February was a short month with half term but we still managed to have fun learning new things.

After half term we introduced our new question - 'Where Do We Live?'. We wrote some questions about what we would like to find out including 'Where does the Tamar river start and finish?'.
Then we learnt about the difference between physical and human features to help us when exploring our local area.
In DT we completed our aeroplanes, have a look at the photos, they are fabulous!
In music we are learning to play the glockenspiel. We have learnt how to play B and A and we are hoping to be able to play 'Hot Cross Buns' in time for Easter!
In art we have started a new unit on drawing and sketchbooks. This week we practised drawing different types of lines and patterns.
In literacy we have been writing poems based on the book 'I Love Bugs' by Emma Dodd. We wrote some amazing poems of our own called 'I Love Pets.'

In science we have continued to learn about different groups of vertebrates and their characteristics. We sorted animals by vertebrate group and by their diet. We have also written fact files about animals including lots of scientific language. 
In maths we have been focusing on calculations using numbers within 20. In our Mastering Number sessions we have been exploring odd and even numbers.
We have concluded our geography learning about 'What will you fins where the land meets the sea' by reflecting on how human activity is changing what we can find at the water's edge. We read a story called 'Clean Up!' and saw videos and images of the effect plastic pollution is having on the sea and the animals that live in it.
In art we have created paintings in the style of the abstract artist Alma Thomas. It has been great fun to experiment with her style and to use a combination of brush painting and printing with paints to achieve the final pieces we are happy with. We are now moving onto the skill of collage. We have begun this with a class collage of the sunset over the sea. We chose cool colours for the sea and warm colours for the sun and sunset sky. 
February also brought us Online Safety Day. This fit well with our term's computing learning which has been all about online safety. We have used the Digiduck stories from Childnet as a way to explore the themes of online safety.
We now have a new history big question 'How do we know about dinosaurs?'. We have already discovered that special scientists called paleontologists learn about prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs through studying fossils.

January was an exciting month with our trip to Ferry Farm.
We got to meet the animals and find out how they are looked after and how farming can co-exist in harmony with wildlife.
We also had fun in the woods collecting treasures and hunting for animal habitats.
When we got back to school we were able to look very closely at our treasures under our new microscopes that Mrs Cox bought us.
We also explored eggs that we collected from the farm. We boiled some and compared them to raw eggs which was a very smelly but fun and interesting session. This linked to our work on lifecycles. We looked at lifecycles of humans, frogs and butterflies and we can all explain what the word 'metamorphosis' means!

In history we have been learning about Amelia Earhart. We wrote down questions we wanted to find out the answers to and then we learnt about her life and her achievements. We looked at early attempts to fly and compared the Wright brothers glider to a modern aeroplane.
We also managed to sequence flying machines throughout the ages.

In DT we have designed our own aeroplanes to make using recycled materials. We are looking forward to finishing them but it will take a while with all the different stages we need to work through.

 

We returned in the New Year to a cold snap which gave us a great opportunity to learn about how to dress for winter to keep ourselves warm. Outside we found ice shapes and icicles and used our senses to explore, feeling the freezing cold ice, looking at the pretty patterns in the ice and listening to it crunch on the floor as we stomped on it. We looked at different shaped snowflakes and decorated our own paper snowflakes using pipettes to squeeze paint. We looked at wintery trees and used cotton buds to make snow effects.

We also learnt about animals from colder climates, using Duplo and Megablocks to make them homes and sorting them by size. 

We enjoyed lots of visits to other parts of the school, borrowing books to take home as well as developing our gross motor skills riding the wiggle bikes in the hall.

January also saw the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Count and we made seed bird feeders to take home to encourage birds to visit out own gardens. We also learnt about common garden birds in our birdwatching area. Our children also shared their findings by bringing in their charts from home to tell us which birds they saw. 

One of our story focus’ this month was ‘Owl Babies’ and our children used some great vocabulary telling us what they already know about owls  - “Owl are nocturnal”. The children observed photos of owls and painted their own, using great details and features.

In our child interest area, the children voted for Space, and we enjoyed lots of space related activities, including games that promoted turn taking and sharing.

The children also chose a horse and pony area and worked together using junk modelling to make them some stables to live in.

Our White Rose Maths focus was Space, Shape and Measure and we looked at the properties of the shaped blocks and used them to create our own models and pictures.

January in the ARC

Our topic this half term has been vehicles and journeys. We have been learning about different types of vehicles, listening to vehicle stories and taking different modes of transport. 

Last Tuesday we took a train trip to Bere Ferres from Gunnislake. When we were at the station we were lucky enough to have a ride on the steam train that sits at the station. It looks quite different on the inside to the trains that we have today. When the ride was over, we ate our packed lunches while sitting in the carriage. 

In Art we began the the term with colour mixing circles. We then used the circles to create vehicle collages. We think they look fantastic!

Next week we will be taking a bus trip to Tavistock. We will get a chance to play at the park and have a picnic packed lunch. 

This might sound like fun but there is actually so much learning involved when we take a day out. The children have to use checklists to get themselves ready for the trip which encourages independence. We are practicing road safety skills, communication skills ( asking for tickets and liaising with the public). We can also practice our self regulation during a visit out. There are some things that our some of our children struggle with (- e.g walking past a dog.) When we go out regularly, we have a chance to support our children with the things they find tricky and often it desensitizes them so that it is no longer a big problem. 

Happy New Year! 
This half term our big question is 'What do you find where the land meets the sea?' We have been learning the names and positions of the continents and oceans and have re-capped the countries that make up the United Kingdom.
We have started to learn about an abstract artist called  Alma Thomas. Through her work we have learnt about primary and secondary colours. We have also tried to create pictures in her style.
In maths we have been learning to read, write order and compare numbers to 20.

Happy New Year and welcome back to school!

It was lovely to see the children back to school today, refreshed and ready to learn.
Please see the newsletter attached to find out what we will be learning about this half term.

We really enjoyed December for many reasons but mainly due to performing our play 'Christmas with the Aliens'.
It was hard work and we needed to practise lots but it was a really spectacular performance enjoyed by many of our families and friends.
It built up our confidence with speaking in front of an audience and despite some nerves, we totally smashed it!

In Science we carried on learning about habitats and learnt about the creatures that live in polar and desert habitats.

In literacy we were learning the story 'The Elves and the Shoemaker'. We really enjoyed writing about what our naughty elves had been up to in school and at home. 

Finally, as a Christmas treat, we had our annual trip to the theatre to watch Raymond Briggs 'Father Christmas'.
Some of us had never been to the theatre before and it was a wonderful, magical experience. We even had snow!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing you all again in 2025!

November was another busy month!

Our new question was 'What festivals happen around the world in the Autumn?'
We have located different countries and continents on the map and had great fun exploring atlases and maps.

We learnt about Diwali and how this is celebrated in many countries. We linked this to our healthy eating in DT and made mango lassi. We really enjoyed making and tasting this!

We also learnt about the Gunpowder Plot and discussed how it is celebrated in the UK. We made some great firework pictures on the I-Pads learning how to select different colours and different sized brushes.

In Science we started to explore different habitats. We learnt about oceans and rainforests and thought about how the creatures that live there adapt to living in that environment.

We also completed a local history project which helped us to find out why we decided to change our name to Copper Valley Academy.
We explored maps of the local area and looked at pictures of locals towns and villages that we know, mainly those linked to copper mining.
We created some amazing watercolour paintings of these places.

Welcome back! I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas. Please see the newsletter for this term below.

We've been learning about the animals that live in cold places. We looked at a globe and found the Arctic and Antarctica. We then sorted the animals according to where they live. We learnt some facts about these animals and had fun playing with them in our small world area. The children were challenged to write a list of five animals they might see if they went to the Arctic. I was impressed that they all remembered that penguins don't live there. We listened to a story about Hunter the polar bear who had to be rescued from a rocky ledge and flown back to his home in the Arctic. 

We looked at photographs of the Northern Lights and watched a short video clip. We then used chalk and pastels to create our own representations of them.

In maths we've been continuing to practise our subitising skills and number bonds to 5. We've also been learning about patterns and the children have been busy continuing repeating patterns using paint, chains and cubes.

We've been focusing on reading and writing CVC words using the letter sounds we've learnt so far this term. The children have really enjoyed hunting for the CVC pictures that I placed around the room. Many of the children were able to sound out the words independently and write them on their clipboards.

We've also been busy practising our nativity. The children were very brave to get up on the stage in front of an audience of their family and friends. 

What a lovely month of celebration and learning. 
The children did a fantastic job of learning lines and songs for the Key Stage One Nativity show which was a joy to watch. 
In maths we spent some weeks consolidating what we have learnt so far this term and really working on the rapid recall of number binds within 10.
We learnt abut the season of winter and used this as a subject for some descriptive writing. 
The term was rounded off with a special Christingle assembly shared with families.