11th Decemeber

Nursery

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Nursery have been very busy. We have put our Christmas tree up and it has some lovely fir cone decorations made by the children, some of which can been seen outside our nursery.  We also watched a lovely BBC Learning zone clip all about a fir tree.  

The freezing weather meant we could have a good investigation with ice.  This generated lots of lovely language.  Belle said ‘It looks like shiny glass’ and Ivy said, ‘It’s very cold my hands are freezing.’

Year 4

We have had a very busy week. The children have been working on newspaper reports in English. For maths we have worked on doubles and halves and we have seen a great improvement in their understanding. We finished our Science topic on circuits by making a parallel and a series circuit using two bulbs.

However the best day of the week was Thursday when we had an Egyptian day. Mark ran the whole day. We had a quiz, looked at a number of artefacts, played an Egyptian board game and in the afternoon we acted out the whole mummification ceremony. The children will be real Egyptologists now.

4CA

 

 

The children have had the chance to experience an Egyptian Day on Thursday of this week. It was a brilliant day and all of the children and staff really enjoyed it. Some of the day’s activities included playing an Egyptian game, exploring some exciting artefacts and watching mummification! Mark the Egyptologist also told us a traditional tale which originated from Ancient Egyptian times; ask your child what it was.

 

Year 5

5W have had a great week. We visited the Victorian Christmas at Priory House and learnt how many traditions came about. We learnt how to make bon bons and decorations out of oranges and cloves, which are making our classroom smell lovely.

We have made story maps and are re-telling great stories, ask us about them and see what fantastic story tellers we are.

Year 6

Year 6 have had a great week being adventurous with their writing! We have been making story maps and planning exciting storylines, before writing up our final versions. The quality of the writing has been fantastic, so we hope this high standard continues.

Everyone is very excited about our upcoming event- the Year 6 Cake Sale, being held in our classrooms, on the morning of Friday 14^th December. As a year group, we have started to plan and prepare, by making enticing advertisements to put up around the school. We hope to see you there!

We are all starting to feel Christmassy and decorations have gone up in the classrooms. We are also beginning to practise our Christmas carols, ready for the Carol Concert on Wednesday 19^th December.

23 Novemeber

Nursery

It’s all been about ‘Celebrations’ this week in nursery.  The children have been talking about birthdays and birthday parties.  We watched a BBC Learning Zone clip about a little girl celebrating her 6th birthday.  This has given us lots of opportunities to use new language in our play as the children have loved acting out birthday parties through role play.  Our Show and Tell this week was ‘Hats’ and lots of the children came to nursery wearing a variety of hats.  Andi had her mummy’s sombrero’s hat and Thomas wore his policeman’s helmet with pride.

I have to say rice pudding was not a hit with the children this week with only a few children actually liking it.  So that will be off the menu, but at least most of them had a try.

Reception

This week we have been learning about the story of Cinderella.  Here are some examples of things we have enjoyed this week :-

Martha (RN) "I liked painting Cinderella's castle."

Joss (RB) "Ordering the Cinderella story."

Hayden (RB) "I liked watching Cinderella on the whiteboard."

Eden (RF) "I loved doing Cinderella dancing."

Amy (RW) "We made a Cinderella story map and I drew the ugly stepsisters."

Logan (RW) "I drew the prince" (referring to the story map)

 

We have also been very busy writing letters to Santa, letting him know what we would like for Christmas.  Next week we will be starting our new topic on winter.

Year 4

4E have been busy planning and writing their play scripts this week. They have planned their own character for the story. They have enjoyed doing lots of drama and role play to explore the characters of the story.

 

4E have been making their own switches for an electrical circuit and have used a variety of materials to test what materials are conductors or insulators. Miss Ellis was very impressed with the switches made and how well everyone worked as a team.

 

In topic this week the children have been learning all about Cleopatra. They used the IPADs to access the information and we had a great time discussing Cleopatra’s life and why she is so famous.

Year 5

Year 5 have had a good week. We have been thinking about our characters and settings for a short story we are going to write next week. Ask us about our fabulous ideas to see how hard we’ve been working.

In science we are looking at reversible and irreversible, ask is what we made and if you like try it at home!

We are still researching Victorian inventors and their inventions. We will look into how much we still use today, hopefully not the torture instruments!

Year 6

Well year 6 have been busy practising for their SATs with an excellent performance this week of the skills they have learnt so far.The children have shown what a true team they are and are an absolute pleasure to teach. The  year 6 play leaders  have had  positive impact on the school and the younger children love them. Well done Year 6 . Mrs B and Miss Niemann

 

16 Novemeber

Reception

International week: This week in Reception we have been learning about
Africa. Our activities have been linked to Handa's Surprise. The
children have been looking at African artefacts and listening to African
music. The children enjoyed tasting food from the story.

Thank you to those children who have completed their Elmer homework. We
had some lovely pieces of work that will be displayed in the classrooms.

Also thank you to those parents that have helped us explore Africa by
bringing in some interesting objects and pictures.


The Reception team

Year 2




Jambo!


That’s hello in Swahili… can you guess which country we have been learning about this week…..Hooray you got it right, its KENYA!
Here is what the children have said they enjoyed this week

Maxim said ‘I loved making Handa’s Basket. I had to think carefully about making 3D shapes and my Kenyan name is Halabon!’


Adomaa said ‘I enjoyed giving Handa instructions. I pretended to be a policeman to help Handa not lose her fruit. I used an IPad to film me saying my imperative verbs.’


All have a safe and happy weekend!
Year 2



Year 4

 

4E have had a busy few weeks again! We greatly enjoyed having some ‘blokes’ in our class last Thursday as part of ‘Bring a Bloke to School’ day. We hope they enjoyed it too.

 

This week has been ‘International Week’. 4E has been studying Egypt in detail. We have looked at the flag, listened to their National Anthem and made our own Egyptian dances in PE. On Thursday we all cooked and ate some Egyptian Palace Pudding. Here are some of the words the children used to describe it: Chewy, tasty, sweet, crunchy, delicious and moreish!

 

The children are really enjoying their reading too. We are still reading ‘Stig of the Dump’ as a class and the children are busy reading their own books too. Please hear your child read as often as you can at home as well as asking them some questions about the book they are reading.

 

 

09 Novemeber

Nursery

In the nursery this week, we have been joined by some lovely new children.  They have settled really well and especially enjoyed our Molly in the Trolley story about a little baby who graps all the wrong things at the supermarket.  For Show and Tell this week the children showed their fantastic art work.  Teddy’s racing car picture was a firm favourite.

Our photographs would give Britain’s Next Top Model a run for their money, with our angelic faces.

Thursday was great fun as nursery had lots of visitors.  We found out all about Daisy and Williams daddy’s kite boarding and Thomas’s uncles golf.  Once again thank to all those who came and visited us.

Reception

This week in Reception we have had great fun learning about Elmer the patchwork elephant all the children have tried really hard with their writing this week and some of the children experienced their first magic carpet ride to where elephants live. Thank you to all the male family members who came to visit yesterday, we loved having you come to visit and we hope you weren't too tired when you went home. We hope we didn't scare you too much and you will come back to visit again.

Thank you to all the children this week for returning to school in a positive manor and putting 100% effort into their learning. Next week we will be learning about Africa and continuing our learning on Elmer. Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you Monday.

The Reception Team

Year 1

This week 1K have enjoyed a variety of exciting subjects from science to PE, however the highlight of the week was definitely Bring a Bloke to School Day. The children experienced splatter painting, carpentry, making Catherine Wheels and building with Kinex [we think the dads enjoyed this too]! We all had a fantastic time. Thank you to all the `Blokes` who came in to spend time with us in 1K.

Year 4

We have had a very busy week looking at The Gunpowder Plot in English and for history. Many of the children completed super homework. In maths we have been working on our times tables and there has definitely been an improvement in all the children’s understanding.

On Thursday we welcomed a number of ‘blokes’ into the classroom who all joined in with our activities. It was a very enjoyable day.

4CA

 

 

26th October

Nursery:

In the nursery this week we have been very excited by the arrival of our interactive whiteboard.  This means we can now watch our number time DVD which has lots of fun counting songs for us to sing along with, our favourite song at the moment is ‘Five Little Monkeys’.  We  have also just finished making our paper plate faces which have our names on.  When we have a birthday we can move our plate over from number three to the number four.  Most of the children enjoyed trying the apple juice and wholemeal bread and jam.  Our Show and Tell sessions were really interesting and Brody even showed us a piece of coral which comes all the way from Tobago.  Have a fun half term.

Year 3:

This has been another busy week in 3S! We have been finishing off our stories that are based on the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We have changed the characters and setting and produced some excellent imaginative stories. This week we have been undertaking some assessments in maths which has helped us to see what we have learnt so far this year, and where there are gaps in our learning. Continuing on with our topic work has been fun as we have been learning about Roman gladiators and we are going to be looking at how the Roman army fought against the Celts and the tactics they used including the most famous formation;  the Tortoise (testudo).

Have a happy and safe half term break,

From Mr Sykes & all of 3S

Year 4:

Yet again, a very busy week in 4CA. We have been concentrating on time is week and some of the children have been asked to do some time homework. Ask them and they will know. In English we have been writing diaries being a character from Stig of the Dump. This week the children have found out about Tutankhamun’s tomb, what treasures were in it and a little about his life. This is our last week working on our science topic of Habitats, so the children will have a test before moving to the next topic.

The Open evening is about to happen and we have some fantastic activities lined up.

Have a super half term.

Year 5:

Year 5 visited Leigh library this week.   On the way we looked for examples of Victorian buildings.  We spotted The Grand Hotel built in 1899, terraced houses and the library itself.  We looked for signs of sash windows, patterns in windows in both glass and woodwork as well as patterns in the brickwork and chimneys.

At the library we learned how the books are arranged in different subjects.  Some of the class used their library cards to borrow books – we brought back plenty of membership forms for those without a card.  We were very impressed by the high tech system that allows books to be scanned in and out.

Ry said, “I enjoyed looking for Victorian houses and taking photos to send to our French partner school.  I took out quite a few books and I think I am going to enjoy reading them.”

Lewis said, “I definitely want a library card so I can borrow books for myself.”

Year 6:

What a week Year 6 have had. The most amazing visit to see Mirror Mirror at The Odeon on Monday which included bucketfuls of popcorn and a drink followed by Bikeability and preparations for Open Evening. Well done year 6 for your fantastic behaviour.

Year 6 Team  

 

 

19th October

Nursery

More fun has been had in the nursery this week.  The children have been
singing along to Yellow Submarine and Thomas even  found a yellow
submarine in one of our books.  We played with coloured rice which
created many opportunities for discussion.  Our interactive whiteboard
is now up and running and next week we shall be listening to some rhymes
and stories on our big screen.  Let's hope the weather is better and
then we can go on our little visit to the allotment area to see the
chickens and rabbits.

Reception

 

Year 1

1K: In maths we have been learning about estimating and  measuring and
which appropriate measures to use for measuring certain objects. We had
lots of fun!. In science we have been learning all about living and
non-living things.............we were very good at this!!!! We have been
writing descriptive Golden sentences in English.

Mrs Kimberley and all the children in 1K

 

Hello everybody,

We are always so busy in our class that the week just whizzes by. This
week we have been measuring using non-standard measures. We also had a
go at comparing using standard measures. We found out about objects that
were bigger or smaller than a metre or a ruler. It was lots of fun. Here
are some of the things that children have particularly enjoyed this
week.
Amantha enjoyed being in her team which is Frogs and making a jigsaw
puzzle together without speaking.
Leo enjoyed making elf masks and making the parts move and liked it when
Mercedes helped him.
Ailbhe has really liked measuring Mrs Farrer with the connecting camels.
Macy enjoyed her maths test and actually came second out of the whole
class.
Evie has liked investigating open and closed questions in our Philosophy
lesson.
Thank you children for your contributions.
Have a lovely weekend,
Miss Bernard

Year 2

Hello again everyone,
Hope you have all had an exciting week!  We have had lots of fun in Year
2 with our learning and have been pretending to be Katie Morag as we try
and think carefully about her appearance and behaviour.  In Maths we had
been using the skill of subtracting to develop our mental maths skills.
We have some very clever mathematicians in Year 2 who can work two two
digit number subtractions in their head...wow!

Here is what Hope has said she enjoyed this week; 'I like learning
spelling because it's fun and it helps me become a good speller.  I like
practising at home because I want to get them all right!'

Simonas said 'I enjoyed Geography because we learn about different
countries and thinking carefully about islands and mainland's'

Have a lovely weekend and stay safe.
The Year 2 Team

Year 3

This has been productive week in 3S. We have been continuing to draft our re-write of the the Three Billy Goats Gruff story which will be our assessed piece of writing for this half term. We are currently editing and improving our own version of this traditional tale ready to write up in our assessment books early next week.

In maths we have been looking at different strategies to find the difference between numbers and although this has been tricky at times we have made some great progress.

We continue to find out more about the Romans including their lifestyles and about the gladiators, we have also been finishing off our design project to create our own Roman mosaics. All in all a busy week, but still enjoying and having fun whilst learning.

Have a great weekend from

Mr Sykes & all of 3S

Year 4

Where has the week gone! In 4CA we have been working on more
instructional writing and designing fancy dress costumes. We have been
working on a number of addition sums in maths. For our topic on The
Egyptians we looked at rituals for death and the afterlife. The children
were fantastic at remembering all the gods that were involved and what
things went into the different canopic jars. Science was our
continuation of habitats. The children visited the year 6 dens that they
had made on the field as this had a link with Stig of the dump

Year 5

Year 5 looked rather different on Wednesday; the desks were in rows, the girls were wearing dresses and pinafores, the boys were wearing shorts and the teachers were wearing stern expressions!  Yes, it was Victorian School Day.

The morning started with drill in the playground, led by Mr Bird (wearing a gown and mortar board).  After a variety of exercises had been completed we moved back to the classroom. Strange as it may seem, most of the class had signed up for the privilege of wearing the dunce’s hat!  It was not long before the first candidate visited the corner – a result of chatting in class; other misbehaviour resulted in writing lines. The class had fun writing on slates with chalk while avoiding the wrath of their Victorian teacher!

During the afternoon, the boys did ‘woodwork’, starting to create their moving toys using cams while, on the other side of the class, the girls tried their hand at needlework.  They all did very well with everyone leaving with the same number of fingers that they came with!

We all thoroughly enjoyed the experience (teachers included) which has given the pupils a wealth of ideas to include in their writing later in the week.

Thank you to parents and pupils for entering this event wholeheartedly

 

Mrs Johnston

Year 6

Year six have been busy den building and building fires with the Essex
wildlife Trust this week. We dug up the school field and toasted
marshmallows at the end of the exciting day. Well done everybody!Now for
some exciting writing.
Year 6

12th October

Nursery

In nursery this week, we made ‘Angel Delight’ faces. The children really enjoyed making the faces using bananas, raisins and cherries. They then got to take them home to eat. We also went to the hall and celebrated birthday assembly with the rest of the school. Finally on Friday Mrs Barrington had us singing the Beatles classic Ob-la-di,ob-la-da.

Reception

This week we have been learning all about Autumn and the seasonal
changes that take place during this time of the year. We have been very
busy making hedgehog handprints, moving squirrels, leaf prints,
blackberry smoothies and rolling conkers in paint! We have also been
looking at the story of The Gigantic Turnip.

Warren (RN) "I liked making an Autumn picture with leaves."
Flourish (RW) "I like Autumn because I like to see the leaves fall from
the trees."


The Reception Team

Year 1

1K have enjoyed writing Golden sentences in English. The children are very good at using adjectives and have designed and described their `Dream Shoes`,

In maths we are learning about subtraction and have begun to record our own subtraction sentences.

In ICT we have started to `Touch type`. This is proving quite tricky but we will persevere!

Jan and Children in 1K

Year 4

The children have brought in their fantastic homework this week. We have been very excited to see the different sarcophaguses the children have been making! This week in topic the children have been comparing rich and poor Egyptians and have made models to represent this.

In Science the children have been learning about food chains. They have learned some new words too: producer/consumer/predator. In English the children have been looking at instructions and starting to make their own based on their imaginary den. They have been thinking about Stig’s dump to help them.

Some of the children have taken part in Bikeability this week. It has been great to see some of the children to keen to learn how to be safe on their bikes.

This week we have had some fantastic Egyptian homework in from the children. Some of them must have spent hours making their mummies.

In maths we have been looking at handling data, the children have looked at tally charts and made pictograms.

This week the children finished their adventure story and have now written instructions on how to make a den. The use of sheets was very prominent in the making of their dens.

For Science we looked at food chains. Please ask the children about the ones they can remember.

 

Year 5

This week in 5J we have been looking at the dreadful working conditions for children in Victorian times. We have learned about factory workers, street sellers and chimney sweeps.

If you are not sure what a ‘pure finder’ is, do ask your child who will be delighted to tell you! We have been writing recounts to show our Victorian knowledge as well as our skills with connectives.

Next week we will be exploring the delights of the Victorian classroom. Make sure you read the letter concerning this for details.

In science, we have been learning about different types of gases. Mrs Johnston made her own fire extinguisher using vinegar and bicarbonate of soda – we identified the gas as carbon dioxide.

Well done to everyone for managing their ‘My Maths’ homework. There will be more this week so keep up the good work.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Johnston

 

5W have had a great week. We went into the coal mines and experienced what it was like for children working in Victorian mines. Well done to 5W for transforming the class into the mines and back again with little fuss. After we wrote about our experiences and produced lovely recounts of our hard days work, come and see them on display on the open evening.

We have learnt about children in Victorian factories and Queen Victoria’s family in French but still know the facts in English. Why not test us and ask us for some facts about child labour in the Victorian era. This week has definitely helped us realised how lucky we are coming to school.

 

Year 6

Year 6 have been working hard as usual and are getting ready for their visit from The Essex Wildlife Trust next Thursday. When they will be digging up the field and cooking pancakles!. They will all have a very busy weekend learning their times tables ..won’t you year 6?

Mrs B

 

5th October

Nursery

We have been having lots of fun in the nursery.  The children have been looking at the colour of their eyes and painting eye pictures.  These are now up on display.  We have also been singing along to The Runaway train and even made our own runaway train in the hall.  Next week we shall be making Angel Delight faces.

Remember to leave any junk modelling bits in our box labelled junk modelling and to check our notice board for up and coming events.

 
Reception

Our story of the week has been Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  We have done lots of different activities linked to the story.  We have made puppets, masks and flapjacks.

We have also talked about our own families and made jigsaws puzzles using photographs. 

Lexi (RB): “I have enjoyed playing in the playground.”

Rosie (RF): “We coloured in pictures of the three bears.”

 

The Reception Team

 

Year 1

Class 1K have continued work on the Elves and Shoemaker story. The children are enjoying changing the endings and deciding where the Elves might have disappeared to.

In maths we are learning about counting on 2 or 3 more of any given number. We have used a variety of resources to help us…..including carrots and potatoes!

We enjoyed a walk around the streets near school as part of our Geography lesson. We took our whiteboards and pens and noted down significant landmarks. Once back in class we made our own route maps for our friends who then followed our directions.

In science we enjoyed classifying different animals, those which live on land and those which live in the sea.

 

Mrs Kimberley and all the children in 1K

Hello everybody,

 

The children in 1B have been working really hard this week and have enjoyed their learning. Here are some of the activities that they have particularly enjoyed:

 

Daniel-I liked reading The Elves and the Shoemaker because I really like the pictures.

Camren- Likes handwriting; because he likes writing words.

Macy- I like to write in my Handwriting Book because I like learning how to write properly.

Tina- I enjoyed painting the elves because I like the colours.

Ruby- Letters and Sounds and French are fun because they are different.

Ailbhe- I liked playing Snakes & Ladders because it involves numbers.

Reanna- I like singing the Ning Nang Nong because I like looking at the pictures.

Ashley- I like to sing out Count by 10 song because we sing and clap.

Zoe- I like to concentrate on my phonics so I can learn.

 

Thank you children, have a great weekend.

 

Miss Bernard

 

Year 4

We have enjoyed another busy week in Year 4. The children have been out to visit our school pond to observe different organisms and have talked about how they have adapted to live in their habitat.

The children have also started their own stories based on the ‘Stig of the Dump’ book (they enjoyed the popping candy tasting too).

In maths the children have been learning about measuring including measurements in mm/cm/m and km. They have also found out about perimeter and how to calculate this.

 

4E

In maths we have been looking at standard measures. There has been a great deal of practical measuring as well as completing recorded activities. We have also looked at measuring the perimeter of squares and rectangles. In English we have been preparing to write an adventure story. The children have started the opening of the stories, some are really gripping. Science this week has been looking at living things that have a pond as their habitat. The powerpoints on habitats in the ICT suite are coming along well and we hope to complete them next week. Our study of Egypt has continued by looking at artefacts. An added bonus was the fact the children were able to use the ipads to research. They thoroughly enjoyed this and have really increased their knowledge and understanding.

 

4CA

 

Year 5

This week we have looked at the coal mines in Victorian times and how children had to work in them. It has made us realise how lucky we are to go to school and we are really looking forward to our mining experience next week in class.

In maths we are learning about data and putting it into different types of graphs and charts. We are all a wiz at data now so feel free to ask for our help at home!

We looked lovely and smart for the whole school photo and 5W made Mrs Weddell very proud by standing so patiently while waiting for the rest of the classes to get into position.