What a great week we’re had! Guinea pig hats, guinea pig fridge magnets, guinea pig biscuits, clay guinea pigs, building buggies for guinea pigs and racing them (with toy guinea pigs!) and having our very own guinea pig show. Here are some pictures of the thiongs we did.

We had a great day out today. We went by coach to Buckfast on Dartmoor to see the butterflies and otters and have a ride on the steam train. As we have been learning about rainforests this term it was very interesting to experience a humid environment.

We started off by watching Otter BB leave on the steam train for their ride to Totnes before going to see the otters being fed.

We had great fun on Friday doing the Big Challenge. Here are some photos of us.

Today we went to visit the mosque in Exeter. We were lucky enough to arrive in time to watch the midday prayer seesion.

Mr Abrar from the mosque showed us round and answered all our questions. We had a very interesting visit and learned a lot about the features of a mosque and how Muslims worship there.

This week is Action for Brain Injury Week and the school council asked each class to raise money by wearing different hats into school. Here we are.

They had also arranged for someone to come and talk to us about how to look after our brains by wearing helmets to protect ourselves when we are doing things like riding our bikes and playing on skateboards. We got to try on some different types of helmets.

Back in our class we made a jelly brain (which we later ate!) and designed helemts to protect our eggs. Alan named this egg Shelly.

Our jelly brain

We saw what happened to Shelly when she hit her ‘head’ on the tarmac – it wasn’t a pretty sight! The helemts we designed helped some our of eggs. Although we had a lot of fatalities and some serious injuries, 3 of our eggs – ‘Jade’ designed by Bryony and Gemma, ‘Hazel’ by Helen and Chloe and ‘Samuel’ by James and Connor did manage to survive their ordeal.

Today we visited St Andrew’s church as part of our RE work on Religion, Family and Community. When we entered the church we spent 10 minutes or so in silence experiencing the peace of the building and sketching our favourite part.

Wayne then showed us around the church, telling us about all the different things we could see there.

At the end of our visit Wayne took us into the church hall where we found details of all the groups that the church runs. We are looking forward to visiting the mosque in Exeter after half term and learning more about what happens there.

We’ve been making avatars of ourselves to use on the internet. We’ve talked about keeping out personal details private when we go online and how including photos of ourselves is not a good idea. Instead we can use the avatars we have made.

Here are some of them. Can you guess whose they are?

As well as writing descriptions of scenes in Myst we have also used Voicethread as a way of recording adjectives connected with  different scenes. Here are our first thoughts on entering Edanna.

In our literacy lessons we’ve been travelling into the worlds of Tomahma and Releeshan. We’ve written descriptions of the landscapes we found ourselves in and have explored all around the island trying to solve problems so that we can find our way into the tusks and then into other worlds.
Here’s the letter Alan wrote;

Dear Mum and Dad,

I am writing to tell you about one of my adventures

I opened the book. A strange yet familiar tingling sensation in the tips of my fingers and boom …. I was transported into another world.

It was a barren land, dry and dead. I turned to see a lady and a baby in her arms. She said, ‘Go and wait in Atrus’s study’ in a soft voice so I went into the study.

It was a damp place with a massive bookcase,  luminous blue lamps hanging from the ceiling and an oak wood floor. Then I picked up an enormous scarlet book and then Atrus walked into the room and handed me a book. As soon as he gave me the the book a man appeared. He was a tall man with menace and tangled hair and moth eaten clothes. He threw a fire ball at the book case and then stole the Releeshan book .

Mary was one of our Golden Pupils this week for her fantastic decsciption of an explosion. We looked a picture and talked about what it might look like, what we might hear and feel and what smells and tastes there might be. This is what Mary wrote:

Explosion!

As I sat on the steep hill I heard crackling like shattering ice under my feet. Then I saw the enormous explosion with flames floating up to the sky. I gazed at it for a while. The smell of wood burnt smoke drifted up my nostrils. I opened my mouth to find the taste of tar swirling round my mouth. I stopped. I looked and ran away.