26.02.2016

 

Yesterday we visited Sandwell Valley RSPB Reserve.  We had an amazing time exploring the woodland areas, discovering mini-beast and other small creatures in the Meadow and spotting some rare birds and some birds that we haven't seen before.  

 

 

 

In the morning we built dens, made bird seed holders for our own gardens and looked at classification of all animals.  During our den building time we worked together to build a den suitable for Miss O'Neill:  she said she wanted to be able to get in without bumping her head, and have somewhere cosy to sit!  Miss O'Neill was really pleased when we achieved the design brief!  

 

       

 

We made bird feeders with Miss Davies - this weekend we have brought them home to be hung up in our own gardens and we've also brought home a bird spotting guide!  We need to bring these in on Monday and share our spots with our classmates. 

 

In the afternoon we went to the Bird hide in the Wetland.  Here we were able to spot Lapwings, Coots, Cormorants, Geese and a little ringed plover.

 

Mum's and Dad's: check out this link to see what else is happening at Sandwell Valley this spring!

https://www.facebook.com/BhamBlackCountryWarks/?fref=nf

 

                

 

We passed a special Oak Tree on our way to the hide.  Gretel, our guide, said that this particular tree needed lots of TLC at the moment so we gave it lots of hugs!

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by our visit to the RSPB Reserve yesterday, today we built our own Hide and used all of our new knowledge to add information to the inside - this should help any budding 'twitchers' in the loop! 

 

                  

 

We also built a Wormery today to help with our composting.

 

          

 

 

This afternoon Miss O'Neill's mum came in to teach us to knit.  We've been really busy reading Traction Man and one of the things that we really wanted to do was learn to knit like Grandma.  

 

  

 

 

We've had a great day!

 

 

05.02.2016

As part of our Poles Apart topic we have been travelling the world over.  Take a look at all of the amazing places we have visited with Miss O'Neill!!

                                                           
 

 

 

Grammar, Spelling & Punctuation Evening

 

Thank you to all of the parents that joined us last week for our 'Parent's Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling and Vocabulary'.  I have uploaded the booklet that we handed out during the evening for your reference.  

 

A Parent's Guide!

 

Please feel free to contact Miss O'Neill with any questions that you may have. (There were plenty of questions raised throughout the evening!)

 

01.02.2016

 

Happy New Year Robin Class!

Robin Class have been exceptionally busy since Christmas learning lots of new things, refining skills we have been learning for a while and of course - having lots of fun!

 

Take a look below to see some of the things that we have been getting up to!

 

  

  We've been learning how to code and debug computer programs this term.  We started by practising our coding language on each other and then we moved on to applying our skills to real-life computer programs.  Miss O'Neill, Mrs Taylor and Mrs Prewitt were impressed with our skills, once we stopped trying to make each other fly! (We found it really tricky to remember to say forward and not up!)

 

 

 

We've been having great fun with Mrs Allen learning how to think and act scientifically!  We have mastered building ice towers - ask a member of Robin Class for their top tips!

 

  

We have really enjoyed this topic - it has given us lots of opportunity to explore colour and learn more about where we live. 

 

We've been working really hard this term and our teachers have been extremely impressed!

 

      

 

 

Below are some of the photos from our trek out days this term:

 

            

 

13.10.15 - UPDATE!

Today, Robin class have learnt all about the squalid conditions in Scutari Hospital before Florence Nightingale arrived.  We learnt that Florence worked very hard to make the hospital a much more hygienic place for soldiers to get better again.  

 

Robin class carried out a science experiment today to find out what the best way to wash our hands is. Miss O'Neill and Mrs Taylor poured some glitter into each of our hands and told us that this represented germs.  Then we were all asked to go and pick up a leaf - we noticed that we were passing germs onto everything and everyone we touched!  To wash our hands Miss O'Neill split us up into three groups: one group only used paper towels, another had cold water and no paper towels and the third group had warm water, soap and paper towels.  We proved that it is best to wash our hands using soap and warm water but we also found out how important it is to dry our hands.  Miss O'Neill and Mrs Taylor then took us inside to wash our hands properly - the boys were much better at hand washing than the girls! 

 

 

      

 

 

13.10.15 - UPDATE!

After Monday's excitement the children in Robin class have worked incredibly hard to fix the time machine.  They have used all of the clues to work out where the time machine has come from.  

 

Clues included an image of Scutari hospital; soldiers lay all over the floor with their own filth all around them, a picture of Florence Nightingale opening the first Nightingale Ward with beds for each of the patients, and clean floors, a lantern, 6 rats and a nurses outfit.  The children had ideas such as:

 

"it must have come from a hospital"

 

"There are soldiers, it must be a war"

 

"The pictures look really old, it must be olden times like before the titanic!"

 

    

 

    

 

Miss O'Neill was incredibly impressed with our historical thinking and how well we interpreted the clues!  Miss Davies and Miss O'Neill have passed all of this information onto local police who are still working out where it may have come from.  

 

This morning, while we were listening to a talk by Postman Pete, Engineer Prewitt was busy mending the time machine's engine.  Engineer Prewitt was able to retrieve a video from the time machine.  Follow the link below to find out which era we believe the time machine to have come from!

 

Time Machine Video 1

11.10.15 - URGENT UPDATE!

 

Breaking News!

Unconfirmed reports suggest that a commotion at Beoley First School earlier today, was in fact a time machine crash landing in Robin Class!

 

Miss O'Neill has gained access to a leaked article from The Beoley Times reporting on today's events!

 

The Beoley Times Breaking News

 

Further updates will be posted as soon as they are available!

 

 

02.10.15

Robin Class have gone home for the weekend after an exceptionally busy couple of weeks! Miss O'Neill thinks they will all sleep quite well this weekend after the excitement of having a real-life Air Ambulance Paramedic in school on Thursday!

 

We were incredibly lucky to have the pleasure of a visit from Paramedic Kerry - she flies with the Midlands Air Ambulance Crew from RAF Cosford!  Paramedic Kerry brought her land and air ambulance uniform and we each got the opportunity to try it on.  We looked amazing, and right at home in our very own Air Ambulance!  

 

 

 

We were fascinated by Paramedic Kerry's tales and her explanation of her job, responsibility and resources - we've all decided we need to improve our map reading skills this week if we are going to apply for a job with the Midlands Air Ambulance Crew. Thank you to Mrs Hickin for organising this visit!

 

Mums and Dads, here is a link to the RAF Cosford Air Museum: http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/plan-your-day.aspx  Entry to the museum is free, and Miss O'Neill really recommends a visit!

 

Last week we visited the Police and Fire Hub in Bromsgrove, we had an amazing time looking around and getting into character with all of the uniform and tools we were allowed to use.  Robin class would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Halliwell, PC Sweeney and Fire Fighter Berry for organising such an amazing trip! We had a blast and learnt lots.  Here are a few of our photos - you'll have to visit us in school to see them all (Our teachers took over 550 photos on this trip!!)

 

                                   

Last week we read the story Police Officers on Patrol, this story is written by Kersten Hamilton and illustrated by R W Alley (Paddington Bear).  We loved the pictures and even wrote our own short stories for each scene, what story can you tell using these pictures?

    

 

This week we have been reading George's Dragon at the Fire Station - we really enjoyed the humour in this book!  Ask us to tell you all about the mischief Sparky causes; here are a few pics to help you sequence your ideas!

 

 

  

 

13.09.15

Wow!  We've been really busy this week!  Come and take a look at some of our pictures!

In maths we started by refreshing our place value knowledge, then we used this knowledge to work out whether numbers were greater than (>), less than (<) and equal to (=) each other.  We really impressed Miss O'Neill with how quickly we could apply this skill!

 

    

 

In Science this week we have been exploring our senses using flavoured tea bags.  After our lesson the tea bags were added to our Mud Kitchen and we've had lots of fun mixing up the flavours and seeing what scents we can make!

 

    

 

    

 

  

 

During our time outdoors this week we went for a walk to a local field - the bushes we laden with ripe fruit so we picked lots of blackberries to bring back to school - watch out for some Robin Class Jam this autumn!!  After our walk we went back to school and used our tree spotter and plan of the school grounds to plot each of the different trees we have at school on our plans.  Miss O'Neill was extremely impressed by how well we worked together!

 

      

 

 

We're exhausted after all that learning and have definitely earned a few days off!  Next week we have chosen to learn all about people that work in the construction industry!

 

05.09.2015

 

WOW!!  What a first two days back we've had! We've had lots of fun getting to know our new classmates and getting stuck into our new topic - People who help us! (Click the links below to find the topic webs for Year 1 and 2)

 

 

 

Year 1 - People Who Help Us

 

Year 2 - People Who Help Us

 

On our first day back at school Oliver had brought lots of wrappers with him!  He had been exceptionally busy with hunting for the fairtrade logo over the holidays and had found an amazing 8 different things with it on!  We talked about what fairtrade meant and why people often choose to buy things that have this logo on over items that don't!  Miss O'Neill set us a challenge to check our cupboards at home for the fairtrade logo and many more of us found things which we brought in to show the class.  We also made a tally of people who had a fairtrade item in their cupboards and those that didn't.  We found out that there were more children who did have a fair trade product at home than those who didn't! 

 

We had important business to discuss on our first day back at school:  What will our first Classroom Roleplay be?

We all had lots of fantastic ideas including: a doctor's surgery, a vets, a dentist, a hospital, a police station, a fire station, an air ambulance station, a nursery, a school and a builder's yard!  Miss O'Neill, Mrs Taylor and Mrs Prewitt chose their favourites and then we got to vote for which one we wanted; the winner was....

 

An Air Ambulance Station!

 

Here's a sneaky peak at the progress so far!

 

 

^ Our Inspiration ^

 

 

^ Our Creation ^

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13th May 2015

Today was our English INSPIRE Workshop. We got to work with an adult to make and use resources to help us with our phonics, spellings, punctuation and creative writing. We really amazed our parents with our knowledge of homophones, prefixes and suffixes.

 

    

29th April 2015

This week we have been learning about different habitats and how living things adapt to their environment. Today, we went on an 'Animal Homes Hunt.' Using our spotter sheet, we managed to find a birds nest, a squirrel drey, a rabbit warren, a spider web and a badger sett. Miss Holmes was very impressed with how closely we were looking.

 

22nd April 2015

We went for a walk today to do some stream dipping. We wanted to compare our findings to last week's pond dipping. It was a bit harder to catch animals this time but we did manage to find some shrimp and Alice even caught a fish! 

   

 

17th April 2015

Today, Miss Holmes brought in her new chicks. They hatched during the Easter Holidays and are only 1 week old! We love holding them. Our favourite is Percy, the smallest one, but shhhh...don't tell the others! They are going to come in every day for the next couple of weeks so we can watch them grow.

 

16th April 2015

Today we went pond dipping. We used our nets to see what we could find lurking in our school pond. The most popular animal was the pond snail but we also found lots of other different pond creatures. We had to be very careful when we put them back in.

 

15th April 2015

This term our topic is all about Endangered Animals. Click on the links below to find out what we have got planned this half term.

Summer Term Timetable                Year 1 Topic Web                    Year 2 Topic Web

 

17th March 2015

Today was our class assembly. We have been working very hard in our Space topic and our parents were very impressed to find out about all the things we have been doing. Miss Holmes was very proud of us, we all learnt their lines really well and sang at the top of our voices! Thank you to Miss Taylor and Miss Eaves for making our fantastic costumes, everyone thought we looked fab!

  

 

5th March 2015

Just like Baby Bear in 'Whatever Next', today we went on a space picnic. First of all we made sandwiches and cut them into star shapes. Then we sat around the fire pit and had cheesy moon balls, full moon banana slices, flying saucers and many more! We were very full by the end of it!

   

4th March 2015

We had so much fun at our 'Space Evening' last night. We arrived with our parent at school at 6.30pm and it was pitch black, we had never been to school in the dark!

With our parent's help, we managed to find all the space shapes using only our torches for light and then celebrated by having a hot chocolate (with marshmallows!) and an alien cupcake which we had made earlier. Our parents loved the space songs we sang and we even got to see Jupiter using Mr Wise's telescope. Thank you Mr Wise, it was amazing! It was a clear night and Miss Holmes helped us to spot some of the star constellations in the sky.

 

Friday 27th February 2015

What a great first week we have had!

Yesterday, we joined up with Wren Class to learn about Chinese New Year and we worked in groups to act out the story using either masks or stick puppets. We really impressed all the teachers with our acting skills! Today we joined up again to take part in some activities and taste some Chinese food. We made lucky fish, chinese lanterns, dragon masks and many more!

      

 

Wednesday 25th February 2015

Today is 'Wild Wednesday', we went on a walk in search of different shades of green. We used paint sample strips to try and match the colours we found on our hunt. We thought this was going to be an easy task but we soon learnt that it was very tricky to match natural objects with our strips! We also learnt that even if you choose several leaves from the same plant, they were all slightly different shades.

           

 

Tuesday 24th February 2015

Welcome back! We have returned refreshed after such a busy term and are ready to start our new topic 'Space.' Miss Holmes was amazed with our homework projects and they are now all proudly displayed in our new Home Corner.

                  

Click on the links below to find out what we have got planned for this term:

Year 2 Topic Web     Year 1 Topic Web

 

Thursday 12th February 2015

At last, the big day had arrived...The Wizard of Oz Extravaganza!!

The whole school had been transformed into the Land of Oz, it looked amaaaazing! Our classroom was changed into 'The Emerald City', it was completely green, even the lights! We all worked very hard to learn a dance to a song called 'Green Garden' and Miss Holmes was very impressed with us. Mrs Taylor made us some fantastic costumes and painted all of our faces green! Our parents were very impressed with us and could not believe how different our classroom looked! We are going to be very sad to take it all down.

Tuesday 10th February 2015

Today, Austin Gannon came in to teach us how to work with clay. We had so much fun and all got to make a mug! We can't wait to see the final product!

 

Monday 9th February 2015

Today, we were visited by some lovely people from the BMET college, Emma and some of her students. They brought in some fantastic things that they have made, including costumes, masks, props and scenery. We were amazed! One of us even said that we would like to go to this college when we grow up! They were very kind and let us try on some of their masks.

 

Tuesday 27th January 2015

We had a wonderful time yesterday at the Birmingham Hippodrome. We got to do loads of exciting things such as go ON the stage and have a look back stage...

 

 

 take part in a Drama Workshop...

 

 

...and even work with the Birmingham Royal Ballet - how lucky are we!

Tuesday 13th January 2015

We have been doing lots of work on place value in Maths and have really impressed Miss Holmes with how much progress we have made. We have been practising in lots of different ways and will be moving on to recording it in our books later on this week.

 

Thursday 8th January 2015

Yesterday, we built 3 scarecrows in our growing area. We had great fun doing this and worked really well as a team.

 

Miss Holmes was a bit worried this morning though, as the weather was not very nice in the night so we decided to check on the scarecrows in case they had fallen down in the wind and rain. We were NOT expecting to find what we did! The growing area was such a mess, there were trowels everywhere, watering cans in the scarecrows hands and they had even swapped wellies! We could not believe it and after much speculation, we decided that they must have come to life in the night. Here were some of our ideas:

Georgia - "Maybe they didn't like the rain so sheltered in the outdoor classroom."

Aria - "They must only come alive at night"

Maddison - "They have played a game of 'Pass the Welly' and got a mixed up!"

Amelia - "It's a bit like Toy Story, they only come alive when there is nobody here."

Bethany even thought she saw them moving when she looked out of the classroom window a bit later!

 

Tuesday 6th January 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ROBIN CLASS!!!

This term our topic is 'The Wizard of Oz' and we have so many exciting things planned! Click on the links below to find out more.

Year 1 Topic Web  Year 2 Topic Web  Spring term Timetable

Finally, this term we have been looking at spelling the days of the week. We find this quite tricky so Miss Holmes suggested we came up with our own mnemonic for each day. We then had to illustrate each one and Miss Holmes chose her favourite to go on display in the classroom. Having learnt them by heart, we won't be spelling them incorrectly ever again!

Thursday 18th December 2014

Today was 'Christmas Jumper Day.' We all came in looking very festive!

 

Tuesday 2nd December 2014

Yesterday, we arrived at school to discover that our Home Corner had been turned into a Santa's Workshop. We have been busying away designing, making and wrapping presents to go under our Christmas tree.

 

Tuesday 25th November 2014

Last week, we learnt about the festival of Diwali. We rewrote the story of Rama and Sita, found out how Hindus celebrate and had an Art Carousel. We painted Mehndi patterns on paper hands, made 'Happy Diwali' cards and made Rangoli patterns using playdough, buttons and dried food. We also designed our own Rangoli tile, evaluated our designs and chose our favourite one. Using this design, we used cardboard, glue and a variety of dried food to make them.

 

Friday 14th November 2014

Today was Children in Need, with the theme this year being 'Be a Hero.' We were invited to come in dressed as a hero. Take a look at some of our fantastic costumes:

Wednesday 12th November 2014

This week we have been learning about Remembrance Day. We have been fascinated by World War I and could not believe how awful it must have been for the soldiers. Imagining we were a soldier, we wrote a 'senses poem', thinking about what we would see, hear, smell, touch and how we would feel. This morning, we all walked up to St Leonards Church to have a look at the memorial and the poppies that have been laid down.

 

Friday 7th November 2014

Today we have been busy doing lots of Bonfire Night activities. We used chalks, pastels, paint, forks, pipe cleaners and straws to create firework pictures, decorated firework biscuits and got very messy painting fire pictures with our hands!

Tuesday 4th November 2014

WOW! What a busy half term we had last term., take a look below to find out all the things that we got up to!

Welcome to a brand new year in Robin Class.

This term our topic is 'Shops' and we are also doing a mini topic on 'Festivals.' Click on the links below to see what we have planned:

 

Year 1 Topic Web     Year 2 Topic Web    Autumn Term 2 Timetable

 

 

We have already settled in really well and have been having lots of fun!

 

This term our topic is People - Kings and Queens. Please click on the links below to find out about all the exciting things we have planned.

 

Year 1 Topic Web     Year 2 Topic Web   Autumn Term 1 Timetable

 

 

9th September 2014

Last week, we worked in pairs to tackle lots of different challenges that Miss Holmes had set us:

 

     

 

We love our 'Storyteller Cottage' and have been using the puppets to tell some traditional tales:

 

 

This week we have been looking at the story 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' by Judith Kerr. We have thought of lots of different words to describe the tiger, written some fantastic descriptive sentences, written our own version of the story and even acted it out! Miss Holmes was very impressed with our acting skills!

   

 

16th September 2014

Last week, we enjoyed lots of activities all to do with The Tiger Who Came To Tea. We made masks, practised our descriptive writing, created a supermarket and even designed some labels for Tiger Food:

  

23rd September 2014

Yesterday, we came into our classroom to find a real mess! There was straw, sticks and brown fur EVERYWHERE! After much discussion, we decided that the Big Bad Wolf must have paid us a visit. First we thought we should check that he wasn't in the school grounds anymore so went on a search for any evidence. We used magnifying glasses and our super detective skills. There were scratch marks on the tree, footprints in the growing area and he had even been digging up our field!

  

After coming to the conclusion that he was no longer around, we thought it was best to venture further off the school grounds. We searched in the woods, through the stream and in the field. While we were there, we found a sloe berries bush and decided to try some, this is how we reacted:

 

We still couldn't find him but when we got back we decided we should warn everyone so we made 'Wanted' posters and put them up around the school.

 

30th September 2014

We have been learning about different Kings and Queens from British history. We thought about what we would do if we were King or Queen for the day and had a go at drawing portraits of Henry VIII, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth I:

10th October 2014

This week was 'Book Week' and we have been looking at the author Valerie Thomas. She has written lots of stories about Winnie the Witch and her cat Wilbur. We had a go at making our potions for invisibility and flying. The ingredients included 'snail slime', 'dragon blood' and 'frog's breath.' We had to measure each ingredient carefully to make sure it didn't go wrong!

  

We made flying carpets out of salt dough, we used rulers to measure accurate rectangles.

 

We also designed a birthday cake for Winnie, a swimming costume for Wilbur, wrote some magic potions and made our own 'Winnie' books. Today, we had a party with Wren Class. We made cakes, ate lots of party food and played some party games.

 

We also wore fantastic costumes!

 

Tuesday 14th October 2014

We had a fantastic time today at Umberslade Adventure! Even though it was a bit wet, that didn't faze us, it just made it much muddier which was even better! We completed a commando course, helped build a den, went orienteering, played games and even went on a low ropes course!

 

15th October 2014

Today we were learning about magnets. We wanted to investigate which materials are magnetic and which are not. Working in pairs, we used a magnet to test different materials and then either stuck them onto our 'magnetic crown' or 'non-magnetic crown.' We decided that we couldn't stick everything to the crown (e.g. chair) so we drew pictures of some of the objects we tested. Some us thought that all metal was magnetic but we soon found out that was not true.

 

 17th October 2014

Yesterday, we got our waterproofs and wellies on and set out on an 'Autumn Hunt.' We looked carefully at different leaves that we found on our walk and were amazed at all the different colours that there were. We had to think about which natural objects we collected as they needed to be flat enough to fit into a laminating sheet as we made amazing Autumn collages today.

And what we do we love most of all about going outdoors? 

 

Jumping in puddles!!!

We had to see if we could make a bigger splash than Miss Holmes - Isabelle was the champion!