It’s been another busy week for Year 1 this week. We have enjoyed focusing on plants this week in Science, focusing on both wild and garden plants. The highlight was hunting for wild plants within our school. We found lots of daisies and dandelions, keeping tallies of what we discovered.
We have made some beautiful Mother’s Day cards during learning through play this week. We used forks to to print flowers onto cards, completing them with thoughtful handwritten messages. We hope you enjoyed the Mother’s Day assembly, we really enjoyed performing as both a school and a class, even though we might have been a bit shy!
Also during learning through play, we have been acting out the Preparation of Gifts. We really liked dressing up and blessing the bread and wine (Jesus’ body and blood), just like a real priest.
Monday was our St Albans wide Reach Out for Refugees Day. We read the very poignant story of Lubna and Pebble and reflected on how difficult it must be to leave the place, people and possessions that you love.
As part of our English learning on the book ‘If all the world were …’, we have each written a poem and here is our very thoughtful class poem, which includes a verse from every member of the class.
If all the world were …
If all the world were scary, I would hug, hug and hug until the scary darkness was gone.
If all the world were poor, I would welcome the poor into my cosy house.
If all the world were awful, I would pick a red, shiny rose and smell it so I try and forget about it.
If all the world were hideous I’d suck it up and fill it with happiness.
If all the world were darkness, I would light the world up.
If all the world were poor I would give everyone a home.
If all the world were wonderless, I would hug my family.
By The Amazing Alligators
If all the world were …
If all the world were sorrowful, I would give away my teddy bear.
If all the world were poor, I would fly to them to give them a blanket to sleep with and some more money.
If all the world were empty, I would give the poor love.
If all the world were full of worry, I would bring some people to the sandy, windy beach to see the sun set.
If all the world were sad, I would give people my teddies.
If all the world were unhappy, I would give people my shiny money.
By The Fabulous Foxes
Blue and Yellow to mark Reach out for refugees Day
If all the world were …
If all the world were death and destruction, I would fill it up with love.
If all the world were sad, I would give away my teddies.
If all the world were full of poor people, I would give them medicine.
If all the world were selfish, I’d stand up for people.
If all the world were scary, I would give people my teddy.
If all the world were miserable, I would try to cheer people up and make a better place.
By The Marvellous Monkeys
If all the world were …
If all the world were horrible, I would give someone a great, red and beautiful rose.
If all the world were empty, I would fill the world with love.
If all the world were war, I would give them a home.
If all the world were poor, I would empty my money box for charity.
If all the world were worrying, I would tell people that they’re the winners.
If all the world were painful, I would wrap my lovely sisters, mummy and daddy in a warm blanket.
By The Wonderful Wolves
What an amazingly creative and talented group of poets we have in Year Two!
If you would like to hear the story of Lubna and Pebble again, then follow the link below to hear it read by the author herself.
Today, children in Year 4 have come to school dressed in yellow and blue in support, not only of children and families in Ukraine, but of all people in the world who are seeking refuge.
We wrote prayers, asking God to help for those who face such danger in their lives that they must flee to seek safety elsewhere. We also gave thanks for those who keep us safe and protect us from harm.
Lily’s prayer:
Dear God, Thank you for reminding us about the good and bad in this world. Make sure we know about the unseen as well as the people we can see. Help us to not be selfish and let us recognise what is happening in the world. We have all been selfish before, but please forgive us and change us into good people of the world who care and share. We all know what’s happening in Ukraine, but help us to remember the others in the world who have no choice to flee their home country. Forgive us for forgetting but then let us see the right path. You can help us to change our ways through your Holy Spirit. Amen
Jessica’s prayer:
Dear God, Help the people who are in need in Ukraine to find a lovely and nice place to stay. Sorry, God, for when I have not given safety or love to people who need it. I wish everyone could have the same safety as I do so nobody gets hurt or harassed. Amen
Over the last ten weeks, we have been measuring the growth of our amaryllis bulbs, so we used Science week as an opportunity to review and compare each group’s plant. It has been very exciting to see these bulbs growing so quickly.
We are also very lucky to have had a mystery parcel arrive and inside we discovered five tiny caterpillars. We have been researching the life cycles of different animals this week and over the next few weeks, we will be watching animals grow in school, so watch this space so that we can tell you more!
Alessia said that it must be something very special inside as the box says ‘Fragile’ on it.
We opened the box very carefully.
Inside, we found five tiny caterpillars. They are eating up the layer of food at the bottom of the pot and we will watch them to see how they change. It is exciting!
The caterpillars are already starting to grow quickly and we are watching them carefully to see when they start to spin their cocoons.
It’s been another exciting week in Year 4 with the class a riot of colour as we dressed in green for St Patrick’s Day, followed by wearing red in support of Red Nose Day.
This week is British Science Week. As part of our science learning we found out that if you’re infected with a virus, your body is ready to fight using antibodies which stick to a virus and encourage immune cells to attack and destroy. We grow specific antibodies during an infection or after vaccination. We then had a go at making antibody and virus origami – It was really tricky!
On Friday, we had a workshop from Rock Steady. We all played our virtual drums and air guitars and some of us got to try out the instruments and form an impromptu band. The children have letters about this in their book bags if you would like to sign them up on line to take part in these in-school lessons.
Our new class library books continue to be really popular and it is lovely to see the children so keen to read. Thank you all for your support with this. I have marked each book with a special sticker to show that it is one of our ’50’ top books to read in Year 4. My next step is to make each child a book mark so they can tick of their progress towards reading them all.
Currently, you have donated an amazing 22 books from our ‘wish list’ – Thank you! If anyone else would like to donate a book to the class, the children really would love it. You can click on the link to see our amazon wish list. Books disappear from the list once they have been purchased, so there is no need to worry about duplicates.
It’s been another busy week for Year 1 this week. We started off the week by celebrating British Science Week. As we are learning about Plants in Science, we took the theme of ‘growth’ for science week and planted our own beans. We will start to track the growth of the beans over the coming weeks.
We then celebrated St Patrick’s Day. We learnt the story of St Patrick and made hats to celebrate. We also wore green to mark the occasion.
At the end of the week, we all wore red to celebrate Comic Relief. This went hand in hand with learning about the common good and helping others whenever and wherever we can. We created our own red nose designs to mark the occasion.
To top off the week, we had a session with Rocky Steady. Rocky Steady provide opportunities for children to learn new musical instruments within school. Please see the letter sent home with your child if you’re interested in more information. We had so much fun and even got to make our very own class band!
Books have been arriving since Friday before last and are making a huge difference to year 3’s reading corner. Thank you so much for your generosity, which will directly impact the children’s enjoyment and learning at school. The reading corner is in a process of transformation. We’ve made space for your books while also keeping record of this year’s World Book Day, to remind children of the books they all enjoy and which their friends could also enjoy.
Here is an update: there will be more changes to come….
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.
