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Year 2/3 - An Exciting Journey Through Time Assembly!

Sun 29 May 2016

Year 2/3 - An Exciting Journey Through Time Assembly!

It all started in the Stone Age… Year 2/3 treated us to a fascinating journey through time. We discovered that the Stone Age covers three time periods: Palaeolithic (Hi I’m a cave man!); Mesolithic (I’m a nomad, we hunt and gather our food); and Neolithic (I’m a Neolithic farmer and this is Betsy, my cow). After the Stone Age came the Iron Age where people started making their tools out of iron instead of stone. Year 2/3 also told us about Boudica, Queen of the Iceni who led a major uprising against the occupying Roman forces – Beaten by a GIRL!!! The children gave us an entertaining version of the Boudica song.

The next topic was Egypt. The children gave us many interesting facts about Egypt including some excellent examples of persuasive writing in the form of a holiday advertisement: Come and visit Egypt - come and taste the spiciest food, it will blow your head right off!!!

France was the next port of call and the children managed to create a very French ambience with their rendition of Bonjour , bonsoir, bonne nuit…, beautifully conducted by Lily-Mai. Magnifique, Year 2/3! Finally the children sang their class song, Strong, from Cinderella. The song reflects our school values so well. What an amazing amount of learning since September, Year 2/3. Well done!

F2 - Amazing Things Are Happening!

Sun 22 May 2016

F2 - Amazing Things Are Happening!

What an exciting week this has been for F2. We have packed in so much fun-learning and our children have amazed all the teachers with the progress they have been making! Some of our readers have jumped several levels! Others have produced some beautiful written work, whilst some of our children have created lovely models which they have been able to describe in great detail. On Thursday we discussed mini beast habitats and decided to make Bug Hotels. We examined the ones we have in the quad, made a list of the materials we thought we would need and then went off to the woods to collect as much as we could. We took all the materials back to the unit - some of us worked inside whilst Elliott (the project manager) and his team, Ella-Mai, Seren and Ben set to making a 5* Des Res Bug Hotel in our Foundation garden. They did a fantastic job - architects, planners, designers, naturalists...so much talent!

When we came to school on Monday, we found that our butterflies had hatched - we released them during the week; we are looking out for them in our garden, we’re sure they will be back.

Meanwhile, on our Talk Station, our tadpoles are growing bigger by the day and slowly transforming into froglets. Lente is writing a daily report on the subtle changes she can see in the tadpoles. Her Frog Diary is coming on beautifully and all her diary-writing is independent - our own David Attenborough!

In gymnastics Emma has been so impressed with the progress the F2 children are making - some children are VERY close to receiving their level 8 Proficiency Badge and Certificate. Wow!

Caterpillar Music was so much fun, packed with learning about all the “eccentric things we do in May”: Maypole dancing, Morris dancing, Hanky Dance, rolling a truckle of cheese, Stick dance, Apple Jack Day and Well Dressing. We love finding out about our cultural heritage!

lt's all happening in F2! Watch this space...

F1 - Exploring our F1 World

Sun 22 May 2016

Early learning is about exploration and F1 are masters at it!

Exploration in the environment, exploring a process, exploring new tools, exploring different ideas and exploring new concepts. I have been looking back on everything we have got up to this half term and exploration is definitely something that our children have been doing lots of. We have been observing caterpillars turning into butterflies. We had five chrysalises on Wednesday morning and by Wednesday afternoon we had two butterflies! We have been planting seeds and seeing them grow. I know that Ava’s beanstalk is huge because her Daddy told me and I have seen photos of lots of others in our friends’ homes. We also have been examining mini beasts in the woods. In Tree-mendous Tuesday this week Mrs Fenton shook a tree to see what fell out! There were insects galore!

We are interested in what children learn and that is important but how they learn is even more important if they are to become learners for life in today’s society.

Exploration is the path towards building new ideas, problem solving, communicating, thinking, and it gets the children invested into the process in a way that is more meaningful to them.

That is why the development of our outside area is so important. It is looking amazing! The fence has been painted by some of our daddies; we have sourced tyres from a local garage and they have been filled with: sand and the Small World farm animals, a variety of herbs so the children can explore using their senses. We are aiming to put a bowl with water inside another one because our F1s love transporting water. The flower beds have been dug and plants, that have kindly been donated, have been planted by the children so they can develop an understanding of growth, decay and change over time. Maybe a few of the flowers have been picked, but they do look so pretty! We just explain that once they are picked, they won’t be able to grow. You see there are lots of lessons being learnt! We are going to plant some vegetables, too so the children will be able to eat what they have grown and it will hopefully encourage some children to try things they haven’t tried before. Children learn through their experiences and with all the open ended experiences that F1 are exposed to daily, I’m sure you’ll agree that there is a whole lot of learning occurring in F1!