Spring
Rolling and Balance
Today we practiced different kinds of rolls we can do in gymnastics, including a pencil roll, a tuck roll, and a teddy bear roll. We also practiced moving from tuck roll to standing, which was quite a challenge! To end our lesson, we began to think about what a sequence was, and how we could sequence our rolls to form a short gymnastics display.
Habitat Hunt
For this weeks Science lesson, our learning questions was 'What lives at Newburn Manor?'. After some discussion on what sort of habitats we might find around school, and what living things might be in those habitats, we came up with a checklist to search for and explored habitats and microhabitats around our school. We found grasslands, forest, and meadow habitats, and within each of those identified microhabitats such as leaf litter, logs, and unturned rocks hiding all sorts of living creatures!
Measuring in Metres
In Maths, we have begun work on our new topic, Length and Height. Today we learned how to measure in metres, moving on from measuring in centimetres, and learned that 100cm is equal to 1m, and we can use a metre stick to measure larger objects that a ruler cannot quite reach. We made sure we knew how to measure straight lines, and talked about using a tape measure for curved surfaces, and then practiced measuring different lengths of string and writing this in metres.
Fairytale Puppet Designs
For DT, we began work on designing our Fairytale puppets we will be sewing ourselves. We identified which materials we would need and labelled our drawings, and decided what techniques would be best to join these materials together based on our research from last week (sewing, gluing, stapling, pinning). We have some great designs and can't wait to start making our puppets!
World Book Day 2026
We had some great book character costumes for World Book Day, including classic fairytale characters such as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Snow White, and some more modern characters like Dog Man! We spent the day with Mr Pickup completing World Book Day activities around one of his favourite books - Monstersaurus - and wrote instructions on 'How To Make a Monster'!
The Great Barrier Reef Research
As part of our fact file planning in English, we used IPads to research questions we had asked about the Great Barrier Reef to gather facts we could use in our writing. We asked questions like 'Where is the Great Barrier Reef?' and 'Why is the Great Barrier Reef in danger?' and shared our facts with each other to fill in our plan.
Core Balance
Continuing our work in Gymnastics with coach Marlene, this week we worked on core balance skills by following an 'obstacle course' that required balance skills and careful movement. Then we attempted to stack objects on each other, having to keep our balance for as long as possible without dropping anything! We finished our session with a reminder of our main Gymnastics poses from last week.
Year 2 & Year 5 spring art with Mr Pickup
We worked with Year 5 to create beautiful spring inspired artwork for displays in the hall!
Gymnastics
This half term we are working with coach Marlene from Newcastle PE and Sport Service for our Gymnastics unit in PE! We started by exploring different Gymnastics poses such as pike, tuck, and straddle, and tried doing these poses in different ways by jumping and pushing ourselves up on our fronts and backs! Then to challenge ourselves we tried to make different letters using our bodies in pairs.
Art Week
This half-terms art week was all about painting. We explored using primary and secondary colours, making different tones and shades using black and white, and the different techniques we could use to create different textures. We looked at the work of Monet and Georgia O'Keefe, as well as Jackson Pollock and Aboriginal artwork from Australia, and had a go at making our own splatter paintings in the style of Pollock and patterned work inspired by Aboriginal artwork!
Levels and Pathways
Continuing our work with coach Harry on Polar Dance, we worked on the levels of our dance moves today, choosing different heights for our statue poses and deciding who would do each level. We also worked on our pathways between each statue, moving like a bear, a penguin, and snow. Then we put our levels, statues and pathways together and practiced them to music!
Making Equal Groups
We started our new maths unit, multiplication and division, and began by exploring equal groups. We even challenged ourselves by learning how to show our findings by writing '__ x __ =' and enjoyed making different groups and amounts!
Story Mapping
We explored different maps, real and imagined, and talked about what a map is used for and what it can show us. We then explored different chapters of our English text- The Day I Fell Into a Fairytale - and started to create a story map of Lana's journey through the book!
Exploring Different Habitats
In Science, we have been learning about living things and their habitats. Last week we looked at how we can tell if something is alive or not, and used our prior knowledge from what living things need to survive to help us work out what kind of habitats living things need. Today we looked at some different examples of habitats, including Antarctic, Ocean, Desert, Forest and Meadow, and then worked in pairs to decide where different animals would live based on their diet and adaptations!
Grimm's Fairytale Supermarket
In maths, we have been learning how to use money; Finding the right amounts, making change, and using different coins! Today we took a trip to Grimm's Fairytale Supermarket from our English book 'The Day I Fell Into a Fairytale' and each got to buy something using our money skills.
Polar Dance
This half term we have coach Harry from Newcastle PE and Sports Service teaching polar dance to go alongside our Polar Regions unit in Geography. We made up dance moves for ice, cold, polar bear, and penguin, and practiced counting beats of 8!
