After spending a huge amount of time and effort on designing, recording a diary and planting up a Veg Box for the Competition held by the Yorkshire  Show the Year 4 Garden Club's design was selected to go forward to the Grand Final at the Yorkshire Show after a judge came to school to look at our box and diary and also to question the children about their gardening skills.  The theme this year was "Field to Fork" so the judge was very interested in how much the children had used the school produce in their cooking and topic work. Our design was based on fruit and vegetables used in different recipes so we had sections in the box showcasing the ingredients for curry, salad, stir-fry and Italian. We also had a Pudding Tower!

The children involved went to the Show last week and had to be judged again! They all answered the questions brilliantly and talked very confidently about the plants and work they had done at school in the garden.  After the hard work was out of the way we were able to enjoy the show until it was time for the presentation of the awards when we were all delighted to win "Best Diary" and Highly Commended for the Veg Box. Well done guys!

Then, we were able to relax and enjoy the show again!

The children had a great time doing loads of activities which ranged from learning about electricity (using fruit and vegetables as conductors!), making candles, felting, badge making and weaving to having stick insects and other critters crawling all over them! The children also spent time with the army and navy doing lots of things like mine sweeping, bungey runs, paintballing and clambering about in a giant inflatable raft. We met some lovely and unusual animals during the day too and managed to squeeze in time for a sit down and an ice-cream! The children returned to school laden with bags of goodies that they had acquired throughout the day. 

Throughout the day we had some wonderful comments too about how beautifully behaved the children were.

Everyone had a super time and Mrs Fletcher would like to thank all the children involved in gardening at school for all the watering they do to keep the plants going and the vigilant snail hunters without whom we would have no fruit and veg still growing!

This morning we held our Summer music concert.  All of the children who learn an instrument in school had the chance to perform in front of family members and KS2 children.   It was a fantastic morning of music with a wide range of instruments and group, duet and solo performances.  The children have worked really hard to get their pieces ready and all did so well playing in front of a large audience.  Having held three concerts before this one, it was clear to see the progress the children have made with their instruments and how confident they were performing.  Those who are new to learning an instrument did really well too.  It was the first ever performance of the school orchestra, which was formed in January, and they were fabulous!  It was great to see the different instruments coming together to create some really enjoyable pieces of music.  Well done to all the children involved and thank you to family members who support the children in their music learning.

Some of the children from Garden Club entered a competition to design and build a container from recycled materials and plant it with a multitude of sensory plants. Our entry was accepted and then taken and displayed at this year's Chatsworth Show.  Some of the children then went to the show and had a great day out in the spectacular setting of Chatsworth House grounds.

After a very early start they arrived at the show and checked out their own entry first and then looked at all the other schools.  All the entries were excellent; the children from different schools had come up with fantastic ideas to use items for containers which would otherwise have been thrown away. Our container was made up of a couple of old chairs and a stool, an old garden trug, an old Henry hoover pipe, an old scooter tyre and an old umbrella! The planting was almost all grown from seed by the children at school and we planted up as many smelly, tasty, rustly, touchy/feely and good to look at plants as we could cram in! People visiting the show will be able to vote for their favourite by posting a photo on twitter so if you able to visit the show, please vote for us! Many, many thanks to Mr Hardcastle who helped the children construct the container and also drove it down to Chatsworth for us.

The day also included lots of activities including making tree crowns with acclaimed florist Jonathan Moseley, making wooden pendants and a garden dibber using a foot-powered lathe, looking at the beautiful gardens and flower displays and a little bit of retail therapy in the floral marquee!  Ice creams and churros also featured in our itinerary! The children were lucky enough to meet and chat with Gardener's World presenter and renowned garden designer Adam Frost! All in all the children had a wonderful day and were impeccably behaved and it was a pleasure to take them around the show.