KS2 Science and Literacy Workshops

On Tuesday, pupils in Years 3, 4, and 5 enjoyed an engaging workshop with author Sue Palmer. She introduced her new book, The Shell Secret - an exciting adventure and mystery set on the Cornish coast - and captivated the children with fascinating facts about the unusual creatures that inhabit our local rock pools. “I enjoyed learning about the author's history and that her great great grandparents opened one of the first bakeries in Cornwall!” Alana, Year 5. “We learnt all about sea creatures, like the starfish and about all the different types of seaweed” Khaleel, Year 4

It was a great pleasure seeing you today; thank you so much for making the time to deliver two really engaging and entertaining sessions to some very excited children! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Thanks again for the amazing writing workshop. I thoroughly enjoyed every second and P6 absolutely loved it too. Our janitor even peeked his head in our door, as he loves to write stories too.

Firstly, I wanted to say a massive thank you for such a wonderful workshop – it has been the best virtual workshop we have had so far! The children would not stop talking about it all afternoon. We will start writing our stories this week and will pick a few to send on to you – the children are now competing to get their work chosen.

Tildy - "I really liked it because we got to use our imagination lots, we got to come up with our own ideas and just write what we were thinking down on paper."

Esme - "It was really interesting and I liked the part where we had to make things up for a story and give the characters a background."

Ben - " thought it was really fun."

Zak - "I learnt about why Sue made the book Mays Moon and I learnt how to write stories, describe settings and make our own characters."

Evi: “I loved making our own stories, our own characters.  It was so much fun.”

Bailey:  “I really enjoyed the work and had an amazing time doing story writing, it was a top workshop, it was excellent.”

Cherisse:  “I really enjoyed learning about the full outfit of an astronaut, I was shocked that they wore diapers and everything else too!”

Chloe:  “We made our own characters from cutting up magazines and learnt cool info about space, all of it was good fun.”

The UII girls were fortunate to spend the day with local author Sue Palmer who published her debut children’s book ‘May’s Moon’ 4 days before Tim Peake’s launch as the first British astronaut to go to the International Space Station. The girls had enjoyed reading the first chapter of the book during the Easter holidays which details Michael May’s first test in a neutral buoyancy pool with ten other children who have been accepted onto the ‘Children’s Moon Program’ in Florida to win a place on the next mission to the moon. Sue showed the girls her Moon globe and ‘Jim’ her model astronaut (which took 8 hours to build) in his ‘Extravehicular Mobility Unit’ (EMU) or space suit. The girls learnt about the order in which an astronaut gets dressed into their EMU including the essential ‘nappy’ for when they are outside of the Space Station. Sue talked about the breakthroughs in Science that have been achieved by the astronauts experiments including growing rocket seeds from the International Space Station - the girls will be planting our own 'space seeds' soon. The girls very excitedly took a test of their own whereby they had to work in teams to put together a jigsaw using thick gloves. Several girls purchased books and had them personally signed by Sue. Sue’s talk was incredibly informative and inspiring and hopefully will encourage the girls to continue to read ‘May’s Moon’ and to go on to study Science or Engineering... maybe one day we will see an UII Abbey girl as next British astronaut to go into space!

Could you be an astronaut? That was the question posed to Form 1 pupils when children's author Mrs S.Y. Palmer visited the College as part of a project organised by the English and Science Departments. Based on her novel, May’s Moon, the story of a 13 year-old budding astronaut, Mrs Palmer’s workshop explored what it means to live and work in space. Pupils were delighted to receive a signed copy of May’s Moon after the workshop. Head of English Matt Coolin said: “We’re very pleased to offer an activity that sparks an interest in writing and Science in young people. We are now looking at other ways that English and STEM subjects can work together to provide opportunities for our students.”

We really enjoyed your visit - you were brilliant with the kids. They were really inspired and fascinated by your awesome presentation all about space. We have a good number of children reading your book right now - I will try and arrange a book review before the summer holiday. All the best with the book and your school visits. Thank you again - we really appreciated your visit.