Dear Parents
This week I have been delighted with the daily updates from the Year 5 and 6 residential to Derbyshire. The children have had an absolutely fantastic time and I would like to thank Mr Peace, Mr Everitt and Mrs Sherry for making the trip so memorable.
Also this week, Year 4 enjoyed a language visit and Reception went pond dipping! It has been a week full of trips, activities, sport and learning. Although there were fewer children in assembly this morning, the number of certificates and badges awarded was still plentiful.
Art
We are delighted to share photos of our collaborative coronation art. It is a wonderful example of the progression of printing throughout the school. Reception made block prints with 2D shapes, Years 1 and 2 made monoprints, Years 3 and 4 made screen prints and Years 5 and 6 made linocut prints. We are extremely pleased with the results and our wall hanging is proudly on display. Super work, everyone!
Drama
Sport
The Year 2’s headed off to Worlington Cricket Club for an ‘all stars’ cricket festival. They played lots of games of tee ball against many different schools. It was great to see the children enjoying their learning in a new environment and discovering what fixtures are all about. Well done everyone!
Two teams of cricketers headed into Essex for a cricket festival on Friday. They took part in an advanced and intermediate competition. I was delighted that every one of our bowlers used the correct technique and really developed their bowling in a match situation. Batsmen ran well and hit some impressive sixes. The intermediate team won all three of their matches, whilst the advanced team managed to secure one victory and two close defeats in their games. Well done everyone!
MFL
On Tuesday, Year 4 were up bright and early to get the school minibus at 7am for our exciting adventure to ‘L’Institut français’ in South Kensington. In the morning, we took part in a French language activity with 25 children from another school. Year 4 were excellent ambassadors for Fairstead House, with excellent behaviour and manners throughout the day, always remembering to put their hands up and giving excellent answers even in front of the big group from the other school. In the afternoon we watched ‘Ernest et Célestine’, a film adaptation of a French children’s books series we worked on in our French lessons. Then, back on the minibus for the journey back to school! Well done Year 4 for doing yourselves, and Fairstead, proud!
Nursery
Yearlings have been exploring all things food and drink in their topic over the past few weeks.
They have enjoyed making and eating ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ inspired fruit kebabs and tasted some delicious smoothies, investigating the different ingredients used.
A special delivery of celery and dips from G’s via Francis and his Mummy was welcomed graciously this week. Yearlings used different parts of the celery as tools for painting with and later were able to sample the celery and dips during afternoon snack. The remaining packs of celery were shared throughout the nursery for everyone to try.
A trip to the Pantry is planned for next week, where the children will extend their learning and vocabulary further, also supporting their understanding of the world around them. A big thank you in advance to Anne-Marie, Vincent and their wonderful team!
Reception
The children have been counting down the days to their visit to Kingfishers Bridge this week!
They thoroughly enjoyed their pond dipping experience and were thrilled to discover such a range of different wildlife there. Thank you Chef and team for the wonderful picnic too!
During shared reading this week, the children took it in turns to read aloud the story of ‘The Frog Prince’. They then made their own puppets to retell the story and spent time writing their own Frog Prince stories. Their story writing was outstanding and these special books have taken pride of place on display in the classroom.
The children have also enjoyed reading the story of ‘Katie and the Waterlilies’ and were super ‘Mini Monets’ creating beautiful representations of his garden at Giverny.
The children were excited to measure the bean plants they had been growing in class too. Well done to Daniel for growing the tallest one! Enjoy finding a special place for them to continue growing at home. Next week, we look forward to ‘Healthy Me’ week across the whole of the EYFS. Please see Tapestry for more information related to this. Have a wonderful weekend.
Class Music
This week in class music, we used the enchanting story of Katie and the Sunflowers by James Mayhew. Five Post-Impressionist paintings came alive in the lesson including Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh and Breton Girls Dancing by Paul Gauguin. Pupils selected instruments and coloured scarves to represent their musical interpretation of each painting and even Zhou, Katie’s mischievous little dog, was included in the composition, causing musical havoc. Well done Reception for creating such a colourful lesson using a variety of sounds.
Year 1
This week, we continued with our ‘Flora and Fauna’ unit by creating observational drawings of sea creatures using both charcoal pencils and graphite. We enjoyed using both mediums but the majority of the class preferred using the charcoal pencils, mostly because of the fun we had smudging and blending the charcoal with our fingers!
Year 2
Year 2 have been working hard on planning and writing a diary entry pretending they are a child escaping the Great Fire of London. First we looked at a selection of diary entries and used our detective skills to work out who had written it, then we explored sentence writing that describes what we could see, hear, taste, touch and smell. We worked on writing very descriptive sentences full of adjectives! Next, we planned our sentences and thought about our feelings – this was tricky! Finally, we completed an independent writing activity and created our own diary entry. The results are fantastic! In maths, we have been learning about mass and capacity. On Friday, we had an exploration session and used all of our Shape, Space and Measure skills to explore the more creative side of maths. By far, the most exciting part of our week was going to the cricket festival with Mr Salt and Mr Radford!
Year 3
This week in Year 3, the children have been writing their own overcoming the monster narratives independently. They have really impressed us with their creativity and originality. It has been wonderful to see all of their descriptive writing skills coming together as we draw closer to the end of the academic year. In maths, the focus has been on telling the time accurately to the minute. Please continue to work on this at home and build it into daily life. In science, the children set up two experiments to test the transportation of water in plants. The children made predictions and drew accurate diagrams with labels. As you can see from the photos, it was very exciting and the children have been rushing into the classroom each morning to make careful observations.
Year 4
Year 4 took their science lesson to the Jarman Centre to conduct an invertebrate hunt in the local habitat. They learnt about the characteristics of different types of invertebrates such as insects, annelids, protozoa, crustaceans, molluscs, arachnids and echinoderms and how to use a classification key. Taking care not to harm the living things, Year 4 classified the invertebrates they found by closely studying characteristics such as number of legs, two or three part bodies, wing cases, antennae and segmented bodies. The children were fortunate to find a selection of invertebrates, although no harvestman on this occasion.
Have a lovely weekend!
Michael Radford