No, no, no! That's a...!

After becoming illustrators, we thought we'd try our hand at a being authors! We decided we wanted to add a new animal to the Monkey Puzzle, so we thought of fantastic descriptions like spiky, sharp teeth, claws, long tail and large. Can you guess what it is yet?

Of course! It's a crocodile!

If I could be any jungle animal...

We thought again of all the jungle animals we've been looking at, in books, pictures and video clips, and discussed which animal we would be and why. Some children chose animals that could run really fast and climb trees, others thought it would be great to fly or swing through trees, and some chose deadly animals like the colourful poisonous dart-frog!

Why not take a look at some fantastic jungle animal clips on the Deadly 60 website! There's loads of amazing things to learn!

Swimming!

This half term Year 4 have started swimming lessons. Off we go! 

Year 5 - Dance Through the Ages

On Wednesday Year 5 had a great morning at Heworth Grange Comprehensive School. We were very lucky to have been invited to watch their fantastic performance, 'Dance Through the Ages'! The talent there was amazing! We expected the show to consist of different types of dance but no! We witnessed fantastic acting and incredible singing as well as a variety of spectacular dances! We even seen some children who used to go to Whitemere performing! A very big thank you for inviting us and a very well done to all!

It has certainly got us excited to participate in this years dance festival! More information coming soon!

Year 5 - Baked bean or been?

Today in SPAG we have been learning all about homophones! Working in groups, we were able to think of over 30 homophones! How fantastic are we?! 

This afternoon we then worked in groups to design a game to help other children in the school learn all about homophones and we can't wait to share our finished results with them!

Dylan, Anna, Jamie H, Jorja and Jessica are making a 'homophone snakes and ladders' board game. Be careful not to land on a phone sign, you may be asked a tricky question about homophones!

        

Ben, Zak, James, Dominic and Jamie T haven't quite decided on a name for their game yet. The aim of their game is that you need to spell both spellings of a word correct AND give the definitions of each in order to earn points! Great idea lads!

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Liam, Olivia, Jessie, Amy and Joshua are creating a game which is similar to Monopoly. Be careful in their game not to land on a telephone symbol! If you do, you need to answer a homophone question correctly or you may just have to go back to the start!

Siobhon and Rachel are creating a memory game! Whoever has the most cards at the end is the homophone champion! Great thinking girls!

Joseph, Sam and Pierce are putting their ICT skills to the test and creating a game using PowerPoint! Their game gives us clues to what the homophone might be, but can you identify it correctly?

Welcome to 2015!

It was our first week back at White Mere this week and after a brilliant holiday, all of year 3 are ready to get back to work. 

We began our return to school by researching our new topic, "Groovy Greeks". All of the children worked very hard over Christmas to learn as much as possible before we even came back and they produced some brilliant homework. 

We then continued by learning about key events that occurred in Ancient Greece.

Santa Claus visits White Mere (Mrs Howe gets excited)

Durham University Visit - Groovy Greeks

This week we have been lucky enough to be visited by our friends at Durham University. Paddy and John came long to show us Ancient Greek artifacts that we examined and discussed. We even got to wear real-life Greek helmets!

Merry Christmas Hayley!

Recently our good friend Hayley moved to the U.S. of A to begin an exciting new adventure with her family. So all of year 3 sent a Christmas photo wishing her good luck and a Merry Chrsitmas!

Fantastic French!

We are enjoying our French lessons in school this year. Just look at our fabulous display, along with all the words and phrases we can already say,

Measures challenge!

Y6 were set the challenge recently of matching a series of units of measure - both imperial and metric. We were able to investigate the connections between both and when and where we might encounter specific terms.

History text detectives!

Y6 enjoyed investigating the past through examining both primary and secondary sources of information about what life was like in Victorian times! We have learnt about developments in technology across the era - including the invention of the telephone and the phonograph. We were able to compare this to developments in technology today and discuss the lasting legacy that the Victorian inventions had upon society.

Problem Solvers

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In Mathematics we have been working extremely hard solving problems involving money. Today we have been following some simple steps which help us solve problems with ease!

Daniel has worked super hard to solve the problems and here is a picture of his brilliant work.

Science Time!

In Year One, we have started our new science topic of ‘Animals including Humans’, in today’s lesson one quick challenge was for children to match body parts to the correct names. Here are the circles showing their finished result.

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This weeks golden award goes to...Lincoln!

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Lincoln was awarded the golden award this week as he has shown super skills in Maths when using language related to time. What a super star!

Fabulous Phonics

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One of our Set 3 sounds this week was ‘ow- Brown Cow’.

We carry out phonics daily in Year One and really enjoy writing in our phonics books. Here is Ella’s super writing, keep it up Ella Well done!

Computing with Miss McMullen

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In Year One, we have been super lucky and now receive our computing lessons from the Fantastic Miss McMullen. Miss McMullen is an ICT Specialist and is teaching us lots of new cool things.

We have been introduced to an amazing word ‘Algorithm’. Wow!

This term we are focusing on being able to programme our Bee bots, giving them a set of precise instructions. This is known as an algorithm.

Over the coming weeks you will see our videos of the bee bots route. 

The Life and Times of Queen Victoria

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Over the Christmas Holidays both Year One and Year Two children where given a super homework project of completing a quiz all about Queen Victoria. Our children always take pride in their homework projects and even do a little extra! Jessica has made a fantastic book all about Queen Victoria and the different places Queen Victoria has visited in Tyneside!

 

Here is a picture of Jessica’s book.

We are Illustrators!

We have been using our fantastic drawing skills to design our own front covers to Monkey Puzzle. We decided we needed a monkey, a butterfly and the jungle on our front cover.

'He's calling for his mammy!'

Spring 1 Week 3- Maths

 

Multiplication and Division

 

This week we have been concentrating on Multiplication and division! We have focused on representing multiplication as repeated addition and division as sharing. We use the cubes to help us with both.

 

For multiplication, we look at the number sentence e.g. 3 x 2 =, we write this as a repeated addition number sentence (2 + 2 + 2 =), we make 3 groups of 2 cubes. Then we count them all together to find our answer- (we count in 2s so that it's quicker!)

 

For division, we look at the number sentence e.g. 15 / 5 =, we make a tower of 15 cubes and then share it in to groups of 5, there is 3 towers of 5 so our answer is 3!

 

We also looked at multiplication and division in the context of money! We worked out our answers and then showed the correct amount with the appropriate coins!

 

 

 

If you have a moment, taking some time to support your child with our new online programme Mathletics would be great! A multiplication or division game would be a great choice as next week we will look at multiplication represented as arrays and we will be using bead strings for division! Stay Tuned!

Computing- Spring 1

 

Bee-bots

 

 

This term we are lucky enough to have the fabulous Mrs McMullen teaching computing in Key Stage 1. Mrs McMullen is a teacher at Heworth Grange Comprehensive School. She has been so impressed by the enthusiasm that Year 2 have shown for computing!  We have learned some tricky new words such as 'algorithms', but Year 2 have shown excellent understanding! We know that 'algorithms' simply means to give a set of instructions, in this case telling the Bee-bots where to go! We love computing and we will spend the rest of this term looking forward to Mrs McMullen teaching us on Friday Mornings!

 

 

 

 



Autumn Term 2- Literacy

 

Traditional Tales

 

 

This half term we have thoroughly enjoyed our traditional tales topic in Literacy. Within this genre we have look at a range of traditional fairy tales. For our final write we looked at the story of Cinderella, we started with the original and then moved on to various alternative versions! We loved the gory twist in the Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes version, and we thought it was great that a boy took centre stage in the modern version 'Cinderfella'! Take a look at our fabulous role play pictures!

 

 



Autumn term 1- Stories with familiar settings

 

This half term we have been focusing on stories with familiar settings. We have explored setting that are familiar to us using sensory language, we have also looked at character descriptions and thought carefully about which types of characters are familiar, and which characters are fantasy based. We have looked closely at the stories 'Not Now Bernard' and 'A Squash and a Squeeze'. For our final write up we looked at the story 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' and based our own stories around animals who we would like as guests! We did a great job! Just take a look at some of the brilliant vocabulary we generated as a class!

 

  

 

 

 

London's Burning- Autumn Term

 

The Great Fire of Gateshead- Year 1 and 2 Trip

 

We had a fantastic time on our trip to St Mary's Heritage Centre! We went on a tour of Newcastle Quayside to learn all about The Great Fire of Gateshead. Our fantastic guide, Simon, told us all about the events that unfolded on that fateful night, and pointed out all the areas of interest! We learned lots of fascinating facts about the fire, how it affected the local area and the community! Take a look at our pictures!