Fellside Community Primary School

February 2nd was a big day for us as we walked, full of excitement, to Spoor Methodist Church to witness the wedding of our chosen bride and groom.

On the 7th of June, Fire Prevention Officer and Fire Fighter Lenny Smith came to visit Year One in their classroom.

As part of their food & farming topic, on Thursday 20th May, Year 1 and Year 2 went on a visit to Hall Hill Farm.

On the 7th of June, Fire Prevention Officer, Fire Fighter Lenny Smith came to visit Year One in their classroom.

He told the children about the dangers of matches, lighters and electrical appliances in the home. Year One could think of many things that could hurt and burn.

Year One leaned what to do if there is a fire:

 Shout, 'FIRE!'

 Get out

 Call the Fire Brigade out

  Stay out

Then Lenny told Year One all about Smoke Alarms after they had watched an episode of Fireman Sam. Smoke alarms can save lives but they need to be tested regularly.

Fire Fighter, Lenny, allowed some pupils to try on his uniform. The Fire Fighter is protected from head to toe.

Year One did have a giggle because the uniform was so very big for them.

Next the Fire appliance and White Watch arrived to talk about how fires are fought. Inside the Fire engine the children spotted banana, bottled water and Mars bars. Fire fighter, Kevin told us these were for the fire fighters because fighting fires is hot and thirsty work. Sweets and bananas give instant energy as fire fighting is very hard and tiring work.

Fireman Sam showed us what his breathing apparatus looks like. He sounded like Darth Vader we thought.

Then Y1 were allowed to squirt water with the huge hose.

We were supposed to hit a target but some of the teachers' cars were washed accidentally.

Since White Watch were on call they had to go but they left the school car park with their siren going, their lights flashing and a hoot of their horn.

Please post a comment and let us know what you most enjoyed about the day the Fire Brigade came to school.

As part of their food & farming topic, on Thursday 20^th May, Year 1 and Year 2 went on a visit to Hall Hill Farm. We had all wished for good weather and our wish was granted, the weather was perfect, it was sunny, warm and dry!   

Hello children, welcome to our farm, hope you have a good day..  baa baaa ba baa! 

We enjoyed looking at the deer. 

We had fun feeding the horses.  

One of the lambs decided to come out of the field to see us.

We gave the sheep their food pellets. 

  We were allowed to nurse the rabbits. 

We all took turns in bottle feeding the lambs.

No matter how hard you try,

you will never get through that small gap!

We had a ride on the tractor train. 

 There were other animals too, do you know what they are?

If you would like to look at the farm, please click on the link below.  www.hallhillfarm.co.uk 

In March we spent a whole afternoom preparing fruit salads, fruit kebabs and fruit trifles with some helpful dads, mums and grandmas. We had learned, during a visit from our school nurse and in our science lessons, that as part of a healthy diet, we all should be eating five portions of friut and vegetables a day to get enough minerals and vitamins into our bodies to help us keep healthy.

 A whole array of different sorts of fruits was kindly donated by parents and grandparents and we had such good fun peeling and cutting food and making up our fruit dishes. The best part, of course was when we had the chance to sample our ware. Delicious ! Many children tried fruits they had never had before and found them to their liking.

With our talented creative partners Shirley and Kim, Year Two and Year One continued their Wedding topic by making larger than life sized models of a Sikh Bride and Groom who we called Anneena and Nadim after some Oxford Reading Tree characters.

Year One made Nadim.

Three full days in March were taken up making the structure of the bridegroom out of willow rods, covering this with papier mache 'skin', painting and printing his clothes. We made a 'magic carpet'  out of Ragoli patterns using a wax batik technique and created beautiful patterns to look like decorated 'Hennaed' hands just like those that would be painted on the hands of a real Sikh bride for her wedding. The boys made a red turban headress and the girls Hindi tiaras like that of goddesses.

Our Colourful Rangoli designs 

 Shirley Wells and helpers making the willow skeleton.

Mono-printing Indian patterns     

 Our beautiful bride and groom were blessed with good wishes from 'gods and goddesses'.

February 2nd was a big day for us as we walked, full of excitement, to Spoor Methodist Church to witness the wedding of our chosen bride and groom. Dressed in our wedding finery, we enacted a real wedding service in a real church, with a real minister conducting the service, with real organ music and a real congregation of friends and family. Liz Kent conducted the service and was very impressed with the bride and groom for keeping their cool and saying their vows (without any giggles or tears.)

Here is the happy couple signing the register.

  Friends posing for the Wedding shots all dressed in the Sunday best 

 Back at school the bride and groom led the dancing with a waltz. 

The reception went smoothly with toasts from the father of the bride and the best man.

The wedding cake looked gorgeous and Year Two's bride and groom joined our bride and groom for the cutting of the cake.

When the wedding was over, all the girls in Year one stood in a line as our bride threw her bouquet.

Key Stage One were working on a topic called Fire! Fire! so the workshop was based on the movement of flames and the events of The Great Fire of Gateshead.
Jo Temperly of the Bare Toed Company brought with her some fabulous resources - flame coloured chiffon scarves were used as emerging flickering, dancing flames that grew into raging winds and finally died down into slow moving embers. Sheets of lycra were used to create shapes emerging from burning buildings, movements to suggest frantic and controlled rescues were developed and a story in dance was slowly built up. The music Jo chose was perfect and we even gave her a rendition of our own thrilling dance to Kasabian's "Fire!" that we had been practising prior to her visit.

 Here is a display made after visiting St. Mary's Heritage Centre, Gateshead. Year One have created their own city of Gateshead burning in the year 1854. This was inspired by a workshop led by Mr. Richard Stephenson. The children learned all about the terrible, great fire that devastated the quayside that year and of the people who were involved.

Here the children are seen examining and handling artefacts from the past. These related to the main groups of people who were affected. From the housewives who had to flee from their homes grabbing their children as they ran to the over worked firefighters who came to the rescue. From the miners, who as far away as Monkwearmouth heard the blast of the explosding warehouses to the poor policeman who discovered the fire in the early hours. 

 "Hands up all those who can tell me facts about how far the fire spread and how it was able continue for so long!"

Below, Richard, dressed as Charles Bertram, a key character in the event, explains to the children just how far the fire spread - over to the Newcastle side of the Tyne!

Using interactive computer imagery, dramatic portrayals, handling artefacts and walking the actual route of the fire from the Gateshead riverside to Newcastle Quayside, the children were introduced to this local historic event. The day was rounded off with some song writing - 'London's Burning, London's Burning' became 'Gateshead's Burning, Gateshead's Burning!'

Our thanks to Richard Stephenson for a very enlightening day! As one of the children remarked - we learned so much and didn't even have to write a thing!  

Year One have been beavering away writing and drawing new versions of one of our favourite stories- 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch.' These storyboards make up our latest display in our corridor. Max, Charlotte, Ben and Sophie had such good fun stuffing odd socks and painting cardboard wings to make the 'pesky seagulls' which were added as final touches to the display. The story of Mr. Grinling, the lighthouse keeper was also the basis for some scientific investigation. The class were asked to test fabrics to discover which would be best to make him a jacket to wear when he was working. We all agreed the jacket ought to be waterproof and tested four different fabrics to discover which fitted the bill. (Nylon was selected!) Mr. Grinling (the lighthouse keeper) reappeared in our Technology lessons. The children made a rocking model of him being tossed about on the salty sea in his old sailing boat. Then they were given the task of writing instructions for making these moving models. Here are the photographs of our efforts:

Pictured above are our rocking Mr. Grinling models made in our technology lessons.

The 'sea' is made from a paper plate which is covered in stripes of coloured tissue paper. The layers of PVA glue make it strong so that when the plate is dried and folded it is strong enough to rock. The boat with the sail is made by folding a single cardboard square and carefully coloured. We know that boats are female so we have given them our own Mums' names. Mr. Grinling is seen fishing with a cocktail stick 'fishing rod' and he has caught a rainbow fish.

We have been reading the whole series of Lighthouse Keeper stories. After reading, 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Cat', we wrote missing pet posters. After reading, 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Rescue', we wrote recounts about the rescue of the beached whale and after reading 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch', we had such fun designing and writing a recipe for the most disgusting sandwiches we could possibly imagine! 

As part of their history studies, Year One have been looking at old fashioned and modern toys. They have been comparing toys from the past and those that are played with by today's children. They have compared teddies - one as old as Mrs. Armstrong with a brand new bear. They have looked at the types of toys that Victorian children would have played with and the types of materials they were made from. Children had fewer toys in those days and often, especially toys played with by poorer children, they were home made.

Year One pupils had a go at making their own toys to play with. They made old fashioned peg dolls. These started off as traditional wooden pegs. At first Year One boys were not so excited about making 'dolls' but when they began making 'Ghost Peg dolls', they had great fun.

Here are the next set of peg dolls - our Princess range! Dainty, pretty and great fun to make...

Our role play area this half term has been transformed into the 'Newsround' newsroom with a writing table set up for budding reporters and another set up for our news team presenters.
With a model clapper board and televsion camera, we have been playing at filming and presenting the news.

In place of 'Show and Tell' this half term we will be asking children to read their news items (which have been prepared at home) in the style of a news reader. We aim to write some recounts of events in our English lessons that will be presented from the 'Newsdesk'.

We have been discussing how we might 'get into role' and we think that watching 'Newsround' on CBBC might be useful. There is also a handy BBC Newsround website where we can read news articles written by other children which may give us ideas for our own news items.

Could we have the next Trevor MacDonald and Katie Durham in our class?

Year One have a go at weaving

Year 1 have been working hard producing a series of weavings which have been displayed together to create an impressive 'Art Installation' in the Key Stage One corridor.
We started our unit of work by sorting fabrics according to their textures and moved quickly on to sorting in terms of colour. We chose a range of blue and green fabrics for our weavings and brought in boxes from home to make box looms. We learned to weave using strips of fabric to create the 'weft' and learned to work our strips of cloth going under and over the 'warp' threads. The tricky thing was to remember to start differently with each strip that was added.
What fun we had! Our classroom seemed full of green and blue strips of cloth!
We would like to thank our parent helper, Mrs. Barras, who came to assist us.

Year One have been working hard in their Design Technology lessons sorting fruits and vegetables and taking part in tasting sessions. We have been discovering how they are prepared before they are consumed and trying our hands at making food.
One of our activities was to make 'Fruit Kebabs'. With fruit kindly donated by parents we set about making a delicious healthy snack. What fun we had! All of the children tried a new fruit they had never tasted before as we had an array of exotic fruits to choose from. After all the washing, peeling and assembling we all tucked in! It was finger licking good - quite literally!
Want to find out more? Read on...

For our 40th birthday celebrations we decided to visit our favourite places at school. We took lots of photographs. Come and have a look at them!