: Blog items
Date: 17th Nov 2023 @ 12:23pm
In class, we have been learning all about Diwali. We spent a whole day completing different activities to learn more about the festival of light.
We listened to the story of Diwali, learnt a dance, created paper lanterns, and even made candle holders. Making paper lanterns was definitely our favourite activity.
Date: 17th Nov 2023 @ 12:21pm
What a busy week we have had this week. It has been maths week, so we have been challenging eachother on TT rockstars, and Mrs Ranyard has been in to tell us our scores. We've also had parent workshops for our MTC.
On Tuesday, we had our first art session with Miss McAffer and we learned about an American artist named Margaret Taylor-Burroughs. She focussed on printing images using patterns. We made some patterns of our own, using ink. Have a look at our pictures below.
Next week, we have our trip to St Cross Church (Friday 24th), so please make sure you return the permission slips!
Date: 16th Nov 2023 @ 3:02pm
Today we have taken part in Diwali Day, learning all about how Hindu people, and some Sikh people, celebrate Diwali.
We read books, watched videos, learned how to dance, wore traditional clothes and tried to create Rangoli patterns with sand. It was very tricky to sprinkle just a little bit of sand.
As we celebrated, the children talked about their learning "demon king"
"They have lot's of food"
"Candles light up"
"They go to the temple and fireworks come"
"Lights!"
"People pray"
If you want to celebrate Diwali at home why don't you join in dancing with us. We think you'll agree that we have some amazing moves!
Date: 12th Nov 2023 @ 1:56pm
A very busy week in Year 3!
In maths, we explored how to find 10/100 more than/less than 3-digit numbers. This was challenging at first, as we often wanted to change the wrong digit. However, we persevered and tried a range of different 'prove it' and 'think it' challenges.
In English, we continued to explore the Kapok Tree. We used drama to imagine ourselves as either the man, an animal or the Kapok Tree. This will help us when we write our dilemma story next week.
We also began our science journey - learning all about plants. This week, we focused on the different parts of a plant and their functions (did you know that leaves use the sun to make food for the plant?)
The homework is attached below, and must be returned to school by Friday 17th November.
Key dates to remember:
Monday 13th November - Odd Socks Day! Don't forget to wear odd socks to school to celebrate anti-bullying week.
Friday 17th November - Children in Need Day! As part of our children in need celebration, you can come to school wearing spots.
Please remember to wear your P.E kit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Great Fire of London artwork
Date: 12th Nov 2023 @ 1:28pm
In art, we created our own pieces of artwork based on Pudding Lane in 1666. We started by looking at different images of the houses and used our observational skills when drawing the houses. Next, we created our background with oil pastels. We selected red, yellow, and orange to represent the fire. Then we went over our drawings of the houses in charcoal in order to get them to stand out and show that the houses were burnt.
Date: 12th Nov 2023 @ 1:22pm
To launch our connected curriculum topic, 'Could the Great Fire of London happen in Clayton?' the fire service came in. We learnt all about how to keep ourselves safe from fire. We were able to think about how fires are put out today and compare this to how fires were put out in 1666.
The Great Fire of London Artwork
Date: 12th Nov 2023 @ 12:07pm
Hello,
The children have been finding out about London this week and have been identifying and locating London Landmarks using a map. They remembered lots of Landmarks and then used this knowledge to draw moving pictures. Have a look at their sketches and see if you can see London Bridge, Big Ben or th London Eye.
The children then compared London now to London 1666. The children looked closely at Tudor houses and then sketched them to create a scene from Pudding Lane in 1666.
The children have worked so hard. They are going to use this work to help them create a 3d scene of London in 1666.
Hope you all have a lovely weekend
Miss Wolfenden and Mrs Cooper
Date: 12th Nov 2023 @ 9:09am
This week we have made some wolf sock puppets to support our writing for the next two weeks. We watched a video to help us to think about the instructions/steps that we needed to do to make the puppets. Whilst making the puppets we thought about the steps we needed to do to make them. We used time connectives such as first, next, then, after that and finally.
Next week we will be writing the instructions on how to make these sock puppets and putting them on the class blog. Come back next week to see the instructions! Let's see if you can follow the instructions to make your own sock puppet!
Four Countries of the United Kingdom
Date: 11th Nov 2023 @ 7:23am
We have been learning about how the UK is made up of four countries! We have been exploring globes, maps and Atlases. We were able to look at a map of the United Kingdom and locate England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland then we created and labelled our own maps. We have also begun to learn about the capitals of these countries by looking at photographs and locating the places using Atlases. We have also learnt a fun song to help us recall the names of the countries and capitals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDIZoQLgIE
Click on the link and listen to the song!
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 5:08pm
Its the end of another busy week! We've had some really great highlights. I can see some members of our class maturing into such lovely individuals. It really is a pleasure to teach them. Thank you for continuing to support us as we make in roads with improvements in behaviour. Some children are still finding it tricky sometimes but I can see the effort they are putting in to keep things under control.
On Monday, we started the week with our purposeful play session when we focused on sharing. The children have one activity that they stick to for the session. They are rotated between sessions but they stay as one group. This helps them to build relationships with other children over a longer period of time and allows them to feel more secure by understanding what to expect. See below for some pictures of the session.
In reading, we have continued our learning about non-choronological reports on different inventions. We have learned about the wheel and identified key features of non-fiction texts.
In writing, we have learned about parenthesis, tier three vocabulary and some of the vocabulary they might encounter in non-fiction texts.
In maths, we have finished our unit on negative numbers. Today, we applied our understanding to bar and line graphs. It certainly wasn't easy but the level of perserverance was incredible! Ammanuel blew me away with his explanation of being above or below expectations and how this can be represented with positive and negaive numbers.
In golden time, we played some old-fashioned games including wink murder and duck, duck, goose. We had a great time, next time we will have to go outside for more space. I forget how much space a class of year 5 pupils needs!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 4:44pm
To continue our learning about poppies, this afternoon some children followed Steps to Success to create a painted poppy or a craft poppy. These were our choice challenges. Not everybody chose to make one to support autonomy over our learning. Some children created their own challenge and used the mark making materials to draw their own poppy.
The teachers said we had created some beautiful artwork.
Can you complete some of our Friday Challenges at home?
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 3:26pm
As part of our Diwali learning, we visited Gita Bhavan Hindu Temple. We learned lots about the Hindu religion. As part of our learning, we also performed the story of Rami and Sita to the children in Reception. Look at some of the pictures we took!
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 11:48am
This morning we learned about why we use the poppy as a symbol for Remembrance Sunday and what this day is. The children were facinated by the video we watched. They cheered loudly when the poppies started to grow again after the war. This video is a great way of talking about Remembrance Sunday with young children. Would you like to watch it too?
Our faces reflected the different emotions we felt as we watched. The children were so excited when the poppies started growing they cheered.
"Make it go away," said one child during the war scenes. "A shining light!" excalimed another as the darkness parted. "It's growing up," one child told us as the poppies grew in the field
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 11:41am
We really enjoyed learning about bonfire night, naming different types of fireworks, learning a new song and creating artwork to put in our learning books. Do you know a song about fireworks? this is the one we learned
Date: 6th Nov 2023 @ 7:58pm
Today was the Great Ravensbury Bake Off in year 6 and I had the difficult task of tasting each one and then judging the top three. I had to Enlist help in the staffroom of my top six and together we decided 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
Well done to everyone who took part and thank you for helping your child to make the shortbread over the weekend.
Date: 5th Nov 2023 @ 9:51pm
Welcome back to Autumn 2!
We have had an amazing start to the second half term. The children are raring to get stuck into their learning for our next topic.
Last Wednesday we invited our parents and carers to come into school and help us launch our new topic. The topic question that we are trying to answer is 'Could the three little pigs use a better material to build their houses?' In this topic we will focus on science knowledge about materials, design & technology and geography skills.
The building challenge was to work as a team using our learning powers to make a strong house for the three little pigs. We used large cardboard boxes, masking tape, selotape, paper and other boxes/tubes for our creations.
The teams worked really well and the houses looked fantastic! Some of them even had a swimming pool, a lab to make potions, a garage and a garden with animals.
Thank you to the fabulous parents/carers who came and helped us!
Date: 5th Nov 2023 @ 2:46pm
What an exciting week back!
This week, year 3 have begun to explore their new geography topic, all about the Amazon Basin. We used 'now press play' to experience a Rainforest journey through our headphones. We also read the story 'The Great Kapok Tree' and began to identify which animals we hope to use in our own dilemma stories next week.
In maths we explored additive and multiplicative equations for 3-digit numbers! This was challenging at first, but we persevered until all of us were feeling confident.
Date: 4th Nov 2023 @ 7:16pm
Hello 2KW and Welcome Back!
The children are super excited to be back and are excited to learn about our new topic 'The Great Fire of London'
The classroom is looking good and we even have a role play bakery!
As part of the Launch, the fire Service came into school and talked to the children about Fire safety. The children had an opportunity to look at the equipment the Fire Fighters wear when they are rescuing people. They loved it!
The children learned about STOP! DROP! ROLL ! and the fire fighters said that they will bring the truck in for the children to see towards the end of half term!
Hope you have a lovely weekend
Miss Wolfenden and Mrs Cooper
Date: 4th Nov 2023 @ 8:14am
We launched our topic of the Three Little Pigs by inviting our parents and carers into school to help us create large houses! We decorated large boxes with the features of the outside of a house using card, sellotape, tubes, straws and pens. Afterwards we labelled the features of the houses. We had lots of fun making the houses and it was the best day ever!
Date: 3rd Nov 2023 @ 4:04pm
What a week! Its been a busy return to school and the holidays already feel like a long time ago but it means that we're nearly at Christmas!
In reading, we introduced our new text: inventions that changed the world. We enjoyed reading about lightbulbs and telephones whilst identifying what features help readers navigate the information in non-fiction texts.
In writing, we have had a go at using parenthesis. Next week, we will be having a go at applying this to the context of our new genre - explanation texts. It wasn't easy but we had some funny sentences about a boy riding a bike:
The boy, who had a parrot on his shoulder, rode his bike to school.
The boy, who was 440 feet tall, rode his bike to school.
The boy, who shouted hello, rode his bike to school.
In maths, we have been learning about negative numbers and how they are laid out on a number line. I was so impressed with their attitude to their learning that they earned lots of golden time in their lessons this week!
We have finished sketching different Victorian inventions for the front of our CC books so next week we will be able to launch our new topic properly!
Please remember to take a look at the parent overviews on the class page so you can see what year 5 will be learning about this half term and support your child with it.
Have a great weekend and stay safe around any bonfires or fireworks!
Date: 3rd Nov 2023 @ 1:46pm
This week, we have begun our new CC geography unit about California. As part of this unit, we will learn lots about our planet. This week we discovered that there are four main layers to the Earth. The crust, which is the layer we live on, is the thinnest layer, then we have the mantle, then the outer core and finally the inner core. The inner core is around 5000-6000 degrees celsius hot.
As part of our CC learning, we have begun to read a new core text called I survived the San Francisco earthquake 1906 which contains fictional characters, but it is based around real events. This week have written similes and methaphors as well as using a range of sentence starters.
In in our science lesson, we have begun to learn about the digestive system, which is how food travel in, around and out of the body.
Next week we will be visiting a Hindu Temple on Thursday. Please return your letter if you have not brought it yet.
Our assembly today was presented by two firefighters who told us all about their work and how we can keep safe around bonfires.
Homework has been sent home today, and spellings/timestables will be tested next Friday.
Date: 2nd Nov 2023 @ 2:10pm
Today in Reception, we have been exploring different ways of making fireworks. Which is your favourite?
Date: 1st Nov 2023 @ 2:56pm
Yesterday we found some paw prints on our Literacy book stand. We thought it was odd because there wasn't a book! We followed the paw prints to a basket that was left in the shared area. There was a cat, a pair of shoes, a guitar and a pair of cool sunglasses. Who sent them? It was a mystery until today, when we found a brand new book. We learned all about Pete the Cat and how much he loved his white shoes. It was a fun story, he kept stepping in things and it changed the colour of his shoes. Do you know how he made them white again?
Here's a link to the story if you want to find out
Date: 29th Oct 2023 @ 10:35am
Supertato needed to split up 5 Evil Peas because they were causing so much trouble! We explored how to split 10 into two parts using a part whole model. We used Playdoh peas on part whole models, Evil pea characters, bean bags in part whole models outside and different types of maths counters. We found many ways to split the Evil Peas!
Date: 28th Oct 2023 @ 8:39am
What a busy first half term we have had in 1AI!!!
We are very settled into the routines and timetable of Year 1 and have really enjoyed answering our topic question - What makes us Incredible? We launched this topic with a superhero day and finsihed it by creating a padlet page describing how we have changed over time. We recorded our thoughts and sent the padlet page to Miss Higgins who is the histiry lead in school. She was very impressed with our historical knowledge of changes in our lifetime!
Next half term will be another busy one with the lead up to all things Chrismassey!! Ho, Ho, Ho!!!!
Attached is the parent overview for Autumn 2 so you can have a look at what we will be doing in our next topic question. Don't forget the first Wednesday after the half term holidays we have invited parents/grown ups from home to join in with our next topic launch. 1AI grown ups are invited on Wednesday 1st November at 2pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!