Composer Peter Kyrke-Smith came to visit Year 3 today with Claire to make a musical in a day and what a day it was!

GREECE LIGHTNING!

Making Olympic History In A Day!

The first Olympic Games were religious festivals as much as sports competitions, and the Greek gods always took a very keen interest in what happened…

GREECE LIGHTNING! tells the history of the Games in Ancient Greece - and then shows what happens when the Greek gods turn up rather unexpectedly for the Opening Ceremony of Rio 2016!

Will the Greek gods simply sit back and watch, or might they just be tempted to meddle with the medals..? Why else would a wing-footed runner from Greece called Hermes be up against Usain (Lightning) Bolt in the final of the Men’s 100 Metres..?!

Dramatic drama… great songs to sing… the historical truth (well, mostly…) - Year 3 put on an incredible performance to parents and the rest of the school.

Here are some of the pictures from the rehersals.

Click read more to see some video clips from the performance.

This week is Science week in Reception! We have had some special visitors today! We have been extremely careful. This snail was very quick at travelling. It almost slipped away!

Exminster Community Primary school is proud to be trialling Family FUNS. Family FUNS is a programme designed to work on children's fundamental movements combined with parts of the SEAL curriculum. Mrs Martin, Mrs Godbeer and Mrs Mason are delighted to be working with some parents of children in key stage 1. They are having great fun and have so far been pirates and astronauts. Take a look at some of the children leaving their spaceship this week to collect space rocks!

We followed the instructions ( see Reception blog) and today we raced our paper aeroplanes! It was AMAZING!

Today children school-wide have been celebrating our British Celebration Day with singing, dancing, food, making crowns, writing letters and making cards.  The costumes were amazing with knights, princes, princesses, party dresses and bow ties.  My favourite part of the day was my hand delivered letter from Florence!

We have made party hats to celebrate the Queen's 90 th birthday.

Today we had a delivery of eggs! Exminster finished in tenth place in the Mangahigh Eggstreme Maths Competition. Every child in the school who took part in the competition received a Creme Egg. Twenty three of those children achieved more than 100 points, earning themselves a further Easter Egg. Great work everyone!

Children in Key Stage Two have been taking part in daily sessions called 'Mini Maths', where they have been practising either their number bonds or times tables. They time how long it takes them to complete a grid correctly and simply try and beat it the next time. They have a maximum of 15 minutes and if they don't finish in that time they count how many they did and try to beat that. This is proven to improve children's recall of basic number facts and the more they do it the better. We found this great app which allows children to do the same at home. Click the link below to go to Google play to download this free app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jpn.bestyle.hundred_squzres_calc

The children are really enjoying taking part in the Eggstreme Primary Maths Challenge on Mangahigh.  It's been a wonderful competition so far, with 9528 students from 223 Primary Schools across the UK taking part! With two days still to go, there have already been 365 winners across the country! At Exminster, there have been 14 winners so far. We are currently sitting 7th on the National Leaderboard! Lets secure Exminster's top ten finish and win some more Easter eggs!

Happy Easter everybody. At breakfast club we made an Easter bunny following instructions.
"He saves Easter," said Theo, an excited child from Exminster.

With six days to go, the children are working hard ensuring that we remain in the top ten of schools across the country. Lots of children are close to their 100 point targets. Keep up the hard work!

We have really enjoyed exercising for Sports Relief this morning. We made up obstacle courses and went for a jog!
The children commented on some of their 'best bits.'
MacKenzie, "The jogging made me tired because we jogged too much!"

Ethan, " I liked the bit when we put the hoop over our bodies."

April, "Skipping back to the team was the best!"

Amber, " I liked jogging. It made me have a wonky leg but I liked it!"

We have enjoyed throwing and catching the balls in our games lesson today. We challenged ourselves to see how many times we could catch the ball. We moved away from our partners to make the task harder.

Children in Key Stage 2 are taking part in an eggstreme maths competition, on Mangahigh, over a 10 day period. Children have the 10 days to achieve 100 new points to win themselves an Easter egg supplied by Mangahigh. The school could also receive an Easter egg hamper if they finish 1st or a Creme Egg hamper if they finish between 2nd and 10th place on the 24th March. Currently, children are working very hard and have taken the school into the top ten across the country. We will try and keep you updated on their progress.

Click read more to see the current leaderboard. Come on Exminster!

This week is Active Travel Week and we're taking part in Sustrans Big Shift challenge. Please walk, cycle or scoot to school with your children. If you usually drive then you can park further away from school and walk the remaining distance. The more people that actively travel, the more chance we have of retaining our title and winning some great prizes!

On Monday 14th March, all Year 4 children participated in a handball festival as part of Sports Relief Week. It was great to see the children including each other in their teams and having to think about their decisions. The children displayed fantastic sportsmanship and had lots of fun!

Samuel said: "I found refereeing fun because you get to see how people improve and play fairly."

Ella: "I liked that everybody in my team weren't fussing over the scores and showed great sportsmanship."

Rio: "I thought I did really well in goal because I saved lots of shots."

Maddie: "I really enjoyed it because the referees were fair and I thought I improved my defending skills."

On Wednesday 9th March, 12 children from Exminster School took part in a gymnastics competition at South Dartmoor Community College.

There were 6 children in a Year 3/4 team and 6 children in a Year 5/6 team.

The children had to perform a floor routine and a vault exercise, which they had been practising and learning over the last few weeks.

They all performed extremely well and should be extremely proud of their performances.

Both teams won their categories and were absolutely delighted with the result.

They have cartwheeled themselves into the regional finals to be held on Wednesday 16th March at Newton Abbot Gymnastics Club.

Congratulations and good luck to all of the team!

This week for our art collaboration project we created a rainbow using over 2000 lolly sticks. Firstly we painted them using different tones and shades. We then glued them onto a canvas and built them up as layers to create a 3D effect. Every member of Year 6 contributed and we all had a lot of fun. We hope to display it around school.

Year 6

The children in Reception really enjoyed sharing books with children from Year 5 today.