Autumn Term: Week 7
This week’s Super Andro Learning Power focus has been resilience. The children gave their ideas as to what they thought this meant and reached the conclusion it means to keep going even though things might appear tough or too difficult. They were really interested when watching a time-lapse video of a little child learning to walk and soon realised that being resilient has its rewards. We discussed that school can sometimes seem tough, work can be difficult, and they might not do as well as they expected. It can sometimes feel like nothing seems to be going well. They discovered there is a magical three-letter word that is really helpful in these situations… ‘yet’. It turns difficulties into something hopeful. ‘I can’t do it.’ makes you feel sad and disappointed, ‘I can’t do it, yet’ turns the frown upside down and give hope and a smile. Things will be achieved.
The children came up with some great ideas to help improve their resilience; not to worry about mistakes – they will help you learn; remembering that not everything can be perfect and go right every time, as long as you know you gave it your best effort/try; sometimes you need to take a break and rest your brain if you are stuck – ask for help; don’t forget you can try again tomorrow; know that you will get there in the end, just keep trying. They concluded that being a resilient learner will help them to reach their goals whether it be knowing how to add up simple numbers, write in joined-up handwriting or learning to ride a bike without stabilisers.
In mathematics this week, the Year 2 children have been learning to divide and worked out that there is a relationship between division and multiplication. In art, they explored using marbling inks to create fiery paper. A real ‘wow’ moment when they lifted out the paper and discovered the beautiful wavy red and orange patterns that had been created. The children have been learning about the Great Fire of London and the resilience of the people living at the time. In English, they thought about the feelings different people, such as Samuel Pepys, Thomas Farriner the baker and firefighters might have had. They wrote these feelings on speech bubbles and placed them on the fiery paper they had created. It was a very fitting background and it all makes a stunning display.
Year 1 have created moving pictures using split pins in their DT lesson. The required plenty of resilience with cutting out their animals; some found it a bit tricky, but they all succeeded. In English, the children looked at exception words. The used the text from Jill Murphy’s story, Five Minutes’ Peace, and re-sequenced the story that had become muddled. They discussed ways that mummy could have five minutes peace and thought about creating rules to make things calmer in the large household. In mathematics, they looked at 3D shapes. They also used their hands to measure items around the classroom.
In this last week of half term the Reception class have been learning all about pumpkins. They looked at Winnie the Witch: The Amazing Pumpkin by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul, Christopher Pumpkin by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet and the old classic, Cinderella. The children expressed their creativity when decorating their own pumpkins with a variety of differently coloured paints; they then practised their fine motor skills by hammering in golf tees. On Wednesday they made delicious apple and pumpkin muffins; the recipe will appear in the Friends’ recipe book, coming soon! The children explored their imaginations while role playing the story of Cinderella, equipped with puppets and props. The week ended with the weekly trip to Forest School, where the children got messy by exploring the insides of a pumpkin; they debated whether it was a fruit rather than a vegetable. In phonics they learnt, j, v, w and x which involved jelly, creating their own van, x-raying their hands on the photocopier and exploring the wind. In maths, they used Numicon pieces to create different numbers in an introduction to addition. What a wonderful start to Reception this half term has been.
This week the Chaffinch and Kingfisher children focussed on all things Halloween. They explored pumpkins and made rainbow spiders, as the children wanted them to look cheerful. These were quite tricky to make, as the children had to paint them black before putting on their rainbow legs. They experimented with different ways to attach the legs and showed great resilience when persisting as the legs refused to stick! The children were fascinated by the many different pumpkins brought into the classroom; they were keen to touch and hold them. ‘That’s quite heavy’ remarked one child when they were holding the biggest pumpkin, and ‘that’s medium,’ she continued weighing the smaller one in her hands. It was great maths work without realising it.
The Nightingale class were very busy this week, baking leaf, pumpkin and flower shaped biscuits. They then brought out their creative skills and decorated them with autumn coloured icing. The biscuits smelt divine!
Wonderful sounds came from the Robin class as they sang happily to practise saying their names and those of their friends. They have also been learning to name the days of the week, not only in English, but also in French. ‘Bravo, les enfants!’
The Sparrow class have enjoyed some lovely walks this week. They went through Helen Garden and tried to spot as many different dogs as they could. They were very excited when one dog owner stopped to tell the staff how their dog loved children and the dog was ecstatic to see five altogether!
What a wonderfully busy half term for everyone; super work from every child. Very well done.
I hope you all have a lovely half term.
