Tollesbury School

On Wednesday 28^th June, Years 4 and 5 were lucky enough to visit Writtle University College for the annual Food and Farming event. We joined approximately 4,500 other children from a range of school across Essex.

We had time during the day in different areas of the event, with the highlights being the livestock, (we could stroke the animals), the food tent where we tried new foods, and the crops area making natural bookmarks.

We had also taken a scarecrow to enter in the Scarecrow Competition, based on His Majesty the King’s Coronation. Our scarecrow had a sceptre spade, an orb teapot, a corgi at his feet, and royal robes with the Red Arrows and smoke. We listened to the judging with baited-breath and cheered when we heard we’d won second place! We were presented with a certificate, rosette, and vouchers for the school to spend in our nature garden.

We were very proud of all the children, who were a credit to our school and behaved impeccably.

Mrs. Crees and Miss. Marsh

Later in June, children in Years 4 and 5 are going to the Essex Food and Farming Day at Writtle College. As part of the preparations, we have been asked to enter a competition to create a scarecrow with a Royal Coronation theme. The children have worked as one enormous class to design a scarecrow and then create it out of a range of recyclable materials. We had a fantastic day working in groups to create our finished Royal Scarecrow, complete with all commonwealth flags, a shovel sceptre, an orb teapot, the Red Arrows display team and a Corgi!

On Thursday 18^th May, Year 4 and their grown ups were lucky enough to travel back in time to the Stone Age. We made woolly mammoths out of milk bottles, using a wide range of materials, both new and recycled. A great, if somewhat messy, time was had by all!

Amazing European landmarks sprang up in Year 4. These wooden structures were incredibly well made! Planning took place with careful design and techniques using Maths as well as design skills. After only twelve hours, pieces of wood became phenomenal European structures, linked to both our DT and Geography topics this term. We used measuring, and sawing skills and learnt, very quickly, to measure twice and cut once. A lot of us had a moment where we thought we couldn’t do it, but, in the end, all of us finished. After everything, we were overjoyed with the results of our constructions! From the sawing and glueing, we were exhausted but we were able to finish the day with huge smiles on our faces. We are all incredibly proud of our structures.

By Ephram, Eva and Oliver, Year 4 Kandinsky

On a chilly and rather grey Tuesday morning, Year 4 brightened everyone’s day with their music concert, showcasing their talents and progress with the ‘toots’. We were a little bit nervous but very excited to perform in front of Year 6, parents, grandparents and invited special guests. With our first tune, we let everyone believe that we had only learnt the note ‘B’ and then the tunes got harder, with more notes and a faster tempo. We also performed a rap and a song, which we’ve challenged the Year 6 children to learn. A lovely time was had by all. Year 4 were absolutely amazing and should be incredibly proud of themselves. It was the best performance ever!

We had a visit from our class govenors, Andrew Gilbert and Tanya Waterhouse. We had a great time with them, drawing simple scaled maps in Geography, and then using 8 points of the compass to guide each other around the room and find objects. 

Despite pouring with rain and snowing in the morning, Year 4 braved the wintry conditions and walked down to Mell Farm for the afternoon of 10^th March. We met bulls, cows and calves and were lucky enough to feed the sheep and lambs. As it started to rain, we dashed to the tower for hot chocolate and biscuits and then made a bird out of different sized coloured paper. We even managed a walk back as it snowed, singing songs, and practicing times tables! It was a fantastic afternoon, and we hope to visit again in the summer term.

The Kandinsky team invited our grown-ups into the classroom. In Geography, we have been learning about Europe and Mrs. Crees set us a mission. We became designers, to create a new theme-park ride based on a European landmark. First, we used spaghetti and marshmallows to build a structure. It was much harder than we thought it would be and proved that we need to build a solid and firm foundation. It was great fun, even though we weren’t allowed to eat the marshmallows! Now we have designed our landmark ride, we’re going to have two Design and Technology days in March to use careful measuring, saws, and a range of different wood to create the final design. We can’t wait!