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The Y1 and Y2 children were so excited to welcome Sheila Gewolb to talk to them yesterday afternoon. They've been learning about Passover and Shabbat in class and they were eager to find out more from our Jewish visitor.
They all listened intently as Sheila reminded them of the story of Passover in her own words and they were very keen to ask questions. Sheila then talked about Shabbat and showed the children lots of Jewish items. The children loved looking at these, trying things on and asking even more questions. Then it was time to taste the Challah bread and the Matzo crackers. This caused a great deal of excitement!
What a fabulous afternoon of learning, consolidating what they'd already learnt in class and then adding to it by asking questions and looking at the Jewish items.
Thank you so much Sheila. We look forward to seeing you in school again soon. Shalom!
As part of our 'Investigate' pathway, we have been learning about different celebrations all around the world. We learned all about the Haft Sin table at Nowruz (Persian New Year) and the Hindu festival of Holi; we concluded with the Lunar New Year.
After reading the story of how the Jade Emperor named the years of the zodiac according to which animals crossed the river, we used puppets to re-enact the story ourselves and ordered the numerals to match. Our artistic and dramatic skills have been used too, painting the Chinese dragon and role-playing a traditional Chinese celebration meal in the home corner.
Congratulations to the RED TEAM who were our team point winners last term. As a treat, they received hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows in the sensory garden.
Well done to the red team.
P3 have been studying William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We performed a scene from the play and used our garden to give an authentic set!
Children and staff dressed up in costumes relating to numbers today because it is NSPCC Number Day 2024. In assembly, they were discussing work that the NSPCC does and the children that are supported by the charity. A few number jokes were delivered by Year 6 children and we admired the different costumes that were worn by the children and the staff.
During the day, the children have been involved in many fun activities all connected with numbers. Baking, card games, board games, number investigations, PE games, bingo to name just a few.
Well done everyone for making it such a great number day!
Following the workshop in school, the children in P4 and P5 had a day exploring Stone Age topic in the local area. They visited Castlerigg Stone Circle where guides from English Heritage told them all about the local legends around the stone circle and also talked about how the stones had actually been moved into the circle and where they came from.
The next activity was a visit to Keswick Museum where they made a human timeline reinforcing their understanding of where the Stone, Bronze and Iron Age fitted into their history curriculum. They then attended some ‘hands-on’ workshops and acted as archaeologists finding Stone Age artefacts in the ground.
‘Woodmatters’ delivered an inspiring, hands-on educational Stone Age workshop to all the children in KS2. The session formed a great stimulus for discussion and debate around the topic the children have been studying in history this term.
They had the opportunity to make their own axe, createsome rock art and learned about early human life and survival.
Thank you to Lorraine and Emma for providing hot chocolate to warm us up as it was f-f-f-reezing cold!
(For all pictures, please see your class Seesaw pages)
On Saturday 27th January, a group of 120 children from primary schools in Cumbria set off on the Cumbria Primary Schools’ ski trip to Artesina, Italy. Mrs Fish, our headteacher, has accompanied 14 children from Bridekirk Dovenby School - 9 from year 6 and 5 from year 5.
They have had an action packed first day, all participating at different levels depending on their experience. Some children from Bridekirk are going for the second year and for others it is their first experience of a school trip abroad. We are looking forward to hearing all about the trip and their adventures in the snow! For more pictures and videos please click on this LINK.
First snow fall of the year - not much, but enough to have some fun on the playground. The snow encouraged collaborative play as children worked together to build structures quickly before the snow melted.
Sadly, there weren’t any additional flurries before lunchtime to make more snowmen but at least they’d had fun playing with the thin covering on the playground at first break.
It’s still early in the year so maybe we’ll have another snow day with, hopefully, enough snow to sledge in!
At Bridekirk Dovenby School reading is prioritised and the staff work tirelessly to ensure as many pupils read for pleasure as much as possible. There are a variety of different ways teachers do this. Class readers are carefully chosen to inspire children to read sequels, book corners are attractive and promote feature authors, Spellbinding competition attracts groups of children as they strive for the passport and children can earn points in Accelerated Reader. A more recent initiative is the weekly delivery of First News to satisfy the needs of children who like to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in the real world! Teachers read children’s fiction so they can make recommendations. What next?