July 2011

We have been the Champion Chipmunks!

The year has come to an end. I type these words with some sadness. I have enjoyed teaching the Chipmunks for two years now and they have been an absolute pleasure to teach. I hope you take some time to glance through our class page and remind yourselves again about the exciting and eventful year we have just had and I wish every Chipmunk a brilliant and successful year six. Keep working hard. You are all champions!

From Mr. Smith, your very proud class teacher

Barnsley Bowl

We enjoyed a fabulous afternoon at Barnsley Bowl on Tuesday 12^th with the money we raised from our enterprise venture back in the spring term. We enjoyed a great game of ten pin bowling and followed it with dinner.

Game winners included Spenser, Nina, Robyn, Courtney and Lauren. Jacob achieved the highest score of 101.

Bobi joined us for our lunch, following on from her recent wrist injury. It was great to see her and lovely that she could join in with her class celebration.

A special mention must go to Sharna without whom we would not have had such a successful enterprise and enjoyed this amazing afternoon at Barnsley Bowl as it was her early design that triggered off the avalanche of success which was our Easter Feaster.

Thank you to all the staff at Barnsley Bowl for making our visit so enjoyable and all the friendly lorry drivers who either waved to us or blasted their horns in friendly acknowledgement en-route.

…and thank you to the Chipmunks whose behaviour was fantastic throughout! As always, you are all champions to us!

Please look through our photographs of the afternoon on the latest gallery. 

Creative arts afternoon

The children enjoyed screen printing and hat making on Friday afternoon when they were visited by the Emergency Exit arts group from London. They created some lovely prints and the fruits of their labours can again be viewed in this month’s gallery.

Fuddle

It is a good job that we will soon have the six week holiday to run off all the excess calories we are consuming in the Champion Chipmunks classroom as on Thursday (14^th) we are planning on spending some more of our enterprise money on a fun afternoon which will culminate with a fuddle. As it was food that made our enterprise venture so successful, we thought it would be fitting to celebrate with food! We are also going to donate the remaining pounds to our chosen charity which the class have decided should be Cancer Research. A worthy charity I am sure you will agree.

Bag Plea

The Chipmunks will be taking their work home next week. Any plastic bags you could supply for ease of transportation between now and next Wednesday would be greatly appreciated as it would be a shame for the quality work to get lost or spoilt.

Exam Success

The class as a whole has achieved highly in their recent Y5 SATs. Well done Chipmunks! Keep it up for your sixth and final year.

June

Enterprise Ten Pin Bowling Afternoon

We are looking forward to our ten pin bowling afternoon in July. The afternoon is planned for Tuesday 12^th and has been bought with the profits from our highly successful Easter Feaster enterprise project. We will be having an early light lunch at school, before setting off to Barnsley Bowl to enjoy a game of ten pin bowling and a dinner. Look at our website in July for our photographs. Let’s hope we strike it lucky!

Robot Challenge

We have enjoyed our robot challenge sessions tremendously with Mr. Clark. Sadly, these sessions came to an end this week but not before we completed the snail challenge and aimed to program our robots to travel as slowly as possible. You can view our fantastic robot designs in the picture gallery.

Chipmunk Journalists

This week we have transformed our classroom into an editorial room as we have been working hard on our class newspaper. We have worked in teams producing gossip columns, news articles, puzzles and cartoons. We have worked to a really tight schedule in order to meet the printing deadline of 12 p.m. Friday and our work has been watched over carefully by our editors Thomas W, Thomas B, Jasmine and Katy. We have learnt the importance of proofreading and working methodically at speed. We cannot wait to publish and circulate our class newspaper in the next few days and hope it is as good a read as our very own Carlton Weekly!

Cricketing Chipmunks

In P.E., we are currently enjoying the sound of leather on willow. Actually, our bats and balls are plastic but the atmosphere is still as good. We have some talented cricketers in our class and one Chipmunk who bowled us over in particular was Ryan who managed to get two batsmen out in two bowls!

May

Pen Pals

The Chipmunks are currently writing to their new pen pals in Tinsley, Sheffield. Each Chipmunk has received a pen pal and the class are currently introducing themselves to their new friends. Through this initiative, it is hoped the Chipmunks will learn about the similarities and differences between themselves and others, their experiences in living in another part of the region, school life and their different cultures. We look forward to hearing from our new friends in the next few weeks.

Traffic Light Challenge

The Chipmunks have been programming traffic lights in their science sessions with Mr. Clark. The first step was to correctly identify the sequence of traffic lights which proved more thought-provoking than we thought (was it red then amber or red then red and amber?) In the photo gallery this month, you can see the Chipmunks posing with their amazing robots built and programmed in previous science sessions. The sad part of the previous session was in dismantling them all!

Future Sporting Events

A triathlon event at Maltby, Rotherham will be taking place on Thursday (26^th) and we are excited about our entrants who will be taking part in a running, swimming and cycling event. Log on to our webpage in June to find out how they did!

Yorkshire Wildlife Park

We had an amazing time at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park on the 16^th! Everyone enjoyed the meerkats and failed miserably at avoiding saying “Simples!” but the lemurs also found a soft spot in our hearts especially as they were rather up close and personal in their approach to us. We enjoyed a birds of prey display and absolutely loved the death slide in the adventure playground. The weather was kind to us too!

Kingswood

It was great to hear about the brilliant adventures had at Kingswood by a large number of the Chipmunks during their three-day break. They learnt about the importance of teamwork and set themselves some terrific challenges. It was certainly quieter in the Chipmunks classroom on the Thursday and Friday as some very tired Chipmunks struggled through their English and maths lessons and much sleep was later caught up on!

New IPC theme

Our final theme of the year will be called “Making the News” and will have a journalistic focus. Please look out for the newsletter coming home soon about the new theme and find the homework grid link on our webpage to inspire your child in their weekend homework challenges.

Comic Relief

What fantastic and funny clothes the Chipmunks wore in aid of Comic Relief on Friday! We were visited by the 118 guy, a boy in a green curly wig and our very own Mrs. Murray transformed into Sister Sue for the day! There were also some reports of a leprechaun running around in Mr. Smith’s absence. Maybe you can spot him in our most recent photo gallery. Thank you to all who joined in with the fun and wore something funny for money!

Tin Amnesty for Enterprise

We are close now to the manufacturing process for our Easter Feaster enterprise venture after accumulating orders of approximately 200 around school. On Monday, the Chipmunks voted for their favourite recipe for the biscuits that will be produced for the product and it was a very close call between the oatmeal and lemon recipes. Our Dragon’s Den will take place on Wednesday. Watch this space to see how our team got on in front of our secret panel of dragons. In order to keep the biscuits we produce as fresh as possible, we would appreciate your help in donating one tin or Tupperware box which we could use for the period of our enterprise work in order to keep our delicious produce clean and crispy. Please mark any tins and boxes with your child’s name on the front. Boxes big and small are highly welcome as our pre-orders suggest that we are going to be very busy in the kitchen! Thank you for your anticipated support.

Lego Science

We worked with Mr. Clark for the first time last week and were excited about building our Lego robots. Teamwork will be the absolute necessity for the next few weeks as we attempt to program our robots to travel specific set distances. We learnt lots about the explicit components this week and will be busy constructing our robots next session.

New Spelling System

Your child hopefully is now in receipt of their new spellings and you have been updated regarding the new system. If you have any further questions you would like to ask about the trial, please feel free to contact me as always in school.

English

In our English work, we are currently learning about persuasion and how to write persuasively with effect. On Monday, we used conscience alley in order to persuade a number of customers to buy our products. We learnt that those who shout the loudest are not always the most persuasive and a good slogan and a thought provoking rhetorical question definitely plays its part.

Forest

We had a much cleaner Forest lesson in the gorgeous spring sunshine on Monday following our previous daubing session. The Chipmunks are now creating plays to perform in the woodland and using the resources from the forest area for both props and sound effects. Our budding Shakespeares will be working for the next two weeks on their scripts before performing al fresco in the final week of Forest just before Easter.

¿Cómo se dice?

We have been learning Spanish songs in our Spanish lessons. Our new song, ¿Cómo se dice?, is performed to the tune of Rihanna’s “What’s My Name” and aims to teach us about the names of colours in Spanish.

Chipmunks’ Bonus Homework

Look out for the bonus homework hidden near the top of this page. Download it, complete it and return it to school and earn two sticks towards your chance card tally. Good luck!

R. Smith

February 28^th 2011 – March 4^th 2011

Chipmunks in the Forest

This week, we began our woodland learning with Mrs. Harwood. Firstly, we learnt how to identify some of the different tree species in our woodland learning area and were surprised at how many species there were. After that, we decided to test the strength of different wood samples by attempting to hammer a nail into a piece of oak and a piece of pine. One sample was certainly more challenging than the other! We then learnt about the ancient process of wattle and daub in construction and decided to have a go at creating our own structures using some of the more tactile branches from our forest. We learnt about some of the more disgusting ingredients that went into the daub including multifarious animal excrement as well as boys’ urine! We decided that our daub would be a much healthier mix of wet soil and clay! In teams, the Chipmunks began constructing their structures and teamwork proved to be the key to success for the afternoon. You can view our first Forest session in the new picture gallery and please stay posted for further lessons.

PLEASE NOTE: FUTURE FOREST LESSONS WILL NOW TAKE PLACE ON MONDAY AFTERNOONS, NOT WEDNESDAYS. CHIPMUNKS WILL REQUIRE WARM, OLD CLOTHES FOR THE SESSION THAT THEY WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED TO MUDDY OR SPOIL. SENSIBLE OUTDOOR FOOTWEAR IS ALSO REQUIRED.

Tennis

We have started to develop our tennis skills possibly in time for Wimbledon in June. We will be developing our serving skills this week.

PLEASE NOTE: PE HAS MOVED TO TUESDAYS THIS HALF TERM AND THE CHIPMUNKS WILL NOW REQUIRE A COMPLETE OUTDOOR PE KIT WHICH SHOULD INCLUDE TRAINERS AND JOGGING TROUSERS AND TOP IF DESIRED. WE WILL ENDEAVOUR TO HOLD OUR PE LESSONS OUTSIDE AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY.

Bobi’s golden award

Bobi won a golden award this week for her outstanding effort in Forest both as a team player and enthusiastic, hands-on member of the lesson. She is tactile with both the drill and the hammer and worked very hard on her team’s structure. Well done, Bobi!

Enterprise

In the next few weeks, you will be hearing lots on our webpage about our Enterprise project. We now have a completed design for our product which we are aiming to produce and sell to the school community on the lead up to Easter. We have designed an Easter Variety Pack which we have since renamed “The Easter-Feaster”. The product will contain an Easter biscuit, mini-eggs, a joke and a picture to colour in alongside a personalised gift tag, wrapped in a bowed cellophane package. The winning design was whittled down and it was Sharna’s design which the class had the most confidence in. Thank you to Sharna also for spending lots of time making prototypes with her mum at home. The small version was enjoyed by Mr. Elliott for his birthday, who gave the prototype his thumbs up. The finance team worked incredibly hard to price up the resources required and the rest of the class designed the information fliers that the project leaders will need to present to the dragons den committee in the next few days. Congratulations to Katy whose work the class voted as the winning design for the flier. All the Enterprise teams are working very hard and this level of cooperation will be paramount for the success of the venture in the next few weeks. Keep up to date with our webpage to watch our business develop. We are confident that we have a winning product and are looking forward to meeting the dragons soon with our business proposition in order to persuade the dragons to give us our loan.

Science with Mr. Clark

Mr. Clark from Carlton Community College will be working with the Champion Chipmunks from Thursday, March 17^th on a Science project involving, amongst other things, Lego. We are looking forward to working with Mr. Clark and getting very “hands on” with our Science over the next eight weeks.

Happy Birthday Mrs. Murray

We celebrated Mrs. Murray’s birthday last week with some very delicious chocolate cake at the end of the school day. Happy birthday Mrs. Murray

1980s School

The Chipmunks were given a flavour of school life in the 1980s and were able to make comparisons with the 1950s and their own school life. Although they preferred the 1980s school to the 1950s school, the Chipmunks found the lack of structure frustrating and did not like the long queue at the teacher’s desk in order to have their books marked. The Chipmunks held a very interesting question and answer session with Mr. Smith who was able to discuss his own experience as a pupil in the 1980s. The work later formed the basis of report writing in the Chipmunks’ Small Write session.

Parent Consultation Meetings

I am thrilled to welcome all twenty seven parents to parents’ consultation meetings this week. It is so encouraging to have such an overwhelming positive response. I will endeavour to use the meetings to inform you of your child’s progress since September and at this mid-year point discuss targets and next steps for the rest of the year. I ask kindly that all parents respect the ten minute meeting time in order to avoid over-running and delaying subsequent meetings. I look forward to discussing the many positive elements of your child’s progress at the meeting. I will be located in the staff study room for all meetings on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 8^th and the Class RS classroom on Wednesday, March 9^th directly after school. I look forward to seeing you over the two dates.

Mr. R. Smith

April

A new Chipmunk has joined us!

Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Thomas to our class. Welcome, Thomas! I hope you enjoy your term as a Champion Chipmunk. We are thrilled to have you as part of the team!

Easter Feasters

We have had a cracking time making our “Easter Feasters” in Class RS as part of our Enterprise project. On Monday, we baked in excess of one hundred bunny biscuits and managed to create eighty Easter Feaster packages for our final day of trading. Within ten minutes of trading, we had completely sold out of Easter Feasters! This has been a real team effort with Chipmunks divided into specific teams. A cartoon team has helped produced some staggeringly brilliantly cartoon strips for the packages whilst a team of joke writers and compilers had been finding their funny-bones for the jokes you found inside your Easter Feaster packages! Another group had been hard at work cutting ribbon, wrapping cellophane and designing gift tag bows for the overall package. We found the cellophane particularly fiddly at times! 

The biscuit baking element was a true team effort with everyone assigned to the role of chef. The hardest part was resisting munching on the mini-eggs! Our Research Team will be compiling feedback from our customers early next week. Mr. Elliott, a very satisfied customer, commented that the biscuits were best eaten in conjunction with one of the chocolate eggs for a truly mouth-watering experience. Luke Williams in Year six stopped me in the corridor to tell me that he thought the Easter Feaster was fantastic!

The Champion Chipmunks would like to thank everyone who has supported out Enterprise venture thus far and helped us raise in excess of £250. Later in the term, we will be deciding as a class what to spend the money on!

Royal Wedding Celebrations

On Thursday, we teamed up with the Supreme Sixes to hold our royal wedding party. Everyone came dressed up and looked extremely smart. We played traditional party games in the hall before devouring a red, white and blue themed buffet which included cucumber sandwiches and cakes. The Union Jack biscuit display looked particularly impressive! Later in the afternoon, we enjoyed a long playtime on the grass field.

May Trips Pending

We will be off on our travels in the next few weeks. On May 16^th, most of the Chipmunks will be enjoying a three-day residential holiday at Kingswood with Miss. Hodkin and Miss. Warren. Keep an eye on the website throughout May for a full report on their activities and antics. The rest of us, alongside the lower junior classes, will be visiting the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster on May 16^th. We are hoping for the fine weather to continue and can’t wait to see the wild animals on display. Who knows, we might even see some real Chipmunks! For those children attending the Yorkshire Wildlife Park excursion, a final letter explaining plans and schedules for the day will be sent home to you very shortly.

New Groups

You will notice new colour groups being used for mathematics homework and reading groups in class. This shift is to support consistency across school in the organisation of ability groupings and ensuring appropriate differentiation of task. The new groups do not apply to your child’s spellings which will again be tailored to their individual needs from book marking and ongoing assessment.

PE Arrangements for May

May I request that your child brings their outdoor PE kit to school on Tuesdays and keeps the kit at school for the entire week? I intend to schedule some impromptu PE sessions as and when the weather dictates. This term, we will be developing our skills with the bat and ball further focusing on both Rounders, a personal favourite of mine, and Cricket.

Here’s to a highly enjoyable final term in year five! Where has the year gone?

R. Smith, Class RS teacher

February 7^th – February 18^th 2011

A Ugandan Flavour

If you heard the thundering sound of drums erupting from the walls of Carlton Primary School as you travelled by on Fish Dam Lane on Thursday afternoon, a large bookcase had not collapsed. It was the rumbling sound of our visitors from Uganda entertaining our children and teaching them about the culture and customs of Africa. This was one performance which was as amazing on the ears as it was on the eyes!

Moses and Joseph are visiting Barnsley throughout the winter months in order to teach primary school children about life in Uganda. Beyond this however, they are also raising urgent funds for the children of their country to help improve their quality of life.

During the afternoon, a question and answer session took place and the children raised some very interesting questions. We learnt the process of making African drums, the food the people ate and the extremes of the temperatures there. We also learnt about how friends and family greet each other, the differences in jobs between England and Uganda and that there are not many car washes in Africa!

An afternoon parent and child assembly was held in the key stage two hall immediately after school to treat the adults to the amazing show our children had enjoyed hours earlier. They also displayed a range of African crafts, including drums, hats and bracelets which were for sale. All the funds raised by these purchases contributed towards the cause. We would like to thank all the children for their fantastic questions and for all the adults who attended the performance after school.

Moses and Joseph’s visit to Carlton was just one experience provided for our children as part of our developing work relating to the establishment of a global community at Carlton. Already we are linked with a school in northern Spain and recently our year four children have been working closely with a class of primary age Spanish children, communicating over the internet and sharing experiences of school life. Other classes will have the opportunity to communicate with our friends in Spain in due course. This work also aims to underpin our Spanish teaching across school. In addition, we also enjoyed a modern foreign languages day in January where the children studied German, Italian, Dutch, French and Spanish all in one action packed day. The feedback from the children was very positive and we are already looking forward to planning our next modern foreign languages day in early April.

In an ever expanding global community, through advanced technological development and world travel, we value the importance of developing our children as global citizens at Carlton.

Woodland Learning in Spring Term (2)

A reminder that next half term, the Champion Chipmunks will be taking part in their woodland learning activities with Mrs. Harwood. As the weather could still be unkind, it is really important that the Chipmunks come to school on Wednesdays with appropriate woodland kit, including old trainers or wellington boots (according to the weather conditions), warm clothes and gloves or mittens. Keep an eye on the website throughout March to observe their progress. Mrs. Harwood has some amazing activities in store!

Enter the Dragon’s Den

March will prove to be a very busy month for the Champion Chipmunks as they embark on their enterprise work. They will be deciding on a project before the end of half term to take to the “dragon’s den” and hopefully win over the attention of Miss. Hall and a group of school governors! Profits raised from the project will be spent by the Chipmunks on something for the classroom or playground. We look forward to out entrepreneurs astounding us with their business brains. Again, look out for updates on the website.

New Spellings

Please use the link to download the spellings for the next half term.

Illuminating Science

The Champion Chipmunks rounded off their work on electrical circuits by creating some buzzing, motorised and illuminating creations which included pigs with revolving tails, rainbows with moving clouds and spinning bow ties. You can see their creations in this month’s picture gallery alongside the photographs from our Ugandan afternoon.

Go Katy!

An enormous “well done” to Katy who achieved twenty five chance cards this week and is the first Champion Chipmunk to achieve a gold star badge from Miss Hall. Katy’s achievement is even more brilliant as she is the first child to reach twenty five chance cards in the entire school! This achievement is due to Katy’s relentless effort to do well in her lessons, her exemplary behaviour and her readiness to learn. Congratulations Katy. I am sure that many other Chipmunks will be achieving this standard in the next few weeks.

Tests

Finally, a big thank you goes out to the Champion Chipmunks for all their hard work during February’s assessment week. I look forward to discussing their progress with you during the parent consultation meetings scheduled for March, details to follow.

February 2010

The Chipmunks have been investigating two way switches in Science and had to don their electrician heads in order to solve the mystery of how the landing light can be switched on downstairs and turned off upstairs. They have been using correct electrical symbols in order to record their circuits.

They have been listening to and appraising music from the 1950s. As part of their musical challenge, the Chipmunks remixed “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley and brought it kicking and pelvic swinging into the 2010s. Amongst other make-overs, the Chipmunks managed to perform a Tinie Tempah and Pink inspired rendition of the song.

In English, the Chipmunks have been creating their own myths and legends, exploring, amongst other themes, how the sun was created and why the seas have tides.

In dance, they have been creating disco-inspired dance-floor shapes to Abba’s “Dancing Queen”. Jacob did a solo dance and was the John Travolta of the dance-floor! We will be attacking the 1980s next week with a Michael Jackson themed dance sequence!

In music, the Chipmunks have been listening to and appraising music over the decades. At the moment, they love the 1960s especially The Beatles. Please come and look at their Elvis Presley inspired guitars on the display in class.

January 4^th – January 14^th 2011

In order to launch our new theme, “Britain since the 1950s”, the Chipmunks and Super Sixes had a taste on Monday of what it would have been like to attend school in 1951. The children spent the morning learning the Lord’s Prayer, singing traditional hymns in the hall (with some excellent piano playing from Mr. Smith!) and learnt their spellings by copying them from the blackboard. They took part in communal reading and practised their handwriting.

After break, the children rehearsed their tables before partaking in arithmetic. This followed an energetic PT session in the school hall.

Afterwards, the children evaluated the morning and most agreed that they would not have wanted to have gone to school in 1951. The girls, both Mr. Smith and Mrs. Murray agreed, were certainly the better behaved and could sit up the straightest! You can view our 1951 morning in the latest picture gallery and on the display outside Class RS.

In R.E., the Chipmunks have been studying Buddhism and the important beliefs related to those who follow this religion. We agreed that some of the teachings are well matched to the beliefs we share, especially those linked to being a good citizen. We enjoyed discussing what we thought ‘nirvana’ ultimately was and we created some excellent pictures to reflect our learning.

On Tuesday we were treated to the Harlequin Theatre who entertained us for the afternoon.

On Wednesday, the Chipmunks created presentations to share with the Busy Bees about the dangers of electricity. They used both art and drama to communicate their important messages to their infant audience.

Congratulations to Thomas and Tyler for achieving maximum scores for the entire autumn term in their spelling tests. Be very proud of your outstanding achievement

December 13^th – December 21^st 2010

We are the Autumn Term 2010 best attendees of Carlton Primary School!

WE DID IT!

The Champion Chipmunks won best attendance in the school for the Autumn Term of 2010, racking up a total of 90 points.

As a result of our amazing achievement, we were treated to an absolutely fantastic day with Mrs. Harrison and Miss Sagar where we made Christmas cards, Christmas decorations, played some fun games in the hall and enjoyed the odd Christmas pudding sweet or two!

You can view our day in the latest photo gallery. We would like to say a special thank you to both Mrs. Harrison and Miss. Sagar for a brilliant day. We are hoping to achieve the same brilliant attendance in the Spring Term of 2011.

A Merry Christmas and a very happy and peaceful 2011 to everyone!

Mr. R. Smith, on behalf of all the Champion Chipmunks.

November 15^th – December 10^th 2010

Advent Wreaths

This week, the Chipmunks have been studying the meaning of Advent and its importance to Christians in their mini-R.E. topic. They learnt about the symbolism of the five candles on the traditional Advent wreath and had a go at making their own to decorate their work tables. Their superb efforts can be viewed in this month’s photo gallery. Each candle is lit in turn, from the first Sunday in Advent (this year being November 28^th). The purple candles represent peace, hope and love, whilst the pink candle represents joy. The fifth and most important white candle represents the birth of Baby Jesus and this is the last candle to be lit on Christmas Day morning. The Chipmunks’ advent wreaths will be displayed on their tables until the final day at school before the Christmas holidays.

Chipmunks acknowledged in Golden Awards

There have been many additions to the Golden awards book over the past week. Lauren was acknowledged for her hard work in mathematics as too were Ross and Joshua who grasped the work on time so well that they had a go at the next ability group’s task. Daniel, who you will be able to see at this week’s performance of “Hard Knocks” as Fagin, won the “Going the Extra Mile” award for learning and rehearsing “Pick A Pocket or Two” independently. In a superb production, this is certainly a highlight to look out for.

Christmas Production

We have spent the first full week back after the recent snowfall rehearsing our KS2 Christmas Production “Hard Knocks” which features Chipmunks as choir members, dancers and actors. In the photo gallery, you will be able to view the characters in costume. We had our dress rehearsal in front of the Foundation and KS1 audience on Friday (December 10^th) and the rehearsal went fantastically. Please come along to a performance.

Poetry Writing

In English, the Chipmunks have been studying poetry. They have created nonsense poems inspired by Spike Milligan’s “On The Ning Nang Nong”, observation poems based upon winter and personification poems where they used a colour chart to imagine what each colour would be like if they were a person. Ben mastered the art of repetition and rhyme formation brilliantly and may just be the class poet laureate. We thoroughly enjoyed our poetry writing, especially the writing of our “Chipmunks’ Anthem” inspired by the rock anthem “We Are the Champions” by Queen. The full version of the song can be viewed on the display in our classroom. The verses celebrate what is great about the Chipmunks individually before our chorus celebrates everyone together. The Chipmunks generated the verses by passing around a ‘greatness’ sheet on A3 paper and each Chipmunk wrote a positive comment about each class member they received. These esteem brainstorms were then used to help generate the polished verses. You may like to sing the full song with us in class, though air guitar is purely optional!

Courtney’s Winning Christmas Card

Congratulations to Courtney who received copies of her winning Christmas card this week fresh from the printers. It looked amazing!

Are we the Autumn term 2010 attendance winners?

We are all keeping our fingers crossed that we have won the best attendance for autumn term. At the time of writing, the Champion Chipmunks sit at the top of the leader board for whole school attendance, closely followed by the Busy Bees in second place. The class that has the best attendance across the term can look forward to a fun day organised by Mrs. Harrison. Watch this space and the next web-page update to see if we managed it!

Autumn Term Two

November 1^st – November 12^th 2010

Bikeability

The Champion Chipmunks took part in Bikeability training this week. The weather was extremely unkind to us and on several occasions, the Chipmunks had to battle downpours and avoid puddles. However, they approached the various challenges with much tenacity and determination and fully enjoyed their training. The training was designed to educate the Chipmunks about safe on-road cycling and the training involved the Chipmunks tackling junctions on the roads around Carlton. The Chipmunks were able to explain succinctly about ‘pedal ready’ manoeuvres and arm signals and could explain how to keep their bikes in tip-top condition. For those Chipmunks who did not have access to a bike, the team provided bikes and helmets for them to use. The Bikeability tutors were very keen to feedback to Mr. Smith that the behaviour of the two groups was excellent and on a very positive note, all the Chipmunks who participated completed the challenge successfully. Their certificates will be presented in due course at a forthcoming Golden Awards ceremony but until then, Mr. Smith and Mrs. Murray would like to say how proud they are with everyone who completed the demanding tasks in quite challenging conditions. The Chipmunks are now more safe and streetwise cyclists. They also went on to share their knowledge in their Big Write sessions. Both Mr. Smith and Mrs. Murray will be much safer on their bikes when they next climb on board their BMXs thanks to the knowledge shared back in class by the Chipmunks!!!!

All the Champion Chipmunks, Mr. Smith and Mrs. Murray would like to thank the Bikeability tutors for their hard work and enthusiasm. We hope for much kinder weather the next time we attempt the challenge!

Parachutes!

This week, we explored air in our science lesson and had lots of fun with the KS1 parachute, helping to identify the effect of air on objects and items around us. We had lots of in-depth scientific debate about whether a deflated or inflated balloon would weigh heavier or the same and explored the notion of air having ‘weight’. We found it quite hard to keep Patrick the dog jumping on the parachute as our photographs in the gallery prove. Secretly however, we really enjoyed playing with the parachute!

Golden Award Winners

Celebrated for their continuous efforts in class this week were Kenny and Jodie. Kenny has been repeatedly bringing excellent homework into school, especially his canvas paintings and became the recipient of the “Going The Extra Mile” award. Jodie won the “Writer Of The Week” award for her much improved handwriting which is now an exceptionally neat, joined and cursive script and of a very good size. Keep it up, Jodie!

Christmas Play Rehearsals

Unfortunately, our “Annie” in the eponymous lead role has been ill this week so rehearsals have been going a little slower for the Christmas production. Nevertheless, the cast of “Oliver” met for lunchtime rehearsals this week and Daniel has already learnt his script for the part of Fagin. Excellent work, actor and very well done! The juniors on the whole are having a good time rehearsing for the Christmas production and they are tackling some very tricky songs including “Hard Knock Life” and “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile”. The performance times for the production will be announced in due course. Please keep an eye on our class page as well as the Carlton Weekly newsletter for more information.

JLS-Inspired Protest Song Writing

A part of our music work, we have been writing protest songs over the last few weeks. On Thursday, Mr. Smith set the Chipmunks the challenge of writing a protest song to the tune of “Beat Again” by JLS. Little did we realise what budding Lennon and McCartneys there are in Class RS! Not only were the songs imaginative, touching on lots of global issues including the devastation of the rainforests and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chipmunks were also able to keep true to the song structure and syllable weighting of the original song. The Chipmunks were provided a chorus to work with and then in groups of their choice created verses to fit the song. Some groups also created a bridge and a coda. We hope to be polishing our JLS inspired protest songs in the next few days and performing them in an assembly in due course.

Other news

Christmas appears to be looming quickly now. In golden time, the children who visit Class RS are helping Mr. Smith to make props for the forthcoming production. We nearly have our backdrop title letters completed already! Not bad for thirty minutes work!

Please use the links on the class page to download copies of homework and spelling resources. Our class page has been the most viewed page on the Carlton Primary School website throughout the month of October according to our ICT technician and website maestro, Mr. O’Dell, so please keep visiting to find out about our learning journey and key events. 

Regards,

R. Smith

Weeks 07 and 08 – w/b October 18th 2010 & November 1st 2010

On the afternoon of October 20^{th, Thomas Wiggan had the pleasure of attending the Young Achievers’ Ceremony at Kingstone School. Accompanied by Miss. Hall, Thomas’ achievements were acknowledged in the area of sports. We all celebrated Thomas’ award by watching the full ceremony on the interactive whiteboard whilst enjoying some very tasty cakes baked by Sharna Devonport. A very well done Thomas on a well deserved award. A huge well done must also go out to Lydia Smallman who performed several songs at the ceremony as part of her after-school choir. We particularly enjoyed the rendition of} “Don’t Stop Believing”. The Chipmunks are accustomed to Lydia’s singing and she regularly performs brilliantly during ‘show and tell’ sessions in front of the class which takes a lot of courage. Well done, Lydia!

Singing is in the air at Carlton at the moment and this is also true of the Champion Chipmunks. The juniors are busy rehearsing songs for the forthcoming Christmas production of “Oliver” & “Annie” and the two eponymous roles are being performed by two Chipmunks. The role of Oliver went to Thomas who had a very good audition in front of Mr. Smith, Miss. Hodkin and Mrs. Harrison. The second actress however was quite a revelation. Nobody was aware of the stunning voice within Courtney Patterson until she auditioned for the role of Annie with a note-perfect rendition of “Tomorrow”. The Chipmunks were left spellbound and Courtney justifiably won the part. We look forward to you watching the production and hearing the children perform the songs during our matinee performance on Monday, December 13^{th at 1:30 p.m. and the evening of Tuesday, December 14th} at 6:00 p.m. Rehearsals are now well underway. A special thank you goes out to Daniel Barlow who successfully auditioned for the part of Fagin and whose eagerness to perform has ensured that he knows all his lines already, some five full weeks before the performance. Well done, Daniel! A special thank you goes out to all the budding actors who auditioned during the penultimate week in October. The decision was a very hard one for all three teachers.

Congratulations to Aaron Dixon who achieved his Dolphin silver award this month.

On Wednesday, October 20^{th, we held our ‘wear pink’ day in aid of breast cancer. If you look carefully in the photo gallery, you will see some dapperly dressed chipmunks and a frighteningly vivid pink wig!}

On Thursday, November 4^{th, the Chipmunks created some fantastic bonfire pictures. The paints proved to be a little runny in parts, but the photo gallery shows some of the fantastic artwork that was produced. A special well done goes out to Kenny Hayhurst who produced a fantastic piece of art homework on canvas recently.} 

Over the next few weeks, the Chipmunks will be writing and performing a protest song as part of their music work. They are using the song “Beat Again” by JLS to write about global issues and are in very fine voice.

A reminder goes out to parents and carers that the weekly spelling quizzes now take place every Thursday, not every Friday as during the previous half term. The Chipmunks’ homework records are particularly outstanding and both Mr. Smith and Mrs. Murray wish to see the standard continue this half term too.

In the next week, the Chipmunks will be taking part in “Bike-ability” week where they will be sharpening their cycling skills and their knowledge of road safety with practical lessons both inside and outside of the school grounds. Look at the website in the forthcoming weeks to hear about their progress.

Weeks 5 & 6; October 4^th 2010 & October 11^th 2010

The Champion Chipmunks became practical scientists last week as they tested the permeability of a variety of rocks. They then had lots of fun making their own thermometers with a range of plastic bottles, drinking straws and food colouring.

Congratulations to both Bobi Charnock and Spenser Sheppard whose applications to the new school council led by Miss Warren were duly accepted. Both Bobi and Spenser will now be representing the interests of our class at school council and they have already conducted their first class council meeting where many interesting ideas were discussed and issues were raised. The minutes from our class council meetings will appear in future updates of our class page so please look out for them!

Our IPC project homework responses have proven to be as astounding as ever. Special credit must be given this week to Anya Austin, Lauren Thorpe, Lydia Smallman, Jasmine Scotter and Tyler Parkin Greenwood who astounded the other Chipmunks with their models of oil rigs and polluted islands. Lots of hours were clearly spent on these models and their efforts can be seen in the photograph gallery on this page. Mr. Smith has been thrilled by the standard of homework this half term and a particular “well done” goes out to Sharna Devonport who has produced some beautiful oil inspired art work on canvas. Well done, Sharna. Your artistic talent is a talent to watch!

We have been rehearsing our song for the harvest festival this week. Thankfully, Mr. Smith did not need to sing (badly) for very long before the Chipmunks got the words and melody into their heads. We have previously performed “Eating Food” to the tune of Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” and “That’s Not My Grain” to the tune of The Ting Tings’ “That’s Not My Name”. This year, we will be performing a Justin Bieber inspired song entitled “Gravy” to the tune of “Baby” alongside Mr. Elliott’s “Creative Coyotes”. A very special thank you must go to Sharna Devonport whose homework in the Eighth Wonders late last year inspired the performance. We look forward to seeing you at our harvest festival on Monday, October 18^th and maybe you can join in with our gravy chorus? Please don’t be shy. We aren’t!

We welcomed Mrs. Murray back to our class this week and look forward to her working with us. We would like to thank Mrs. Harwood for her support during Mrs. Murray’s absence and for keeping Mr. Smith supplied with tea!

Thomas Wiggan and Spenser Sheppard both took part in a year five football tournament earlier this week for the very first time and they achieved a very respectable third place in the overall tournament. Very well done boys! 

The Champion Chipmunks have completed a range of English and Mathematics quizzes over the past week and Mr. Smith would like to say a very big ‘well done’ to everyone. The progress the Chipmunks have made has been really impressive and this is evident of much hard work. You really are champions! Keep it up!

Have you visited the link to your mystery “Champion” homework Chipmunks? Download it and complete it and you will receive a stick on your rewards chart for its successful completion when handed in alongside your standard homework. Good luck

Week 3 and Week 4 (w/b September 20^th 2010 & September 27^th 2010)

On Tuesday, September 28^th, many of the Champion Chipmunks took part in a cross country running event at Royston. All of the Chipmunks put 100% into their running and their behaviour walking to and from the event, as well as during the event itself, was immaculate. A very special mark of congratulations must however go out to Spenser Sheppard who managed to come first out of all the boy competitors from all the schools taking part. Well done, Spenser! You are a champion athlete!

On Wednesday, September 29^th, we welcomed a new member to our class. Anya Austin has joined us from Sandhill Primary School and we all wish her a very happy and enjoyable time at Carlton Primary.

The Champion Chipmunks are full of very talented artists. A big well done goes out to Courtney Patterson this month whose Christmas card design was judged to be the overall winner at a special event held in Barnsley on Wednesday evening. Courtney heard the fantastic news in front of her worshipfulness the mayor, Margaret Sheard. Very well done, Courtney and keep up the amazing talent! We are very proud of you!

Winners of Golden Award certificates over the previous two weeks of September have included Harry Birks who took part brilliantly in the cross country sports event. Harry won the ‘Sportsperson Of The Week’ award for determination. Be proud, Harry! The ‘Most Considerate Of Others Award’ went to Spenser and Evan Hardy who between them encouraged Harry to continue when he was feeling a little tired. Both boys completed the track with Harry and demonstrated both kindness and consideration. Well done, boys!

A very special award was given to Joshua Finnerty, whose determination and effort to improve his reading has made both Mr. Smith and Mrs. Harwood very proud over the past three weeks. Joshua never gives up and his efforts are beginning to show in his day-to-day reading. Keep working hard, Joshua. You are the ‘Reader of the week’ and you have proven that you are a champion in every sense. Be very proud!

On Friday, October 1^st, Mrs. Harwood asked for some volunteers to help her create electrical circuits for some monsters and ghouls that will be lighting up our wild area in November. Rajvir Hundal, Spenser Sheppard and Katy Winrow rose to the challenge and helped Mrs. Harwood create some magnificent monsters and ghastly ghouls alongside other junior children during golden time. The wild area will certainly be a much scarier place this autumn! Well done technicians!

Congratulations must go out to Evan Hardy and Macy Corbett who this week gained pen license. Their handwriting is consistently nicely presented and joined and they now have permission to use pen in their exercise books. They proudly join Daniel Barlow, Benjamin Heeley and Jasmine Scotter in holding pen license. Keep up the good work, Chipmunks!

A reminder to all parents that P.E. has now moved from Wednesdays to Mondays. Please ensure your Chipmunk has the correct kit on Mondays and Thursdays each week. Next half term, we will be moving indoors for our PE lessons and therefore the Chipmunks will all require an appropriate indoor PE kit. Many thanks!

Welcome to the Champion Chipmunks homepage. We are year five children and our teacher is Mr. Smith. We are supported in class by Mrs. Murray.

The Champion Chipmunks are embarking on an exciting new IPC theme linked to oil called ‘Black Gold’. In the next few weeks, we will be studying oil in its many forms and attempting to clean up an oil slick!

The Champion Chipmunks, who last year were the Eighth Wonders, are joined this year by a new member, Kenny Hayhirst. We welcome Kenny to our class.

On September 9th, Kenny won the “Going The Extra Mile” award in the golden awards ceremony for making an impressive start to the new school year and his new school.

On September 16th, Ross Woodcock won the “Mathematician of the Week” award. Ross is vastly improving his mental work and is very worthy of this award. Keep working super hard Ross!

The Chipmunks are reminded to have their PE kits at hand every Wednesday and Thursday. This half term, we are developing our hockey skills. We have played several small hockey matches now and there is some excellent sporting talent to be seen on the key stage two yard.

In the first week back, Mr. Smith celebrated his birthday. All the Chipmunks tucked in to some cake and pop to celebrate Mr. Smith’s 21st birthday!

Mrs. Murray is currently recovering from an operation. In the meantime, we will be supported by Mrs. Harwood in the mornings. We look forward to working with Mrs. Harwood and proving to her what champions we are!

In the next few weeks, we will be looking at food labels for one ICT lesson involving Microsoft Excel. We ask that you save any tin, box or packet labels that you would normally discard and bring these to school with your homework each Wednesday so we have a range of different labels available for the lesson. Many thanks for your support.

Please keep visiting our homepage for further updates and to download newsletters and homework.

Please contact me at school if you wish to discuss any element of your child’s work with me.

Kind regards

R. Smith
Class Teacher of Champion Chipmunks.