Today we went to the Baltic for a two hour Art Workshop with the artist, Natalie Frost. We explored a wide range of mediums including, paint in a salad spinner, dobber paints, melting crayons with hairdryers, black ink in pipettes, and a very soft moulding plasticine type material. It was wonderful to have the time and freedom to explore the different materials.

After we’d had lunch in a lovely airy room overlooking the Tyne River, we had some time exploring level 2 of the Baltic where we used construction materials, copied body shapes onto a screen, went into the library and explored the sensory room.

It was such a beautiful day that we went outside, each had an ice cream and then walked across the Millennium Bridge to see the sculpture known as “The Blacksmith’s Needle” We sang songs and also signed which was very much enjoyed by people walking past Nathan said next time we should have a hat to collect money!

What a busy but wonderful day.

Babs, Jess, Lindsay and Alice.

Today was the first day of a week of all things Science and DT. We had a wonderful introduction to the week thorough a Cool Science whole school Workshop. Two Professors introduced us to a range of different substances which when mixed together created amazing things.

When we came back to class we watched some experiments on the Smart Board which we are going to try and we also mixed our other materials together and made sensory bottles.

In the afternoon we made slime in the Cool Science workshop and also began designing and making boats for the boat race on Friday. What a busy first day. More to come every day.

We have been extra busy this week, working on our transport topic.  We have been finding out all about different vehicles, and using our book, ‘Car, Car, Truck, Jeep’ to inspire our play and investigations.

On Tuesday we went for a walk around the local area.  We waved at people passing by on the buses, and looked for different types of vans and cars.  We looked at the bus timetables and thought about how people move around the busy city.  We practised using the zebra crossings, and used our eyes and ears to look and listen when we crossed the road.

We loved using the benches and A frames to investigate how we could make our cars go fast.  We discovered that the steeper we made the slope, the faster our cars went!  We were able to practise saying and signing some of our core vocabulary – stop and go, fast and slow! We are going to show off our experiment at the Science Fair, next week.

We loved using pictures of cars, buses and motorbikes to make traffic jams.  We counted out the different vehicles, then made patterns on our long paper ‘roads’.

We have also celebrated two birthdays this week!  Savanna had a lovely party and had a great time blowing out her candles.  What a lot of puff!  But Angela needed even bigger breaths to blow out the candles on her cake! Happy birthday to both of you!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

As part of our exploration of the artist Giacometti, we have been exploring different shapes we can make with our bodies to look just like Giacometti’s sculptures. In PE we used the white screen to make shadows of our favourite shapes to great effect. Later we looked at them on the big screen and tried to guess who they were. WE will re visit this again and produce a little show, just like the group Attraction who won Britain’s Got Talent.

Yesterday we went to the West End United Reform Church to visit the Knitted Bible Stories Exhibition. Many stories from the Bible were told through the most beautiful knitted characters. We walked around the church exploring the different displays which told the stories. The children were able to recognise some of the stories through the different characters. We were also treated to some juice and biscuits/popcorn. Many thanks to Pat and Doug for inviting us. Its well worth a visit if you are in the area of Two Ball Lonnen.

Welcome to the first blog of the Summer Term!

This half term, we’re going to be investigating and exploring Transport.  We’ve been reading a great story called, ‘Car, car, truck, jeep’ and learning the signs for lots of different types of vehicles. We are going to be making our own cars and trucks.  We are also going to be learning the symbols and signs for stop, go, fast and slow – all part of our core vocabulary.  We think everyone is really trying very hard with their communication skills!  Well done!

This half term, we are lucky enough to be visiting Pegasus RDA Centre in Morpeth.  Everyone has been amazing – sitting up straight on the ponies and getting on and off sensibly.  The people who run the centre have been so impressed with the behaviour and ability of the children!

This week was our last week of dancing with Christine from Tiptoes Dance.  She has been helping us to learn about open and closed body shapes.  Everybody has worked really hard in these sessions, following instructions carefully and trying hard to make dance sequences.

This week’s Half Term Achiever was Mohmin.  Everybody has been so impressed with him, and we all enjoyed watching his video this morning in assembly.  Well done, Mohmin!