Westdale Junior School news

This year on Monday 21st May to the 25th of May 2007 we had an arts week with a variety of events and visitors including Bemma, Donna Vann (author), Naomi Tipping (illustrator), Risk Watch, Flight Man, 'Let's talk rubbish' and Circus Skills.

Bemma

Bemma is an interesting African woman who kindly came in and taught us about how the ‘Elephant Dance’ is around today and how it was created. She told us stories from Africa, taught us a song and the dance to that song as well as the story.

Donna Vann

Donna Vann was an American author who came in to talk to us about her books and also gave us a quiz. At the end of her production she gave us all a story plan to write and then turn it into a story.

Naomi Tipping: illustrator

Naomi Tipping is an illustrator who came in and taught us how to do drawings like hers. We looked at examples of her work and then discussed them and drawing in general. We drew our initials (or names) and then turned them into different pictures or animations and then coloured them.

Risk watch

Risk Watch was a session about how to keep safe. Some fire men showed us around the fire truck and told us about some of the equipment they used. They did a demonstration about how you can be saved when you are drowning in water. They also showed us what happens if someone's house is on fire. They would type their address into a computer and it would be bought up on a map of the area and the street. Then we went inside and some other firemen told us about smoke alarms and how they could save our lives! At the end they told us about a competition they were doing. We had to design a poster and the winner would win an MP3 player.

Flight man

On the last day of arts week a man came into school to talk to Year 6 about aeroplanes and how to control them. He gave 12 Year 6’s a challenge to make some aeroplanes, then give a presentation about them. They had to make the aeroplanes so that they could stay in the air as long as possible.

‘Lets talk rubbish’

On Friday there was a production in our hall that was all about recycling our rubbish in the right way. Pupils went up to help out with the production and performed magic tricks and were given balloon sculptures as a reward! The magician was a genuinely funny man who made recycling sound fun for others to do and encouraged to recycle and help the environment.

Circus Skills

A clown called Bozo came in and showed us some circus tricks that he does when he’s performing as a clown. He let us go up and help him with various tricks and also got the teachers involved with the tricks! Mr. Bannister was the one that went up because everyone pointed and shouted for him to go up! He balanced a feather on his palm, finger and chin and then nose and he actually managed to do it!


Everyone had a fun arts week doing all the activities.

Labels: 2007, arts week, report

During our Bookweek at school this year, we had several authors come to visit us. Read about them and what they did for us below. We also had a theatre group present a play about Charles Dickens.

There were many other special activities in school that week, including a range of art and craft activities. Also, Year 3 and 4 had an opportunity to do some African dancing - you can read about this below too. Thank you to Mrs. Harrison for organising everything.

OUR DAY WITH ANDREW COLLET

Bookweek began on Monday with Andrew Collet doing an assembly where he told us some rhymes which were silly. He was on a stereo system so that the people at the back could hear him (how thoughtful) so when he talked it was amplified. The assembly was 10:30 till 11:30.

He gave the school a book - poems about teachers - and he visited the year 5 classes and helped us make poems that were called “If you’d be my friend I’d”. Then he helped us to make up bits to go after that. He also let the year 5 classes he worked with choose a book of his for the class to keep.

MICHAEL COX

Michael Cox came to Westdale Junior School on Wednesday and took an assembly for book week. He told us about lots of his books he wrote. Some of the books were horror stories, others included Awful Art, Elvis and his Pelvis, and Incredible Internet. He has written lots more.

After the assembly classes 6C, 5CB, 6J, 5PB had the chance to ask him questions and we could buy some of his books. He mostly talked about himself, telling us what he used to be. (He used to be a teacher.)

“WHAT THE DICKENS!”

On Friday 9th June 2006, S&P theatre group performed a play for the whole school called “What the Dickens!”. It was about a mouse, Arthur, and a crazy scientist who travelled back to Victorian times using their new experiment, a time machine.

It started off with a small mouse being transported back to the time of Charles dickens (around the time of Queen Victoria). When Arthur (the mouse) discovers the world of the famous author he becomes entranced and insists on seeing short snippets of many famous plays.

The actor playing Charles Dickens acted as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. The Ghost of Christmas Present came to see him. He showed how Scrooge could be having fun at Christmas instead of being a mardy old man. The next visitor was The Ghost of Christmas Future. He showed Scrooge that people would hate him when he was dead. Scrooge realised that he had been evil and became kind.

After that, Charles became the man wearing a stripy costume in Great Expectations. The man in the stripy suit grabbed hold of Pip and ordered him to bring him food and drink. Pip did as he was told and brought him the things he needed. When he grew up, he received some money in an envelope from the man he did a favour for. One day, he and his friend Smike tried to run away from the place that they worked at. It was unsuccessful and they ended up getting into much trouble.

I thoroughly enjoyed the play and I think that everyone else did too. A pupil at Westdale Junior School said that the play was very entertaining and she would love to see it again.

ROB GEE’S VISIT DURING BOOK WEEK

Rob Gee visited our school to give a presentation of his performance poems.

His poems were fabulous! He puts actions to them and made them really humorous . In lesson time he taught us how to write a poem together called ‘How to make a best friend’. We all practiced and performed the poem and actions very well.

We found him very helpful and funny and we really enjoyed him teaching us. All in all we thought he was great and very talented and we all hope he could visit us again very soon.

AFRICAN DANCING

In Arts Week, Years 3 and 4 did African dancing with a lady called Bemma. She told us about African people who were shipped over to the Caribbean to be slaves. She said that the slaves lived in huts and were very jealous of their owners, who lived in big, posh mansions. So, on their one and only holiday, they made cardboard mansions and danced with them.

We did an African warm-up which was very funny and we were all laughing by the end. Then we started to do some Caribbean dancing. That had us all laughing too. It was great fun and afterwards we all were worn out!

Labels: 2006, arts week, report

This year again saw a splendid Arts and Book Week at Westdale involving the whole school in a wide range of arts and book-related activities. Thanks to Mrs. Harrison for organising everything.

Library Visits

During our Arts Week Year 3 and 4 visited the local library on Westdale Lane so they could talk to Mrs Ward, the librarian.

When they arrived they went upstairs and were shown where to put their coats. Once they were seated Mrs Ward talked to them about the layout of the library and what the codes on the books e.g. B=Beginners, Y=Young Readers. After that she told them how to find the information books and gave them 10 minutes to look at some books. The books that were popular were animal books, Where’s Wally and Goosebumps. Next Mrs Ward showed them how to use the reading safari booklets and gave them one each to take home and fill in every time they’ve read a book.

The children enjoyed their visit to the library, especially the opportunity to look at different books.

Art Activities

During arts week all of the children took part in a range of art activities. Many children also swapped classes so they had a chance to do different activities. These included: Making clay masks by carving the clay with different tools.

• paper weaving using coloured strips of paper;
• creating sawdust pictures with red, orange, green and blue sawdust on black sugar paper;
• making cards which you could turn around and on either side there was a day time or night time;
• producing symmetrical patterns by drawing a shape and rotating your template;
• computer art and making origami animals;
• drawing symmetrical faces using wool, paper and glue.

Bright Sparks

On the 10th February Jane Maydew from PowerGen came to talk to the school about their Bright Sparks project. She talked to us about electricity and about global warming. Her main point was to tell us not to waste too much electricity because of the problem of global warming. She told us some ways of cutting down on the use of electricity. For example, we can turn lights off when we have finished in a room and we can turn the television off instead of leaving it on standby. We could put covers over the boiler, fibreglass in the loft and "snakes" to block the gaps under our doors etc. This would mean that we could save electricity and we can save coal, oil and gas because the electricity company will not have to use so much fuel.

The talk was good fun because Jane Maydew used different children as helpers. When they had finished helping we had to give them a low energy clap or a high energy clap. (A low energy clap meant that we clapped slowly and a high energy clap meant we clapped faster) At the end, she told us all that we had a free energy-saving light bulb and a form to fill in about energy use in our houses.

Labels: 2000, arts week