I have been wanting to blog for the last two weeks or so, but have been busy, lacking any good ideas, and/or completely forgetting what I wanted to discuss. Upon looking through my pictures on my camera, I realised what an awesome term we have had. The photos on my camera are a small snapshot of the amazing activities that have been planned by my coworkers and school. I thought I'd share some of these snippets.
Egypt Day
Our students had been learning about Ancient Egypt during history lessons since September. The culmination of this unit was Egypt Day. Our school hires in someone to put on a whole Egypt themed day for our Year 3 students. The students come in fancy dress, some as pharoahs, some as Egyptologists, some as ??. It is a great day for the students because not only do they learn more information about Egypt, but can apply the information they have been learning about. The day starts with a brief history lesson. The classes are then given 3 different tasks to rotate around. Task 1 is another talk by Mark, our Egyptologist for the day. He shows students his Egyptian artefacts and lets them try and figure out what they may have been used for. Task 2 is an Ancient Egyptian game called Jackels and Hounds. Very basic dice throwing, moving around the board game. Task 3 is an Egyptian quiz. They are given a sheet with questions linking to specific boards. Each board takes one aspect of Egyptian life. The children really enjoyed this because there were lots of gross and random facts for them to learn about.
In the afternoon all the Year 3 students are brought back into the hall to perform an Egyptian burial.They pull the organs out of the 'human' and wrap it up. Then students are assigned roles, such as pharaoh, priestess, priest and walk around the hall performing a funeral procession. Such a great day!
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| Left: Playing Jackals and Hounds, Middle/Right: Taking part in the Egyptian quiz |
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| Had to add this photo. I think he was an archeaologist. Anyways, he's just plain amazing in this outfit! |
Science Day:
We are very lucky to have a university in our city. The science department was offering an outreach programme to get students interested and thinking about careers in Science. We had professors, professionals (physiotherapists, etc), and science undergrads come in and conduct a whole day of science for the whole school. One of the activities our year chose had to do with visual impairments. The students were shown a powerpoint of the different types of impairments people can have. They were then given different types of glasses to wear and then asked to fill in a crossword and complete a wordsearch. The range of impairments ranged were so fascinating, I didn't even know some of them exisisted. Students were also given the opportunity to wear the glasses and walk down the corridor with a friend.
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| Students modelling their different glasses, representing different types and degrees of visual impairment. |
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Some students having a real giggle trying to navigate the corridor in their special glasses.
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Theatre Trip:
If you've read any of my previous posts, you will remember that my school was working on a James and the Giant Peach theme in the fall. We revisted this theme a couple of weeks back because the theatre in our city had a performance of James and the Giant Peach. Our headteacher, who is actually the head for two schools, bought tickets for every single child and adult in both schools! That was over 400 tickets. Needless to say we took up lots of room in the theatre. The children were also treated to icecream at the intermission!
The theatre group, Birmingham Stage Company, put on such a unique take of the show. There were only 8-10 actors who played a variety of parts.
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| Birmingham Stage Company |
Red Nose Day:
This is a bi-annual event that occurs across the UK. It is amazing because it is a huge fundraising event that everyone gets involved in. As a teacher it is also a great time to teach about different living situations of people and have students reflect on their own lives.
Red Nose Day also is an event that celebrities get involved in. On telly they have a great show culminating in skits and sketches from famous people, such as David Beckham. Schools get involved by raising money. We had a fancy dress day and where students dressed up as superheroes. Loved it! They pay 50p to not wear their uniform. Fun day!
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My absolute favourite picture of my class. Hate that I have to blur out their little faces. Love my student who dressed up as 'Where's Waldo (Wally in the UK)', he said he needed to hide in the back.
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History Walk:
If you're still reading, well done. Last thing I wanted to mention was our history walk around the school's neighbourhood. In the spring term students learned about the history of their neighbourhood. It's so fascinating to look at old maps and find the buildings that are still around, as well as how things have changed. One interesting fact I learned is that Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty, had a house in our area, which is still standing.
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| Students in front of the 'old school', another school in our area. It was built in the 19th century. Students were able to point out the old features of the building. It was built for the workers children of the large estate. |
Well that wraps it up! It has been great to go through to photos and think of how much we have done in the last 11 weeks. What interesting things have you been up to?
Cheers!
Becky
