The whole school had a wonderful visit to the local theatre this week to see the amazing Essex Dance Troupe. The children all sat in awe of the talented children and teenages who performed an array of incredible dances.

Elephants investigated boats and rafts and observed how they float.   As part of our design and technology learning we have designed and built our own rafts out of everyday materials.   We then tested them on water to see if they would float or sink!

As part of our Christopher Columbus history day Elephants walked to Ilfracombe Harbour to investigate the Geography of our town.   We first stopped near the Landmark Theatre to find out how Christopher Columbus used a compass to navigate the seas.   We found North, East, South and West directions and we looked carefully to see what we could see to draw it.   We then walked on through the town looking for clues about how old the buildings were and when they were built.   We also looked at how the harbour wall has changed over time.  We stopped for our morning snack and drink on the pier and then finally we walked on to Verity to see her welcoming the boats into the harbour.  

The children in Zebras enjoyed looking at different rafts this week and thinking about why they float. They then designed their own raft and built it, then tested to see if it would float and thought about any changes they could make to improve their raft.

As part of our Columbus Day Zebras had a walk down to the harbour. We enjoyed our snack at the beach and then walked along the water line spotting fish and parts of crabs that had been washed ashore. We looked at the boats in the harbour and compared them to the ships Christopher Columbus would have had. One similarity we decided was that he would have had masts like the yachts to hoist the sails and maybe oars like the gig boats use. We walked to the pier and stood near Verity to draw what we could see at the different compass points which allowed the children to put their recent maths learning on 'turns' into practice. On the way back to school we passed the Jonathan Edwards memorial and had a go at jumping from one circle to the next.

Zebras thoroughly enjoyed their sports day last week and were delighted to come second!

On Friday, Year 1 held their sports day in the playground.   The rain held off and in fact the sun shone in celebration for Sports Day returning after 2 years.  Elephants worked hard in all of our races.   We held races in egg and spoon, three legged race, running, hopping and hurdles to name just a few. A wonderful afternoon and super effort from all of Year 1!

In Elephants Class, we have investigated what animals live in a land habitat – our school grounds.   We noticed that most of the invertebrates were living under or in things.   “They need to hide.”   “ The birds want to eat them.”
We also spotted that there were many birds flying over the school and landing on the school roof.   Gulls were the bird we saw the most of – “…because we live near the sea.”.    
We enjoyed hunting for all the different animals.

Elephants had a wonderful day celebrating our learning of Pirates on Friday!   We started the day measuring, adding, cracking, mixing and baking our own sea cupcakes and butter icing.   We then sung songs of the sea and using the percussion instruments played the sounds of the sea.   We also made our own treasure boxes to stow away our cakes.   In the afternoon, we had a party in the pool playing pirate games and races on the dinghies!  Finally we decorated our cupcakes by piping the icing onto the cakes and decorated them with sea sparkles.

On Friday Zebras class enjoyed a pirate pool party where they played games and used the dinghies for group races. During the day the children also enjoyed mixing their own cake mixture and decorating the finished cakes as well as using the instruments to create the sounds of the sea. Finally they made a treasure chest to carry their cakes safely home.