No Pens Wednesday is an annual day dedicated to speaking and understanding language. Effective communication is at the core of everything we do – from learning, to making friends, to having good
mental health.
It gave the school a chance to focus on speaking and listening skills. With no written recording, we instead enjoyed a range of activities which put communication at the fore; a day of learning – without pens. Have a look at some of the things that took place on No Pens Wednesday.
Year 4 used geoboards to make and discuss polygons and challenged learning partners in times table challenges.
Year 5 used Chinese Whispers for facts they had learnt in history about the Benin Kingdom, a game of ‘Who am I?’ using fabulous character descriptions based on well known stories as well as other fun spesking nd listening activities.
Year 1 participated in a range of activities that encouraged both verbal and non verbal communication. The children acted out a range of emotions and played a miming game
Mrs Burrows visited Year 1 and participated in the fun. She mimed the action of a conductor leading an orchestra, which the children cleverly guessed!
Can you guess what the children were miming?
Year 6 started the day with a team spelling challenge – the competition was fierce! Some of the tricky words were: amateur, embarrass, parliament and pronunciation.
The children were given story starters and question prompts (who what where why… ) Working in groups, they created stories around their themes; each group then retold their story to the whole class.
The day was lots of fun and learning, but most importantly, highlighted the need for effective communication. No Pens Day Wednesday is just one day of the year, but we always encourage our children in their speaking, listening and understanding skills throughout the year.