today we used some video instructions from ‘Mister Maker’ and had a go at making Cotton Bud Creatures. We had great fun, but we also evaluated the instructions. We decided that he left out some important information and then wrote our own hints and tips section for him.
Year 4 are currently learning how to write instructions in Literacy. Over the past week, they have looked at a variety of instructional texts as well as videos from the internet and have focused on the key features and key language used in instructions. They have made Crazy Cottonbud Creatures using an instructional video from the internet and are now working in groups to re-write a set of instructions to make a Multi-link Monster.
Last week, Year Five looked at the classic poem ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes. As part of our learning, we recorded our own audio version, and created artwork to accompany it. You can see the end result below.
This week, we’re focusing on a very different poem…
Over the past 2 weeks, Maple class have been looking at information texts linked with their Ancient Egyptian topic in History. Having looked at many different formats information can be presented in, we decided that we would create a news bulletin about a brand new discovery in Egypt, using the information from our History lessons and what we had learnt about the role of the reporter, news reader and interviewee to help us.
I think you will agree that the children did very well in presenting their news bulletins – maybe we have some budding news readers of the future …….
We were lucky enough to be visited today by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, author and illustrator of The Edge Chronicles, Muddle Earth, and many other books.
After an entertaining and informative talk from the pair, children were able to buy books and get them signed.
Last week, Maple class were looking at the poems of Christina Rossetti, in particular, the poems she wrote about the weather. We studied the words she used and discussed why they were effective, looked at the structure and rhythm of each poem and also whether the poem rhymed.
At the end of this unit of work, the children worked in groups to perform one of the weather poems using musical instruments as an accompaniment. They had to think hard about how to perform the poem according to the rhythm of it and where to use the musical instruments to add to the performance.
In our final literacy unit of the year, Year Five have been making documentaries about what it is like to be in Year Five. After a fortnight of script writing, rehearsal, filming and editing, the documentaries are complete.
The work done by Mr Senior’s set can be seen here. We hope to show both these documentaries to the next Year Five when possible!
