The traveller returns!

The Year 3/4 classes had a bit of a surprise today down at the School field. The 'Traveller' that some of them had met in Vassalls Park a couple of weeks ago returned with some of the stories that we had written for him. The stories told how 'it' had come to being in this world and what its own realm was like!



Jack and Will read out their fantastic stories to both the traveller and the rest of Year 3 and 4. At the end the traveller spoke! It simply said 'poems' in a croaky voice! We can only presume that we now need to write some poems to help 'it' return home!

Polish Club

Every Wednesday the Polish children from our school meet up at the Club, where they are able to speak in their native language, whilst learning English. Here they are creating a bilingual Welcome Book. This week they were working on the school's Golden Rules.

Mashed Potato

Today we have been making mashed potato with the potatoes we have grown in school. First we dug out the potatoes, then we washed them. Mrs. Marley put them in the boiling water to cook them and then we took it in turns to mash them. We added a little bit of butter and some parsley from our planting area and tasted it. We served it with carrots and lettuce from our garden. Delicious!

A walk in the park

Today the infants all went down to Vassalls Park to do some learning out of the classroom. The year 1/2 classes are investigating habitats in science at the moment and so the children recorded in a tally chart all the animals they could find by the stream. There were snails, slugs, caterpillars, beetles and even some ducks! The children are going to compare their results with a survey they have already done in the playground to see how the different habitats are different.

All the investigating made the children hungry. It was great to see the children eating such healthy lunches. Well done kids! While we were eating, we had a surprise visit from Miss O'Toole. She brought her children Laurie and Alexia to say hello to the children.

After lunch Y1/2F and Y1/2S set to work again. This time the classes searched for natural objects to create large pictures. Mrs Ford's class created a tree and Mr Sherwin's created a spider. After we had taken the photos, the natural objects were taken back to where they had been found.

There was fun and games in the play area in the afternoon. All the children played nicely with each other on the equipment. There was lots to play with.

Finally, we walked back to school wearing our high visibility jackets so that cars could see us and slow down.

Well done children for your wonderful behaviour on the trip and a big thank you to all the parents who came and helped us on this trip. We really appreciate your help!

Year 6 Retreat at Ammerdown

Today Year 6 had a retreat at Ammerdown. We spent some time reflecting on the past and our hopes for the future. We particularly thought about moving on to our different secondary schools. We had a peaceful day creating stained glass windows, singing songs and writing and saying prayers.

Time for reflection

Stop, look, listen, think!

Today key stage 1 children have been learning about road safety. We all had a talk from Mr Louis Taylor. He taught us about how to stay safe when crossing the road. we learnt 4 very important words. STOP, LOOK, LISTEN, THINK. He showed us how to use these words when crossing the road. He taught us actions to help us remember them.

The talk was funny because he used magic to help him teach us.

When we got back to class we talked about the things we had learnt and practiced the actions.

KS1 Road Safety Visitor

Today a visitor came to talk to us about road safety. We learned about STOP, LOOK, LISTEN and THINK! He also talked to us about what to wear to be seen, how to cross the road safely and to make sure we always keep are eyes and ears open when we are by the road.



We even met Billy Bigboots and the teachers turned him orange!

Forgiveness Poem

A wonderful poem by Shannon in Year 5 -

Forgiveness smells like a new life.

It sounds like a fresh river falling down the stream.

It feels like the peace and love flowing all round the earth.

It looks like the whole world and all the little children uniting with each other.

A mysterious traveller!

On Monday, mine and Mrs Bell and Mrs Nicholson's Literacy groups went to Vassalls Park in search of an unknown being! We had heard rumours that a mysterious individual had been spotted in the park. We visited one of the sites where this 'visitor' had been seen and were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of 'it' across the stream, before it was frightened into the woods! It appears that it is rather timid.

After some further exploration of the park we caught another sighting and followed it into the woods. We found it sitting on a fallen tree.



As we approached the being it started to make some strange sounds. Then, it gestured toward Will and pointed at a Scroll lying on a stone in front of it. Will bravely picked the scroll up.



It appears that 'it' is a lost traveller and we have to help it find its way home by writing tales of its journey. We must return in one week and one day if we are to be rewarded for our efforts!
As soon as the traveller started to shake we decided to leave. We didn't want to upset our new friend! We now have a week to try and help the traveller find its way home!

Challenge Website

Congratulations to last term's Challenge Website prize winners. Below in the slideshow you can see the winners for the special challenge -The Bristol art competition. Liam M's stunning Suspension bridge designs using ICT, Alana's 3D Balloon design and Samantha's many images of Bristol. They all look superb!


New challenges are now available for this term at http://www.stjosephschallenges.ik.org/

The special challenge for this term coincides with St Joseph's Sports week. There are many other challenges such as Euro 2008 maths data handling and writing postcards from your favourite fictional characters.


Closing date is Tuesday 22nd July 2008. Good luck!

An unexpected visiter in Y1/2S

Today some of the children found a spider in the corner of the classroom. At first, the children got very scared and excited but then they realised that he wasn't going to hurt them. We discussed how we should treat all of God's creatures and decided that we could leave the 8 legged minibeast on his web.

Singing assembly

Here is a video showing some of today's singing assembly.

Photos of the Infant Party

Singing Workshop

On Wednesday 11th June me (Olivia) and Sam went to St Annes Park Primary School for a song writing workshop. We were sent by Mrs. Marsh. When we got there we were greeted by Kate Courage. Later on we met a lady called Marilyn, she would be writing most of the songs for the production of ‘Everymans Land’ which the school choir will be taking part in. The children there (including us) wrote one of the songs called ‘The Bluebacks.’ Most importantly we had a great day!

This week in Reception we have been learning about materials. We had foil, fabric, newspaper, wood and plastic. We had to predict which material would keep teddy dry, we then got to test our predictions. On Friday we are going to write about what we learnt.

Weaving

We have been brightening up the courtyard by weaving different coloured fabrics through the meshing. We also learnt how to tie knots to stop the fabric from sliding theough the netting.

Year 1 Friendship web

All week in year 1 we have been learning about friendship and building bridges as part of our RE topic. The children have been talking about friendships, making mind maps of what our friends do for us and we have made a class friendship web. We used string and made sure that we all had hold of a piece of the string. The children then wrote about what the friendship web meant to them.

'' We made a friendship web together using string. This shows that we are all friends with each other'' Issy

''The web makes me think of how much I like school because all my friends are kind.'' Rebecca

Tomorrow we are going to write a class prayer to help us to remember to be good friends.

Tomorrow we are going to be writing a class prayer to help us to be good freinds to everybody.

Year 2 planting sunflower seeds

The Sky Room

This afternoon Ellie, who will be coming to St. Joseph's in September, came to visit the school. She has named the Reception outside area, "The Sky Room" What a great name! Inside Mrs. Rolling's Class some children were creating number patterns on the interactive whiteboards. Next door in Miss. Wright's class the children were talking about friendship and were making their own "Friendship Bricks". The children were talking about all the things good friends do.

This Afternoon

This afternoon I have had a lovely time visiting some of the classes. All the children and staff are working very hard! Mrs. Bell's class were learning the names of fruit in French, Mr. Tilmouth's class were learning how to control the ball in Hockey, underwater art in Mrs. Marsh's class (Y5P) and Mrs. Workman's class (Y5/6C) were starting their topic about Ancient Greece.

Year 6 at Bristol Cathedral

Today Year 6 went to Bristol Cathedral for an activity fun day, on the theme of moving on. The children participated in four workshops during the day - drama, environment studies, music and art & craft. The activities required the children to think about their hopes and dreams for the future. They also learnt about the important work undertaken by Water aid.

Maths frog investigation

Year 5 and 6 have recently been undertaking lots of maths investigations. This one involves two families of frogs who wish to swap sides to the other side of the pond.

• There are 7 lily pads which the frogs must use to cross the pond.

• Frogs can only jump to empty lily pads.

• Frogs can only jump over one other frog at a time.

• Frogs don't know how to jump backwards!

Many of the children were able to find the answer to the investigation. However it became alot harder to record how they achieved it and demonstrate their answer to someone else. The children used coloured cubes, or wore PE bibs pretending to be the frogs to help solve the problem.

Y5/6C class assembly

On Friday the school enjoyed a class assembly from Y5/6C on the theme of building bridges. The assembly told the message of thanking God each day, for the friendships and the things that go well. We should also think about what didn't go well and where friendships are spoiled or not made.

ICT star

Early on in the Autumn term I was impressed with the ICT Liam M in my class (Y5/6C) produced. During a Skateboard project he produced a fantastic Skate park using Google sketch up. He enjoyed using the program so much, he continued to work on it at home. I challenged him to produce some more designs and bring them back in to show the class.



Liam has continued to work on his designs for several months, bringing them in to show the class today. I was blown away with the work he has created. He has produced some amazing designs, which show brilliant attention to detail. Apart from the washing machine, toilet, boat and a few of the people, he has created everything you see in the slideshow. Well done Liam!

Bristol Then and Now

Year Six children looked at maps of this area from the past through to the present (over 200 years) and saw how dramatically things had changed. They took on the very difficult task of transfering data from the newer maps onto the map from 1817 to show where the changes had been. Just look at how complicated that was. Job well done.