Mad Science!

On Wednesday 9th February 2011 a mad scientist came in to school. He showed us a magic trick where he picked a random pupil to help with the trick. It was really cool except some pupils including me can't be fooled by the trick! He let the student pick a card and then tear it up once he showed it to the school (Queen of Diamonds).The student put the torn up pieces into a bowl then he pulled it back out into one piece.The scientist also showed us flash paper; you set it alight and drop it, the fire makes the paper burn out and nothing is left (no ash) - the fire just goes out! He also showed us dry ice; he explained to us that it was solid carbon dioxide. The scientist really showed the difference between magic and Science well. In science you always find out what happened but in magic a magician never reveals his tricks! What a inspiring assembly!

by Saville Gorebooth

Traditional and not so Traditional Tales

We worked in pairs to create dialogue with

traditional characters in alternate settings.

E.g. The Big Bad Wolf at the supermarket.

"I'm going to blow this supermarket down with my really

hard tail and I will eat you up with my sharp teeth!"

Bobby and Billie.

The wicked queen at the supermarket.

"Obey me or I'll turn you into a burger!"

Eva and Elliott.

Snow White at the beach.

"Dwarves come into the water. It's nice and cool!"

Zoe and Chessie.

Using puppets to re-tell traditional tales.

Flat Stanley is on his way!

Watch out El Salvador - here comes Flat Stanley! This year we have made some new friends at the ABC school in El Salvador. We talked in class about how great it would be to visit our friends and see what life is like in their country. After some discussion, we decided the best (and cheapest) representative would be Flat Stanley!

This week Flat Stanley has been enjoying life at Harewood, here he is checking out our collection of Moshi monster cards at break time. He also had time for a game of football and a quick climbing session on the adventure playground.

During Literacy lessons we decided what we would like Stanley to find out about life in El Salvador. We wrote our questions in letters to our friends in 3rd Aviles. We are hoping they will keep a scrap book of his visit, as well as sending us e-mails and video clips of his adventures.

Finally, it was time to send Stanley on his way. We popped him in his special box, along with our letters and took him to see Norman in the village post office.

Norman didn't think he'd ever posted anything to El Salvador before! He put Stanley in a special envelope and sent him on his way.

Keep checking the blog for updates on Stanley's progress. We should also be hosting the Salvadorian Stanley very soon - so watch out for him in and around Harewood. You can also see some of the other Stanleys we created in the gallery.

Feature week votes are in!

This week, pupils at Harewood School have been given a fantastic opportunity - to decide on the theme for our forthcoming 'feature week'. In our assembly this morning Class 4 were allowed to pitch their own suggestions for what the theme should be! Their PowerPoint presentations were shared with the whole school who then got to vote on the winning idea; the contained suggestion for activities that each class might take part in if their idea was selected. The fantastic ideas included a 'Health and PE week'....

...a 'Cartoons and Art week'....

...a 'Space and the Future Week'....

...an 'Animal Welfare Week'....

...and a 'Fashion and Interior Design Week'.

The groups had some fantastic ideas for individual lessons which were appropriate for the classes they were suggested for. Some groups such as the 'Space and The Future Week' had some audience participation which worked well; we also noticed that the younger children responded very well to the pictures in the presentations.

Anyway, enough of this teasing! You've waited all day to find out....

The theme of our next feature week will be 'Cartoons and Art Week'! Well done to all groups for their fantastic contributions.

Basketball Tournament

On Tuesday 18th January a group of Year 5 children were selected for a basketball tournament at Boston Spa High School. We had only managed to have one practice but we were very excited at the opportunity. When we arrived at the school we entered the sports hall, it was massive. There was one team there already throwing the ball to each other and shooting. So we started practising too.

Soon 6 more team came gushing in through the doors. Suddenly a man called us all in to the middle of the sports hall and went through the rules. Finally, he let the games begin. For the first two games we didn’t do so well, but the next game we improved our play. We drew that one and won most of the rest of our games. Ending the tournament, the man announced the results. We listened anxiously. 8th position, not us, 7th position not us, 6th position, 5th position, 4th position, not us. He finally told us that we were in 3rd position!!! We narrowly missed out on qualifying for the finals but returned back to school really pleased with our performance.

Over the rainbow

Look at our fantastic rainbow!

Over the Christmas holidays Class One acquired some new resources for the classroom which are designed to help develop their creativity, imagination and thinking skills. Children are blessed with a huge capacity for creative thinking. These these knew "intelligent" resources encourage creativity in a similar way to the empty cardboard box they choose to play with instead of the expensive gift it contained. Of all the new resources our definite favourite at the moment is this amazing rainbow.

There are no instructions because there are no right or wrong ways to enjoy this beautiful piece of equipment.

Theo's slide, Sam and Martha's cave and Jerram and Koutaro's volcano are just some of the wonderful things we have created. We've only been back at school for a week and already the rainbow has been used independently and incorporated with other resources - making new connections and developing new ideas and skills.

The children describe their rainbow as beautiful and amazing. Below are some of the photographs they have taken independently.

Death to the Tudors!

As an excellent way of finishing off our Tudor topic Class 4 watched the final outstanding (in both senses of the word) Tudor presentation. The group was made up entirely of boys who followed suit by focusing, like most of the other boys in the class, on the gruesome or grizzly aspects of Tudors!
The presenters came equipped with some fantastic outfits and props!

They also used models of their own designing to illustrate a variety of execution methods as shown above. The detail is quite excellent and the models all had moving parts to demonstrate their function!

Then we were treated to a video explaining in detail about the execution types as well as the many and varied weapons the Tudors used - very informative!

The presentation was executed superbly and a final interactive quiz brought our topic to a rather brilliantly gruesome end - good work!