News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 27th January
there has been lot’s going on in and around the classes, so please click on ‘more’ to find out more…
Diary Dates:
- Bag2School will be collecting from Appledore School on 21st February 2023. Please bring your bag (or bags!) to the School Car park by 9am and help us have a really good collection. Not only helping to safe the planet bur raising money for the school too!
- Sports Dayfor Dolphins and years 1-6 is scheduled for Tuesday 23rd May
AROUND THE CLASSES
Year 6, Rose the Ranger from the burrows and Jack from North Devon Biosphere have been working with Sarah on improving the area for wildlife and accessibility for the children to use as an outdoor learning resource. Northam Town council have also given money along with the original funding from the ANOB to re-line the pond, create a decked dipping platform and viewing area and lots of tree planting to include and enhance for a traditional Devon bank hedgerow. Big thanks to all involved, the PTFA and the amazing plans and designs from Year 6 which will be displayed in the hall and on the Apple Tree Initiative website. https://www.
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have continued to learn about Chinese New Year. We have looked at how people celebrate the festival. We have also looked at where China is in the world and what is unique to China, we then compared this to Appledore. On Tuesday we made Chinese dumplings and they were delicious. Today we visited the library in Appledore to change our library books.
In Sea Lions (Year 1) this week we have carried on our Science experiment and found that the bread that grew the most mould was the bread that we touched with dirty hands. We have been thinking about why this is and have come to the conclusion it’s because of all the germs we had on our hands. Now we are being extra careful to clean our hands! In Maths this week we have been ordering numbers to 20 from smallest to greatest as well as greatest to smallest. In Writing we have started a new book: No-bot the Robot with no Bottom. So far we have read the book and thought of actions to help us remember it. We have also thought of other animals that might have found his bottom and what they could have used it for!
This week, Year 2 have been learning about multiplication in Maths. They have been making equal groups and learning to use the multiplication symbol: x. In Year 2, children need to know the 2, 5 and 10 times tables by heart, so please look out for some games coming soon on Google Classroom to help you practise at home. In English, they have been working hard to improve their handwriting and sentence writing. Well done everyone for the effort you are putting in. In their topic work, they learned a bit more about Grace Darling and tried to answer the question: Why did she carry out the rescue? In Science, they found out about the different stages of the human lifecycle: baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult and talked about what humans are able to do at each stage. This will link to their outdoor learning session on Monday where they will find out about some animal life cycles. At the time of writing, they are looking forward to their outdoor learning session on Friday morning, where they will be taking part in activities inspired by the Big Garden Birdwatch taking place this weekend. If you’d like to take part at home or find out more information, please take a look here: https://www.rspb.org.uk/
Seahunter (Year 3) have had a fantastic week. In English, we finished writing our biographies on different famous people. All of the children worked so hard to research their chosen person, and then we thought carefully about how we were going to order all of the facts and then focused on using exciting sentence starters to make our biographies interesting to read. In guided reading, we have started reading an adventure book called ‘Arthur and the Golden Rope’. To help us understand some of the vocabulary in this book, this week we learned all about Norse mythology and read about some of the Viking gods. In science, we have continued learning all about the bones in our bodies and we made our own bionic hands to show how the muscles and bones work together to enable us to move.
Year 3 performed their tableaux which dramatically retold the story of Noah and the Ark. In music, they finalized their graphic scores and chose appropriate musical instruments on which to play the piece. In French, they updated their phrasebooks with the latest vocabulary – the days of the week. Year 4 designed happy Eid cards and looked at the festival of Eid ul Adha. They continued with their whole class ensemble teaching in music and are beginning to recognize G, A and B on the stave. Year 5 looked at Christian songs and found hymns that reference God being Holy and Loving. Year 6 explored the Big Bang theory and contrasted this scientific explanation of creation with the version in the Bible. They also continued with their whole class ensemble teaching and can now play a range of notes on the recorder and follow a simple score accurately. In French years 4, 5 and 6 matched descriptions of the weather to symbols representing that weather condition.
This week in HMS Echo (Year 4) we have been learning all about the different roles and jobs people had in 1918, and how people came together to help with rationing. We’ve also been working on our Values work – we had a live session on Tuesday about “What makes me ME?” which made the children reflect on what makes them unique and how being unique is great. In English, the children have done a fantastic job at writing a story about ‘Jack and the Daydream’ or something similar, now the children need to plan their very own story in the style of the book we’re reading – I’m looking forward to reading them! In Maths, we’ve been looking at division this week, and what it means to have a remainder. Towards the end of the week, in Science, we are going to look at pictures of animals, particularly their teeth, and see if we can identify whether they’re a carnivore, herbivore, or even an omnivore.
Year 5 in literacy have been learning about the key features of explanation texts in preparation for children writing an explanation text about their inventions. In maths we have been securing our multiplication strategies. We joined the live Winter Watch live lesson and found out about food chains and bird feeders in preparation for today’s RSPB schools big bird count to enter the data on a national database.
Year 6 have learnt about adaption in science this week; studying the way animal and plants change in some way (over a long period of time) to be better suited to the environment in which they live. We have begun to learn about a man who is credited for saving more lives than anyone else with a major medical discovery. We are continuing to read ‘Pig Heart Boy’ by Malorie Blackman and are writing a balanced argument about xenotransplantation in literacy. It has been interesting to think about both sides of the argument and have heard some fascinating facts and opinions. We have started an algebra topic in maths and have formed our own expressions and formulae.
