We are artists!
This half term, Year 3 have been taking inspiration from our school’s architecture to create some fantastic digital art.
Our final piece of work this half term was to create a collage inspired by our school grounds.
The children really enjoyed being able to creatively position the pictures to create some abstract artwork.
Help at home by creating a similar collage of another building over the holidays!
Have a happy and healthy Christmas break
Well done to the cast of Wriggly Nativity! It was great to welcome you into school to watch our first in person Christmas production for a few years.
We hope you agree that the children did a fantastic job and we are very proud of them all.
Mrs Taylor, Mrs Lake and Mrs Roth would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing all the children in 2023!
Living and Learning: mental health
Over the past three weeks, we have been discussing mental health: why it is important and how to look after it. We spoke about mental health being “about our feelings, our thinking, our emotions and our moods – things you can’t see, but affect our lives in lots of ways”.
We talked about how sometimes big emotions (strong emotions that stay for a long time and can stop us from doing what we want to do in our lives) can become very overwhelming but there are strategies to help us. The children talked about taking deep breaths; thinking of happy memories; taking part in something they love or completing a self-care activity.
Help at home: discuss which self-care activities your child might use to help deal with their emotions.
Wriggly Nativity and party dates
As we begin the final week of the autumn term, here are some reminders of events happening this week.
Reception, Y1 & Y2 will present their Christmas production, ‘A Wriggly Nativity’.
There will be two performances:
Tuesday 13 December – 2.15pm – 3.00pm
Wednesday 14 December – 2.15pm – 3.00pm
Please specify which day you would like to attend via school gateway under the payments section.
16 December
Non-uniform day
Reception, Y1 & Y2 Christmas party
Science – John Dunlop
As homework this week the children have been tasked to talk all about John Dunlop, our features scientist for the half term. John Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre when he saw his son riding his tricycle very uncomfortably around his garden! He used a garden hose filled with air to test his ideas.
In Science this week we have experimented with different balls to see which would make the best tyre. We rolled the balls down a ramp and measured how far they bounced back off the wall. We were careful to keep everything the same apart from the ball.
We found that the soft, rubber ball bounced the furthest. I wonder if you can think of a reason why that was?
Then we used three of the same balls but filled with different amounts of air. The ball with the most air bounced the furthest – can you think how John Dunlop’s invention matches our results?
Christmas fun!
It’s felt very Christmassy in Reception this week.
Take a look at what we’ve been up to…
On Monday, we made a bag of reindeer food in case the Santa’s reindeers are hungry on Christmas Eve.
The children have been very busy wrapping presents in Santa’s workshop.
Writing letters to Santa.
Looking at Christmas books with our friends.
Making paper chains in the finger gym area.
Playing Christmas maths games.
On Wednesday, the children decided to start a conga line. Why not? It’s Christmas after all!
After our final gymnastic session, it was time to sit down for our Christmas dinner. We had lots of fun dancing away to the Christmas songs.
Poetry Picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem.
Phonics
This, we recapped all of the phase 2 graphemes and tricky words.
Next half term, we’ll be starting phase 3. In this phase, the children will continue to learn more digraphs (two letters making one sound) and they’ll be introduced to some trigraphs (three letters making one sound).
Maths
In maths, we’ve been learning about 3D shapes. We’ve looked at some common 3D shapes such as cylinder, sphere, cuboid, cube, square based pyramid and cone. We looked carefully at the shapes and talked about the properties of the 3d shapes.
Ask your child if they can find any 3d shapes around the house. Can they remember the name of them?
Finally, looking forward to seeing you all at the learning journey drop ins next week.
Reminders
Christmas production – Tuesday and Wednesday at 2.15pm
Christmas party – Friday
Your child can come to school in non-uniform.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.
Science
This half term, we’ve had two parts to our science learning – seasonal changes and the scientist, John Dunlop.
Here’s the vocabulary we have been using in our learning.
First of all, we thought about what changes across the seasons. We learnt some information from this video.
- weather
- temperature
- clothes we wear
- how much sunlight there is
- animals and other living things
We also read this poem as one of our weekly fluency texts.
We’ve been checking the weekly temperature and weather on a weekly basis. Ask your child about the temperature this week and how we measure it.
We’ve also been learning all about the famous scientist, John Dunlop and for homework this week, you can find out more about him with your child.
Topic – Art
During our Topic lessons, we have been learning about architecture (the history and the skills!).
Our skills lessons have been focused on creating digital art – art that is made using digital technology. We have been photographers, photo editors and graphic designers. But this week, we have been “collagers”! The children used photographs of the school and its architecture to create their own buildings. They used collage as their method.
The adults were blown away by the how fantastic they were. The children experimented with different layers and colours and building shapes. Here are just a few:
Next Friday, Year 3 and 4 will be creating their own art galleries for display. Other classes and teachers will be able to visit to celebrate their hard work! We are looking forward to it.
Living and Learning – Mental Wellbeing
What is mental health?
We all have mental health.
Mental health is about our feelings, our thinking, our emotions and our moods.
Looking after our mental health is as important as looking after our physical health – if not more!
In our Living and Learning lessons and circle times over the last three weeks, we have focused on our mental health and wellbeing. We have discussed what we can do to identify when we are feeling down or feeling a strong emotion. Then we have shared what we can do to help bring us back to feeling calm and positive: talk with friends and family; play a game; drawing; sport or go for a walk. The children then had many different ideas for how they can improve their mental wellbeing.
Our circle times have become a staple in our week where the children can listen to others, work together and understand each other on a different level. The third stage of our sessions are where they share worries and give advice. Year 4 have been mature and respectful to one another throughout each session. It’s been fantastic to watch them become more and more confident in this.
Decorating the Christmas tree
This morning, we had a very important job to do. Mrs Weekes asked us to decorate the Christmas tree in the hall. We worked as a team and used our fine motor skills when hanging the baubles. We can’t wait for you to see it at our Christmas Fair.
