: Blog items
Reception- Remember, remember the 5th of November
Date: 5th Nov 2024 @ 8:22pm
Today the children in Reception have been participating in lots of different 'Bonfire Night' themed activities. Firstly we learnt about why many people celebrate Bonfire Night including learning about the story of the Gunpowder Plot. We talked about the different traditions we have with our families including going to a firework display, lighting sparklers and enjoying a bonfire. The children enjoyed making their own Bonfire Night pictures using a range of different meduims and materials. collaging rockets and using loose parts to make transient art pictures. Outside the children were practising their fine motor and physical skills by making firework pictures in our mark making area.
As a class we also discussed the importance of keeping ourselves safe during these exciting celebrations.
"Wear gloves when you have sparklers so you don't burn' Emily
"Only adults touch fireworks" Oakley
Stand far away from bonfires and fireworks so you don't get hurt" Lilah
"Keep your pet inside so they aren't scared" Freyja
Date: 5th Nov 2024 @ 4:09pm
Mrs McAllister's Gardening Club have been busy tidying the school grounds to get ready for Winter. They have also been planting bulbs for Spring and learning about the lifecycle of a flower and that flowers can grow from bulbs. It is also important to enhance the school grounds so that they look neat, tidy and pretty and attractive to pollinators and wildlife too.
Date: 5th Nov 2024 @ 3:43pm
This week is Anti-bullying week. Acorns have been exploring friendships and social skills with peers. We have been developing our sharing and turn taking skills through a variety of different activities. Take a look!
Date: 5th Nov 2024 @ 3:32pm
Following in from our Anti-Bullying assembly with Mrs Clark on Monday, we looked at what bullying means again and then focused on the theme of respect. We had lots of different scenarios and we had to categorise them into respectful or disrespectful. Then we used our learning to decide what we would do in some new scenarios from the Anti Bullying Alliance.
Year 5 - Skills for Life: Managing Distractions
Date: 5th Nov 2024 @ 2:20pm
In this PSHE lesson we looked at distractions and how to manage them. It turned out that we were really good at giving examples of distractions, mainly because we come across them all of the time! We started by defining the word ‘distraction’ and then we looked at categorising them into ‘internal’ and ‘external’ distractions. Finally, some of us put together an action plan of how we could manage distractions both at home and at school.
Date: 5th Nov 2024 @ 2:16pm
This week we have introduced Remembrance Day to our class, focusing on why we have a Remembrance Day and why poppies are used to symbolise this important day.
Children in Year 5 produced a range of beautiful poppy art to decorate a fallen soldier. We had to use special techniques to create the different drawing and sketching techniques.
This is the start of a two-week period we have in school to remember and honour members of the armed forces.
Eco- Welcome to our new Eco Warriors.
Date: 4th Nov 2024 @ 5:43pm
It was the first meeting of the school year with our new Eco Warriors.
We chatted about how we can have an impact on the school with our environmental action and learning and that we need to keep thinking about new ideas to discuss at our meetings. In November, there will be Switch Off Week to get ready for and also planting trees at @thegrange with Treescape to create a micro forest.
Watch this space for more environmental work and ideas.
Date: 4th Nov 2024 @ 4:41pm
Through our Reading into Writing journey this half term, we are looking at Fairy Tales. The children identified that direct speech was needed as a feature of this genre. The children have been working hard to include inverted commas in their writing to create direct speech. They will then use this in their final piece of writing.
Date: 4th Nov 2024 @ 4:37pm
In Art, we have started learning about gestural drawing which will be the focus of our pathway this half term. The children looked at a range of poppies and drew observational sketches. This links to thinking about remembrance and the importance of considering those we have lost.
Year 3- Practicing programming!
Date: 4th Nov 2024 @ 4:29pm
This week we have begun to look at programming using the online program ‘Scratch’. The children learnt how to add sprites in and change their costume. We also looked at adding in a range of backgrounds and including code to switch between different backgrounds. The children also looked at adding in movement blocks to make their characters move. Over the next few weeks we will look at creating a sequence of instructions using the coding blocks.
Date: 2nd Nov 2024 @ 8:02pm
In todays lesson we explored what an object is and what materials are. Working together, we explored our classroom and school environment to find and name different materials. We shared our own experiences and knowledge of materials and where we have found them.
Date: 2nd Nov 2024 @ 7:59pm
This week we have read the story 'Room on the Broom.' We began the week by talking about the characters, the setting and the key events, before ordering the story. Throughout the week we have then labelled the characters, composed sentences about the witch and the dragon and written speech bubbles, thinking about what different characters may say at different parts of the story.
Date: 1st Nov 2024 @ 12:05pm
This week in Reception our classroom have enjoyed lots of different Halloween themed activities. We have been reading the story 'Room on the Broom' and labelling the different characters in the story using our phonic knowledge. The children have been making spooky potions outside, collaging pumpkins and bats, ordering the pumpkin number cards, making silly soup, having a monster party in the home corner and making repeated patterns on the witches hat.
What a fun filled week we have had!
Date: 1st Nov 2024 @ 11:31am
In PE this week, Reception have been learning how to throw, catch and kick a ball.
They began with a warm up, understanding how their muscles need to be warmed up before they start any type of sport or exercise.
Next, they threw balls to each other then kicked them carefully using good control.
Date: 1st Nov 2024 @ 9:45am
In Acorns we have a multi-sensory approach to phonics. This week we have been exploring the 'P' sound.
We use activities such as 'what's in the box', mark making in sensory materials and funky fingers to strengthen our fine motor skills to support writing.
We have loved using pumpkins and pegs, building on our Halloween theme this week, to engage our focus, develop our concentration skills, along with our finger strength, while pushing and hammering the pegs into the pumpkin as well as learning the letter p.
Date: 1st Nov 2024 @ 9:20am
Acorns have been reading Room on the Broom, while exploring Halloween this week. We have enjoyed our sensory story, using props and puppets while listening to the story.
We have participated in lots of spooky activities to support or learning.
We loved using our sensory and messy trays to support and engage with maths activities, develop our fine motor skills and developing our social skills alongside each other.
During Arts and crafts we created pumpkins and ghosts.
Date: 1st Nov 2024 @ 8:37am
This term Arcons are focusing on developing their running, jumping and balancing skills during PE.
Acorns enjoyed balancing and moving along the benches in different ways, including sideways, backwards and crawling.
We explored running back and forth between coloured hoops with quoits.
We even brought our physical activities into our outdoor area with new climbing equipment and had great fun.
PE also enables pupils to explore and develop waiting and turn taking skills.
Date: 31st Oct 2024 @ 9:44pm
Nursery got in to the Halloween spirit this week and explored all things spooky! The children have been busy making potions, doing some spooky mark making and creating witches out of shapes. There was also some very spooky, slimey jelly and the children used their fine motor skills to rescue the spiders stuck inside!
Date: 31st Oct 2024 @ 9:36pm
This week we have been celebrating Halloween. As part of our celebrations we have been counting spiders legs! We talked about what 8 looked like and how a spider has 4 legs on each side of its body.The children then counted 4 legs on to each side of their spider and tried really hard to stop when they reached 4!
Date: 31st Oct 2024 @ 9:14am
We began our new geography unit - The UK - with a whistlestop tour of the British Isles. We we looked at maps and explored the countries that make up the United Kingdom and Great Britain. We recapped on the 8 points of the compass and looked at the regions of the UK.
Date: 31st Oct 2024 @ 7:37am
Today we immersed ourselves into different examples of letters. We recapped some of the key features and tried to identify them in a range of letters including: the sender, the receiver, the reason for writing and any questions the sender asked. We also found the senders address on each letter.
Date: 31st Oct 2024 @ 7:36am
Today we conducted a test to see if we can change different materials. We came up with the actions for the following motions: twist, bend, stretch, squash, snap and tear before we tested whether different materials would change when we did these things to them.
Year 3 - Subtraction across a 10
Date: 30th Oct 2024 @ 9:35pm
We used Base 10 to subtract 1's across a ten. We had to 'exchange' a ten rod for ten 1's in order to subtract. We noticed that when we exchanged the tens, we still had the same amount, it was just represented differently. For example 126 can be represented as 1 hundred plate, 2 tens and 6 ones or it can be represented as 1 hundred plate, 1 ten and 16 ones. Developing this understanding will help us when we start to subtract using the column method.
Date: 29th Oct 2024 @ 8:08pm
This week the children in year 5 have begun their learning journey into the states of matter. In this lesson, pupils conducted an experiment to prove that combustion requires oxygen, and that more oxygen allows fires to burn longer. We also measured the mass of a candle as it was burning, which showed that the wax was the fuel, and was being used to create the flame.
