Football Fever

This week in Blue Class we have been in a Football Frenzy as we approach the World Cup. The children were put into groups and assigned a home city around the world. Each group then came up with a name for their football team and designed their kit. With a budget of £70m and a limit of 1500 player points, the groups then had to put together a squad of 15 players.

The groups designed and built their own football stadiums, which had to meet a given set of criteria.

Each day the groups had to put forward two teams, taking into account injured players, to compete in two matches. In each match, the team with the highest player points won.

On Wednesday the groups were given the opportunity to boost their teams with a transfer day. Corporate sponsorship gave them an extra £500,000 per win. Following the transfer window, an additional two games were played on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the children learnt how to write a match report. An example is shown below.

Berlin Bears V  London Lions Results.

No travelling was needed for the Berlin Bears when they had a match against London Lions right in their home, Berlin. They had a match which had the audience on the edge of their seats with a strong result of 2-0.

The crowd was buzzing as we started the match on a rather nice day with the sun shining brightly on the lime green rug within the stadium.

On 13 Gerrard started off through the middle getting at least 16 yards before the Wild Cats’ striker pulled in front of him, forcing to feed Noone his precious cargo.

All of a sudden Noone curled round Davies and nodded the ball successfully into the awaiting net. The spectators went wild, even the 272 from London.

After Michael Solmen shouted for play, this time London’s forward, Cattermole burst ahead passing back and forth with Campbell. Getting too close for comfort for the Growlers Campbell nodded it wide and a disappointed murmur spread across the crowd.

At the next whistle, the players gathered in the center for half time. After that the players trooped into the tunnels.

The long whistle signalled that they had to come out. Whitaker took the center pass and stabbed it straight to Shelvey, Shelvey received it even though  the wild cats’ midfielder Cole gave all his effort to block the pass. So Shelvey was off playing into the space on the right, dodging and sprinting, the ball always in front of him until Cole was back again sending in a slide-tackle within a whisker of Shelvey’s shin.

Despite that attack on the 78th minute Shelvey managed to screw his volley perfectly- Sczensay didn’t stand a chance. That sent the crowd wild- the Berlin Bears were in the lead! 2-0

Now with 3 minutes left in the game the Wild Cats’ center pass went to Jenidae however he only got 19 yards before the last whistle sounded. It was over.

The growlers won and celebration was in store!

by Naomi

By the end of the week, tensions were high as the top teams, Rio Mosaic and Paris Penguins battled it out for first place, while Brahman and The London Lions were trying to avoid relegation.

The final points score looked like this:

Match >	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Total
The London Lions	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3
Rio Mosaic	3	3	3	3	0	3	3	0	3	0	3	3	27
King Kong	0	0	3	3	0	3	3	3	3	0	0	0	18
Berlin Bears	3	0	0	3	3	3	3	3	0	0	3	3	24
Paris Penguins	0	3	0	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	0	0	24
Majestic Parrots	3	3	3	0	3	0	0	0	3	3	3	3	24
Brahman	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	3	6

K'nex Challenge

Last week the year 3 and 4 pupils from Green Class were set the task of connecting up a motor to an axle and making it turn.

The groups worked hard and while all groups completed the first task, two of the groups went a step further to work out how to add wheels to the axle and stop them turning independently.

Basket Weaving

In Green class, we have been learning what it was like to be a Viking craftsman, by weaving our own baskets. A small group of children have been trying their hand at weaving with willow,  but still have quite a way to go with their baskets. Others have been making baskets out of woven paper. These are some of the results.

Christmas Crafts

We have been making use of our natural resources for some Christmas Craft activities this year. Our willow house was in need of a trim, and we decided to use the off-cuts to produce some woven Christmas stars. The children decorated them using floristry ribbon and will be bringing them home soon. We hope you like them.

Making Bread in Blue Class

Today, each of the bread groups had a second opportunity to produce their loaf, and make any improvements they needed to make.

They were very busy and I hope you will agree that they produced some fantastic looking results.

Custard Cream Pyramids!

Following last week's attempts to build a giant pyramid out of shoe-boxes, we drew on our new-found expertise this afternoon, and attempted to build some rather smaller, but no less impressive, pyramids out of custard creams. 

We began with a 'dry run', stacking our biscuits to form pyramids, then mixed up our 'mortar' (buttercream icing) to stick it all together. 

Of course, the most satisfying thing about making pyramids out of custard creams is eating them immediately afterwards! Thankfully, there was just enough time to grab a photo of each finished pyramid with its creators, before they were demolished.

Planet Builders - Planet Explorers

This week in Blue Class, the children became planet builders. They were given a fruit to act as their basic planet, and worked in groups to embellish it with buttons, dowel, pins and a range of craft materials.

Once the planets were finished, the groups became exploratory teams, trying to learn more about the other teams' planets. They constructed viewing scopes from rolled up card, through which they had to study their chosen planet. They first had a brief, distant view (to simulate earth-bound observations). They used their discoveries from this initial observation to plan the next stage: a fly-by. This simulated a planetary probe gathering information about a planet as it passed by. The third stage was to orbit the planet. This allowed the groups to see the planets much closer and to get a 360 degree view.

Combining all their observations, the children then chose a landing site for closer inspection. They could examine this point in great detail, but could not see further afield.

The explorations were modelled on the real processes involved in studying the other planets in our solar system.

Thomas Mills Armada Day

Today year 5 and 6 headed off to Thomas Mills for a fantastic cross-curricular day all about the Tudors and, in particular, the Spanish Armada.

We were joined by pupils from Dennington Primary and divided into two groups by year group.

Year 5 began the day in the DT room, building a model of an Elizabethan English warship. In under two-hours, the children were able to create a superb model, using a range of tools that are not available to them at primary school.

Meanwhile, the year six pupils learnt about the Spanish Armada and how they met their downfall due to a combination of good English tactics and superior ships and weapons, mistakes on the part of the Spanish, and most importantly, the good old British weather!

This was followed by a maths session in which the children played a board game. Their aim was to successfully sail their ships (this time in role as a Spanish flotilla) from Spain to the Spanish Mainland to collect Aztec and Incan treasure for King Phillip.

After lunch the groups swapped over and completed the other activities. It was, as usual, an excellent day that all of the children (and staff) thoroughly enjoyed.

Romans and Greeks Day

On Thursday we celebrated the culmination of our half-term's work on Romans in Blue Class, and Greeks in Yellow Class, with an activity day, in which the children were invited to dress as an Ancient Roman or Greek.

In the morning in Blue Class, we prepared a range of Roman recipes which were taken from the E2BN Cookit! website's History Cookbook. We worked in groups to produce a range of foods (most of which seemed to contain honey) including Bean and Chickpea Salad, Dates Alexandrine, Cucumeres, Tiger Nut Sweets and Honey Cake.

In the afternoon, we dressed up and took in in turns to be slaves, handing around the food to our wealthy masters and mistresses, who were lounging on the floor in true Roman style.

The banquet was followed by some Gladiatorial bouts using the shields, swords and armour that many of us had made for homework (with strict instructions not to actually cause each other any bodily injuries!)

With adrenaline pumping we then set off to the hall where it was finally time to test the trebuchets we had been building in groups. Our target was the fort we produced last week, the ultimate test against marauding hordes!

We were then treated to some Greek Tragedies: a collection of short plays based on Greek myths, performed by Yellow Class. 

Thank you to all the parents who produced the lovely costumes to make this such a special day. We had a fantastic time!

Building a Roman Fort

Over the last three weeks, we have been busy in Blue Class building our own Roman fort, based on Garrianonum (Burgh Castle) which we visited earlier in January.

First we studied the construction of the walls at Garrianonum, and produced designs of flint and tile on polystyrene, which we used to print a pattern for the walls of the fort.

We then cut out and folded the nets which Mr Mansell had designed to build the walls and turrets. Making the corners was quite tricky.

We each produced a building from a net, adding our own decoration based on research from books about the Romans. We made barracks for the soldiers to sleep and train in, granaries to store their food, and forums where they could meet and hold discussions and debates.

On Thursday afternoon we worked together to put all the pieces of wall together and planned the layout of the interior of the fort, using books to help us.

 We hope you like our finished fort. Our plan for next week is to complete the trebuchets we are making and test them against our fort! I wonder which will be the strongest?

If anyone would like to build their own Roman Fort and would like to use the nets, please contact me - I would be happy to share the plans. jamesmansell@earlsoham.suffolk.sch.uk

Bread Making

In Blue Class, over the past two weeks, we have been designing and producing our own bread. We began with some market research, visiting the Kingsmill, Hovis and Warburtons websites to view their product range. The children then used their findings to design their own loaf. We watched the TV adverts of the big three bread companies and discussed their slogans and brand identities, and the children all decided on a company name and slogan of their own.

We learnt how to write a good recipe by studying a Delia Smith recipe in our literacy lessons and then put pen to paper to write our own.

Meanwhile, each group made their first loaf using the recipes they had written and carried out a taste test. They thought carefully about the taste, texture, smell and appearance of their bread, and produced a paragraph of persuasive description to go on their packaging.

The groups also designed and produced a TV advert to sell their product. Here are a sample of their advertisements. We hope you enjoy watching them.