Thanks to our friends at Uplands Primary, we had a fabulous time sharing all our work we have been doing this term with the Year 1 and 2 children there. We were so excited to look at all their excellent work about the Antarctic and we enjoyed showing them our fact-file books, powerpoints, penguins and telling them about our expedition. Even though it was a soggy wet day, it was great fun to join them in their playground at playtime. We had lots of fun playing together and making new friends. The afternoon ended with an exciting quiz, which tested our knowledge of all things Antarctic and a rousing chorus of ” Have You ever Had a Penguin Round To Tea?”. Thank You everyone at Uplands for welcoming us into your school. We really enjoyed meeting you!
What an amazing day we had! We had waited patiently for what seemed like 3 long weeks while the weather sorted itself out, then, Tuesday 5th March-the hottest day of the year so far (actually the only hot day of the year so far!) and Year 3′s intrepid explorers headed off on their Expedition to the Top Field !
Challenges started from the word go-first teams had to negotiate the rough terrain, using their maps to follow the routes they had planned. On their journey, quiz questions to find, testing their knowledge of other great explorers.
At last we reached the top field-Challenge 2, first team to put their tent up securely! (Icy Explorers were the champions here!) Having settled into our cosy shelters, another problem to solve:- our supplies had “gone missing” on the journey and in order to win an emergency supply box, we needed to find the clues and solve the mathematical problem.
Mission accomplished, we then had to share the meagre rations between our team; sausages & beans, chocolate pudding, 1 bottle of water and a bar of Kendal mint cake! Yum!
With renewed energy, we faced the next challenge-how to keep cool in the rising temperatures! Ellie-Mae recorded 20°C at one point. Hats, scarves, snow suits were all discarded and shorts would have been more appropriate!
Still we battled on with enthusiasm and excitement into our group activities, which continued through to the afternoon; compass reading with Mrs Yeldon & Mrs Sally Marsh; physical team challenge with Mrs Taylor-how could we get the “ice blocks” across the ice bergs without falling in the sea & then build a shelter at the other side? ; looking at supplies and equipment & learning some science along the way with Mrs Marsh, carrying out our own independent jobs and ….a chill out time-an opportunity to read our own stories we had written to our team mates!
After packing up our tents and supplies-we had one last surprise! A stray penguin had taken a wrong turning on its way to the Antarctic and ended up on our Top Field. We couldn’t help but chase it and to our amazement, it even brought treats for us. Thank you Mrs Penguin!
We trundled back to our base camp in the classroom having had an exhausting but incredibly exciting day. Thank you to all the adults that came along to help us out and well done Year 3-you were a great team!
Enjoy the film!
We have worked really hard on our penguins and they are finally finished and now enjoying living on their ice shelf. They look amazing, check them out!
OK so not quite Antarctic temperatures, but what an opportunity to experience first hand the snow and wind ‘blizzard’ conditions! Unfortunately we cant be at school today but please share your snow day photos with us. What did it feel like being out in the snow and wind? How long did it take until you started to get cold? Did you pull a sledge or anthing else through the snow? what did you like best? What didn’t you enjoy quite so much? Enjoy the snow Endurance and stay safe, we look forward to sharing your snowy experiences next week.
……so we decided that we needed to make an antarctic landscape for them to live in. We made a base using boxes and newspaper then covered it with paper and paste. We then decided that our penguins were dry enough to paint so found out about different species of penguin that live on and around Antarctica and chose one to make our model into. We were really careful when we painted the models to make sure the marking were accurate.
This afternoon, we became sculptors and made penguins out of clay as part of our ‘Big Freeze’ topic about Antarctica. We started off with just one big lump of clay, worked our magic and low and behold we have created our own penguin colony! What do you think? Now they just need somewhere to live…..
