Autumn Term: Week 9
The week started with a special treat, as Ruth Garett, the school’s librarian, came to read the children the last part of The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me, by Roald Dahl. The children really enjoyed the story and listened avidly.
Great reflection took place through the Pre-Prep and Nursery, as they learned more about Remembrance Day. They carefully painted beautiful poppies on stones and on Wednesday morning, just before 11am the Chaffinch, Kingfisher and Pre-Prep children, with their poppy stones in hand, joined the Prep school on the school field, respecting the social distancing rules. At 11am they fell silent and remembered all they had learned about fallen and injured soldiers. Mrs Radley played the Last Post to mark the end of the two minute silence. The children then walked to the Memory Garden and carefully laid their stones on the grass. They looked at each other’s poppies and thought again about the fallen. It was very moving.
Year 2 studied Remembrance Day in greater depth and learned the meaning of wearing a poppy. They created wonderful poppy field pictures, using watercolours and oil pastels and collaborated well to make a Remembrance wreath.
The Year 1 children have worked hard again this week. In English they wrote clues to describe themselves – Guess Who? Everyone reflected and tried to find the best way to describe themselves without giving too much away, making it more of a challenge to work out. They came up with some excellent clues. The writing was used to caption a silhouette picture and makes an excellent display, keeping the children busy reading everyone else’s clues. They are also learning how to write instructions; what better way to practise than to describe how to make a jam sandwich, as the last instruction is the most important one… eat and enjoy!
During their discussions in the history lesson about King James 1 and the British Parliament, one child said, ‘People in parliament are just like our School Council Reps’.
The Reception class have been continuing their topic on celebrations; they looked at Remembrance Day and celebrated the lives of those that have served us and continue to do so. They explored the word ‘brave’ and created their own medals for a time when they had been brave. The children related well to this, as they read stories where characters had been brave: Dogger by Shirley Hughes, Room on the Broom, by Julia Donaldson and Grandad’s Island, by Benji Davies; we had some wonderful class discussions. On Wednesday they learnt the digraph ‘sh’ as a sign of respect for Remembrance Day. They also looked at ‘ch’, ‘ng’ and ‘ai’. In maths they continued to look at sequencing numbers to twenty.
The Chaffinch and Kingfisher children learnt about the importance of the poppy. They talked about why it was significant and the importance of remembering the people who had lost their lives to protect us. They watched a beautiful animation about a rabbit running through a poppy field and talked about feelings. Edie wondered out loud ‘I think the rabbit is scared,’ while Phoebe commented ‘The poppies are pretty’. They followed this up with Kingfisher class doing some paintings of poppies and everyone loved using sponges to make the poppy flowers. The Chaffinch class worked as a team and created a poppy painting using handprints. They also made biscuit poppies using red icing and giant chocolate buttons. The biscuits were delicious!
The children were also very interested in constructing and they linked different shaped blocks and materials together. With a combination of ambition and collaborative teamwork the children achieved what they wanted. ‘It is very long,’ said Gray, looking at the blocks that he and the other two children had created together.
The Nightingale children had a busy week cooking. They made flapjacks and showed great resilience as they stirred all the ingredients; it got quite difficult as the mixture became quite sticky! They played hide and seek in the garden, practising their counting. They also decorated poppies with a variety of red media and glue.
The children in the Robin class brought nature indoors and explored the colours, textures and sounds of leaves, pine cones and bark. They had enormous fun during water play, experimenting with pouring and transferring different quantities of water with different containers. They explored different tools and did a lot of digging during their sand play activities.
Children in the Sparrow class focused on sensory exploration. They played with handmade sensory bottles and sensory bags containing water, oil, food colouring and pompoms.
The Nursery staff and children were all happy and excited to welcome back Mrs Sian Nicholas on Monday. It was lovely to see her again and to catch up on the latest news about her lovely daughter.
