News
Newsletter for the week ending 8th October
A week of visitors and trips. Please read on to find out what has been happening in and around the classes and for some interesting village events…
Have a great weekend everybody
From Jeremy Cooper and all of the children and staff
AROUND AND ABOUT THE VILLAGE
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have continued to explore sheep Nursery Rhymes. We have talked about where Bo Peep’s sheep went when they went missing and how they got back to her. We have also made up our own rhymes using the tunes of Bo Peep and Ba, Ba, Black Sheep. We have also made weaving pictures of sheep. We really enjoyed walking down to the Library to change our Library books and to see Dominique
This week in year 1 we were privileged to have author John Townsend in to inspire the Year 1 children. John shared a wealth of animal facts and took the children on an amazing adventure to hunt a lion. The children were mesmerized by John’s ventriloquism and enjoyed singing a song with Roderick (the cheeky boy who lives in the bag). In PE we have continued to learn handball skills. The children have now learnt two different passes and how to catch the ball. On Thursday we had a mini competition to pass and score points. I was really pleased with the children’s sportsmanship throughout this. In maths, the children have learnt about the greater than and less than symbols and used these to compare objects. In writing, we have been thinking like nursery rhyme characters and writing our own letters to Mother Goose. Have a fantastic weekend.
Lundy Puffins have been looking at a new book this week in English called ‘How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth’. They had great fun on Wednesday acting out the instructions, putting the pictures from the book in the correct order and interviewing each other about how to wash woolly mammoths. In Maths, they are learning about addition and subtraction and how they are the opposite of each other. If you have time, play some of the number bond games on the homework sheet; knowing number facts off by heart will really help children as they come across more complex calculations. In their topic work, they learned about 3 different types of bees and the jobs they do: honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees. Don’t forget that next week on Tuesday we are off to Rosemoor to learn about other creatures and their habitats.
Year 3 put the dramatic ending to their dance and danced it through from beginning to end for the first time. With some more rehearsal and polishing it will be ready for performance. In R.E, year 3 sang “Who put the colours in the rainbow?” to link with their work on creation. In French, they conducted a survey (in French) to find the most popular month for birthdays. Year 5 began composing the verse and chorus melodies for their original sea shanty using pitched instruments. They continued their work on Hinduism by looking at the duties we have at different stages of our lives.
HMS Echo have been fantastic scientists this week, exploring changes of state between liquids, solids and gases. To support our learning, we visited Dartington Crystal on Wednesday. The children worked incredibly hard to take on board a lot of new vocabulary and used their reading skills to search for the answers to questions about glass aming in the museum. During the factory tour, they were able to observe the process of solid changing to liquid and back to solid again. They learnt some of the technical vocabulary involved in glass making and were able to describe what they saw scientifically, explaining how the particles changed as they heated and cooled. They also had the opportunity to paint a glass to take home as a souvenir. The staff and visitors complimented the children on their polite behaviour and commented on how hard they worked, which was lovely to hear.
Beechcroft joined in with a live BBC lesson on Monday for the start of International Space Week. We have started a new text this week, looking at women in science. They now know more about Mary Anning (palaeontologist), Lise Meitner (physicist), Mae Jemison (astronaut), Vera Rubin (astronomer), Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (astrophysicist) and Valentina Tereshkova (cosmonaut). They have been researching these scientists and writing about their lives in the form of a biography. In maths we have started a new unit on statistics. So far we have looked at how to use bus timetables and began to interpret line graphs. In science we have continued with our work on separating mixtures and know the methods of filtration, distillation, sieving and magnetism. We answered the question ‘can we live without plastic?’. There were many amazing responses to this question.
Year 6 have been revising multiplication and learnt the grid method too. In Literacy, they have been writing about their residential and looking at photos from the trip as well as completing climate change work. They had a forest school session where they were able to taste food grown and think about what plants they might want to grow and things they might want to do outside. In art, they did some pen and ink and backgrounds on their final pieces. They really enjoyed the author visit in school on Thursday and going out with Mrs O’Shea to discuss their reading. In science, they were classifying animals and creating complicated keys to separate a variety of zoo animals
