Today we climbed the tower at the 'Crooked Spire' church, visited Chesterfield Museum and completed practical design and build team challenges. 

In the morning we completed fieldwork activities at the 'Crooked Spire' and Chesterfield Museum. We had a tour up the narrow spiral staircase to the top of the tower. We paused in the bell ringing room where the Verger explained some of the history of the church, what happens in the tower and how it really became crooked! We also had a go at ringing some hand bells!

At the top of the tower we exited onto an external parapet, where we had fantastic views over Chesterfield and beyond. We then headed to the museum where we were able to see the original builders' windlass that was used to help build the church. This is the last surviving windlass used in construction of a church in the country. We learnt how the windlass was constructed and how it was actually used for construction of the church and the tower in particular. 

In the afternoon we used our knowledge from the morning to build a strong tower to a specific design brief. We then used more Lego and other materials to design and build a pulley system that was able to lift an object from the bottom of the tower to the top. You can see our finished designs below.

An Ancient Greek Murder Mystery!

13.11.15

To conclude our topic work we took part in an Ancient Greek murder mystery. We looked at different exhibits and sources of evidence in order to draw conclusions, exactly like historians do!

We visited the library at Outwood Newbold to learn even more about Ancient Greece. 

We did lots of activities like javelin making linked to the Olympics, Greek food tasting, learning more about different Gods, Greek architecture and study skills to make fact files. The students from Outwood had designed the activities and they taught us a lot but were also great fun!

Big Draw Day with Year 4/ 5 and Year 5/ 6 

This year's theme for Big Draw day was 'Every picture tells a story.' In the morning we worked in our own classes to practise the skills we were going to need for the afternoon. The skills we had to practise were different mark making techniques that created a variety of effects e.g. clouds in the sky, grass, rock, gravel, moving water, still water and wooden planks. 

In the afternoon we were split three ways, if you were with Mr Lemmey the theme was 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,' if you were with Mrs Allsop the theme was 'The Hobbit,' and if you were with Mrs Ross the theme was 'The Wind in the Willows.' 

We had to use our mark making skills to create a scene from each book. We then cut the main characters out using tracing techniques. We worked in small groups creating parts of the scene that was then joined together to create the final picture.

Ancient Greek theatre mask

In groups we have been working collaboratively to design and make Ancient Greek theatre masks. The masks are based on the Ancient Greek gods. We used Mod Roc for the base of the mask and then painted them. We then added details to the mask using a range of materials - feathers, sequins, ribbon, felt, buttons etc.