Last week a part of our launch of our Spring term topic focusing on the Romans, we created our own paper mosaics inspired by original Roman designs. Many of us were particularly inspired by one of the original uses of mosaics as signs, especially the 'Beware of the dog' sign. Can you spot any of our 'Cave canem' signs on our display in the Year 3 and 4 corridor?

4S loved the visit of the birds of prey on residential and got to hold one of the owls.

4S enjoyed monkeying around on the tree swing at residential. Mr Moore's arms were certainly aching after all that pushing!

What an incredible few days the wonderful 4S have had. They really did Exminster proud as polite, helpful and enthusiastic children. No amount of rain and wind was going to stop them having a great time!
Here are some photos to get you started, more to follow when we get back to school on Monday.

Well done to the amazing children of 4C who showed stunning manners, such a caring nature towards one another and a real motivation to take part in all the activities. I would like to thank the staff who spent hours (literally!) organising this great opportunity, who looked after the children and who had such fun creating new memories with the children. Wildside Richard, Alison, Tom and Bob - thank you, we all loved it!
p.s. if you find any random items in the hedges/lanes, they may belong to Miss Conibear!

Each morning we were woken by Richard playing the violin and the rather noisy cockerel.  Everytime the drum was sounded, we had to gather together - 'Drum means Come'.

We watched a bat show on our night walk, we all shone our torches up and they did their red arrows display for us.  We also tried to communicate with the owls but no answer came back.  We saw 3 swallows on their migration journey of 500 miles, one whole month of flying.  We also fed the chickens and the pigs each day.  The pigs are called Donald Trump and Teresa May, not sure which one is pictured, I think it may be Teresa.  Mrs Whalley nearly spent a night with the pigs by accident.  On the way back from the night walk, she took an early turn from the path and nearly fell over their fence and straight into their sty!

Woodland games: each day, we visited the woods and played lots of games.  One of our favourite games was 'Scatter'.  This was when Richard, our leader, shouted scatter and we all had to hide in the wood.  Richard then counted to 30 and after 30 we had to sneak up to Richard without him noticing.  Amelia D got the award for the greatest stealth!  Miss Conibear's favourite game was the glow stick game in the dark.  This was when the children all placed their glow sticks around the forest.  Then the adults had to collect as many as they could, under the cover of darkness, without being found by the children.  It looked like the glow sticks were floating around the darkness - a magical and hilarious experience all in one!

Archery Rivalry: Maid Marion (pictured top left) demonstrated a great technique for us all with our archery.  We learnt a new skill.  The chocolate archery made our competitive nature come out, concentrating really hard and showing a growth mindset!

Zip wire: we all had a go on the new zip wire in the woods.  We did it with a blind fold on the second time - it seemed like a really long ride.  At the end of our night walk on the second night, some of us did it in the pitch black with only a glow stick shooting down the wire!  We also had a rope swing at our camp site and enjoyed hanging around on that.

Wood badges: we carved these discs using a saw, we drilled a hole, threaded the wool through, decorated with a pattern and Alison carved our names on them.  These will be a great reminder of our Wildside experience.

This week we have been very lucky with all of the generous volunteers coming into school and talking to the children about their careers. On Monday we had visits from the army, the police and the navy where the children learnt about survival skills, riot control and clearance diving. On Tuesday we had two scientists visit us from the MET Office and a professor from the University of Exeter. They discussed their professional journies and aspects of science and maths that are important for their jobs. On Thursday we had a medical afternoon where we were visited by nurses, a physiotherapist and a pharmacist. The children loved all of the different medical equipment and clothing.

Thank you to all of the volunteers we have had. The children have had a fantastic week and really loved hearing about everyone's jobs and experiences.

Well done to the children in 4M who took part in physical activity for Sports Relief. They tried to complete 12 laps of the field. Everybody showed great effort and determination.

On Thursday, the Year 4 children were very excited to welcome Warburtons into their classroom. They learnt about the eatwell plate, healthy food choices and reducing food and product waste. The children also got to make there own healthy sandwiches and learnt about food safety and hygiene.

Thank you to everybody who was able to attend the reading cafe on Tuesday afternoon. The children had a really enjoyable time sharing books and discussing the types of texts they like to read.

On Thursday, the Year 4 children enjoyed their visit to Kents Cavern. They found out about the history of the caves and what prehistoric life would have been like. Thank you to our volunteers who came along to help out with the trip.

Year 4 made some fantastic prints for Arts Week. They were extremely grateful to work with Simon Ripley who is an experienced print artist.

This week the children have set up an experiment to see which drink is the best and worst for our teeth. Most children have predicted that coke will cause the most damage to the egg shells because they think it has the highest sugar level. They also said water would cause the least damage to the egg shells as it doesn't have any sugar. We will be keeping a close eye on the investigation and will write up our findings next week.

In Year 4 we have been looking at cave paintings and what they tell us about prehistoric life. The children created their own paintings by using different textures and sketching incharcoal.

This week in Year 4 we are looking at inspirational figures and values that are important to us. We wrote a letter in the shoes of Zaccheus and explained how Jesus had helped transform his life.