St Joe's Blog

St Joe's Blog

Friday 30 October 2009

Great start to Mathletics

It is great to see so many Later Years children (Year 5& 6) undertaking Mathletics during the school holidays. Looking at the children's results so far, they have made a fantastic start. Some of our pupils have even made it onto the Mathletics UK top 100 students. Well done!!!


Sunday 25 October 2009

The Launch of Mathletics


Last week saw the exciting Launch of
Mathletics across the Later Years Primary. Mathletics is a fantastic online Maths resource which sets tasks and provides help for children's learning in Maths.


One of the most exciting things about Mathletics is the fact that the children can undertake in Mathletics live, a place where children can compete at Maths with friends and children from around the world.




Whilst playing Mathletics the children can receive points for good results and in return can achieve certificates. The website also allows the teacher to set ability levels and monitor results.

With it being online, in means that it allows the children to access it where ever they have the Internet, making it brilliant for home learning.

Investigating Forces

Year 5 spent some time last week investigating forces. The focus of the lesson was accuate measuring. The children showed great team work and enjoyed the tasks set.


Kho Kho

Last week the Later Years Primary were in India as part of their 'Around the World' project. On Friday we played the Indian game Kho Kho, which was lots of fun.









Sunday 18 October 2009

More thoughts on Ethiopia from Sarah in Mrs Patton's class.
Ethiopia
A scorched, barren land with extremely poor and terrified people. Lost, abandoned souls sing their hymns and hang on to their faith through the blistering heat of the sun. Decorated bodies, singing beautifully on a parched, deserted road. Petrified, people gather in a small, arid room waiting anxiously for their cries and pleas to be answered. An abandoned straw house, left to wither. Inside, filthy, broken pots lying unused and undisturbed. A jagged knife sits beside old fruits that have been left to rot. An innocent child starves and dehydrates slowly. (Sarah M)


Hunger
Hunger
Hunger
Swollen bellies
Silent tears
Yearning for food
Carries on forever
The pain of years
Will it ever heal?
Suffering, dying, sickness and fear
It's a dreadful, endless cycle.
Children left with no love anywhere
Hearts filled with pain and despair.
Sarah M.

Friday 16 October 2009

These are more poems on Ethiopia that were read out in the Assembly.

Ethiopia
Loveless children everywhere,
Homeless people in despair,
as time fly,
People die of thirst and food.
Poor Blank open eyes,
Glancing for food that they can find,
no home, no education anything to believe,
rags, no riches
No help, no hope
by
Lakshmi


Ethiopia
Poor blank open eyes
looking and peering for anything
they can find
Their love has gone
all you can hear is cries
As tomorrow the next day dies
They have rags we have clothes
they need more we need less
Ethiopia we pray the best
you've got our love
you got our care
you got us everywhere
will try to help without a doubt
By
Leanne

Mr.Conlons class assembly

This morning Mr. Conlon's class done an assembly. But unfortunately Mr. Conlon was ill, but they still done very well.

Here is some poems that we wrote based on Ethiopia:

Tired, dusty faces
Dry, hot places
Tears and screams
No water no streams
Thin pale bones
There only tools sticks and stones
A bundle of helpless children hoping for food
No riches just rags
No water no food
Just hunger Just thirst
There dying they need a nurse
Hard floor no comfort
Just pain which hurts
Young boys Young girls
Have fear in their eyes
They want it to be over
and restart their lives.
By Will Brain

Thursday 15 October 2009

Our thoughts on pictures taken in Ethiopia



This week Y5/6B wrote some fantastic sentences for the pictures above.


The murky hands of death, reaching out.

Gloomy, no colour, starved.

Hope, crushed by death.

The roads are ending, death has been revealed.

The poor child, in poverty and illness, laying there, stuck, to the dusty ground.

Suffering from hunger, deaths hands encroach on his weak body.

The baby is crying, sadly to her poor mother, the mother is trying to make her upset baby comfortable in his starvation.

The body, disintergrating until there was no more of the woman there once was.

Sad, upset, what can they do? Can they live,will they die? Not enough food, not enough drink, someone help them!

As thin as a stick the hungry child lays on the dusty blanket.

Friday 9 October 2009

Sukkah

This week the Later Years Primary have been in Israel as part of their 'Around the world' project. The children learnt about the Jewish festival Sukkot and made their own Sukkah from a net of a cuboid. They decorated the Sukkah making mini salt dough fruit and tissue paper flowers.

Thursday 8 October 2009

Jewish cuisine - Hamantaschen

Today the Later Years (Year 5 & 6) were treated to some Hamantaschen cooked by Mrs Bell. The children loved it so much many of them asked for the recipe to try and make it at home.

Nobles, townsfolk and villagers

On Wednesday, the rest of Middle Primary went to Caerphilly Castle and the Winding House Museum. They took part in workshops where they were medieval detectives and were taken back in time into a knight's court. They got ready for a feast for the Lord of the Castle and his nobles. We learned about the different punishments of that time - gruesome! Everyone had a good time learning about the times and trying on chain mail, hats, cloaks as well as trying their hand at writing like monks on parchment.
Meanwhile at school, we all made shields with our chosen coats of arms on and learned about how important these were for recognising who the knights were.

Tuesday 6 October 2009

The great feast

The children learned about the differences between noble people, towns people and peasants by dressing up and preparing for a feast in


the great hall
By Mr Sherwin

Knights and castles

Today half of Moddle primary are on a trip to Caerphilly castle to learn about the way of life in medieval times.



By Mr Sherwin

Monday 5 October 2009

Looking at forces

Last week in Science the Later years classes (Yr 5/6) began looking at forces. The children were given the challenge of building the highest structure possible, using a limited number of straws and a metre of tape. The structure also needed to support the weight of a cup of water. The children had fun working together to build their structures and learnt that different shapes were able to withstand different forces.




More Legoland photos

Sunday 4 October 2009

Legoland

On Friday the Later Years Primary (Yr 5/6) went to Legoland Winsor, as part of our 'Around The World project'. We had fun exploring miniland - 35 million pieces of Lego used to create many different scenes from across the world. There we spent time trying to spot different tourist attractions.





As part of the trip we attended a lego workshop on robot control. The children were asked to program a robot to perform various tasks.










We also had a fantastic time on many of the Park's rides and attractions. Some children even managed to attend a driving school and passed their driving licence!



More photos of the day coming soon