News
Newsletter for the week ending 24th November
Please read on to find out about the the Christmas Fayre (including the hampers for the draw) and what has been happening in and around the classes, including a wonderful singing performance by Year 6…
ROUND THE SCHOOL
Christams Fayre
Please note the date for the Christmas Fayre is Thursday 7th December, 3.30pm – 5pm. Please see previous news item for details of the hampers for the raffle.
Pirate Ship
to clear up any confusion regarding the use of the pirate ship on our bottom playground, are not permitted to use it before 9am and after 3.30pm or any other time unless they are supervised by a member of staff. Thank you for your support with ensuring the children remain safe.
AROUND THE CLASSES
FSU rhyme of the week has been Hey DIddle Diddle. The children were very keen to change the role play area into the animals from the rhyme so we painted a cow and was able to milk her – ask the children how! Our P4C questions was ‘Where did the dish and the spoon go?’ and ‘What makes a happy monster?’ We have talked about the similarities and differences between cats and cows. We have painted with spoons had had a go at some egg and spoon races. We also enjoyed our trip to the Library to change our books.
This week we have finished publishing our books. They will be available to look at in the Writing Gallery very soon. We have now started looking at ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ and have written our own story about a tea party. In Maths we have been looking at subtraction, we have used bead strings and number tracks to help us subtract. In Science we drew around our friends on big pieces of paper and then labelled the body parts. Our P4C session this week was based around the story of Elmer, the question we discussed was ‘Why were all of the elephants different at the end?’.
Lundy Puffins have been writing their instructions this week for washing their dinosaur. They have shown that they are able to write imaginatively with capital letters and full stops mostly in the right places. They will be publishing them next week. In Maths, they have been adding and subtracting two-digit numbers using different methods with increasing accuracy. In Science, they have been thinking about what different animals (including humans!) need to keep them alive and healthy. Play practices have started and everyone has obviously been learning and practising lines at home, so thank you for your help with this. In Art with Mrs Harvey, they have been experimenting with wool and felting pebbles. They look very interesting and I can’t wait to see the final product.
Seahunter’s week got off to an amazing start as they spent Monday morning with Amanda McCormack, a film maker, as part of their community arts trail project. Amanda brought in lots of equipment that the children had to learn about. They worked in groups as actors, directors, sound recordists and camera operators with a green screen. It was brilliant to see them each taking on their roles and working together to create scenes with puppets using backdrops from old photos of Appledore. They will continue to work with Amanda over the next term, creating films set in the village. These will form part of a final presentation and trail in July. In philosophy this week, the children watched a film clip about some cartoon birds who didn’t include a bird who looked different and explored the question, ‘Why weren’t they inclusive?’ They offered some honest and thought provoking thoughts about peer pressure and how difficult it can be to do the right thing. We will reflect on how this applies to their own lives as the week progresses.
This week in Maths, HMS Echo have learnt how to partition 2 and 3-digit numbers to multiply them by a 1-digit number. They then transferred their understanding to learn how to use the grid method to multiply. In English, we have started our new unit of mythical story writing, linked to our topic ‘Ancient Greece’. We have looked at the story Perseus and the Gorgon’s head and placed he events in chronological order. We will continue to look at and learn from other mythical stories up until the Christmas holiday. For P4C this week, we read the book ‘Odd Dog Out’ and the class came up with the big question ‘Were all the other dogs the same on the inside?’. In Topic, the children used the laptops to research and make notes about what life was like in Ancient Greece for women, men, children and slaves. Next week, they will use this information to create pop-up books.
Many of the pupils in Beechcroft have been taking part in Bikeability sessions with Ian, Tom and Kevin this week. Some of them achieved Level 1 and others achieving Level 2. There will be another opportunity for those who did not take part, or still need to do the Level 2, next year. The weather has been very challenging but its great to see how much they have developed their cycling skills and confidence this week. Well done. Because of the disruption to normal lessons we have been focusing on our grammar skills in English and continuing with multiplication and division in maths. We have been looking at what Anglo-Saxon homes were like and continuing to find out about the Buddhist religion. We listened to a Frog and Toad story titled ‘Alone’. After some really good questions were written we voted on the question, Should you respect the privacy of someone who asked to be alone?’ to be discussed further. In art we have started to do our Christmas decorations for the Christmas Fayre.
Year 6 have been writing their own Viking Sagas, worked as groups on problem solving in maths and discovered who made mouldy bread in science. They have also used their knowledge of Viking Life, to create board games or quizzes to test each other and created Viking poetry. A busy week!
Best wishes from
Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children
