The news about the Ukrainian war has been upsetting and the children in Y6 felt that they needed to speak up to urge the Prime Minister and his government to act more decisively.
The children felt that developing peace between Russia and Ukraine and offering assistance to the people of Ukraine during their terrible ordeal was of the utmost importance.
So a couple of weeks ago the children wrote letter to either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary, Rht Hon Liz Truss MP, to express their views.
Earlier this week, we received a reply from the Prime Minister’s correspondence officer with a very detailed reply. Not only was the Prime Minister and his team very impressed with the children’s letters but they agreed that peace was very important and that the Prime Minister was doing his best to broker this. The letter went on to say how the people of Britain would be able to welcome Ukrainian refugees into their homes. This news has now been released in the press for the country- but we heard it first in our letter from him.
From this experience, the children have learned that speaking up for what is right and letting their voices be heard is so important.
Well done children- you are the future of our country.
Who knows- maybe one day you will be in government and you will have the chance to make a real positive difference in our world!
We celebrated the growing theme in this year’s Science Week in year 3 by comparing the elasticity of different objects – in other words, what is the stretchiest – a sock, an elastic band or slime? This meant making slime, a task year 3 were more than game for. They combined the materials which combined irreversibly. We were fascinated to find out that some slime stretched for metres – and could have gone on longer, if that had been practical – and some broke very quickly. We also found that if you carefully kneaded and pulled the slime, that made it more elastic. Strict health and safety guidelines were followed throughout. Well done, year 3, like all good scientists, you stayed safe and observed very well. Also, you all learnt collaboratively very well.
Another aspect to science week in year 3 is to “ask a scientist a question”. I showed the children a picture of a real scientist – my son, who recently started his career in a Biochemistry lab. As I explained to the class, everyone in year 3, who would like to, could do the same, by doing your best at school in science, taking opportunities to explore the world around you, remaining curious and open-minded. Never stop asking questions! Already one class member says he would like to become a palaeontologist, which is a fascinating field to work in. My son would love to hear of any questions year 3 might having about being a scientist, working in science, or studying science after school. Please email me any questions, or post them on Google Classroom or tell them to me at school, by the end of this week. Friday morning is going to be busy already, so we’ll share any answers next week.
The photos show some of the enthusiasm in year 3 this morning.
Experimenting with the consistency…
Team work is bestThis slime could have gone on and on….We found out the most socks were much less elastic than slime.Measuring and recordingAlistair doesn’t make slime at his lab! But he does enjoy his work as a scientist and would be very happy to answer questions about studying science after school or working in science.
It’s been another jam packed week for Year 1 this week. We have really enjoyed our History learning about Toys. This week, we compared a Tudor doll and a modern day equivalent. The Tudor doll had no moving parts and was made of wood. The other doll was colourful and had lots of clothes to change into. If you have any older toys you would like your child to share, please send it in with them on Mondays.
Here are some photos of what else we have been getting up to this week:
A big thank you for all the book donations from the class’ Amazon wish list. We still have a few books on the list so if you would like to donate one to our class library, it would be much appreciated.
Thank you to the children who have brought in their baby photos. We have really enjoyed sharing them as a class. Please don’t forget to bring a picture of yourself as a baby for our RE homework, adding a caption about how you have changed and what you can do now that you couldn’t before. These need to be in by next Friday (18th March).
A big ‘Thank you’ to everyone who has purchased a book from our class library wish list. All of the books have been borrowed and it is lovely to see how keen the children are to be next to take the books home to share. If you would like donate a book, you can find out which books are still on our list by clicking this link.
Well done everyone – I was so impressed with your creativity and imagination as you found lots of amazing ways to show off your understanding of what is beneath our feet.
Take a look at our slide show to see the great ways that we demonstrated the parts of the Earth.
To start our Wellbeing workshop this week, we thought about all the wonderful things we have enjoyed learning in Year 2. We talked about the poetry we have been writing in English, learning about Walter Tull in history, exploring concentric circles with Wassily Kandinsky in Art and Design as well as division in maths.It makes us feel very proud when we learn new things. One very wise comment was ‘Sometimes, we need to learn things to keep us safe’. We thought about how learning new things will help us when we choose what job we would like as an adult. Maybe we will be a police officer, singer, vet, doctor, zookeeper (in an aquarium) or even a teacher!
Be active
We all know how important it is to keep ourselves active so that we feel healthy and happy. We brainstormed a huge list of ways in which we can keep ourselves from ballet or Beavers to fencing, cheerleading or football. These activities will all help to brighten our day.
Give
Henry said that we should try to be kind and that giving things to other people also makes us feel good too. The children had lots of ideas for Mother’s Day gifts that they could give to their mum, which won’t cost any money, but would be lovely to share, such as home made cakes and cards, breakfast in bed, lots of hugs or flowers from the garden!.
What have you enjoyed learning this year?
Keeping active is fun!
Watch us jump in the air!
Give an act of kindness says Roisin every day.
May wrote a great list of different ways in which you can Connect, Give, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Be Active.
Harry’s top tips for good mental health.
Look at Harper’s wonderful examples of ways in which you can improve your wellbeing.
We have had a wonderful week opening up all the parcels filled with library books. Thank you to everyone!
The children are very proud of the way in which they have given books to the class library for everyone to share. Thank you so, so much to everyone for your very kind donations. Follow this link if you would like to buy a book for our class library: Year 2 library books
Connect
Chatting with each other, giving one another compliments and learning something new about a classmate are all ways in which we can connect with our friends. This is a wonderful way to help us feel good about ourselves and also help our friends to feel great too. It is important to believe in ourselves and one another!
Take notice
We all have negative thoughts and we learned how taking the time to notice other things instead will help us to make sure that these thoughts don’t become overwhelming. We tried some different techniques to help us focus on the present and enjoy the moment rather than letting unhappy thoughts overwhelm us. Next time, we are filled with negative thoughts, we will breathe in for 5 seconds and then out for 5 seconds and then try to play the 5 senses game where we think about …
5 things we can see, 4 things we can hear, 3 things we can touch, 2 things we can smell and 1 thing that we can taste.
Once we’ve thought about all those things, we hope that our worries will feel less overwhelming. Why not try this strategy at home when you need to?
The week started with us being invited to the Wellbeing Workshop where we explored the 5 steps to well-being. We learned lots of useful tips about how we can help ourselves and each other take care of our mental health as well as our physical health.
On Tuesday, we spent the morning being very dramatic as Fiona from The Young Shakespeare Company introduced us to William Shakespeare’s tragic play: Romeo and Juliet. The class was split in half with one half being the Capulets and the other half were the Montagues. Using our acting skills, the Capulets and Montagues squared up to each other and made it clear the feud was far from over!
As Romeo saw Juliet across the crowded masked ballroom, the pair were doomed to cross their parents’ wishes. It didn’t end well for them- nor their closest friends.
Exploring this play, we reflected how Shakespeare wrote about the human themes of love, struggles and how when humans try to outdo each other, it rarely ends well- how apt this message is right now.
During our science lessons. We investigated how light travels in straight lines for the light source (the incident rays) and how mirrors reflect them (reflected rays).
Amongst all of the workshops and active science learning, we have developed descriptive writing, worked on our vocabulary detective skills whilst reading and explored the properties of shapes in maths.
The children had a double celebration on Tuesday as it was Shrove Tuesday as well as St David’s Day. We are blessed as a class as we have children from very diverse backgrounds, including children with families from Wales. It was wonderful to see children dressed in the green, red and white colours of the Welsh flag. April even took part in our assembly by teaching the whole school how to say Good Morning in Welsh.
Red, green and white colours and beautiful daffodils to celebrate Saint David’s Day
Our inspiring Lenten Promise display
A class liturgy to reflect on our lenten promises
To mark the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday, the children were inspired by the story of Saint David to write their own Lenten promises. The children’s promises range from praying each day, donating money to charity instead of eating chocolate and keeping their bedrooms tidy. The children enjoyed making their own daffodils and used these as part of a thoughtful class liturgy led by Scarlett, Cian and Athina. These Lenten promise daffodils are now beautifully displayed and they are certainly brightening up the classroom, just like the children.
World Book Day characters
‘Sharing books is fun’
‘We enjoyed recommending a book to someone new’.
‘It was great to spend time with someone that we don’t normally see’
Making new friends
Just look how well the children are concentrating as they share their favourite books!
To end the week, the children showed great imagination in smashing costumes that celebrate their love of reading. It was lovely to see how the children enjoyed sharing their favourite books with a reading partner from year 4. The challenge at the start of the day was to publish our own class book and the children wrote some wonderful poems in the style of Edward Lear’s poem ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’. As part of World Book Day, we have been rejuvenating the class book library, which now includes some great book labels and bookmarks created by the children.
The children would love to start bringing home some high quality books to share with their parents and if you would like to order a book for our library, please click on this link: Year 2 wishlist. So that your generous donation will always be celebrated, a book plate with your child’s name will be added to the book before it is added to the library!
Year 3 looked fantastic today, particularly the Mr Foxes! One of the particularly great things about their outfits was that many of them were made from home things, which had been carefully selected so the children could play a character they found very interesting or admirable. Like other classes, year 3 is in the process of revamping the reading corner. The children played a part today by making bunting about their favourite books. Emphasis was put on spelling every word correctly, starting every proper noun with a capital letter and also describing the book in a “strapline” or three key words. I shared my favourite book – “Little House on The Prairie” which I described as “girl’s adventurous life-story”. One piece of bunting describes “George’s Marvellous Medicine” as “funny, energetic and weird” – I quite agree. Another says for “Fantastic Mr Fox” – “Looking for food, What a disaster that’ll be soon!” Here are a few other pieces, to give you an idea of the care the children took with them…
As Mr Haynes said in his email yesterday, the class library could really do with some more, up-to-date texts so children can really benefit from the wealth of literature around now. If you would like to contribute, here is the link from his email: https://amzn.eu/bXpVAyq . Thank you.
Here are the children in their marvellous outfits, showing their bunting and focusing on book reviews they wrote. They also did well, collectively, to answer questions in our “literary quiz”.
The range of books the children brought in was wide – fiction, non-fiction, adventure stories, stories about school. Roald Dahl and JK Rowling featured quiet strongly. We talked about reading being the single-most important activity you can do for yourself: not just for knowledge, academic achievement and vocabulary building, for also for imagination, creativity, enjoyment, mindfulness and to share with others. Keep reading, everyone!
This week has been another busy one. From Shrove Tuesday to World Book Day, we have had so much to celebrate!
On Tuesday we celebrated Shrove Tuesday by discussing the true meaning behind the pancakes. We learnt that Shrove Tuesday marks the start of Lent, where Jesus made a sacrifice for 40 days and 40 nights. We made our own paper pancakes and discussed what we might sacrifice over Lent, so we can be just like Jesus and become closer to God. We also learnt about Wales’ patron saint, St David. We made our own Welsh flags and created dragons using junk modelling.
Today, we celebrated World Book Day. We dressed up as our favourite book characters, from Mary Poppins to the Worst Witch. We had a lovely time reading to children in Reception and listening to our favourite stories being read to us by both Mrs Palmer and Miss Battams. We even designed book covers for our own versions of our English focus book, Billy and the Beast.
Don’t forget to check out our updated RE blog here too!
