Highmoor week commencing 14th October

Date: 18th Oct 2019 @ 11:34am

We had a wet and wild start to our week with our brilliant trip to Hill End. Despite the weather being awful we had a fantastic day. We were met off the minibus by a stone age man! He was our guide for the day as we learnt all about life at the end of the stone age - the Neolithic period. We started by building a shelter using the materials we could find around us and a few animal skins. Surprisingly mud and leaves worked very well to waterproof our structures. We tested just how waterproof they were by throwing buckets of water over them (not that we needed them with the amount of rain coming down!). We learnt about how farming had come to Britain and with it the introduction of roundhouses as a permanent settlement. We got to investigate a roundhouse, look at how it was built and think about the benefits of living inside one rather than the shelter we ad just made. 

Next we all had a go at weaving willow to make a wall, grinding wheat and oats to make flour and foraging for food. We were then taught how to make an axe and had a go at knapping slate (we learnt that Neolithic man woud have used flint but it was too sharp for us to have a go at), then we prepared the wooden axe shaft using stone tools and finally put it all together. The day ended with a spear throwing competition which was great fun. 

Back at school in literacy this week we wrote our stone age stories and spent some time editing and improving them. We also wrote an explanation text linked to our scienc topic. 

In maths we had a focus on times tables. The year 3s mostly looked at the 2s, 5s and 10 times tables and the year 4s the 3s, 4s, 6s and 8s. 

Music was a week playing our recorders. We continued practising playing in time and focused on making sure our crotchet rests were crisp and silent.    

This week our art topic,’How can we change the colour of that fabric?’, certainly came to life! We each had a bag which was sprayed damp to absorb the dye. We then, according to our plans, folded the fabric in different ways dependent on what outcome we were looking for, either stripes or circles. Next was the tricky bit in securing elastic bands tightly in intervals around the fabric. Mrs Clinkard was very impressed with how the children coped with this tricky exercise . At last we had come to the bit we had all been waiting for. We took it in turns to apply the dye arranging our two chosen colours in alternate patterns across the fabric. We worked productively  ensuring to keep the dye where it should be and patiently waiting our turn to dye. Whilst waiting we wrote an Art Review of the painting ‘Irises’ by Vincent Van Gogh. Some of us also  drew our own versions of the work focussing on the way Van Gogh used colour and line. We had a very busy but fun art lesson. The results so far look amazing and all will be revealed next week when we see our finished designs.

Have a great weekend. 

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