Oak Week Beginning 18th March 2024
Another action packed week has rounded off our super short Spring Term!
On Monday we got stuck in straight away with some community work, collecting litter from the streets of Ashton. Karen from Little Litter Warriors brought bucket loads of energy and enthusiasm to the job in hand. We predicted we wouldn't find much but we were shocked at the amount of litter that is blown into the hedges and along the pavements. We focussed mainly on the cricket and football field; this was particularly shocking, especially around the cricket nets. It really opened the children's eyes to how much litter can collect in a small area. After just 30 minutes of litter picking we filled a huge bag and found some really ancient items; crisp packets older than the children and a coke can from 8 years ago. Litter pickers and blue bags are available for the children to borrow from school if they want to do any more cleaning up of their local streets.
In the afternoon on Monday, we printed the designs onto the pencil cases the children have all made, using permanent fabric paints. They really enjoyed using lino prints designed in their art lessons and were extremely proud of the results. Buttons were sewn on once the printing was all dry and they have filled them up with all their stationary items. The evaluations were very positive and lots of new skills have been experienced and some they've tried before were improved on; a very successful project indeed.
We have had two practical topic sessions this week. We simulated what happened in areas affected by earthquakes, by building a community and using the different movements that occur at plate boundaries, shook them to see what would happen. They had lots of fun doing this and realised the damage that could be created and what sort of building designs worked the best. There were plenty of toppled sky scrapers!! To finish off the week we had some fun making a volcano which we will erupt next term. The children decided on a volcano design either; shield, strato or cinder cone volcano and created it out of newspaper, painted it and labelled the key features. It was a great - if messy - way to finish off the term.
The Easter activities went very well, the children made us very proud in church and read beautifully. The singing was very impressive too. On return to school we all took part in an Easter Egg Hunt, which was very exciting. It's always lovely to see the older children helping the youngest in school to find the chocolate treats and see them running around in the sunshine.
We hope you all have a lovely Spring and Easter break and come back fully refreshed to start the final term for the Year 5's with lots more fun to follow!
