Our Classes – Page 51 – St Adrian's Catholic Primary School

Sew good….

The children completed sewing their cushions today and they look fantastic! Just as importantly, the children showed amazing perseverance and teamwork in completing them. Today we talked about how well they did when things didn’t go well, when they had had problems and what they did to overcome them. Everyone did this with this sewing projects and the next time the children encounter setbacks or disappointments they should remember the tenacity and determination they used in their sewing and channel that energy into the new problem. The children could all name the skills they have learnt and improved. The cushions will come home after they’ve been displayed in the classroom.

The red, white and blue clothes looked stunning today. Here they all are, in red, white and blue in front of their red, white and blue display. Every child has a painting in the montage.

We’ve still been learning about light and dark in Science and this week explored how fabrics can be transparent, translucent and opaque – it’s only opaque materials which make shadows by blocking the light completely. The children worked out that the properly cut out all light and make good shadows they would need to use two fabrics together – just like lined curtains do. These photos show the children carrying out an investigation to see how light only travels in straight lines. They needed to line up the holes in the card exactly so see the light shining through. If card was in front of the light a shadow was created because the card is opaque.

We’ve continued to learn about North and South America in Geography and debugging in Computing. Next half-term there will be new topics in each subject – a new book in English and a new topic of fractions in Maths. It’s been a busy half-term and the children never cease to impress me with their marvellous co-operation, love of learning and enthusiasm for everything at the school. Wishing you all a safe, happy – and warm! – half-term holiday and I look forward to seeing everyone on ten days – on Tuesday 7th June.

Year 2 dress up for Queen Elizabeth II

As part of our Platinum Jubilee activities this week, we have created an amazing display to show just how grateful we are to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Thank you Ma’am.

We watched a great cartoon in which Queen Elizabeth’s beautiful hat is blown off her head by a gust of wind. Off trot a loyal guard and a cheeky corgi to see if they can rescue the hat. This was the stimulus for our own stories and our next task was to create a story that told what happens next. We had great fun writing our stories, which showed just how good we are at creative writing, spellings, handwriting and punctuation now! For our maths challenge, we thought about the number 70 and all the different ways we could make 70, using the number skills that we have developed this year.

Click on the link below, if you would like to watch this lovely Platinum Jubilee cartoon at home.

Along with Year 2 children across the nation, throughout the month of May, we have been involved in lots of end of Key Stage practical activities and written assessments to show just how much we have learned during our time in Key Stage One. We have worked very hard and to celebrate our achievements, we all enjoyed a delicious ice lolly together, in the beautiful bee and butterfly garden that we have created.

Happy Half-Term from Year 4!

We have had a great week at school learning about the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The children have brought home a gift of a special souvenir book that commemorates this special event.

Thank you to all the parents who joined us for our jubilee picnic. It was lovely to see so many of you.

I look forward to the start of the final half-term on Tuesday, 7th June. Until then, keep safe and have a great holiday.

Year 4 get creative

Our art topic, looking and learning about the work of William Morris, is heading towards its conclusion and this week the children printed their own repeated designs, combining textures and colours to explore ideas from nature. I would like to think the children will remember this learning in years to come, but it is more likely they will remember the exploding tube of printing ink that turned most of me green.

As we get ready to celebrate the platinum jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen, the children have been full of ideas for our hall display. Sadly, the real fireworks and band that played the National Anthem whenever anyone passed have not been possible (yet), but we have all enjoyed making flags and bunting.

We are hoping for fine weather and that you can join us for our Jubilee picnic on Friday.

A week of variety

It’s been great to see the children enjoying themselves in the sunshine outside this week, at last. We’ve had other welcome changes from routine and exciting events. Hot on the tails of the new listening post was the delivery of seven brightly-coloured beanbag cushions so the children can now sit in comfort as they giggle to Roald Dahl stories.

In another new project, after experimenting with stitches, the children planned their designs for their little pillows. They had great ideas, from Star Wars, to football, to playing cards.

On Wednesday we joined in the National Numeracy live stream doing a times table number roll and helped set a new world record for the number of participants. This is what we joined and watched – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhaAYFHE724 It was amazing to be part of something nationwide and we have learnt a new rhyme for times-tables.

The R E homework looks fantastic on the wall – every piece is different; and the children are enjoying appreciating each other’s and sharing how they chose to present their understanding. We have now started the new topic of Resolution and I’ll post the new home learning over the next few days

We started the new “Resolution” topic with role-play about a situation involving choices and consequences, which the children threw themselves into.

Our new book is “Flotsam”, a fascinating story about a boy’s adventures at the seaside. It’s being a springboard for fronted adverbials, powerful verbs and expanded noun phrases, which the children will weave into stories next week. The children are being adventurous in their use of language and we are also focusing on thoroughly understanding and using the basics of English – nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, the core building blocks.

Next week we will be celebrating the Jubilee and we’re all looking forward to seeing the costumes people choose to wear on Friday.

Have a great weekend!

News from Year 1 – all things Art!

This week we have been focusing on Art. We have really enjoyed learning about natural sculptures, taking inspiration from renowned artist Andy Goldsworthy.

We started the week by looking at photographs of Goldsworthy’s word. We discussed what the sculptures were made out of and whether we liked it or not. Here are some pictures of us in action:

Taking inspiration from Goldworthy’s natural sculptures, we made miniature models using clay. We thought about the shapes Goldworthy’s used in his own work to help us create ours.

We then did some observational drawings of natural object we found around school. We used magnifying glasses to help us sketch the finer details of leaves, flowers and even some feathers that we found.

We look forward to creating our own group sculptures from natural materials next week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Battams 🙂

Year 2 are Guinness World Record Holders!

We love maths every day, but Wednesday was a particularly joyful day, because we were involved in creating a new Guinness World Record as part of an online community of 5362 schools around the country!

The day began with a warm up activity led by Katya Jones, of Strictly Come Dancing fame. That was very exciting, but only the starter as we then joined in with a mass chant focussing on the 5 times table. This was a great way to show that learning times tables can be fun and we were overjoyed when we discovered that enough schools had joined in with the live stream to make a new world record. Throughout the day, we then took part in lots of activities linked to the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. As a finale, we all brought a certificate home to show just how clever we are!

Are you ready, ready to rock? Yes, we are!
We joined in with 5362 schools to start our day with a fun workout.

If you would like to join in with the National Numeracy number heroes competition, please follow the link below, where you will find more details: https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/number-heroes-competition

Year 2 explore lifecycles

Over the last few weeks, we have been watching the caterpillars in our class change, as they ate and ate, grew bigger and bigger, developed cocoons and then emerged from their chrysalises as beautiful butterflies. We even created a beautiful bee and butterfly garden in our outside area, which the insects will be able to visit when they need to collect nectar and drink. This week, we were overjoyed to let our butterflies go free – some fluttered away straight away, but some brave butterflies stayed close to us for ten minutes, so that we were able to get a really close look at them. Your challenge as you take a look through the photos is to Spot the butterfly!

This week, we planted up the herbs that came into school as part of the Coronation of Mary liturgy. They smell wonderful and we are looking forward to watching the bees and butterflies visit them once they start to flower through the summer. Take a look at our infant gardens as you pass through them to see what you can spot.

News from Year 1 – plants, glorious plants!

It’s been a busy week again in Year 1. We have really enjoyed being able to get outside in the glorious weather this week!

We started the week off by planting some flowers donated to the May altar in the hall. It was a great opportunity to learn how to plant and care for flowers (pictures to follow). We have also been taking it in turns to keep the plants watered throughout the week, another important learning opportunity.

As the weather gets warmer and the sun gets brighter, please ensure your child applies suncream before leaving for school in the mornings. Then bring in a roll on or spray suncream, labelled with your child’s name to be kept in the classroom so they can reapply it themselves throughout the day.

We also really enjoyed our swimming lesson this week too. We are becoming a lot quicker at changing and love our coach rides to and from the pool!

Our zoo trip is fast approaching, so if you have not made your contributions yet, please do so via Arbor.

Have a restful weekend,

Miss Battams 🙂

Reception – Jack and the Beanstalk

The children absolutely love the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, often choosing the story at storytime. We are, therefore, exploring the story sequence in more detail and learning to retell the story.

They became fierce cheeky Jacks, very cross mums and fierce giants in our Giant’s Castle.