SHARING KNOWLEDGE

CHESS COACHING - we have an accredited chess coach coming to school on Thursday lunchtimes again this term to run lessons. Term 3 classes start next Thursday 3rd August. This is paid for by parents as it is run by a private outside company.

Here is the info / enrolment form if you are interested. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17gxqqkZYpD4znpaVq-SpjNahNuBwrfTC3eYZscDbnuw/edit?usp=sharing   

 We also have chess club on Tuesday lunchtimes in B9 - that's free but much less formal as I run it and just supervise, and teach bits where I can - I am nowhere near the skill of the accredited coaches! But any child is welcome to come to that. Parents always welcome too if you want to pop in for a game or three :)

SCRATCH CLUB - I have some wonderful year 6 boys running a club on Wednesday lunchtimes teaching scratch programming - any year 3-6 children welcome. (younger children can come too but they would need their own device). I supervise this in B9. If your child has not done scratch before here are some good easy tutorials to walk them through the basics in their own time - the first one is on setting up an account.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThryP6bINxA  Scratch can be found at www.scratch.mit.edu

 There is huge scope for programming using scratch - children have programmed games, presentations, animations etc  I would love more girls to attend - the class is mostly full of boys - if anyone has ideas on how to get girls involved please let me know! 

SHARING KNOWLEDGE - This term we are looking at the concept of movement. If anyone has knowldege that they would be willing to share with the children in any of these areas please let me know - we love visitors! You do not need to be an expert in the field - just any knowledge or interest in the area that you could share is always appreciated :) Kids get so much out of hearing accounts of real people and real experiences / knowledge / jobs (and so do I!).  

Topics: Robotics; Plate Techtonics / earth movement (seismology etc); Animals and movement - how they move and migration patterns etc (vets / scientists??); social movements eg forest and bird, greenpeace, other change organisations; art movement (dance , artists, mime etc); sign language; ocean currents; animation / puppetry etc etc. If you have any areas at all that you would be willing to chat to the kids about (even other than those listed above), please get in touch. It could be as simple as chatting to one group (15-25 students) or to several groups, or a larger group of children - whatever you are willing to do. And it doesn't need to be long - the author who visited my year 5/6 groups this week chatted for about 30-40 minds with a slideshow, and then had about 20 mins of kids asking questions. You could do shorter or longer - whatever you are comfortable with.

MOVEMENT - Term 3 Concept

Welcome back to another Term of School. :)

This term the concept is Movement. Children will be looking at this in their regular classes too. I will be introducing a variety of topics under the concept of movement to show children links and hopefully some new ideas.

We will be looking at movement with maths (speed of things), Science (how things move), Geography, Social science, language, arts, health etc. We will also look at feelings, thoughts, different perspectives, how movement can have knock-on effects - for example, human settlements can affect migration patterns of animals. Well, that's my plan anyway! Sometimes children have ideas that mean we go in a different direction...

This week we will be looking at muscles and how they help us move.

The year 5&6 groups have a special visitor coming on Tuesday - nothing to do with the topic, but an author was offering to visit school groups for free, so I snapped up the opportunity! Zee Southcombe is a writer and an illustrator. She likes to encourage children to have a go and has written several books. I have a couple of her books at school called 'I am a writer' - lots of advice from authors on how to become a writer - and another called 'I am an artist'.