Friday 23 October 2015

Happy Half Term!

Source: bestanimations

I hope you all have a safe, happy and healthy week off- make sure you get out and about in the fresh air! Try to do some reading every day and take some time to make a beautiful front cover for your new WW1 topic folder. Enjoy a rest and lots of time to play and have fun this week!

When you do have some time on the computer, you could play this fun Halloween game:

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Source: http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/fun-games/haunted-house-level-2

Thursday 22 October 2015

Wear it PINK day!

 Today, St. Anthony's went pink! Everyone came into school wearing something pink to raise money and awareness for Breast Cancer Care. Every member of St. Clare's brought in a donation of at least a penny. We looked absolutely marvellous today- here are some pictures of us having lots of fun in pink today- you can't see our faces, but you can see our fab outfits, wigs and accessories!


The Strongest Girl in the World!



A recommendation from our Reading Leaders, Mina and Jessica:

 
  Source: Sally Gardner, thebookdepositry

'The Strongest Girl in the World' 

This fabulous book is for all ages; it’s humorous and mind blowing!

Nothing can beat this book; it’s the strongest book in history. Sally Gardner is an amazing writer and the illustrator is an amazing drawer! Can you beat the strongest girl in the world? Even the strongest, muscly and bravest man in the world can’t beat Josie Jenkins!

Everyone wants to be Josie or do they?

This Marcellus story is full of tricks, jokes and laughter. We really recommend this book, good luck reading!

A Fabulous Trip!



Yesterday we had a fantastic day at Dulwich Picture Gallery! We spent the morning with an artist called Jo, who taught us all about M.C. Escher. Jo told us about Escher's interest in Arabic tile prints, particularly inspired by the tiles of the Alhambra Palace in Spain. We learned that Escher used tessellations and metamorphosis to create some of his artwork.


We made some beautiful prints of our own, in the style of Escher.


We began by drawing our design onto a polystyrene tile, then had to use a biro to press hard and make grooves in the tile.




Next, we used rollers to roll out the printing ink onto a plate. We used the roller to transfer the ink from the plate onto our tiles;




Then we collaged some coloured paper and carefully lined it up with our tile.


The next step was to use the printing press, which was lots of fun!
Finally, we peeled the paper off the tiles to see our completed prints! They were beautiful!




In the afternoon, we were very lucky to be given a guided tour of the special M.C. Escher exhibition and to have the opportunity to discuss some of the other paintings from the gallery's main collection.

After half term, our prints will be put together to make one big Escher-inspired piece of art, which will be proudly on display in our classroom. Come and take a look soon!

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Trip Tomorrow!

 Source: http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/2015/october/the-amazing-world-of-m-c-escher/

Tomorrow, we will be visiting the wonderful M.C. Escher exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, then having a special workshop where we will be using our practical art skills to make some artwork of our own.

You will need a packed lunch, water bottle and a rain coat as the weather forecast is not looking brilliant and we will be working!

We have an exciting day ahead of us, so make sure you come prepared!

Friday 16 October 2015

Story Writing Homework

http://www.polkatheatre.com/editorial/box-of-photographs-intro
 Source: http://www.polkatheatre.com/editorial/box-of-photographs-intro

This week, your homework challenge is to write a 500 word short story for a competition. If your story is chosen as one of the winners, it will be included in a brand new professionally staged show performed at the Polka Theatre! Wow!

To begin, read the introduction to the story:

http://www.polkatheatre.com/editorial/box-of-photographs-intro

The, look through the photographs:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132905533@N04/sets/72157655699333181

You need to bring the photos to life by writing a story inspired by them.

Please bring your story into school before Tuesday- do not send your entry off to the address on the website. We will check them and send them all off together.

The rules to follow:
  • The story cannot be longer than 500 words.
  • You must type or neatly handwrite your story. If the judges can't read it, they can't judge it!
  • The story must be inspired by the photographs.
  • On the front page of your story please write the title of your story, plus your full name, school, year group and age. Please provide the contact details (address, phone number and email) of an adult we can contact if you are one of the shortlisted stories - either a teacher or family member.
  • It must be your own, original work.

Top Tips!
  • Make sure your story has a clear beginning, middle and end.
  • Use some exciting language- amazing adjectives, adverbs and connectives.
  • As you only have 500 words, keep the story simple and don't have too many characters.

Friday 9 October 2015

Science Homework- Parts of a Flower

 Source: Ronald Locke
 
Your homework this week is all about flowers! Here are some useful links that might help you:

A great BBC Bitesize site with information about the lifecycle of flowering plants and a labelled diagram of the parts of a flower:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/science/living_things/plant_life_cycles/read/3/
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/science/living_things/plant_life_cycles/read/3/

Play this fun game to put a flower together, then label the parts. It will help remind you of all the things you need to include in your poem/song/rap to teach other children about the parts of a flower:

http://www2.bgfl.org/bgfl2/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/science/plants_pt2/parts.htm
 Source: http://www2.bgfl.org/bgfl2/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/science/plants_pt2/parts.htm

Ingenious Inventions!


This week, St. Clare's classroom has become an inventors' workshop! We each thought of an invention that would solve a real-life problem, then drew it and annotated our diagrams in detail. We then wrote some excellent explanations about our inventions and how they work. Today, we made our prototypes! We decided that we did not need to use the real materials for our inventions, or make them full-size, but instead made smaller models to demonstrate how they would look and how they would work.

Here are some fantastic examples of our prototypes. Can you guess what each invention does?









Thursday 8 October 2015

Big City Stories


Today we had a fantastic trip to the East Dulwich Picturehouse Cinema. We were fortunate to see a special series of short film clips called 'Big City Stories' all about the history of London's black community. Our workshop was led by June, who collected the archive films and taught us all about the lives of various Londoners throughout the 20th century. We had discussions about many of the issues and ideas raised in the film clips.

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Harvest Festival

 Source: clipartpanda

On Thursday at 2:30pm we will be celebrating our Harvest Festival Service at school.  Each class will be presenting a box of donations. We will be collecting for the Manna Day Centre again this year which offers help to around 150  homeless and needy people every day, providing breakfast, lunch, shower facilities and housing advice.  

If you are able to do so, please bring in a donation of:

sugar, tinned vegetables, deodorant, 
powdered milk, breakfast cereals, soap,
tinned tomatoes, squash, shaving foam,
rice, coffee or shampoo 

We do not yet have many donations from St. Clare's Class. Let's show that we want to help- remember:

St. Clare's Cares!



Monday 5 October 2015

'Trapped': A Poem by St. Clare's Class


Last week we worked together to write a poem as a class. Following the dramatic events of 'The Templeton Twins Have an Idea', we wrote our poem on the theme of being kidnapped.

The children offered ideas for lines for the poem and we wrote them on strips of paper. We made sure that we included some similes, metaphors and alliteration.

 
Then we made a ladder with the strips of paper and moved them around until we felt that it was in the correct order. We then went through the editing process, changing a few words to improve the rhythm of the poem and adding punctuation where necessary. Our final job was to come up with the perfect title for the poem. 

Here is our wonderful final poem- we are very proud of it!

Trapped

Fear has taken over,
The damp dungeon smells of last night's meatloaf,
The dungeon is a fearsome forcefield.

Tied with tape like a mummy's bandages,
Our hope is melting like a snowman in spring.

A slug stopped in its tracks by salt,
A mouse trapped in a mouse trap,
A helpless lamb trapped in barbed wire,
A pathetic cow trapped in an abattoir.

Fear is swelling like the water inside the Titanic.

Will this change our lives forever?


By, St. Clare's Class, October 2015