Opal Classes week in the sun

Fire making Monday

Following the winter solstice this Monday, Opal Class decided to make the most of the lovely sunny weather while we still have it.

On Monday we searched high and low to find the tools and materials to build our own Stone Age fires. We set off in groups of 6 to find a base board to build the fire on, stones to strike together, dry grass to use as tinder and sticks to fuel the fire. The result was some brilliantly built fires that could cook a mammoth or sabre tooth tiger to feed the whole family.

Taekwondo Tuesdays

On Tuesday we took to the field to take part in some Taekwondo. We begun by practicing our walking and front stances and then began to learn how to perform the 3 key blocks, low block, inner block and high block. Once we had got the hang of these, it was time to put them together. We worked through Taegeuk El Jang (pattern 1) going one movement at a time and then worked on mastering the first 6 movements. ( a video showing the pattern is linked below)

Once we returned to the classroom we spoke about the language I had been using and after a few guesses the children worked out that it was Korean. We practiced the numbers 1-10 in Korean and the children quickly picked it up. Some were even willing to have a go on their own. A link to the numbers is attached below.

It has been amazing to teach the children some taekwondo for the last few weeks and I hope they are enjoying it as much as I am.

Toolkit Thursday

On Thursday we looked at the importance of cave art and the insight that it has given us into life in the stone age. We set out on a mission to create our own cave art telling the story of life today. However, it would be unfair for us to use modern tools to create our cave art. so, we set off outside and began looking for sticks, leaves, pine needles, grass, shoots, roots and berries that may be useful in our cave art tool kit. Next week we will see how our tools survived and attempt to create some cave art of our own.

Maths fun friday

On friday we took our whiteboards and pens outside to create a human number line! We made a number line to 100, a number line to 1000 and finally we played hotter or colder to help each other figure out their mystery number. Hopefully putting our place value work into a practical context will help us to understand the value of numbers up to 1000.