Milburn Primary School & Nursery

Spring Term

Acorns Spring Newsletter- Click Here

History

In History this half term, Acorn class will be learning about Railways and the lives of significant individuals

(George Stephenson) who contributed to national and international achievements.

Autumn Term

Acorns Autumn Newletter- Click Here

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Today, the Acorns helped Miss Shanks put up their school Christmas tree after the Community lunch. It was lovely, seeing them all work together to create a beautiful tree.

Visit to Penrith Fire Station

As part of Acorns learning we visited Penrith Fire Station- this was to support Early Years in understanding people who help us and it supported KS1 in their learning about The Great Fire of London. We were given lots of opportunities to engage with the fire crew, we got to try on equipment, use the fire hose and burn our recreated Tudor houses and put the fire out using buckets like they did during the time of the Great Fire of London.

Design & Technology

In Acorn class we will be using the basic principles of a healthy and varied diet to prepare healthy pizza and we will have an understanding about where food comes from.

Design & Technology project

Geography

This half term we will be learning to use aerial photographs and plan perspectives to recognise landmarks and basic human and physical features; devise a simple map; and use and construct basic symbols in a key.

Geography project

Computing

The children in Acorn class have been learning and creating their own podcast with our school visitor, Becky (Executive Producer). She brought some equipment from the studio for the children to use. They were shown how to record, listen back and edit their work.

We are learning to make our own animation using the Puppet pals app. We will base this learning around the great fire of London as we know lots about this topic.

Our Final Podcast

Our Puppet Pals animation project

History

In history this half term we have been learning all about the Great Fire of London. The children in Acorn class have done a fantastic job in retaining the key knowledge about the Great Fire of London. Over the last few weeks, we have been busy with our project of making our own Tudor houses.

History project

Here are Acorn's recreated Tudor houses. We are looking forward to visiting Penrith Fire Station to burn our Tudor houses.

Music Lessons

Today, we had our first music lesson. The children learnt all about rhythm and we explored using the drums making them loud/ quiet, high/low and fast/slow. Acorn class had lots of fun and can't wait for next weeks lesson. We have moved onto singing songs and exploring the ukulele.

Art- Jan Griffier

In Acorn class we have been busy learning about the Dutch artist Jan Griffier.

We have started to sketch some Tudor houses which we will include in our Great Fire of London pictures at a later date. We have also been looking at primary and secondary colours and how we can mix the 3 primary colours to make the 3 secondary colours- this will help us when mixing colours for our Great Fire of London project. Over the last weeks, we have been making a fire background and adding charcoal Tudor houses to our backgrounds.

Art project

Acorn's final pieces of artwork inspired by Jan Griffier are amazing!

Music in the Woodland

This week we took our music lesson into our forest area. The children explored making different sounds and how to effect the pitch. We also made a start on making our own whistles by hollowing out willow using palm drills.

Science- Everyday Materials

In science we have started to look at some everyday materials and we are beginning to describe the properties of these materials.

We did an experiment to see which materials were waterproof and which weren't. The children had a lot of fun carrying out this experiment. We started to make scientific predictions then we did an experiment to see what the results were in accordance to our prediction.

Science project

As part of our project for science, we made a poster of all the materials we have been learning about and their properties.

EYFS

Summer Term

Acorns Summer Newsletter - Click Here

Computing

Knock Knock Jokes

The children learnt how to create an algorithm in order to create knock knock jokes featuring 2 speaking characters.

Action Ants Olympics

The Acorns competed in the Action Ants Olympics, winning a total of seven medals. We also discovered we may have some future tug of war champions in our midst.

Science

Animals Including Humans - part 2

The children learnt how to differentiate between things that are living, dead and non-living. They learnt the criteria they need to use to classify whether something is alive or has been alive. We then explored animal habitats and microhabitats and discussed the three things that an animal needs to survive in a habitat: shelter, food and water.

Art

Alma Thomas

Alma Thomas' art was a subject for much discussion among The Acorns. She created images inspired by nature that were new, bright and exciting. Like Rosa Parks, Alma faced discrimination but went on to achieve amazing things despite this.

Geography and D.T.

World Weather and Houses for Climate

This term, our geography and D.T. topics were closely linked. The Acorns learnt the difference between weather and climate as part of geography and looked at the differences in climate across the world. In D.T. they were given a particular climate and tasked with designing a prototype house to suit the conditions.

EYFS - Nursery

Science

Plants

The Acorns learnt about plants for one of their science topics. They discovered the fundamental things a seed needs in order to grow and conducted an experiment based on this. Some seeds were given only water, some light and others complete darkness. The children predicted outcomes and evaluated the results.

Spring Term

Acorns Spring Newsletter - Click Here

Art

Clementine Hunter

The children really enjoyed learning about Clementine Hunter. They discussed her child-like painting style and use of bright colours. Clementine's work featured everyday life on a plantation. For their project, The Acorns painted farm life around Milburn in the style of Hunter.

Science

Animals Including Humans

The human body and the 5 senses were our learning focus for this topic. The children learnt to name body parts and discovered how fantastic our 5 senses are. They tasted, touched, listened and smelt different items while blindfolded and attempted to guess the identity of each object.

History

Activists

The Acorns became very passionate about the female activists they learnt about in history lessons. They discussed the unfair treatment of Rosa Parks due to the colour of her skin, the bravery of Malala Yousafzai and the activism of Great Thunberg.

Exploring Stop Motion

Today we started looking at stop motion animation. The children explored how to create their own stop motion animations. The children are working towards creating their own Andrea Love inspired animation. We can wait to see what they create.

Animation Backgrounds

Today the children used a wet felting technique to create the backgrounds for their own animations. It was a lot of hard work but the results are wonderful.