Year 4 get building

We’ve had another busy week together in Year 4 and the children have enjoyed the start of our new design and technology topic, learning about structures and designing pavilions. We’re looking forward to getting some ideas for our own designs when we visit the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here are some photos of our first investigation of structures where we experimented with the strength of different shapes.

We are also hoping that our trip to Kew will provide inspiration for our new art topic where we are learning about the art and landscapes of Henri Rousseau. Watch this space in the weeks ahead to see our evolving artwork.

Finally, you can forget the jubilee concert: Year 4 have shown themselves to be true rockstars as they have worked so hard to improve their rapid recall of multiplication tables facts. They will get the chance to try out this knowledge next week when we take part in the national multiplication tables check.

Have a lovely weekend!

It’s time for rhyme…

Year 3 has a whole new collection of topics for this last half-term. We are reading tales with warnings or morals and will be focusing on “Jim – A Cautionary Tale”. Written in rhyming couplets, it is a great opportunity to experiment with rhyme, rhythm and metre.

In English, we are also focusing on becoming absolutely clear on the definitions of word classes, and to be able to talk about grammatical features confidently. This means knowing the difference between an adjective and adverb, for example; and between a noun and a proper noun, amongst other things. We’re doing lots of practise in “early morning work” to embed this knowledge. Here’s a link to this learning if you’d like to do some recapping at home.

We’ve started learning about the Ancient Egyptians, with much enthusiasm and interest shown by the children. The only issue is going to be how to cover enough of the topic to do it justice and to listen to all the contributions and ideas of the children. Here is our collaborative timeline; and below is the children’s initial list of thoughtful questions.

We started outdoor athletics activities this week; and the children energetically jumped and ran across the field in different ways. I’ll post photos over the coming weeks.

Homework is on the Google drive. The spellings are tricky this week. We will have another session exploring ways to remember them and practise them again on Monday. I look forward to seeing all the children’s reading books on Thursday. Their reading has progressed well so far this year. Let’s make the most of day of every week left of this academic year. At the same time, the weather surely will stay nice and warm for lots of fun outside and the traditional, exciting end-of-term activities we’re all delighted to see back. I also look forward to seeing lots you at next Friday’s Father’s Day assembly. Our class song is one which reflects on God, the Father as well as Dads. The children have made a good start learning the words. Please keep practising over the weekend. Have a good few days off.

News from Year 1 – what a time we’ve had!

As always, it’s been a busy first week back from the half term break. Well done to all the children for taking part in Phonic Screening Check. They did a great job and really enjoyed show casing their phonics learning. The children’s scores will be issued in their end of year report.

In Maths this week, we have been looking at time, focusing on o’clock and half past. If your child isn’t already, please encourage them to wear an analogue watch to school everyday. This will help the children get used to reading the time regularly and becoming more familiar with the directions clockwise and anti-clockwise.

Don’t forget our RE homework about our new topic ‘Being Sorry’. Please complete the sheet below (which can also be downloaded from the Google classroom too) and return it by Friday 17th June 2022.

Have a relaxing weekend,

Miss Battams 🙂

Making it count

Returning to school this week has meant the children are beginning to realise that they need to make each day count as they are preparing for their transition to secondary school.

We have begun to read our new class book called A Beautiful Lie by Ifran Master which is based on the partition of India in 1947. 

This is new learning so the children watched a video and discussed what it must have been like to be a child in India at that time. If you want to know more about Partition, please click on this picture.

The children have begun to become more familiar with newspaper articles in Guided Reading. The children read an article about the Queen’s encounter with Paddington Bear last weekend.

They then used some of the techniques to write their own newspaper article about the miracle of Jesus healing Bartimaeus, the blind man in their RE lesson. We have much to learn to perfect newspaper writing but we have made a good start.

Finally, the children analysed evidence to answer the historical investigation about why so many lives were lost in the Titanic disaster. The children had to choose what they believed were the main causes from the many possible reasons which added to the causes for the perilous accident. The children argued their beliefs with passion and used the evidence after careful analysis. 

Auditions for the summer concert have got underway- it has been lovely to see the children grow in confidence and give it their all in both their singing and acting endeavours. I am sure this year’s concert will be memorable.

News from Year 1 – all to the zoo and the Queen’s jubilee!

What a fabulous week to end this half term. We really enjoyed our first school trip for many of the children. We ventured to Whipsnade Zoo to consolidate our learning about animals in Science this half term. We discussed which animals were carnivores, herbivores or omnivores and how they adapted to their habitats. Have a look at some pictures from our day:

We finished the week by celebrating the Queen’s platinum jubilee. We came to school dressed in blue, red and/or white and enjoyed a picnic on the field with our families.

Have a lovely break and don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled on our Google classroom for activities to do over the half term,

Miss Battams 🙂

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!