Fellside Community Primary School

 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!