Monthly Archives: October 2016

Year Two’s Chocolate factory.

Year 2

On Wednesday afternoon, we ditched the pencils and grabbed ourselves spoons. We put our books aside and grasped jugs of chocolate, because we were no longer just learning about chocolate… we were creating our own.

First, we made our chocolate bar wrappers.

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Next, we got our healthy ingredients. We had cranberries, raisins and used cereals with small amounts of sugar in them.

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Then we melted the ingredients and did lots and lots of stirring. Our arms go very tired, but it was worth it!

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After lots of stirring, we had to put the chocolate on special grease proof paper and wait for it to set.

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Finally, we put the chocolate bar into the wrapper and it was ready to eat!!!

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Year 2 Art!!!

Year 2

What an artistic term we have had!!! Looking at and creating portraits. We had a go at the start of the term.

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They were good, but we were inspired to do better!!!

So, we were creative, by practicing and practicing, and then… practicing some more.

We are so proud of what we have achieved.

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Just look at that shading.

Year Four: We are Software Developers

ICT at Billesley

Year four have had a difficult challenge in Computing today… Mrs James set the pupils a near impossible challenge in Scratch!

They had to create an animation where there were:

  • Two characters (Sprites)
  • A background
  • Movement from both sprites
  • One Sprite asks a question and the other answers

Extra Challenge: 1: A Full conversation between the characters

Extra Challenge 2: A full conversation between two characters and a change of location (background) and/or colour

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After the pupils has created their own animations they evaluated each other’s! They were all very impressive and a lot of fun!

Mrs James thought she could stop us… no chance! dscn01511

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Working together we were able to really ‘bounce’ our ideas off of each other to create the best final animation!

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Assessing and evaluating each other’s work was nearly as much fun as creating our own animations!

Year One: We are Treasure Hunters!

ICT at Billesley

Year One have been on a mission to find treasure this morning!

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Our amazing treasure maps! Can you spot the waterfall?
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How would you avoid the thick forest of trees?

Each class had three treasure maps , which they had to add two more obstacles for the beep bots to maneuver around. The more obstacles the more algorithms the pupils had to input. The last class, who were 1A, had the most obstacles to work as a team to maneuver the beep bot around. The pupils had to really work as a team to find the treasure without landing in the lake, crashing into the mountains or getting lost in the woods! dscn01411

District representatives

PE & Sport

On saturday 15th October a few of our year 5&6 boys footballers went for district trials. The district is a massive platform for players to play at a very high standard and get recognised by professional football clubs from across the region. In order to get in the boys had to take part in a number of matches and drills to show and express their skills, once the day was over only the best players were selected to represent the district. Players were chosen from a range of different schools and areas, two of our boys were selected to represent the district which is a massive achievement for them both. Well done boys!img_3417

Year 5&6 Boys Football team – Unbeaten start!

PE & Sport

On the 6th October we played our first year 5&6 boys football matches. We are entered into a league which contains 6 teams including ourselves, those teams are; Billesley primary school, St Martin DePorres, Kings Heath, Highters Heath Primary School, The Oaks and St Bernards. We played two matches, a match against Kings Heath and the other against St Martins. We kicked off first playing Kings Heath who we knew would be difficult to break down as  they show a lot of commitment, desire and have very talented players. We started off really well, putting them under pressure and forcing them back towards their own goal, we played some Inspiring football and created  excellent opportunities for ourselves but couldnt find that killer pass or shot.  Just before half time we deservingly broke the deadlock, a neat one two and a brilliant through ball saw our striker slot the ball home to put us one nil in front.  After half time Kings Heath came out strong, hitting the post early on before creating another chance which was saved superbly by our goalkeeper to keep the score in our favour. We then started to pass the ball around again and before the full time whistle we managed to score again, meaning the full time score was Billesley 2 – 0 Kings Heath. We then played against St Martin De Porres who in a previous tournament a few weeks before beat us 2-1 so we knew we had a tough match on our hands. The guys took confidence from the last game into this one and dominated from the start, we passed and created chances with ease! Our defenders were brilliant keeping us solid which allowed our midfielders to create chance after chance for our strikers who didn’t disappoint. We scored 4 fantastic goals and limited St Martins to only 2 shots at goal, the final score was Billesley 4 – 0 St Martins. Also a special mention to our goalkeeper who scored in that game from his own goal area, was it a fluke? Or was it intentional? Only he knows the answer to that! On the whole though the guys were brilliant yet again, never failing to entertain, well done guys! Great start. img_3415

Year Five : We are Cryptographers

Uncategorized
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ICT Drama
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Crypto Wheel to help try and guess a password…
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Pupils tried to out smart their partners and computers by guessing a password!

Year Five’s exciting investigation into cryptography continued this week with the discussion and investigation of passwords. The pupils thought about the importance of keeping a password safe as part of our E-Safety and the significance of actually having a password. Some of the children created a short drama piece to convey how they thought someone might try to retrieve a password indirectly from another person. We compared the difference between simple passwords and more complex passwords and used simple words for our examples. We decided that a simple password could be as easy to crack as; ‘password’, where as a more complex password (using the same word for the basis) could be altered to read, ‘Pa55W0rD!’ or even ‘P@SsWoRd_2016’. The pupils even had an opportunity to challenge the computer in guessing a password!

Forest School Fun — building dens

Resource Base

Today in Forest School we were set the challenge to build a shelter. We were given tarp, rope, pegs, mallets, bamboo cane and all the resources of the forest. We split off into groups and selected the site we wanted to use for our shelter. Once we had made our plan, we collected the materials we needed from the store and set to work. As teams, we made fantastic dens, cooperating and creating together to achieve a shelter we could share together. Look at the amazing results!

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Year 5 Space explorations using Google Expeditions!

Year 5

Imagine exploring Space in an afternoon. Seeing the inside of the International Space Station and viewing the Milky Way up close. Well today, Year 5 had the chance to do just that, by going on a virtual reality Google Expedition!

Using the google cardboard glasses, pupils were taken on an exciting, virtual tour of  The Universe, where they were able to explore the surface of the moon, the Apollo landing and view Earth from Space – without having to leave the school building!

Pupils gasped in amazement as they witnessed the stars within touch distance and were able to move, and explore the unfamiliar landscape of the Moon, by simply moving their heads from side to side.

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Feeling inspired, after their virtual tour of The Universe, pupils then returned to classrooms to invent and create their very own space transportation vehicles, using collage.

Here are just a few of their designs…

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Witch Trial in Year 6

Year 6

Hubble bubble toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble! 

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Are you a witch?

If you were a woman, upset someone, were good at helping people or kept herbs in your house, then according to the Salem, Massachusetts court, you were!

Year 6 spent the afternoon learning about the ‘crime’ of witchcraft and how it was punished in the late 17th century.

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We discussed what a witch looks like – boils, pointed hat, broom, black cat – and realised that  all the women who were accused in 1692 fitted none of these descriptions.

Using a drama game called WOOSH, we discovered how the trials began and abruptly ended a year later, solidifying them in the memory of all hundreds of years later.

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Even though witches didn’t start All Hallows Eve, this lesson did get us excited for Halloween!

Trick or treat!