The Twits

Over the past three weeks, we have been working with the ladies from Artbase who have been helping us to create a new display for our classroom.  Following our literacy work on Roald Dahl's  'The Twits' we decided to create portraits of the vile Twits themselves, in the style of the artist Quentin Blake, who illustrated many of the recent editions of Roald Dahl's books.

We began by making pencil sketches of the couple, under the expert tuition of George and Beth from Artbase.  Then, we used black ink to go over our drawings.  Finally, we completed the portraits using watercolour techniques.

Don't they look terrific?

Forest School Fun

What a fun afternoon we had in Forest School! 

Luckily, the weather stayed dry for us as we enjoyed various Forest School activities this afternoon.  Wrapped up warmly against the late autumn chill, the children had a brilliant time building dens, playing in the mud kitchen, digging and making homes for hedgehogs and other wildlife in need of shelter.  Some of the children were also able to use the tools to create their own Santa Sticks - a traditional Scandinavian Christmas decoration.

 We will have our second and final Forest School session of the year next Friday, so please remember to bring warm clothes and wellies again then.

Rock Hunting Rocks!

3V continued their scientific study of rocks by making the most of a dry (if blustery!) afternoon outside in the school grounds.  The children were looking to see how many different kinds of rocks we have here at Swan Lane.  The results might well surprise you!

First, we reminded ourselves about the three main kinds of rocks: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.  We shared ideas as a class about how we might spot the different kinds of rocks, and looked again at some photographs of different varieties.  We wondered whether we would find any or all of them in the school grounds?

We found an astonishing array of different rocks within a few metres of our own classroom!  We found granite, chalk, mudstone, slate and quartz almost immediately, as well as a number of different rocks that were trickier to identify.  

We even found a fabulous fossil in one of the stones!

There were one or two red herrings though: we learnt that bricks and concrete aren't really rocks, even though they are hardwearing and often used in building.

Although this looks impressive, it's not really a rock.  

If you look closely, you can see a fossilised shell on this rock!