Preparing for school

Hello Owl class. I do hope you are having a wonderful summer holiday and have enjoyed the sunshine. We are busy at school getting the classroom ready for Monday 5th September.

A few reminders… please bring in a named water bottle every day. It is very important to stay hydrated.

Please do not bring in large pencil cases as there is limited space. We have all the resources you need in school. Each table will have a basket of pencils and equipment that you will use throughout the day.

Our PE days are on a Monday and a Friday. Please come to school dressed in PE kit on these days.

We cannot wait to see you on Monday! Mrs Sayer and Mrs Chapman.

As temperatures rise...

Transition week was enjoyed by all. Lots of fun activities and thinking about the year ahead and how to use all our learning powers to be ‘Wise Owls’. It was lovely to welcome the Year 2s into the class and we hope they are looking forward to September as much as we are!

School trip time! The whole school had a great day at Cotswold Wildlife park and saw a variety of animals. We didn’t manage to see everything but we saw a lot including; the giraffes, rhinos, lions (sleeping), penguins, meerkats, lizards, geckos, anacondas and a huge range of birds. The class were super representatives of the school and enjoyed a talk about plants with one of the gardeners from the park. We got to see the largest type of seed in the world too!

The weather looks incredibly hot next week. Please can you ensure your Owl has a waterbottle, sun hat and suncream applied every day. Stay cool everyone and enjoy the weekend.

Coding fun!

It was fun!

I had great fun and learnt lots of useful things.

I enjoyed making the lego and playing with it.

Owls certainly did have a lot of fun! The lego kits arrived and everyone had a coding program to use that provided instructions on how to construct the objects/characters and then the Owls had to write the program to get the kits to complete tasks. We all want to do it again.

Water!

We had another visit this Thursday, Mrs Bailey from Thames Water. She came to talk to us about how water is cleaned and how much water is wasted. Did you know that we use over 80 litres of water to half fill a bath? Owls enjoyed trying to guess how much water we used for washing clothes, cleaning our teeth and in the shower. We were shocked! Mrs Bailey also gave us some tips on how to save water.

Summer term learning

This week in Owl class has been a very busy one.

On Monday the class went down to the bottom of Blakeney fields and helped to make a Bug Hotel and to hear about the rewilding project that is underway there. Despite the rain it was great to see a local project in action. Our thanks go to Karen for inviting us along.

The children got to experience what it is like in a Jewish synagogue right in the classroom! They learnt about the Torah, what Jewish people wear, the history of some of the oldest temples around the world and prayer shawls. They even got to try on a kippur! The rabbi was very knowledgeable and shared lots of facts about Judaism.

Owls have been busy learning some new song words for the Red Kite’s end of term production ‘Exit’. As you know we love singing and these songs are great fun to learn.

Have a restful weekend. The end of term is very busy and action packed so Owls will need a lot of stamina and rest to keep enjoying all that school is offering over the next few weeks.

Sporting fun!

What a wonderful sports day! The activities in the morning were great fun with lots of Owls challenging themselves to improve a personal best. All our learning powers were in evidence particularly courage, cooperation and endurance. Well done to everyone.

Learning about the Water cycle and answering the question ‘How are rivers formed?’ we used a model to predict where water run off would occur and how this then could create lakes, streams and rivers. A great activity to support our understanding of how falling rain on mountains and high ground starts the formation of a river.

The Year 4s have been working hard on their times table facts. One Owl said:

It is really important to know them all off by heart as it makes fractions much easier to work with!

Wise words indeed! So Year 3 keep practising those facts and recalling them quickly remember you are working on your x 3,x 6, x4 and x8s and Year 4 keep recalling the facts and making links to other calculations. If you know 3 x 4 = 12 you know 30 x 4 = 120 or 1200 divided by 3 = 400!

History all around us.

It was amazing standing amidst history said one Owl. On Wednesday we were Civil War soldiers approaching Donnington castle and laying siege to it. We learnt that we needed three sieges to finally relieve the castle from Colonel John Boys.

We realised that we have so many significant and important historic sites near to us and we will look at Donnington castle in a new light now that we have learnt about the Civil war and the changes it brought to the country.

It was healthy eating week so in our maths learning we collected data on favourite fruits and vegetables. The data was collected in tally charts and then the children converted the information into bar grpahs. They then asked questions of the data they collected.

A new geography topic was introduced. Owls will be looking at ‘Rivers and the Water cycle’ and asked some fantastic questions to start the topic off.

Which is the longest river in the world?

How does rain get made?

Can water flow uphill?

How much of the world is covered in water?

Is water a living thing?

As you can see some fantastic and thought provoking questions!

Please keep reading with your Owl, checking their understanding and developing that love of books. We have learnt some wonderful new vocabulary through our class texts and topics. Have a good weekend.

Flowers for summer

We have been studying the work of Georgia O’Keefe paying particular attention to her paintings of flowers. Owl class discovered that she drew flowers despite not liking them as they did not move as a subject!

The children displayed some wonderful shading and attention to detail in their sketches.

Another term of coding and the Owls started to look at Logo which is a programme that controls a turtle. The children wrote commands and investigated how to turn the turtle, it was good practice for our angles/turns understanding!

Please can Owls bring in their reading records and reading books every day. We have so enjoyed reading our class text ‘James and the Giant Peach’ and it is so important to read a variety of books, when it’s recorded in the diary we can see what you are reading at home. Thank you for your support in this. Have a happy weekend.

A royal celebration.

As the end of term approaches the school celebrated the Jubilee with a wonderful afternoon of games, a visit to church and picnic lunch at Chaddleworth School site. The children all looked fabulous in their red, white and blue outfits. Thank you to everyone who helped to organise such a lovely event.

Owl class also designed coins to mark the Jubilee. They looked at different coins from around the Commowealth and discussed their features.

The children wrote some wonderful Haiku poetry (see if your Owl can remember the syllable structure) on a chosen theme:

Rain is a bunny

jumping and frolicking

like joy in a jar.

Warm ice cream melting

sticky wet hands, tongue licking

crunchy cone breaking.

Have a restful half term holiday, let’s hope for sunshine and lots to celebrate in the coming final term of school. Thank you for your support.

Getting ready for the Jubilee

A weekend wonder… I wonder if you can learn the hand jive as this formed part of our music lesson this week!

Jubilee preparations are underway. The children created fantastic collages in their art work this week.

English writing focused on finishing our playscripts and enjoying the scenes the children created for James and the Giant Peach. We are now looking at poetry and in particular syllabic poetry such as Haikus, Tankas and Cinquains.

Spelling this week is looking at the prefixes auto, anti and super.

Owls spend a fortune!!

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Owls spend a fortune!! 〰️

Lots of practical work with money in lessons this week. Recognising coins and notes, making amounts and solving problems involving different coins.

Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Play scripts and drama

We are really loving the story of James and the Giant Peach because the characters are brilliantly written and the story is very exciting.

Owls have been working in groups to act out scenes and write their own play script using stage directions and voices to create interesting characters. Lots of acting skills in action!

Swimming is going well. The Owls are practising different strokes and thinking about their breathing technique.

Who/what was a Parliamentarian and a Royalist? Lots of learning questions about the type of armour and weapons that the soldiers would have used:

Why did they not wear a full suit of armour?

What are the names of some of the parts of a muskett?

Did they really wear a wide brimmed hat and feather on the battlefield?

A weekend wonder… it is Eurovision this weekend so I wonder if you can find the different flags of the countries taking part? How many countries are taking part? What colour is the most frequently used in the flag designs?

Have a good weekend everyone.

Owls and chicks!

Our whole school theme is ‘Changes’. Lots of our learning is focusing on the changes we see around us, for example the changes in the environment, seasons, historical changes such as The English Civil War, changes in music and life cycles to name a few. With this in mind we were treated to a visit from fluffy spring chicks! We learnt about how long they are incubated for and what they need for food. We talked about the life cycle and changes that they will go through.

Tenths, hundredths, decimals, fractions - Owls have worked really hard this week using lots of resources to secure their understanding of decimals. We will then move on to using decimals in the context of money, mass and measure as this concept underpins real life skills.

Weekend wonder… I wonder what changes you can hear in a piece of music? Listen to a favourite song - does it change tempo, pitch or does it move from acoustic to vocal? How many changes are there?

Sunshine, swimming and smiles.

At the start of every new topic the children think about questions they would like to find the answer to.

Here are a few of the questions linked to our new history topic - ‘The English Civil War’.

‘How did the war start?’

‘What armour did they wear?’

‘Why were they called ‘Roundheads?

We look forward to finding out the answers and much more as we learn about this time period of British and very local history!

In computing lessons this term the children are learning about coding. In the lesson they learnt new terms such as algorithm, debug and binary code. They were able to program simulations and design these simulations with more complex code. Great fun and good work Owls!

Swimming lessons started this week. The children had an assessment week with their instructors and worked incredibly hard in the pool. Well done.

The weekend wonder: I wonder if can you make a daisy chain, sketch a flower or note any of the insects that visit flowers. Or you could try flower pressing… use two heavy books to press a flower in between two sheets of paper. Leave it for a few weeks to see the end result.

Enjoy the bank holiday weekend everyone!

What a busy week! Here comes Easter...

A wonderful last week has seen Owls being busy and productive.

Design and technology. We have loved making bags. First we looked at lots of different bags and what they were made from and used for. We were then set a design brief to create a bag that could be taken on a journey. Some of us decided that the journey would be a long one so made our bags slightly bigger whilst some of us decided the bag would be useful for a day trip or something like our Pilgrimage last week where we didn’t need too much to carry.

‘DT has been lots of fun, I have enjoyed thinking about the design of my bag and using a running stitch.’

‘I was really excited to use the sewing machine and a bit nervous.’

‘I learnt what a seam allowance is!’

Owls travel to the Tyrol!

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Owls travel to the Tyrol! 〰️

To round off our topic on the Tyrol (ask your Owl where it is!) we thought about how the land is used and how farming is similar to our region but also very different due to the physical features of the landscape. Livestock such as cows and goats graze the pastures producing wonderful milk and also meat which we then learnt is used in a lot of Austrian cooking. As we could not quite stretch to a trip to Austria we sampled the cuisine of the Tyrol. It was very tasty!

Wishing you all a very happy Easter. Thank you for all your support.

29th March - Opening of the running track

Opening of the running track. Wow what a morning!

Sing, sing, sing

Owls have spent a considerable amount of time this week rehearsing for the big day next week. Please remember to use the Berkshire Maestros site to sing along to the tracks and learn the words so that you are word perfect! The sign language is getting better for Lighthouse Keeper but still needs more rehearsal - keep on trying Owls, you can do it!

In Geography, the children have been learning about the county of Berkshire. For your Weekend Wonder, ask an adult at home to tell you about places in Berkshire that they (or you!) have been to.

Marching through March.

A science investigation on Monday started off this week’s learning. The children investigated the effects of soil erosion and what this means for animals in the habitat. Lots of practical work, creating different types of habitats and then seeing the effect of a lack of vegetation and water quality and run off. We will continue to work on our conclusion next week but we thought about how to keep the test fair and what we would change.

Owls rehearsed for the Anvil performance on Friday and sang really well. We have a version of the Lighthouse song that is accompanied by sign language so any help learning this at home is much appreciated.

In Maths the children have been learning about fractions and how to describe equal parts that do not look the same. An important concept that underpins lots of learning over the coming weeks.

It has been lovely to welcome Mrs Chapman back this week. She will be teaching Owls on a Thursday afternoon and a Friday.

A weekend wonder for you all…I wonder how many birds visit your garden in a 10 minute period? Count the birds in your garden. How many are there? Can you name any of them?

Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Spring term - part two

Your weekend wonder… can you make a paper boat and see if it floats? With all the rain water we have had this week there may be a puddle or two you can find!

A fantastic week that involved celebrating World Book day, playing the keyboards, learning about area and perimeter in maths and thinking about character descriptions in our English writing.

Owl class have worked with care and attention to detail when sketching, thinking about tone and developing depth. The children then applied this technique when creating their own portraits.

During reflection and worship time there has been a focus on our Christian value of Friendship and our learning power of Cooperation. These are both values and skills that are perhaps of significant importance at this time in the wider world.

For our outdoor learning the children also enjoyed time in Forest school and built ‘Bug hotels’, completed tree and leaf rubbings and generally enjoyed being in the fresh air.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Spring is in the air...

Here comes the weekend! Owl class your ‘weekend wonder’ is …I wonder if you can find out how to say hello in another language. How many different languages?

Such a busy week! It was lovely to see lots of parents and to get a chance to discuss the work and learning you have been achieving over the last few months. Well done Owls.

Safer internet day and Children’s mental health week have all been marked. The wonderful book by Charlie Mackesy has been a focus in Guided reading sessions and used to write some wonderful poetry about the different emotions we all feel.

In French lessons we have been learning about ‘Les transports’ and describing different ways of travel. Everyone is enjoying learning with Mrs Wilson and becoming more confident.

The running track is coming along and we cannot wait to use it for the daily mile and other activities. Owl class love to be active. In PE we have been creating sequences that include balances, rolls and jumps. Working in groups we have been able to practice these gymnastic sequences and to evaluate one another’s performances.

Forest school rounded the week off and today we enjoyed making clay animals and a zip wire line. Owls are showing great team working skills and creativity.

Have a great weekend.

Singing our hearts out!

Weekend wonder…

I wonder if you can make a healthy snack. What might you include? You could write down the recipe so we can all try it!

Over the last few weeks we have been learning some fantastic songs for the Junior Music Festival in March. The songs and the words are very tricky but we are enjoying learning different styles and parts that are already sounding brilliant. We enjoyed a rehearsal with 4 other local schools via Zoom and got an idea of just how powerful singing in a large choir can be.

Owls are doing so well with their new method for division. We have reminded ourselves that new learning can be tricky but with practice things become easier. The class have been exploring numbers and representing them with counters, base 10 and other manipulatives to learn how the method of short division works. It is incredibly important that the children use their times table knowledge to support these calculations which is why you may have noticed the homework is focused on building fluency around times tables and related facts.

In RE this term we are thinking about why people may go on special journeys and in particular why pilgrimages are an important aspect of many religions around the world. This week we have reflected on life as a journey and the milestones that may be encountered along life’s journey. Some interesting and insightful comments from class discussion.

Have a great weekend.

Friday 28th January

Each week on the class blog there will be a suggested activity to complete over the weekend, we are calling it a ‘Weekend wonder’.

So this Weekend’s wonder is a wander! If you have time why not head out for a walk and see how many animals you can spot whilst out and about. In class we have been learning about the different types of animal and went on a bug hunt in Science this week.

As highlighted above Owl class went on an invertebrate hunt and discovered a variety of invertebrates such as insects, arachnids and annelids (worms!). The children used magnifying glasses and specimen pots to collect and study the animals and used their prior learning to think about how to classify and group them further.

In maths this week the children have been thinking about division and learning how to divide using groups and identify if there will be a remainder. The children worked practically and will use this knowledge to apply identifying what a remainder means in different contexts. For example: ‘How many tents are needed on a trip if 19 children attend and each tent only sleeps 3 people?’ 7 tents will be needed as the one person left over will still need a tent! Lots of interesting discussions around this concept.

In our music lessons we have been playing the keyboards, thinking about hand position, posture and rhythm. Owls have also enjoyed creating different sound effects with the electronic keyboard options!

It has been a very busy week so enjoy a restful weekend Owl Class.