News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 21st April
Welcome back everyone! It’s great to be back and we’ve even had some sunshine.
Further to our message earlier in the week, it’s Picnic in the Park on Sunday 7th May at Anchor Park, organised by Friends of Appledore School, and all are welcome. Please click here for more information.
This year, with the hope for more suitable weather, we have scheduled sports day for Reception to year 6 pupils for Tuesday 23rd May. We hope to see as many of you there as possible and more details will follow nearer the time.
Have a lovely weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week we Turtles and Dolphins, we have started learning about our new topic – castles. We have talked about what we already know about castles. We have labelled parts of the castles and thought about why each part was important to the castle. We have also looked at pictures and used books to help us find out more about castles. We have painted pictures of castles and built castles using a range of different construction kits. Today we focused on Windsor Castle (ready for the Coronation).
Year 1 have had a lovely week back to school this week and have enjoyed sharing all our Easter news! On Monday we started our new topic ‘What do we find in the oceans?’ and began by learning a song to teach us the names of the 5 oceans. We then learnt facts about them such as which is the biggest and which is the warmest and labelled them on a map. In Writing we have started a book about oceans and have enjoyed learning about the different animals in the book and put actions to some pages to help us remember it. In Maths we have been learning about mass so we’ve had the scales out so we could weigh lots of items in the classroom. First, we made sure to make an estimate of how many cubes heavy the item would be and then when we weighed it we liked to see how close we were!
Welcome back to a new term, Year 2! This term will be a busy one, but we are sure they will all rise to the challenge. In Maths, they have started a new topic of fractions and will be learning about half, quarter, thirds and two thirds of shapes and numbers. Over the Easter break, we set a challenge of learning to tell the time. Thank you for your support with this as lots of children have come back to school asking to tell us what the time is. In English, they have been writing stories and thinking carefully about the vocabulary they are using. They have started a new topic about where we live and enjoyed looking at Google Earth to find Appledore.
The members of the key stage 2 choir enjoyed a fabulous workshop with Becki Driscoll from RootsNotes. After a vocal warm up, the children learnt a song that would have been sung by sailors as they loaded timber onto ships. Becki commented on the children’s wonderful voices. They then had the opportunity to explore a huge range of musical instruments before selecting one on which to accompany the song. There was even time to compose an extra verse for the song about Appledore which will be performed at The Big Sheep on 18th May. The children thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon and have been following up this work as part of their music lessons.
Year 3 have had a wonderful first week back. We were very excited to start learning about rivers in geography. We explored the water cycle and even had a go at creating our own water cycle in a bag so that we could observe the cycle happening. In science, we began our new topic on plants. To learn about the different parts of a plant, we dissected daffodils and then researched the function of the different parts of the plant. In maths, we continued our learning on measuring and have begun learning about mass and capacity. In English, we are reading ‘A River’ by Marc Martin. We learned all about prepositional phrases and wrote our own to describe where the river goes in the book. In PE, we had our first tennis lesson and had great fun working in pairs where we hit the ball to each other and tried to catch the ball.
In HMS Echo (year 4) this week, the children have started their swimming lessons and it has been great to see their confidence in the water, even the lifeguard commented how great they all were in the water! As well as swimming, this half term, the children will also be getting tennis lessons from Lottie, which they enjoy very much. In English, we have started a new unit based on the book ‘Leon and the Place Between’, which is a magical fiction book. We have familiarised ourselves with the story this week, and will be using the book to inspire us with our writing. In Maths, we are continuing with decimals, such as tenths and hundredths, as well as looking at decimals that are equivalent to one half and one quarter. In Geography, we have begun our new topic of “Why is water the world’s most precious resource?” and the children were shocked at how much water, on average, a person uses a day!
Year 5 has returned from the Easter break full of energy and enthusiasm. We have completed all the assessments and now started on our new units of work. In English we are reading the book Shackleton’s Journey; the story of Ernest Shackleton. This week we have written a letter to join the crew on the Endurance and thought about how we would train a dog ready to go on the expedition. In maths we have begun our work on shape. We understand the use of degrees and can classify angles into acute, obtuse and reflex. Our science unit this half term in ‘Living things and their habitats and the history work will be looking at the Elizabethan sea explorers.
Year 6 have been finding their groove again this week and working hard to revise – some of them did themselves proud on their first arithmetic paper and were amazed at home much they’d remembered. They have also been studying The Tempest in Literacy and finding out about light in Science. In Art, groups are having time to complete their bags for textiles. They really enjoyed dance, a short session of cricket and tennis in PE. It’s been great to see many of the class taking responsibility for their learning and asking for help where needed. Keep working hard!
