13th December 2013

Reception

It has been a very busy week in Reception.  The staff would like to say a very big WELL DONE to all the children for the brilliant Nativities.  We hope you enjoyed them.

The children have been participating in a variety of Christmas activities, songs and stories.  We have enjoyed a creative week with lots of glue and glitter!

The Reception Team

Year 4

The children have had a busy week trying to produce their best work during assessments.  4L have had an exciting week showing off their musical talents playing Ukelele in front of the rest of the school during assembly.  They did very well and the others children really enjoyed it!

In English, year 4 wrote their own newspaper reports Based on the story 'Stig of the dump'.  They were very interesting!  In maths, the children planned and budgeted for their own Christmas dinner.  They really enjoyed looking through supermarket magazines to find festive foods for their dinner, yum yum!

We are looking forward to our Christmas party on Monday which is party dress, and Christmas jumper day Tuesday ready for our Christmas dinner!

Year 6

Don’t forget the year six cake sale tomorrow…….hundreds of cakes and sweets for sale as we are raising money for HARP and Little Havens .The children have completed their half termly assessments and have done extremely well this term; a result of  hard  work and their incredible teachers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

6th December 2013

Reception

Well what a busy couple of weeks we have had in Reception! We have all been busy writing our letters to Santa and all the children have had a fantastic try at using their phonic knowledge from the last term to write their ideas about the christmas presents they would like to find under the Christmas tree. Well done Children all the teachers are very proud of you all. We have continued our topic on Winter and have had great fun making bird feeders to keep some of the animals warm as the weather becomes even colder.

As well as the hustle and bustle of our learning in the classroom, we have enjoyed our outside area, where we have been experimenting with the topic of winter and winter colours in our writing, drawing and painting.

We are well under way with our Christmas Nativity of 'It's a Baby', which you should have all received your two tickets per family for. Don't forget RW, RF and am Nursery will be performing in the morning and RB, RN and pm nursery will be performing in the afternoon of next Thursday. So not long left for us to practise!! The children are doing really well, but don't forget to practise those words and get those big singing voices out as I am sure all you mummy's and daddy's will be very impressed with our own little angels of Darlinghurst Primary School. Please don't forget to bring costumes in if you have been asked as we will be starting our dress rehearsals next week!!

Have a fantastic weekend, wrap up warm and don't forget to come to our Christmas bizarre on Saturday where you may be able to pick up some last minute Christmas ideas and even see the one and only Father Christmas!

 Thank you for your continued support this term, we all really appreciate it.

The Reception team

2C

Hello everyone!

Another busy week…we have been super mathematicians and can now use so many methods to find the difference and total of two, two digit numbers.  We have used bar modelling, empty number square, empty number lines and number squares.  We have also heard about Thomas Farriners cat and how he felt when he smelt the Great Fire of London.

Here is what the children said they enjoyed;

Ruby said ‘I loved listening to the story teller John this week.  He read us a story about Pirates which really made me laugh’!

Martha said ‘ In PE this week we performed a gymnastic routine which we made up ourselves. I have been practising balancing and jumping.  I made a rountine with 4 skills.’

Have a lovely weekend, keep warm and stay safe

Mrs C and Mrs B xx

Year 3

Year 3 have had lots of fun this week writing diary entries based upon The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch. They have been very creative and have shown great imagination. In P.E. the children were using Speed Stacks which was a lot of fun if not a little noisy! Thank you to the 4Sports guys for providing our children with fun and exciting P.E. lessons this term.

Year 4

Year 4 have had another busy week! Our favourite part of the week has been ‘Ancient Egyptian Day’ which was on Thursday run by a company called ‘Portals to the Past’. Mark the historian helped us to understand lots of facts and we enjoyed participating in all of the fun activities. Did you know that some Pharaohs would employ a slave to put honey on his head in order to keep the flies away from the Pharaoh! Some great costumes were worn as well on the so thank you for the support at home with this!

We are beginning to learn our Christmas songs this week which has been fun and we are looking forward to performing for all the parents at our carol concert. 

29th November 2013

Reception

This week in Reception we have been thinking about the season winter and with the sudden change in the weather it has really helped us think of some lovely descriptive words about winter whilst on our winter walks around the school. All the children agreed that winter was very cold and one person thought it felt 'like someone was biting our cheeks'.

We have had great fun thinking about how ice is formed and the changes ice goes through to turn back to water. In addition to this we have tried snow writing, exploring our new winter wonderland role-play areas and using the arctic animals in our small world areas to practise our speaking and listening skills. Next week we will be continuing our thinking and learning about winter, so please ensure all children have warm clothing as we will be outside, making bird feeders and generally having more exciting fun!!

Once again thank you for all the lovely home school learning that has come in this week. It's been lovely to see all the children's lovely ideas. Please remember to fill in those wow stars with all the achievements the children do at home so we can share them in the classroom.

Have a lovely weekend, wrap up warm and get ready to open the first door of your advent calendars!!

The Reception team.

1B

Hello Everybody,

The week has really whizzed by seems like only yesterday that we were doing our last blog J

The children have been very busy as usual; sequencing and ordering numbers to 20 and writing some amazing versions of Rapunzel with some great adjectives and interesting words. I was very proud of them. We also had fun investigating pushes and pulls using the Nursery bikes and scooters.

Here are some of the activities that the children have particularly enjoyed:

I really enjoyed learning in Science about pushes and pulls. We the bikes and scooters to help us- Marcus

Writing our Rapunzel story was exciting because we thought of different words to into it and it was fun- Charlotte

I enjoyed learning all about numbers to 20 because it was fun- Sharna

I liked learning all about the ones place and tens place in Maths because I thought it was quite fun and easy to learn- James

I liked doing 4Sports PE lesson because we do loads of jumping and running-  Rosie

Thanks for your contributions children.

Have a great weekend.

Miss Bernard

1K

Hi,

1K have worked really hard this week [as usual] We have been comparing old and new toys in History. Children brought in old toys from home and were able to discuss and answer questions about their toys. Those children who didn’t have a toy asked lots of interesting questions.

The children have been learning about place value in Maths and did very well on their test. They have also written some fantastic Rapunzel stories, using interesting adjectives and Golden Sentences.

2A

On Wednesday we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London because it got burnt down in 1666 and there were models showing the Old St. Paul’s and the new St. Paul’s.  The new Cathedral looks different because on the old one it looked like a castle and on the new one there is a dome.  We also went to The Monument and we saw the River Thames and Tower Bridge.  It was hard work to climb to the top because there were 311 steps and it was really tiring.  It was the best school trip ever! The next day we had a “project day” and some of us chose to make  clay models of St. Paul’s and The Monument and tried to add detail and improved them to look like the real thing.  Some of us made a game about the Great Fire of London.  (Lila-Rose Lewington and Chloe Machipisa).

2C

Hello everyone!

Wow!  What an amazing week!! Thank you to all the parents that helped on our exhausting but exhilarating trip…we couldn’t have done it without you!

Here is what the children said they enjoyed this week..

Tina said ‘I loved the trip, especially when we walked up The Monument steps and The Whispering Gallery steps because I am not scared of heights!!’

Pheobe said ‘I think London is great!  I bought a pencil from The Monument and it had gold flames on the top.  If you tip the Monument on its side it will land on the old Thomas Farriner Bakery!’

Next stop….Christmas Preparations….CAN’T WAIT!!

Have a lovely weekend.  Stay Safe!!

Mrs C and Mrs B x

Year 5

Year 5 have had a good week learning about creating characters and describing them. We have used ‘hot seating’ and drama to identify characters feelings and show off our great questioning skills. This is linked to our book we are reading The Peppermint Pig for 5W and Tom’s Midnight Garden 5C. Ask us questions about the book and test our great memory skills!

We have been looking patterns and sequencing in maths, we have had lots of fun challenges and found lots of patterns. We look forward to carrying on with our class books

The Darlinghurst Cross Country Team ran against other local schools on Thursday at Garon’s Park. This was the biggest cross country event yet with over 1200 children attending. A big well done to the whole team who have been training hard and put in lots of effort on the day. Libby Mitchell came 8^th in the year 3 girls race and Taylor Banks came 9^th in the year 6 boys race, these are great achievements when running against 120 children. We would also like to thank the parents who came to support us on the day.  

Year 6

Year 6 have, as usual, been working very hard. The children have produced some very impressive  diary entries  and some children have progressed incredibly quickly with their writing. In science we have been looking at how our eyes work and had some fun when we looked at some optical illusions together.

Next week we are getting ready for more tests so children should be very quiet indoors for their parents/ carers as they will be busy revising.

22nd November 2013

Nursery

It’s all getting very exciting in nursery.  We have written our letters to Father Christmas and have posted them.  So fingers crossed it won’t be long before we get a reply.  Thank you for your continued support with saving us junk modelling items.  The children are really proud of their robots and these can be seen in our porch area along with some photos from our walk to the post box.  Please remember to keep bringing in those WOW moments and any other bits for your child’s learning journey.  Only 33 sleeps as Mrs Manley keeps reminding me!

Reception

This week in Reception our topic has been friendship and we have read the book Dumbo.  We have thought about what makes a good friend and how we can work together as a team. 

In Maths Mastery we have been thinking about using and applying numbers to 7.  The children have enjoyed singing 7 green bottles.

Thank you to all those children that completed their healthy lunchbox homework.  We had some lovely ideas. 

The Reception Team

1K

1K have worked extremely hard this week in Maths. they have been learning about 'teen numbers' and place value. It is a tricky concept and something we will be working on a lot.

In French we have been looking at the names of unhealthy foods ( as it was health week last week we thought we would have a change)!

English has been lots of fun! We have been concentrating on the Rapunzel story which we will be writing about next week. We have been looking at sentence openers, adjectives and time connectives to make our writing more exciting!

Mrs Kimberley and 1K

1B

Hello everybody,

Class 1B have had a very busy week and are trying very hard with their learning.

In Mathematics Mastery lessons the children have been focussing on numbers 11 to 19 and learning about Place Value. They had to work out how many tens and how many ones for numbers up to 10. They were then thinking about numbers greater than or less than using numbers to 20. Some of the tasks were quite challenging; but they all tried their best.

In English they have been trying hard to improve the way that they write their sentences. They decided that a "Golden Sentence" needs to have capital letters and full stops in the correct places, finger spaces and adjectives to describe people, places and things. The sentences that they have written about Rapunzel have been fantastic.

Here are some of the things that some of the children have particularly enjoyed this week:

I have enjoyed learning numbers up to 20 because I like doing bigger numbers- Alesha I liked Pushing and Pulling because I liked playing the game- Theo Learning about Rapunzel and doing Golden Sentences was interesting- Charlotte I enjoyed learning about Pushing and Pulling , I learned that you can push and pull a door- Laura I have been enjoying doing my Shape and Pattern Assessment because I like my shapes- Nathan

Thanks for you contributions children,

Have a great weekend,

Miss Bernard

2A

In 2A we have been learning about the Plague and the Great Fire of London.  In ICT we created powerpoint presentations and designed different backgrounds to make them look old and used clip art and animation and searched images from the internet safely.  “I loved writing instructions yesterday.  I wrote mine about How to make a cure for the Plague” (Julia Watson).  “Using bar modelling to work out addition and subtraction word problems was interesting and new”  (Fletcher Price).  We used instructions to make bread just like they did in 1666 in Pudding Lane.  We are looking forward to baking it today on an open fire.

2C

Hello Everyone!

How quickly time flies when you’re having fun….can’t believe that next week we will be travelling to London!

This week we have been scientists and thinking about how we can make a potion to cure Mrs Blyth’s Plague!  We have thought about how instructions needed  imperative verbs and time connectives and some children even thought about adverbs!   Maths has seen us solve word problems using bar modelling, number rods and empty number lines….the children should be able to tell you what that means!!  Gymnastics has been fabulous and we have seen real progress with children’s floor work; they have been making routines using point and patch balances, bridges, rolls and jumps….we hope to see some of them at the next Olympics!!

Here is what the children have said they enjoyed…

Aysha said ‘I loved PE because I am really good at stretching my arms and legs when making a bridge….my tummy nearly touches the ceiling!’

Daniel said ‘I enjoyed PE as well because  I like to warm up and cool down so my muscles do not get pulled.’

Looking forward to seeing lots of you on Wednesday for our mammoth trip to London!!

Take Care and Keep Safe

Mrs Collison and Mrs BlythJ

Year 4

Another busy week for 4E and 4L!

This week we have continued our work on Play scripts and have designed a new character to be part of ‘Stig of the Dump’! In Maths we have looked at doubling and halving and have made our own number cruncher machines.

In Science we have looked at conductors and insulators and have had a great time exploring circuits. We have also learnt some of the days of the week and months of the year in French!

Phew, busy busy!

Year 6

Another hard working week in Year 6!

In English, 6B have been working on some fantastic descriptive writing, creating their own chapters of Goodnight Mr Tom. Meanwhile, 6N have been writing some excellent diary entries of evacuees. We are beginning to use an impressive range of vocabulary and definitely have some amazing authors in the making!

Maths lessons have been as fun as ever this week- we have been using all the multiplication facts we already know to help us solve new and more complex problems. We practised using lots of handy tricks to help us solve problems like 25 x 19 without using column multiplication.

Science was also very interesting on Wednesday. We made paper helicopters and investigated how adding paper clips changed the speed of them falling. They worked brilliantly together in teams and finished the session by performing their dances to the class. Check out the photos below!

Roll on next week!

15th November 2013

Reception

This week in Reception we have been thinking about staying healthy. We have thought about healthy eating and exercise.  The children have talked about the importance of having fruit or vegetables and each day we have looked in our own lunch boxes to check.  We have also had a selection of healthy snacks each day. 

On Monday we ate our homework! The children were asked to bring in a piece of fruit for a tasting session. We loved this! 

On Wednesday we had a visitor from a Bollywood dancer. She taught us some Bollywood moves and we really really enjoyed the dancing. 

It has been a lovely week. Have a good weekend. 

The Reception Team. 

1K

We have been working on 2D shapes in Maths. We have put our shapes into patterns and have even made ourselves into a repeating pattern.

In English we have been learning all about Rapunzel. We have written character descriptions using Golden Sentences.

As it is Health week we have been learning about the Eatwell plate and how to choose healthy foods. We have made our own healthy food plates in Design and Technology.

We have also enjoyed learning how to dance like a Bollywood star and the boys were particularly good at this.

2C

Hello Everyone!

What a fabulous, gruesome week we have all had!! Mrs Blyth has been poorly…she has been vomiting in class, had these atrocious boils and was covered in fleas!!  Mrs Collison and Mr Marsden had to magically turn into The Plague Doctor to ensure she was treated effectively by using imperative verbs such as DON’T spread germs,  COVER your mouth when you cough and  KEEP inside your house!.  Fortunately, she was one of the lucky ones and managed to survive this terrible disease!

The children have told me that they are finding column addition and subtraction really tricky so we have used empty number lines to add and subtract two, two digit numbers….hopefully they can show you how this is done at home.

Here is what the children have said they have enjoyed with their learning this week

Atiya said ‘I enjoyed it when Mrs Blyth had the Black Death and we had to make her feel better.  ’

Karter said ‘I loved learning about the value of different coins.  I know that 1p is the lowest value coin. ’

Have a happy and safe weekend.

Look forward to seeing you all on Monday

Year 4

Thank you to all the parents who sent in some fruit and a food packet. We loved the fruit salad and had an interesting lesson looking at food labels.

This week we have also been exploring ‘Play scripts’ and have been reading them and acting them out.

Next week we hope to write our own play script based on ‘Stig of the Dump’. In Maths we have looked at rounding to the nearest 10 and 100 and have played lots of games to help us to remember what to do. If you have some dice at home you could play a game too!

The weather has turned a lot colder this week and we have been wrapping up warm for playtime and lunchtime. Please make sure you child has cold weather clothes with them every day such as a coat.

Year 6

Well Year 6 are re living World War 2 this week. What with rationing, diary entries of an evacuee and Goodnight Mr Tom, we feel we are living parallel lives! In maths we have been looking at formal and informal methods of multiplication, multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000 as well as practising for mental maths………..keep practising your times tables please!

25th October 2013

Nursery

What a successful half term it has been in nursery.  The new children have settled so well and it has been lovely hearing from grownups all the news that their children are really enjoying nursery.  A particular favourite has been the Katy Perry song ‘Roar’ which all the children liked being roaring tigers to.   For those of you that have come along to our Stay and Play sessions we hope that you have valued sharing your child’s learning journal.  Please remember to keep coming with those WOW moments.  Our topic next term will be ‘TOYS’ and this should give you lots of Christmas ideas!

Reception

Over the last two weeks in Reception, we have been learning all about Autumn and the changes that take place in the environment during this season. Each Reception class has been on an Autumn walk around the school grounds to identify any signs of Autumn and this has encouraged the children to build up a list of descriptive words. We have been doing lots of creative activities, including, leaf printing, making a split pin squirrel, handprint hedgehogs and paper plate toadstools. The children also enjoyed making blackberry and apple crumbles!

In maths, we have been working with numbers up to 5, i.e. counting, recognising, writing and finding one more or one less.  To help us with this, we having been learning two great songs, 'Four Little Ducks' and 'Five Little Speckled Frogs'.

Thank you so much for all the lovely Autumn homework we received.

We hope you all have a great half term holiday.

The Reception Team.

18th October 2013

2C

Hello there!

 

We haven’t blogged for a long time…and class 2C feel like strangers!  However, we would love you to find out what we have been learning.

Here is what the children said they enjoyed.

Karter said ‘I loved PE.  I learnt how to run safely and balance making a bridge!’

Jessie said ‘ I found how to regroup.  If you have 10 ones you can regroup to make a 10.  This helped me add 2 two digit numbers.’

Next week, we will be thinking more about re- telling traditional tales and adapting them for more exciting language.  We will also be practising how to regroup 1’s into 10’s when we practise solving equations such as 86 + 28!  In PE we will be learning some more gymnastic skills and continue practising these on the apparatus!  This learning is only the tip of the iceberg….there will be so much more too!!

Look forward to seeing all for our Open Evening on Tuesday!

Mrs Collison J

Year 4

This has been a busy week for Year 4! We have been busy doing some end of half term assessments including writing some 'Stig of the Dump' stories and answering some reading comprehension questions. The children have all been working very hard and have already shown some promising progress. Well done Year 4! 

On Friday 17th October the children are lucky enough to be going into Hagrid's Hut for hot chocolate and Marshmallows. We are going to try to recreate the camp fire scene from Stig and Barney's camp fire scene.

It's hard to believe next week is our last week of the first half term. Time flies when you're having fun and working hard!

Year 6

Well year 6 have been busy practising SATs tests  this week. Learning about test environments and just what they can do! It has been a valuable experience for them all and of course lets us look at areas of learning  that need to be re-visited.

The children have set a wonderful example this week as they have been sharing ten minutes of their lunchtime setting a good example  and chatting about school; it has been a lovely experience to watch as we have so may kind and caring children in our school.

4th October 2013

Reception

This week in Reception, our topic has been Elmer.  We have had a very creative week… Elmer is a very colourful elephant and we have used paint, sticking and colouring pencils to recreate our own Elmers. 

The children have used the song “Two little Dicky Birds” in Maths this week.  They have enjoyed singing the song and doing the actions to help them with their number work.

Thank you for all the homework and Wow stars we have received this week!

1B

We hope that you have had a good week? We have been very busy in 1B making up our own class story based on "The Elves and The Shoemaker" , learning our to sing hello and how are you? in French; making up addition stories and identifying parts of the body in Science.

Here are some of the activities that some children enjoyed in particular:

Sharna - I have enjoyed doing French because I like learning French.

Luke- I have enjoyed Maths because it has been fun.

Isabella- We were doing long strides in PE and I liked it.u

Grace- I liked doing Shared Reading with Yr6 because I am good at reading.

Ben- In English we are reding "The Elves and the Shoemaker. I like the Shoemaker.

James- I liked doing French because I sang our song at French Club to Mrs Dutton and he was impressed.

Charlotte- I like Letters and Sounds because on the bus Mrs Freese gives us words to put into sentences.

Tomas- I like doing Maths because learning is good for you.

Nathan- I enjoyed doing Maths because we have been doing some Addition Stories.

Sean I liked doing Group Reading because everybody was quiet.

Thanks for your contributions children,

Have a great weekend,

Miss Bernard

Year 4

This week the year 4 children have continued work on Stig of the Dump in English. They have worked hard creating WOW word banks and writing fantastic descriptions of Stig.  In Maths, year 4 are continuing work on Place Value, specifically finding between numbers. We have created so great work for our working walls.

Please ensure you are continue to read with your child for 10 minutes every day and record it in their reading diaries.

Year 5

Year 5 have had a fun week. We have been outside learning whatever the weather, some of us were lucky enough to see a caterpillar making its cocoon! Maths has been fun and lots of us are really enjoying the practical learning, especially when we worked on decimal places by logging our running times to 2 decimal places.

Our websites are coming along really nicely we have learnt lots about how children in Victorian times had to work long hours. We will be experiencing this for ourselves in our own coal mine next week. Wait for our next blog to see how we found the experience.

Year 6

It’s been another hard working week for Year 6! We’re beginning to realise it’s time to pull our socks up and get ready for SATs and Year 7!

In Maths we have had fun using decimal numbers for measures. We had a great time taking Nando’s orders from a menu and calculating total amounts and change. Although it did make us all feel very hungry!

English has been very exciting this week- we have started exploring the magical world of dragons! We have watched and created our own news reports, designed and described our own dragons and have begun to plan a non-chronological report about them. Mrs Reynolds, Miss Niemann and Mrs Blatcher are very much looking forward to some fantastic work being written next week!

Meanwhile, we have continued reading Goodnight Mr Tom. Alongside that we have been learning about and reflecting on evacuation and how it affected the lives of so many. 6N wrote some wonderful diary entries, which demonstrated how much empathy they had for the children that experienced being evacuated during World War Two.

We hope to share some of our brilliant work with you soon.

Until next time!

27th September 2013

Reception

This week in Reception we have been looking at Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The children have been telling their own versions of the story.  We have made bear masks.

The children have been thinking about size within maths.  Which bear is the biggest? Which bear is the smallest?

This week we have started homework. In your child's book bag is a blue homework book.

Have a good weekend.

Year 4

Another fun and busy week in Year 4! The children have experienced some visitors from South Africa this week and have enjoyed the chance to work with our guests and find out more about a new country. Year 4 have also been working hard on their Science Topic of ‘Habitats’ and have explored ‘Food Chains’. Ask your child: What is a Producer, Primary Consumer and a Secondary Consumer!

The children have also been learning their Harvest Festival songs and are looking forward to a non-uniform day next Friday.

Year 6

Year Six have had very successful Parents’ Evenings  and the teachers have enjoyed them immensely. The year group is working hard and we are looking forward to receiving all of the homework next week. 

20th September 2013

Reception 

This week in Reception we have been looking at the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The children have talked about the story and then started to tell their own stories. 

We have been learning lots of songs to help us with our learning... If you haven't heard our 'days of the week' song.. Ask your child to sing it for you! :0) 

On Tuesday we had a visit from an author... Jeremy Strong. He talked to us about the funny books he writes. 

We had our picture taken for the Echo on Wednesday... We will let you know when it will be in the paper. 

Thank you to those parents that have made an appointment for parents evening next week. We are looking forward to talking to you about how your child has settled in to school. 

Have a good weekend. 

Year 4

4L and 4E have had a very exciting week, participating in lots of wonderful activities. 4L have been searching for bugs and their habitats during their outdoor learning session and were excited to talk about the fox den.  The school was very lucky to have a visit by the famous children’s author Jeremy Strong. He read an extract from his book ‘Cartoon Kid’ and the children were able to ask lots of interesting questions.

In year 4 we have now started to read ‘Stig of the Dump’ by Clive King. The children thoroughly enjoyed building a den on the school field. Everyone took part and worked together as a team. It was great sitting inside the den after it was made! 

Year 5

Year 5 have had a fun week in science, it started with a big BANG! We have weighed air, think about how you might weigh air then ask us about it. We have started reading our class books. It has been lovely to see lots of children reading beautifully out loud to the class. We have been learning lots of new and unusual words. In P.E we played our first game of lacrosse, the teachers were impressed by how quickly we learnt the new skills. It has been a good week for everyone!

13th September 2013

Nursery

With lots of new children starting in nursery it has been a very busy week.  The children are settling  well and especially enjoyed PE when they got to use the crash mats.  Please remember to label all your child’s clothing.  Our ‘Stay and Play’ sessions will commence Friday 27^th Sept and will be for girls.  Next week we shall looking at our names and rolling dice. 

Year 3

This week year 3 have had a lot of fun writing poems. We have been looking at list poems and have been stretching our imaginations to come up with the most unusual and individual ideas as we could. We have begun our project on The Romans and have found out lots of disgusting facts. Did you know that the Romans used to eat flamingo tongue and afterwards would brush their teeth with mouse brains! Eugh! In maths we have been learning about place value and partitioning numbers. The children are becoming very confident with place value now and some children were thinking about numbers with millions! In science we were looking at light and shadows and the children are really looking forward to experimenting with the torches and other equipment. Next week we will be visited by the author Michael Rosen so the children could look at books written by him over the weekend.

Year 4

Welcome back to Year 4 children and parents! 4E and 4L have had a great start to the new term and have already learnt a lot and had some fun. The term has started with a ‘Poetry Week’. The children have been busy reading and writing poetry. Some of their favourites were by the fantastic poet ‘Michael Rosen’ who visited our school last year.

Year 4’s new science topic is ‘Habitats’ and this week and next week Year 4 have had the chance to go out into the school grounds to explore the wildlife we have there. Some of 4E have already discovered a red ant’s nest, a bee’s nest and even two slow worms!

We can’t wait to discover what 4L will find next week!

12th July 2013

Nursery

A busy and exciting week in the land of nursery.  Having visited our new classes the children suddenly seem very grown up.  They have especially liked listening and dancing to our carnival music.  We made our own healthy snack for our scooter fun day.  What fun we had!!!   Sympathy to Mrs Farrer who fell of her scooter and grazed both knees!!

4CA

This week we have been revising 2d and 3d shapes. For English we have continued to work on a poem about The Demon Headmaster. We looked at The Spanish Armada for History. For Science we looked at water resistance and had fun trying to find what shape would go through the water slowest. We have also been to visit Miss Crumbie for 3 mornings this week.

4E

4E have had another good transition week and have enjoyed the chance to work in their new class with their new teacher. In 4E this week we have been doing some more Science experiments and have explored water resistance. The children made different shapes and explored which ones would float and which would sink. We made some surprising discoveries!

The children are looking forward to visiting The Village Green festival tomorrow. We are looking forward to a fun morning in the sun! It’d hard to believe there is only 1 weeks left at school- where has the year gone?!

28th June 2013

Nursery

In nursery this week we were visited by policewoman Jan and policewoman Lisa.  They told us all about the different vehicles the police use.  We even got to try on a police hat and coat.  The children have enjoyed this week’s story The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and especially liked his shimmering scales.  Then to help get us ready for transition we have been going for walks around school and now know where all the dinners get cooked. 

1B

Hello Everybody,

This week has flown by even quicker, I think that it is because all of Year 1 had a great trip to Shoebury East Beach on Monday.

The focus of the trip was to fire up the children's imaginations for our "Under The Sea" topic. They collected lots of different types of shells and we had a competition. Each type of shell was worth a certain amount of points and each added their points up to see who had the most. The group who won had over 1000 points!!

Each also created their own sand sculptures and decorated them with shells and other found materials. They were really amazing , the children really thought carefully about their ideas.

Well done to all of Year 1 for being so well behaved .

Here are some of the activities that the children have particularly enjoyed this week:

Reanna- I liked throwing bean bags in the hoops in our PE lesson.

Macy- Going to the beach was fun. I liked making the sculptures because I like making stuff.

Camren- I liked my Maths assessment because I like learning.

Bailey- PE was good because I like doing things to make me better at throwing.

Jack- I liked PE because throwing helps me to do other things.

Leo - I like throwing bean bags that's why PE was fun.

Thanks for your contributions children.

Have a great weekend.

Miss Bernard

4CA

We have been very busy doing end of term tests this week. But we have still managed to do some work on adding money, discussion texts and starting a science topic on Friction. So there is not much to say this week.

5J

This week got off to an exciting start for Year 5 with a visit to Chase High for an Enrichment Day.  During the visit our pupils had the opportunity to experience art – printing patterns on bunting; drama; math; English; food technology – tasting biscuits; technology- making monster torches; media – using Photoshop to create a video cover; science –exploring the fat content of a variety of foods; textiles – using sewing machines to make bookmarks and  history – the history  of video games.

During the rest of the week the class have worked hard completing their end of year  assessments – today we are working on our art entries for Southend in Bloom. 

21st June 2013

Reception

This week we have been reading The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and all of our activities have been based on this story. We have made up our own stories about the characters, we have been re enacting the story with puppets and have had a wonderful visit to Thorndon Country Park to look for the Gruffalo with the help of the park rangers. We have also been thinking about time, using clocks to make hour and half hour times

1B

Hello everybody,

We have had a very good and busy week in 1B, as always. In Maths the children have been practising using numberlines to solve addition and subtraction problems. Some children have even begun to use blank numberlines which is really grown up! In English we have continued to explore the story The Smallest Whale by creating our own fantasy pictures based on the story, role playing different characters and creating questions about the text. The children also had lots of fun investigating sea sides now and in the past with Mrs Dennis.

Here are some of the activities that some of the children have particularly enjoyed this week:

Leo – I have enjoyed adding and taking away in Maths.

Mercedes- I liked adding and taking away on Education City.

Camren- When we roled playe The Smallest Whale story I really liked it. I played the whale.

Amantha- I liked learning about the seaside and how it was a long time ago an we danced to “I do like to be beside the seaside.”

Zoe- We made “Under the sea” pictures using different materials. In my picture there was a cave, some sharks and fish.

Thanks for your contributions children.

Have a great weekend,

Miss Bernard

4CA

This week has been very busy in 4CA. For maths we have been looking at time in terms of counting forward and back using word problems and a blank number line. Everyone is so much better at time now. The class are now on to writing up their discussion text after spending time on planning it. History took on a new look this week as we visited Southchurch Hall. The class really enjoyed it, had fun and thanks to Richard at the museum have increased their knowledge on Tudors. They thoroughly enjoyed making candles and writing with a quill. On Thursday everyone tasted the butter we made. We also wrote up our Science experiment from last week and were tested on solids and liquids.

5J

Exciting news in 5J!  One of our caterpillars has emerged from its chrysalides – we now have a beautiful Painted Lady butterfly.  We are now waiting for the other two.

We have been honing our skills in reading scales this week in order to solve problems relating to capacity, length, weight and temperature.  Please give your child every opportunity to continue this at home or when you are out and about e.g. weighing fruit when out shopping.

Please remember we are at Chase High on Monday for an Enrichment Day – everyone needs a packed lunch.

Year 6

Year 6 are having a great time and are all looking forward to all the fun events coming up.

If you haven’t already heard, we held our Business Enterprise Day last Thursday, which was a roaring success. Can you believe we raised over £450 from all our sales? We are extremely happy and proud of our achievements. Here’s what some of us had to say:

“My favourite part was finding out the total money raised!” Lachlan 6N

“Erona and I got loads of customers who wanted their nails painted. It was quite difficult, but we managed to keep going!” Melanie 6N

“I enjoyed running the stall where we played a card game to win a prize.” Liam 6N

Mrs Blatcher and Miss Niemann were stunned by our efforts and felt enormously proud. Well done us!

As well as working hard during lesson time, we have more activities coming up. Stay tuned to hear about todays trip to Rollacity!

14th June 2013

Reception

This week we have had fun learning more about the life cycle of butterflies and watching our class caterpillars growing from being tiny to getting much longer and fatter. They will go into the cocoon stage soon! We have thought about our own life cycles and the changes we go through from being a baby to being grown up. In maths we have been using different objects, like hands and feet, to help us measure how long things are. We have also been very lucky to have two important visitors talking to us about their jobs: on Tuesday Maureen Friday talked to us about being a farmer in Kent and told us all about the different foods and animals on her farm, on Thursday Trevor Cox told us about being a fireman and how we could keep ourselves safe by testing out fire alarms once each week.

1B

Hello Everybody,

In class 1B we have been having so much fun with our learning this week. Our topic is “under The Sea” and we have been listening to and learning the story “The Smallest Whale”. There are some excellent readers in our class and we had a little competition where the boys and girls read to see who could work as a team the best when reading the story. This time the girls won. We are going to have a return match next week to see who wins then.

                                   In Maths, we have been comparing, ordering and rounding numbers to the nearest 10. All of 1B have done very well; but found rounding up and down a bit of a challenge.

Tomorrow we are having our Philosophy Morning and we are looking forward to parents coming in to observe how good we are at thinking in 1B.

Here are some of the activities that the children have enjoyed in particular this week:

Camren- I liked doing PE because I have never done something like that before.

Reanna- I liked when we did Stacking Cups in PE because I liked making a 3 sided pyramid.

Evie- I liked my Holiday Timeline because it was fun.

Jacob- I enjoyed the PE lesson stacking pyramids because I enjoy sports.

Mercedes- I have liked making Father’s Day cards because I enjoyed decorating it.

Leo- When we did the pyramids in PE I really enjoyed it.

Joseph- I enjoyed the Year 6 Enterprise Day because it was full of exciting things.

Ashley- I enjoyed reading “The Smallest Whale” because it is fun.

Amantha-  The Year 6 Enterprise Day was really fun.

Zoe- I got my nails painted at the Year 6 Enterprise Day. It was fun and ai got them done for free.

Thanks for your contributions children.

Have a great weekend,

Miss Bernard

4CA

As always this has been a very busy week. For maths we have been working on coordinates both in the four quadrants and also on Ordinance Survey maps. For English we have been looking at discussion text linked to The Demon Headmaster. In Science we all completed an experiment on what happens when we add solids to liquids and if we can filter them. Some children may want to try this at home. In ICT we finished our bee posters and then went onto the maths zone to further improve our understanding of coordinates. For History we looked at Mary Tudor and her reign and then in groups made up a song to include as much history as possible.

Year 6

Thank you to everyone who supported year 6  we raised over £300 towards our year 6 outings . Business Enterprise Day was fantastic and the children had the best day ever!

7th June 2013

Nursery

Nursery have been here, there and everywhere within the school grounds for science week.  We have used the viewfinders to look at snails, plants and mud.  We explored the wild area on the field and collected different size sticks and used our investigating skills relating to forces in the playground pushing cars.  So we are all budding scientist.  A big welcome to Grace and Warren who have recently joined afternoon nursery.  Thank you to those of you who have supported your children with the home learning .  It was lovely seeing all  the different activities.  Next week we are starting our seaside topic and will be looking at seasonal clothing.

4CA

We have had lots of fun in Science week. We have been outside every day. Some of the activities we have done have been, looking at friction using various surfaces around the school, shaking trees and collecting what has fallen out to make a pictogram, doing a bird watch, a guest speaking talking about bees, using coordinates following a map of the school grounds, identifying tress in the school grounds, making a fantasy creature and a visit from Essex wildlife trust.

4E

We have been having a brilliant time in Science Week this week. Some of our activities have included bird watching, tree rubbings, friction experiments and creating senses poems.

The children have really enjoyed the opportunities to work out side in the lovely weather and have shown some great team work skills. We hope the good weather stays with us so we can get outside even more!

On Tuesday the children completed in some 4Sports activities and have learnt an exciting new team game. Ask them to tell you about it!