St Joe's Blog

St Joe's Blog

Wednesday 29 September 2010

The Bristol Dinosaur Project

Over the last two days Ed Drewitt from the Bristol Dinosaur Project has been spending time in each class exploring fossils with the children. He told us all about Bristol's very own dinosaur, the Thecodontosaurus. We were able to handle real fossils and learn about where they came from. We all had a fascinating time and have lots more questions to ask. If you want to find out more about our dinosaur, click on the link: http://www.bristoldinosaur.com/


We prepare for October, the month of Mary.


Monday 27 September 2010

European Day of Languages 2010

Today the whole school came together to celebrate, through song and spoken word, languages from around the world. Most of these languages are spoken by families in the school community, and show what an rich and diverse community we have here at St Joseph's.

Thursday 23 September 2010

St George



In Year 3 the children have been learning about Knights and Castles. As part of this topic they have learned the story of 'St George and the Dragon'. Today the children worte a character description of St George.
Here is what Izza wrote:
St. George is a knight and he has a shield with a blood cross on it. He wears his suit of armour everywhere because he never knows when he has to slay dragons. He has a sharp lance to kill dragons and other creatures. St. George is stronger than a hard piece of wood. He is gentle, caring, clever and strong. He travels helping people who are in danger. St George take his horse everywhere because if the dragon was about to eat someone he could charge fast on his white horse. He wears a red cape and it is redder then blood.

Keep up the great descriptions Year 3!

Wednesday 22 September 2010

Harvest time!



The gardening club have been busy reaping their harvest.
The potatoes will be cooked in the kitchen later in the week.

Tuesday 21 September 2010

Peace Day Song

Refugee tents

Y4C have been studying refugees during Peace Day. We built refugee tents to highlight the number of refugees fleeing war and persecution. Refugees are forced to leave their homes behind and travel to a new country, often to set up home at a refugee camp with tents. We also looked at the book 'The Colour of home' where a young boy from Somalia finds it hard being a refugee in Britain.



Day of peace




Today is the international day of peace. To mark this day each class has been producing things, which have been shared in a special assembly. Classes had produced prayers, doves, poems, origami cranes and even refugee tents! The day ended with the school singing the peace day song 'no wars will stop us singing'.
Let's keep spreading the message of peace!





-- By Mr Sherwin

Monday 20 September 2010

Frog on the Blog




Maddie brought this into school to share with her class. Year 4c are learning about habitats as part of their 'No Place Like Home' topic.

Sunday 19 September 2010

Mass of Beatification

Today the Parish came together to join, by webcast, this special Papal Mass.




Friday 17 September 2010

Garage Band on iBooks

A small group of Year 6 pupils have been learning from Mr Watson how to use the programme 'Garage Band'. The music is amazing and the girls will be teaching other children how to use this piece of software.







The Big Assembly

Today we join the Big Assembly. The whole school and friends from the parish joined, by live webcast, the Big Assembly in London. The assembly celebrates the visit by Pope Benedict who was shared a message of God's love to children throughout the United Kingdom.





















ICT for reception

The children in reception have been learning how to use 2paint in the computer room and also how to use the interactive white board to draw and colour in. Some of their computer skills are already impressive!


-- By Mr Sherwin

Thursday 16 September 2010

Habitats of mini beasts

Y4C have begun to investigate the habitats of mini beasts as part of their 'No place like home' project. We made bug boxes and spent time finding mini beasts in the school playground to put in them. We enjoyed observing the mini beasts and will report back on our findings from the investigation.



Tuesday 14 September 2010

Monday 13 September 2010

Homes around the world

Y4C have been studying homes around the world as part of their 'No place like home' project. We looked at many different homes including igloos, tepees, tree houses and yurts. The children needed to match descriptions of homes to their photographs. They also managed to locate these homes on a world map.

Thursday 9 September 2010

Friday 3 September 2010

There's no place like home



Today Y4C began their project 'There's no place like home'. During the topic the class will be studying homes, houses and property. We kicked off the project by playing the property game Monopoly. As well as being great fun, the game provided lots of opportunities to improve our maths such as money and calculation skills. We found out the meaning of vocabulary in the game such as auction, rent and tax. I was very impressed with the way the children played cooperatively, helping one another.


Thursday 2 September 2010

Year 5 Homework

Year 5 children in Mrs Patton's class have brought in some amazing holiday homeworks. They were asked to create a holiday scrapbook.





















Well done for all creating some great work at home!

Wednesday 1 September 2010

School Vision Day

Today all staff and governors are meeting looking at the school's mission, 'In God's family we love grow, and learn', and share plans for the next academic year, and beyond -

The image above is a 'Wordle' version of our school development plan. Wordle is a free web site that takes any text document and creates a montage where the words used most often are the largest. It's good to see learning as the biggest word!

Also during the day we explored the meaning of' 'In God's family we love, grow and learn'. We decide to change this statement to, 'Together in God's family we love, grow and learn', because it is so important that we work together to improve ourselves and our school. I look for ward to exploring our mission statement with children soon.


We look forward to the community - families and children, returning to school tomorrow.