Let's go fly a kite!

Come on and celebrate! In Class 3 we used our International Celebrations Week to look at all the kite festivals that take place around the world. There are so many festivals held for so many different reasons.

We researched the festival of Basant which takes place in Pakistan to celebrate the coming of Spring. The people of Lahore sharpen their kite strings with ground glass and try to cut each others kites out of the sky. We made kites of our own, but left out the sharpened strings! Here we all are with our kites - don't they look great!
Kite festivals are also held in Japan. Sandro taught us how to write the Japanese phrase - 'Taco Kichi' which means 'Kite Crazy'!

We were amazed at how quickly Sandro could write the Japanese characters - it took us a lot longer!

We also studied the 'Barriletes Gigantes' festival of Guatemala, which means giant kites in Spanish. The villagers of the highlands of Guatemala build the giant kites in teams. They believe the kites help them fly messages to the spirits. They fly them on the Day of the Dead which is celebrated on the 1st of November every year.

Class 3 worked together in teams, just like the villagers, to design and make their own Barriletes Gigantes. They used their knowledge of shape and symmetry to create some fabulous designs.

We also wrote kite shape poems, created mini kites and filmed information videos. By the end of the week we were all 'tako kichi'!!!!

Class One Puppets at the Playhouse

On Tuesday afternoon Class One visited the Playhouse in Leeds. We met Alison, who works there, and she read the story of Cinderella. Some of us helped to tell the story by lifting the flaps in the book.

Alison showed us how to make three different types of puppets and props for storytelling before we had chance to make our own. There were lots of different materials to choose from.

When we had finished making our props and puppets we used them to help re-tell the story in the book.

Later in the week we used our props and puppets to tell our own versions of the story. We even filmed each other on the video camera.

Shoe Box Appeal

Today the representatives from Samartian's Purse came to collect our shoe boxes. 54 shoe boxes had been filled with gifts, wrapped and donated by children at Harewood for the appeal this year.

These boxes will be transported to Belarus to brighten Christmas for disadvantaged children in that country. Thank you to everyone who donated a box. Your wonderful generorsity will make a real difference to these children this Christmas.

RJC dance - Judgement time!

The time had finally come - it was the judges visit to decide which Year 6 group would get the opportunity to perform their dance at Leeds Town Hall on the 30th of November! To begin with, Year 5 were allowed to show their energetic dance moves off to the judges who were highly impressed and said that the Year 6 groups had a "tough act to follow!" Below is an action shot of the Year 5 group performance: Next up, it was time for the Year 6 groups to take turns to perform. First we had 'Toxic Volcano' who had some amazing costumes and great moves to match.

Then it was time for 'The Griffins' who displayed a complex range of moves and kept excellent time throughout.

Then last, but by no means least, it was the turn of 'Junior Diversity' who impressed with their originality and imaginative moves.

The judges left the room to deliberate for a while before returning to announce the results! De-napoli, the artistic director for RJC, said it had been a very tough decision but that that the winner was.....(drum roll please!)....

....The Griffins! Well done to the Griffins and indeed to all of the groups as they all put in superb performances. I'm glad I wasn't a judge as I would have found it almost impossible to pick a winner.

Tom Palmer - he shoots, he scores!

On Wednesday, Tom Palmer- the famous football author, visited our school because last year Nye Bishop, Bella Reynolds and Zak Rothwell entered a competition on Tom’s website and guess what? They only went and won!

On the day he was due to come, I arrived at school and everyone was in a very good mood. In assembly every time we heard a creak in the hallway or a door straining on its hinge, we all turned around and looked at the big green doors (hoping it was Tom Palmer, it never was). Although we didn’t see him in collective worship, class 4 had a surprise waiting for them upstairs. You may have heard of striking gold before but we didn’t - we struck a goal!

Tom Palmer was up in our classroom talking to Mr. Sturgess when we all came up from the hall. Suddenly the classroom buzzed with excitement (and I could have sworn I felt an electric shock or two!) We followed Tom down to the hall and got straight into our lesson. Tom set up a portable goal and asked Mr. Sturgess to put us in groups. Once in teams we all got a piece of paper and wrote our team name on it. My group was called: The A-Team! Tom was really nice to us and told us that we were doing a quiz. After, he said “Don’t worry you girls the questions won’t all be about football there will be some about books too!”Soon all the questions were answered and Tom told us that for each question we got correct we would get a penalty at the goal. The winner, the team with the most goals, would receive a trophy: the penalty shoot out reading game trophy!

Everyone took their penalties and it came down to sudden death! My team vs Dominic’s group and Charlie’s Group - all on one goal each. In the end Charlie’s team came out on top, winning a deserved trophy!

Tom worked with each class in the school. Everyone had a super time with Tom but I have to say I think I had the best day. I brought a story that I had written in the holidays. Tom looked at it and said: ‘This is amazing!’ I was so proud that he really did think I had talent. Tom is really cool. I don’t know about other people but he is definitely my favourite author. Go Tom!

You can find out more about Tom and his books at www.tompalmer.co.uk

Look out for the report in this week's Wetherby News!