Wet Felting

Today, Julie Harrison came into class to teach the children about wet felting.  They learned the process, the history, and the science of wet felting and made a large collaborative piece to celebrate 'Arts Week'. It was messy but a lot of fun. We can't wait to get the finished piece back so we can admire our hard work. Thank you, Julie.

Play in a Day

Lisa, from Lynx Theatre, came in today to prepare a 'play in a day' with the children.  They chose 'Grecian 2000', a twist on the story of Odysseus. The children completed a workshop, were given roles, practised and then performed in front of the whole school. It was fabulous, amusing and very entertaining. Well done Year 6!

Paired Reading

Year 6 enjoyed some paired reading in the sunshine today with the very clever year 2s.

Pig Hearts

In Science today, we explored pig hearts as part of our circulation topic. The children were able to investigate the inner-workings of the heart and try and spot the different parts that we’d been learning about in class. It was messy, informative and a lot of fun!

Wordsworth Workshop

Today, Catherine Kay from the Wordsworth Trust came into class to deliver a Wordsworth Workshop. The children learned about William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, and all about where they lived and when. We used copies of an old handwritten letter as a secondary source to discover information about Wordworth’s family and to learn about how letters were delivered more than 170 years ago.

The children then all had the opportunity to write with quill and ink. It was an interesting day but the children are all glad they can write with normal pens!

The Effects of Smoking

In science we have been looking at the human body and the circulatory system.  Today the children were asked to discuss the effects of smoking on our bodies. They were given pictures of some conditions and ailments that occur from smoking and had to rank them. Some very deep discussion followed, with each group justifying their ideas. Hopefully thirty more non-smokers of the future!

Easter Homework

The children were asked to make something to celebrate our new topic - Ancient Greece.

They really impressed us with their efforts. Some drew information posters, some modelled something, others made theatres and games. What an imaginative lot they are!

Science Week

We had a visit from Professor Boffin who came into school to talk about the 'fire triangle'.  He showed us lots of cool experiments with fire and even set fire to Mrs Fawcett's £20!  Then he carried out a workshop with Year 5 and 6 where we observed lots of scientific theory in practice.  It was very exciting and gave us some ideas of investigations to do back in class.  Thank you Professor Boffin!

THE 'SPELLBINDING' READING CHALLENGE HAS ARRIVED! 

Year Six were introduced to their new challenge today: Cumbria Library Service's reading challenge 'Spellbinding'. Cumbria Library has selected ten of the best children's books from 2017. We are challenging our Year Six children to read as many of these as possible before the end of the Easter holidays. Today the children were introduced to the books and had time to explore and discuss them. Excitement buzzed around the room as children passed around and delved into our new paper arrivals! They then chose their first book to take home.

This challenge always enthuses our children to read for pleasure. Some children in previous years have read all ten! 

Which book will be their favourite?

Who will enjoy their first book the most?

Which one will they read next?

Who will read more than five or even all ten?

We love reading in Year Six and this challenge is right up our street! 

Evolution Investigation- Darwin's Finches 

We have been learning all about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.Today we learned about Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos Islands in 1835 in which he aimed to prove his theory. He collected a range of finches from these islands and researched them; he noticed that although similar, they had different shaped beaks due to the islands having different foods for the birds to eat.

Today we used different apparatus to replicate the different types of beaks (tweezers, tongs, pegs and pens). We had to investigate which beak would be the best adapted to eating raisins. We timed one minute and had to pick up as many raisins as we could in that time. We represented our results mathematically and made conclusions on our findings. 

WW2 at The Beacon

As part of our WW2 topic, Year Six visited The Beacon Museum in Whitehaven. They took part in WW2 workshops in the morning. This included learning about the role of the ARP warden, evacuation, propaganda and rationing. We handled real artefacts from the war and listened carefully to lots of new and interesting information. 

After lunch, Alan (our guide) took us on a walking tour of the harbour. He told us about how the harbour had changed over history. It was amazing to see old pictures and compare them to how the harbour is today.

We finished the day by looking at real skeletons which were being presented at The Beacon. We read about how these people had died- it was a bit creepy but very interesting. 

Jennifer Carver Cooking Day

Today, the whole school took part in our annual design and technology cooking day. Year Six made carrot cake cupcakes this year. To begin  the day, we researched and designed the toppings for our own cupcakes. Then we got right down to making them. It was messy and good fun! Once the cakes were cooked and cooled, we decorated them using a piping bag then added our icing decorations onto them. We decorated a huge cupcake stand to display our cakes on. 

We had a brilliant day baking!

Imran Visits Us

Today, Imran travelled all the way from Bolton to tell us about his life as a Muslim. First he lead our whole school assembly where he told us all about the five pillars of Islam and what they represent. Year Six were also lucky enough to have a workshop will Imran to learn more about Hajj. Imran took us on a virtual tour of the pilgrimage in our school hall, explaining what happens at each of the stops. We loved listening to this information and found Imran's beliefs and way of life interesting. 

At Bookwell, we have good British Values and understand the importance of respecting others who are different to us. We hope to see Imran again soon to learn more!

Fossils!

We have recently been learning about the fossilisation process. We have done lots of activities to help our understanding of this. Today we made our own fossils by making a natural mould of a shell in clay then pouring plaster of Paris into the mould. We discussed how each step of the process links to the fossilisation process. We then painted our fossils to help them to camouflage into sand. We plan on using brushes to excavate them like real palaeontologists.

Creative Writing 

We are reading ‘Skellig’ as our class novel this half term. We have really enjoyed the beginning of the book and wanted to use David Almond’s writing style to influence our own writing. We analysed how Almond created tension and interest in his fictional writing. We then used our ideas as a success criteria to continue the story. We went through a rigorous editing process to make sure that our writing was as interesting and accurate as it could be.

Science Show- Lakes College 

Today we visited Lakes College to be part of an exciting science show, which had been brought to Cumbria all the way from London! The show was all about how our bodies break down food. We followed the journey of our food from putting it in our mouth all the way until it became faeces and 'exited' the body. We looked at real video footage of food in different parts of the body such as the oesophagus, stomach and rectum. 

We loved all of the gory parts and found the whole show really interesting.