The Adventurers were treated to a fantastic day out at Stover Country Park where they met Park Ranger Jas and learnt about Stover.  The children first went on a habitat walk, learnt about the madmade lake and what we can find in all the different habitats that are found at Stover. After a well earned lunch the children went pond dipping and found lots of lovely pond dwellers such as tadpoles, water boatmen and even a leech!

Adventurers experimented with countless different ways to create marks on their papers ready to use in their Eric Carle collage next week. We watched how Eric Carle prepared his tissue paper for his collages and loved all the different ways he made textures and patterns. The children experimented with using their paintbrush in different ways (not always using the brush part either), scrumpling foil, printing with different objects,  scraping the paint with different implements, swirlis, coils, zigzags...and as you can see we now have some amazing resources for our collage!

What a beautiful day for a visit to the park! The Adventurers had so much fun at the park this morning in the lovely sunshine. The children spent the morning playing and exploring all the equipment. Soon the children will be writing recounts about a bigger trip they will be taking this term so we will use the experience of this trip to explore and practise writing a recount together.

After looking at Eric Carle's work the children made their own paper tissue collages, thinking about the colours they were using and what effects they could create when they layered them and the different shapes that they would need. We think they have done a terrific job and are so proud of our amazin artists!

The Adventurers have been identifying the five senses and taking part in simple tests to see how their senses help them understand the world around them and keep them safe. The children identified their senses and the parts of their body that they mainly use with each sense. Next, the children identified different smells, different tastes, tried activities without using their eyes, answered questions about objects only using touch and identified different sounds.

There was lots of excitment this morning as the children from Explorers and Adventurers took part in the interhouse competition for the spring term. The Year 6 house captains did a brilliant job of running each station and helping the younger children with their activities. So much fun was had, lots of amazing skills shown and loads of points collected for their house teams!

KS1 first of all made a prediction about which design they thought would stay in flight the longest - the long aeroplane, or the helicopter. The children decided that it would be the long aeroplane. Next, everyone made their planes before going out to the playground to put them to the test. We decided to stop timing when the last paper aircraft had landed. The children decided to test the crafts three times each, always standing from the same spot and all throwing at the same time to make the test as fair as possible. After looking at the timings we were shocked to discover that it was the helicopter that stayed in flight the longest!

KS1 had a brilliant day sharing our favourite books, acting out space stories, finding new books to try, creating space decorations for our reading corner, snuggling down in our space den to read, making cards for the characters in our Literacy story, making costumes for new and old characters that we love, and reminding ourselves how much fun we can have with books!

Year 2 have been focusing on rhythm, pulse and pitch this half term in their music lessons, experimenting with different percussion instruments to create their own original composition based on the story of 'The Gruffalo'. The children used their knowledge of crotchets and quavers, and their knowledge of high, middle and low pitches to create different four beat rhythms for the animals that the Gruffalo scares and the Gruffalo himself. Working in pairs, the children created and wrote down their music using musical notation and then performed to the rest of the class. 

KS1 have been learning about the difference between AI and humans. We looked at and discussed all the amazing things that AI can do and all the amazing things our human brains can do. Sometimes AI can seem like it is human, for example when we talk to our electronic voice assistants and they help us do things or find out about things. We looked at what humans can do and what electronic voice assistants can do to compare. We talked about how electronic voice assistants can play our favourite music, tell us jokes and read stories to us but they don't have feelings, they can't cook our dinner and they can't give us a hug!

KS1 dissected their plants in groups and labelled the different parts that they found. Loads of great conversation was had as there were parts that we were not so familiar with. We did a bit more research before we carried on labelling and sharing our findings.

Amazing detective work from the Adventurers today as they paired up to find and identify lots of different trees on our lovely school grounds. The children looked and high and they looked low, even finding clues from fallen leaves to identify the different trees and sort them into evergreen and deciduous.

Year 2 have been learning about rhythm in their music lessons. The children are amazing at hearing and copying rhythms so have decided that they would like to write down the rhythms that they can hear. Everyone showed off their amazing skills as they first clapped back rhythms they heard before turning these into crotchets and quavers on their whiteboards. Finally, the children sang the lyrics to a new song and set about recording the four beat rhythms that they had heard. What fantastic musicians!

Naughty Bus has returned to the Adventurers' classroom and has apologised for all the naughty things that they have done. Naughty Bus has carefully read all the letters the children sent them with their words of advice on how to behave and has decided to be a 'good' bus. Unfortunately, Naughty Bus does miss being naughty a little bit so the children have decided to write some new adventurers that Naughty Bus could go on. Then, if Naughty Bus ever feels tempted they can read the children's naughty adventures that they have written and get their 'naughty fix'! Today the children made their own naughty buses and went around the school acting out naughty situations to inspire thier future writing. We can't wait to read their stories!

Year 2 have been learning about different pitches, focusing on low, middle and high. After listening and responding to different pitches the children used a stave to notate different four note patterns. The children then played these on their glockenspiels, experimenting to make lots of different patterns. The children even went on to listen to a four note pattern and notated what they had heard.

KS1 came back from playtime to find the classroom in a complete mess! Someone had knocked over the fruit, someone had zoomed through the cubes and sent them flying, someone had knocked over the jumper box, shoved poor Meatballs the bear into a plant pot and pushed over the chairs and tables! Fortunately, the Adventurers' like a mystery and are very good at looking at clues and making predictions. Eventually, we noticed that our story was very similar to 'Naughty Bus' by Jan and Jerry Oke and we realised that we had our very own Naughty Bus loose in the classroom. The children decided to write letters to Naughty Bus to give him advice on how to behave a little better!

There was so much creativity and Christmas spirit in the Adventurers' classroom this morning as the children set to work to create their Christmas crafts. Everyone looked fantastic in their Christmas jumpers and the morning was rounded off with a scrumptious Christmas dinner!

Well done to all the children in KS1 who performed a fantastic Nativity performance this week. All the children worked hard to learn their lines and actions, every child performed with great confidence and we are all very proud of them. Well done Adventurers!

KS1 had their last Forest School session today and learnt about fire safety around the pit whilst roasting tasty marshmallows.

Not even rain can stop Bishop's interhouse sports competition. With a quick relocation to the hall the children did an excellent job of joining in with all the different activities and were brilliant at showing support to their fellow classmates. There was also lots of resillience shown with every child giving their best effort to earn as many points as they could for their house team. Well done Adventurers!

KS1 children had a terrific time in Forest School today. Year 2 were mixing up potions and creating conker fireworkss to launch through targets they had rigged up in the trees whilst Year 1 were creating pine cone spiders and navigating through giant spider webs amongst the trees. 

Year 2 shared their music learning by singing sea shanties to the Year 1s this week, we loved how they used their voices, their fantastic actions and their confident performance. We also had lots of children share their home learning in our Thursday sharing, we have been learning about smugglers and pirates and lots of children shared amazing boats they had made and flags that they had designed.

Inspired by Mondrian the children have been using their computer skills to create fantastic pieces of art. They have utilised their knowledge using apps to create their art, exploring different ways of making shapes, lines and creating colourful creations.

KS1 have made some fantastic posters to help find and capture Joh Rattenbury. We spoke about how John Rattenbury often wore disguises so we actually weren't really sure what he really looked like! The children shared why Devon was a good place for smugglers as it has lots of caves and isolated coves so that smugglers could hide their goods in secrecy. 

This week the children went on an Autumn walk around the school grounds to spot signs of the current season. A lot of golden leaves, bare branches, colder weather and darker skies were spotted. There was also a lot of excitment over a humongous mushroom!

The Adventurers first had to help the adults sort out the labels in the classroom because they had all got muddled up! This involved lots of reading and identifying the different objects to make sure that the correct labels were put on the correct objects, we found the labels useful to help the reader know what things were. After this, the Adventuers paired up to label all the different parts of the playground, such brilliant writing from both Year 1 and Year 2!

We have been busy learning our classroom routines and getting together with our old friends and lots of new friends too! It was so lovely to have our first PE lesson of the new term out on the lovely sunshine where we practised our rolling skills together.

Adventurers have been learning about local history as part of our 'Community' topic this half term. We looked at smugglers and pirates who might have operated from the shores of South Devon and today the whole class immersed themselves in everything that pirates might do and enjoy. The children made pirate passports with their new pirate identity, were challenged to make a boat to keep a stranded pirate safe and dry and ended the day with a treasure hunt after a mysterious clue was found in one of our pirate story books.

The children enjoyed a singing session, a role play Wedding and Baptism and a parachute game!

A big thank you to Rev Dave for his time and for making the visit so fun and interactive. 

KS1 have had the best two days full of amazing activitites at the Bishopsteignton Village Festival, pom-pom making, flower arranging, orienteering, taekwando, singing, drumming performances, dance performances, bubble making and blowing ... wow! Everyone had so much fun and we can't wait for the next festival! Thank you so much to the Bishopsteignton community for a fantastic time.

KS1 were fantastic in Sports Day, every child put in their best effort even in the brilliant, boiling sunshine! Well done!

KS1 got their hands very messy this afternoon, but for a very good reason. As part of our learning in Science about plants and as our overall topic of Community this term the children made seed paper out of scrap paper from the classroom and pollinator attracting seeds. We are hopeful that as the seed paper is shared out amongst our community that there will soon be lots of pollinator friendly flowers popping up ready to welcome our very important pollinators to Bishop!

The children learnt about different pollinators with a particular focus on bees. They learnt about the dangers that are out there for bees and why they are so important. KS1 planted a variety of wildflowers to create a pollination station for our outside area and made posters to raise awareness for our buzzing buddies.

KS1 learnt lots of different ways that plants can disperse their seeds. This was followed by sorting seeds on how they thought that they might disperse, our favourites were the exploding ones! After this, the children made their own paper seed modelled on a sycamore seed before watching their seeds disperse in the wind outside.

KS1 have been learning about instructions in their most recent Literacy unit and in DT have been researching, testing materials and designing their own kites. Today the children made their kites with great success and are going to be writing a set of instructions so that their friends can make some fantastic kites too!

First, the children discussed what materials would be suitable to make a kite and sorted materials into those that had properties to make a sucessful kite and those that didn't. After this, the children then tested different materials to see if they could twist and stretch, if they were waterproof and if they were strong.

The children had so much fun this morning learning about different materials and how we can make sure we are recycling the materials correctly. KS1 acted out being a steel can, all the way through from being full of baked beans at the supermarket, to being emptied out and cleaned at home, to being at the recycling centre being squashed and flattend to make a new tin, before rolling down to the lorry to be taken and filled with something new. The children also made a really useful poster to put on their fridge to remind them which boxes and bags we put our different recycling in. Thank you Recycle Devon!

KS1 made looms and then used paper to create woven placemats, they were all so focused and used effective colours to reflect those that would be seen under the water. Next, the children used left over paper, magazines, offcuts from previous projects etc. to decorate their placemats. As we are focusing on sustainability the children felt it was important to reuse what we already had. The results are fantastic, well done KS1!

KS1 were challenged to make something useful out of a (clean) coffee cup that was rescued from landfill. The children could only use materials that had been rescued from going in the bin, e.g. scrap paper, fabric off cuts, leftover materials from shops that had been donated. So many useful creations! We had plant pots, table tidies, table bins, cat, dog and panda pals, buckets, Easter Egg holders, devices to hide chocolate in, and even a new cup!

KS1 first made a prediction about how many seeds the fruit would have and how the seeds are dispersed. After this, they disected the different fruits and counted how many seeds they actually had. We were very surprised at how many seeds a kiwi has!

All the children had a great time taking parts in the different stations as they worked hard to earn points for their house team. Lots of amazing jumping, throwing and running accompanied by lots of cheers and encouragement! Well done KS1 and EYFS!

The children found out about how different animals camouflage in the wild and why, we were very impressed by how clever the animals were at either blending into their background or pretending to be something else altogether. Next, the children made a prediction about what caterpillar they thought would be the easiest and the hardest to find out of seven different coloured caterpillars. Charlotte thought that the black caterpillars would be hardest to find because there are lots of shadows around the field, Tiberius and Lilia thought that the brown caterpillars would be tricky to spot because they would blend in with the mud and the trees. Phoebe thought the green caterpillars would be hard to find because there is a lot of grass on the field. Nancy predicted that the white caterpillars would be the easiest to find as there are not many white things on the field ("unless they are on the football posts" said Wynn). Everyone went on a caterpillar hunt and discussed whether our predictions were correct.

KS1 looked amazing today as the classroom was filled with lots of different book characters. There was lots of excitment as the children shared their favourite books before learning a poem that links to our focus of sustainability. KS1 performed their poem to the Explorers and we were so proud of how quickly they learnt the poem be heart and the amazing actions they came up with to go with it. We ended the day with a visit from our adults, who came in to share their love of reading with KS1 too!

Year 1 have been practising partitioning numbers to 50 in Maths this week. They have been making two digit numbers based on descriptions of how many tens and how many ones, and then reversing this and making numbers by looking at the whole number and partitioning into tens and ones. Lots of very busy mathematicians!

The children learnt about different seeds and what information we need before we start planting, then planted their very own sunflower seeds. We have watered them, placed them in a sunny spot and are excited to track and record our observations of their progress in our plant diaries over the next few weeks.

KS1 shared their knowledge of how to stay safe on the internet, the children were fantastic at spotting scams and explaining how they knew. The children also learnt about which trusted adults they could and should go to if anything happens that makes them unsure or uncomfortable on the internet. Take a look at their posters where they are showing their trusted adults, identifying scams and sharing what information is safe to share on the internet and what information is not.

KS1 used their designs to help them create their final moving pictures. The children used mechanisms such as levers and sliders to create the movement in their fairytale scenes. All the children worked carefully to ensure that their picture matched their design and they made their final product as appealing to their target audience as they could. Well done KS1, the final results are amazing!

Emily introduced the children to Wilfred the dog and taught them lots of rhymes and songs about how to make sure the dogs that we know feel safe and comfortable. We understood that we must make sure our doggy friends have enough space and that there are times when they might not want us to touch them at all. The children learnt about 'snuggles' instead of cuddles and Peggy the toy dog demonstrated the different between these two actions. The children learnt a lot and we now know how to show kindness to the dogs in our lives in a safe and comfortable way.

Look at these wonderful sliding mechanisms the children in KS1 have made today, they had great fun retelling the story using these sliding pictures they made in DT.