Fiery Phoenix NewsFebruary 3, 2017

Harry Potter NightFebruary 2nd marks National Harry Potter Night as it is the date that Harry was interviewed by journalist Rita Skeeter in the series. To commemorate the event, we had a sleepover at the school. We completed Harry Potter themed activities and watched the first movie.The students made themselves costumes and then got sorted into houses. We made bookmarks and salt dough owls, put our knowledge to the test with some Harry Potter trivia, brewed some potions, and had a game of Quidditch.

Farmhouse BreakfastEveryone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day and every year we look at why that is with the farmhouse breakfast. Coinciding with our sleepover this year, we had a healthy breakfast and talked about what makes the breakfast healthy. The students compared nutritional information on various types of bread so they can make their own informed decision about which bread is healthiest. In assembly we learned about wheat and how it is processed into flour. We held our own “Breakfast Games” tournament with an egg and spoon race, toast toss challenge, and a breakfast relay race.

The RSPB BirdwatchEvery year the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has a bird watch for a weekend. These numbers are then used to track bird populations in the UK. This year, the students at Holme Court took shifts in watching out the windows to give the numbers from our area. The students kept tally charts of their sightings and also used their numbers to make bar graphs in their math lessons.

Chinese Lantern FestivalJanuary 28th marked the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebrations and the year of the rooster. We took this opportunity to learn about another culture as we learned the history of the festival through reading comprehension activities, practiced our fine motor skills with chopstick races, painted Sakura branches, researched the eight food regions in China, and coloured roosters. The day culminated in a sampling of some Chinese foods such as spring rolls, prawn toast, and noodles.

SpaceOur space unit is just about drawing to a close. We learned a lot about our solar system, planets, and stars through various means. We made orbital models to show how everything moves, we use chalk smudging techniques to make space pictures, and we learned how many of these things affect us.