Blackfell Primary School

Electric Start

We have had a fantastic start to our new topic on electricity in our science lesson. We have been looking about mains power and battery powered appliances and realised that some are powered by both. We then worked together to research the dangers of electricity and how to be safe. We created a poster from the information we researched.

Pointillism 

We have begun our new art project in Year 4. We will be making some fabulous creations in our art project. Today we have been exploring the technique of pointillism and altering the shade by adding white pigment. We had a fun time exploring colour.

Tennis

We have continued to develop our tennis skills with the help of Will. We enjoyed this week playing a game of singles. We had to make sure the ball only bounced once and that we had a controlled serve. We are enjoying our tennis lessons.

Summer Disco

We had a great time at the Summer with our friends and the rest of key stage 2. We all looked very summery in our summer clothes. 

Tall Ships and Diversity Week

Here at Blackfell we have been celebrating every body being different and the same. We have been looking at what makes us unique. Along side that we have been celebrating the Tall Ships coming to Sunderland. Each class have researched in depth a different country that is in the race. Take a look at some of the activities we have been enjoying in school.

Unique Me

We have been thinking about what makes us so unique. We began by thinking about our 5 R animals and how we have the qualities of them. Then we thought about how we are a good friend. We represented them on our face with drawings. It was hard to think of our qualities to begin with but once we got started we realised that we had many and that we all had different ones.

Tall Ships

In Year 4 we have been looking at the structure of a Tall Ship. We then worked in groups or individually to design our tall ship. We then created it using a variety of materials. We had to put our tall ship to the test and made sure it floated in water. Some of our boats floated and some sunk. We had great fun creating our ships.

Researching Europe

This term for our geography lesson we will be looking into Europe and all of the countries that are in it. We began by using an atlas and working together to map it out. We then done some independent research and looked at different countries, their capital cities, language spoken and traditional foods. We are looking forward to learning all about Europe.

Gibside Residential

Year 4 has a fantastic time on their residential to Gibside National Park. We took part in a variety of activities including den building, fire making, orienteering and animal tracking. We enjoyed working together and building their team work skills to make their own den to shelter them from the weather and starting a fire to keep them warm. We also made sure that our dens had some homely features including seats and a fire. The children developed their map reading skills to help them find their way around Gibside. For their night time activity, the children learnt how to read animal track and looking for signs of different animals in the area. We set up the motion camera and left it for the night. When we looked at the footage the next day we were all amazed to see we had attracted badgers, mice and deer to our traps. We were also very lucky to see a deer in the grounds when out walking. Both children and staff had a brilliant experience at Gibside.

Centre for Life

We had a fantastic trip to the Centre for Life in Newcastle. When we arrived we took part in a workshop where investigated how animals have adapted to survive in their habitat. We plunged our hands into ice cold water with different gloves on. There was a glove surrounded by blubber, a woolly glove, think glove and we put in a hand with nothing to insulate it. The glove surrounded by blubber was so warm and this showed us how animals in cold climates keep war. We then took part in an experiment to see the effect of shade and wind in hot climates. We spoke about how lions will always look for shade when they are too hot. After our workshop we explored the centre and exhibitions. We loved to the robots and seeing how they have developed over the years. We had a fantastic time at the Centre for Life!

Disney Diversity

In small groups we have been discussing the good qualities of some Disney characters. We have looked at Nemo, Moanna, Elsa, Pinocchio and Simba. We discussed their good qualities but also their flaw to what made them run away from their families. We then wrote a letter to our chosen character telling them what we thought and what we think they should do.

Stampot

Further exploration about the Netherlands made us come across a delicious dish called Stampot. It is a mixture of mash potatoes, vegetables and some smoked sausage. We made our own versions and they were lovely.

Simple Circuits

This week in our science lesson we have been looking how to create a simple circuit. We were given two wires, a battery and a bulb and we had to work out how to make the bulb light up. We then explored the same ideas but using a motor. 

Art Exhibition 

After all of our hard work our pointillism portraits. Today they arrived back into school! We went round with our friends and looked at all the art work children have made. We had fun finding our portraits. We have thoroughly enjoyed our art project!

Northumbria Water

We were all joined by Northumbrian Water who delivered an assembly and workshop about using water wisely. They gave us some hints and tips on saving water through an interactive show where they became 'Super Splash Heroes'. We then joined year 3 and got involved in a workshop where we had to work together to create our own Water Saving Rap! We enjoyed performing and watching others groups raps.

Sports Day

Well done to all f Key Stage 2 who participated in our Sports Afternoon today. The children took part in a range of sporting activities ranging from the traditional egg and spoon race to the vortex throw and dribble. All the children showed good sportsmanship supporting their team and friends during their races. A huge congratulations to pine who won this year.

Orienteering 

We had an exciting start to our chosen country the Netherlands this week! We developed our map reading skills that we learnt at Gibside to read the map for the orienteering course in school. We had to work together to find the boxes and collect the questions. After we had  found all of the questions we researched the answers using the ipads. It was a fun way to begin out topic on The Netherlands! Did you know there are 165 canals in Amsterdam?

Taste of the Netherlands

After creating our own Stampot dish we decided to try some other foods from the Netherlands. We tried sauerkraut, gherkins, Gouda, croquet, chips and mayo, waffles and stroopwaffles. Some of us liked all of the food but the majority were not a fan of the gherkins. A lot of us loved the stroopwaffles though. We enjoyed sampling the foods of the Netherlands.