Our new SEAL theme for this half term is…
…relationships.
This theme explores feelings within the context of our important relationships including family and friends.
It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of learning: self-awareness, managing feelings and empathy.
There is a focus throughout the theme on helping children understand the feelings associated with an experience that we all need to cope with at some time: that of loss – whether of a favourite possession, a friend, a family home, or a loved one. Although relatively few children are bereaved, most will experience losses of other kinds during their childhood; losing a home, losing friends because of moving house or changing schools, or losing a pet are examples.
We would therefore ask for parents / carers to alert us to any experiences your child has had that might make this area particularly difficult for them – for example, a bereavement.
End of term
Well, what a busy term it has been! This culminated with our Easter production of The Time Lord, for which the children all worked very hard. Below are some of the finished plague masks we’ve been working on during our medicine topic.
I would like to say “Well done” to all Year 3 for a great term! Enjoy the holidays.
Homework Highlights
After a great curriculum week, here are some examples of the homework from Year 1.
Fruit surprise
The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch has been a popular book as part of our learning in English. Today we created a fruit surprise for Mr Grinling. We also learnt some facts about fruit and keeping healthy. Did you know your 5 a day can be from fresh, dried, tinned or frozen fruit? Peeling, chopping, scooping (using a melon baller) and using a lemon squeezer were some of the food technology skills we learnt, too.
We also thought about important table manners when we tasted the fruit surprise and as it was so delicious there wasn’t much left for Mr Grinling!
‘I loved it because the raspberries were so delicious.’
‘We learnt how to use a lemon squeezer and we made a nice salad.’
‘I think Mr Grinling would love it!’
‘We learnt to chop a banana and we put it in a bowl.’
Variety is the spice of life!
If you ask your child what they’ve done today, you may be surprised! From learning Mandarin to finding out about geysers, it was all going on. All the children were mixed up for the morning and took part in four different lessons – there are eight different lessons altogether so there will be some more mixing up going on tomorrow. These lessons have been part of our Enrichment Week where children have thought about a variety of subjects in lots of different ways. Here are some photos to give you a taste of what has been happening: learning Urdu or Mandarin, art work, music, PE, geography, programming and DT.
A sentence looks like this.
This was one of the key messages from the theatre production today based around the Gruffalo story. We, as the audience, helped to create a story by choosing the correct punctuation and looking at when to use it. Some great adjectives, for characters and settings, were suggested to improve the writing. We also learnt an important message about cheating – the best story rightly won in the end.
Hopefully this will inspire lots of budding story writers.
Fascinating fingerprints
As part of our themed week, Year 1 found our whether they had loops, arches and/or whorls on their fingerprints.
Science Day
There’s been a robbery in Year 2!
Poor Ziggy the Zebra was stolen from Year 2 on Monday night and all that was left was a ransom note. Don’t worry though – it turns out Year 2 are super-detectives and they used all of their forensic skills to get him back.
The suspects
Mr Wilks Miss Valentine Mrs Weekes
We used chromatography to work out which of our suspects pens had written the ransom note. It needed a lot of accuracy, careful handling and great listening skills.
We had the evidence ink on filter paper already. Then, we added the pens of our three suspects. Once placed in water, it travelled up the filter paper and spread the ink out so we could see what different colours each one was made up of. Each pen changed in a different way and we could see which of our suspect’s pens matched the evidence.
It was Mrs Weekes!
Super scientists
Year 1 have been biologists, physicians and chemists as part of our themed week. We can predict, question, plan, discuss our results and conclusions.
What will happen when the lemon juice invisible ink pictures are dried and placed in the oven?
Will the water and marbles stay in the bucket?
You could try these at home!
CSI Fingerprinting
Today was science day and we’ve been learning all about fingerprinting. We’ve learned that all fingerprints are different and have arches, loops or whirls.
Even identical twins have different fingerprints! However, our twins’ were incredibly close!
