The Snowy Owls confidently presented their home learning this week. They were able to explain their projects to the rest of the class who asked excellent questions. 

Thank you to everyone who donated an item to our food bank collection. Our collection has been delivered to Okehampton food bank this morning and they were extremely grateful. Merry Christmas!

Barn Owls worked together to create stars in Forest School this week
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Barn Owls have been working hard on writing essays about Medieval Monarchs. They've had the chance to write about their learning, mostly from before half-term. Seeing how well the pupils have evaluated the positive and negative aspects of monarchs from this time has been impressive.

Following on from our intensive muscle workout in PE with Mr Pugh on Tuesday, we investigated some other effects of exercise. With support from Miss Pearman (a biomechanics expert), everyone managed to find that they had a pulse. We then carried out some increasingly intensive exercises, measuring our pulse between each session to find out what effect different levels of activity had on our hearts. Generally, and with a few exceptions, we found that pulse rates increased with increasing movement.

Today we raised money for the Save the Children Charity by wearing our Christmas jumpers. In assembly, we discussed how the money we have raised will help children across the world. 

We have been busy making decorations for our classroom to get into the Christmas spirit. First, we took it in turns to hang baubles on the tree. Then we made snowflakes as part of our English lesson - for instructional writing and paperchains during our break this afternoon. All the children are in high spirits and looking forward to the next couple of weeks before we break for the holidays. 

The Snowy Owls enjoyed designing and painting their wooden discs which were kindly donated by FoBS. The finished pieces of art will be hung on the Christmas Tree in the village later next week. 

This week we were given 5 fruit trees to plant on the school grounds. Children from each class, as well as the school council helped to plant our new trees on the field. We cannot wait to watch our new trees bloom. 

This afternoon, the Tawny Owls had to work in pairs to investigate which material would be best to keep their bear warm and dry in this typical winter weather. Fantastic language was heard throughout the experiment and some pupils came up with great ideas, combining 2 or 3 of the different materials. Exploring the world around us in practical ways is a vital way in which pupils develop and understand.

The year 2 pupils have been working incredibly hard in their addition and subtraction unit. Manipulatives have been vital for them to see and understand what is happening to the numbers. Rich language has been used throughout such as, 'exchange' and 'partition'. This has led to a fantastic session on column addition today - which I think you will agree, has been presented beautifully too. I am very proud of each of them!

We searched for living things within the environmental area and found a variety of animals. Then we used the emergency shelter to get out of the rain and ate yummy s'mores (marshmallows and biscuit sandwich).