Shaduf Testing

We have had another tremendous afternoon where the children began testing their shadufs in our "River Nile". Some worked brilliantly - some needed a little extra work! Just like real life! The children showed great perseverance,  determination and willingness to keep on adjusting until it worked.  We're hoping to finish these tomorrow when there will hopefully be lots of happy faces on our young product designers!

The children would also like to give a great big thank you to our parent helpers!

Mummification made simple

I was a little alarmed today when I walked into year 3/4 and discovered that they were in the process of mummifying some teddy bears! This included removal of the vital organs, wrapping and preparation for burial. I was assured no teddy was hurt in the process!

Here are some instructions and photos:

Mr Bear by Keeley

On Monday 16th January, the five OPEN schools gathered at Cholsey for the third 'OPEN Schools Dance Festival'. The children arrived at 2.15 and spent the afternoon working hard and rehearsing for our evening show at 5pm. Sports Leaders from Cholsey hosted the event and were given the jobs of: looking after our visiting schools, organising the music, welcoming parents and staff to the evening show and introducing each act on stage.

This year, our performance was based on a piece of Hungarian music and contained exciting paired lifts and solo performances. The children worked very hard to learn a difficult dance routine and performed brilliantly on the night! Across the OPEN schools, there was a wide variety of  themes performed by children of all ages it was a great way to celebrate dance!

 

We were incredibly lucky to have the support of Ray Goodwin who provided us with fabulous lighting! He did a brilliant job and made the children feel like superstars on stage. Having these added extras really made a big difference to the evening show and the overall experience for our children.

 

 

 

Shadufs part 2!

What an amazingly productive afternoon. The 3/4 team would like to say a huge thank you to our super adult helpers for helping the children build their shadufs. Have a look at the photos.  They used lots of different tools and there was some superb teamwork! Next lesson, we will evaluate them, test them and see if there are any improvements we could make. What a fantastic journey and learning!

Year 3/4 Art

We spent an afternoon learning how to draw our hands in proportion, starting with very basic rectangle shapes. It was quite tricky but look what we managed!

Egyptian Shadufs

Yr 34 have been making prototypes for our shadufs (Egyptian irrigation systems). Like all product designers we have had a fantastic time building them. Here you can see some children using the tools. Most importantly, learned how we can improve our models to make the real thing robust and sturdy. We hope you enjoy our first attempts! Watch out for the final shadufs!