Welcome to year 6's blog

The pupils in Year 6 have had a fabulous start to their year. As both classes – Hong-Oai and Bergmann – are named after photographers, the children were taken to Bloodhound Woods in Wickham Hall and given the opportunity to hone their photographic skills with Mr Forgham. The results were amazing as you can see below. We truly do have some talented budding photographers in our midst.

Welcome to year 5's blog

Year 5 have hit the ground running and launched into some fantastic poetry work. We have looked at a variety of poems and focused on the use of language. The pupils have impressed us with imaginative words and phrases. They have shown that they have a good sense of humour too! Year 5 have also enjoyed learning about the artists Harrison and Banksy. Harrison class have studied the life of Harrison and reproduced some of his work, while Banksy have been learning about the mysteries of the man himself and his stencilling technique. Look out for Year 5’s displays in the hall inspired by our artists. Despite the heat last week, the children responded well to the year group’s high expectations and have come in smart and ready to learn.

Welcome to year 4's blog

We have been busy growing our brains in Year 4! In literacy, we have been using the Windmill Farmer by Joaquin Baldwin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nd9OuX7Bd4) as a stimulus for writing free verse poetry. The children have worked hard to include personification and alliteration in their poems. We have also been learning about our class artists, Gormley and Moore. The children have produced their own art using the same inspirations, styles and themes of these famous sculptors. Look out for their masterpieces which will soon be displayed around the school!

Welcome to year 2's blog

What a fantastic start to Year 2 it has been! We have loved the beginning of our topic ‘Peep into the Past’ where we are learning about the Great Fire of London. We are excellent poets, writing spine poems about a pig and a wolf which leads nicely onto an English unit on traditional tales. We have been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and have even solved some problems. Our mouths were watering by break time due to sorting delicious looking food in Science! Computing has inspired us to search for computers that are all around us. We even became personal computers ourselves! Can you spot a keyboard, speakers, a mouse, a monitor and a human in the freeze frame?

 

 

Welcome to year 3's blog

Year 3 has got off to a very energetic and exciting start. We have begun our topic on ‘Volcanoes’ by creating word banks after a session looking at pictures and videos in the Immersion Room. This week we learnt about the different parts of a volcano and began to explore how volcanoes are formed. This has linked into our English lessons where we have begun writing descriptive sentences in preparation for writing volcano poems next week. In Maths, we have been revisiting place value and number. Light is our theme in Science this term. We started off by learning about different light sources and what objects we were able to see in the dark using dark boxes as can be seen in the pictures. We all became Agent Inquirer as well to consider the best light sources to use for different situations.
The children have been doing some amazing learning and have made a great start to Year 3.

Welcome to Year 1's blog

It has been a very busy start so far in Year 1, with lots of new and exciting things to do and learn. We have started our 'Into the Forest' topic and have visited and explored the school forest. Science saw the introduction to the topic 'Plants' where the children drew and labelled a plant. In Maths we have been looking at measurement using a ruler and finding things longer, shorter or taller than a length of paper in and around the classroom.

 

Choosing the trickiest challenges!

In Reception, we use 'Tricky, Trickier and Trickiest' challenges to grow our brains. After completing a 'Tricky' challenge with a number puzzle, these boys decided to have a go at our trickiest puzzle, consisting of 140 pieces! 

They worked together and persevered to complete the puzzle, in just 25 minutes!

Together as a class we celebrated their teamwork and growth mindset :)




In other news, the children looked fabulous in their number costumes for Maths Day on Tuesday! Children thought about numbers that meant something to them, like their age, their house number and even their favourite time of day!

 We had a lot of fun playing maths games and completing maths activities throughout the day.

No sweets or No TV...?

Children in KS1 P4C club were asked to decide whether they'd choose to live without sweets or without TV. What followed was a lively debate, filled with excellent reasoning and critical thinking! Topics the children mainly focused on were boredom, dental health and physical health.

Charlotte thought that life without sweets wouldn't be so bad because you could eat other sweet things like strawberries and peppers! Abigail added that too many sweets would make you poorly.

Opposing this, Lily said that just because she had lots of sweets, didn't mean that she would eat loads all at once! Besides, she said that she would make her own fun instead of watching TV.

Vincent, who originally chose 'no TV', was convinced by his opposition and concluded that a little bit of both would probably be the best. Stanley settled on having no sweets, but maybe when he fancied a sweet treat, he would turn off the TV and go to forage for ingredients to make his own!

The children are looking forward to their next debate! 

We're going on a shape hunt!

This week, Reception have been learning all about simple 2D shapes. 

The children really enjoyed finding shapes in the classroom and outside learning environment! 

They even carried on into their play time, with Miguel leading the enthusiasm by spotting squares and rectangles on Miss Lawrence's keyboard!

Roman found a rectangular sink!

Rinah and Charlotte spotted an 8 sided shape!

Stella found circles on the Garden Kitchen tea pot.

What shapes can you spot on your way to and from school?

P4C - developing creativity and collaboration

In KS1 P4C club, we thought about the importance of working together and thinking creatively. 

The children were given the choice between meeting...

a dancing goat

a boxing cat

a skateboarding dog

a pig you can ride

a monkey you can tickle

The children developed posters to try and convince me that their choice was the right one!

Children had to create a collaborative poster, communicating ideas and opinions

Charlotte and Nicky were really convincing! They said that I could be Agent Risk Taker if I
chose to meet a skateboarding dog, as it's something I've never tried before!

What do you think?

Cassatt's first forest adventure

We collected sticks and challenged ourselves to find 'one more' or 'one less'

We made houses for snails!

Exploring and climbing trees

Collecting twigs and leaves for a minibeast home

Sharing on the tyre swing

Playing the drums on the log circle!

Just a few snaps of the nursery ready for the new recruits tomorrow.

We look forward to welcoming each and every family. Thank you for welcoming us so warmly on the home visits.

Growth mindset

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/help-your-child-try-new-things
Here at Windhill21 we firmly believe that one of the keys to successful learning is having a growth mindset. Click the link to read more about what this looks like and how you can help your child (no matter what age) develop this life long learning skill.

I did nothing today....

Early Years Garden!

The teachers have been busy getting ready to welcome the children for their very first day in their new classes! Thanks to the successes of last year's Early Years Garden Party, we have been able to update our outside provision. 

Here is an exclusive preview of our latest enhancements!

Water station
Children will be able to explore the different tubes and funnels on the water wall
and can experiment with weight and capacity at the scales

Garden cafe
Children will be able to mix up a feast in our kitchen, making anything from stone soup to stick lollies!
Perhaps the grown ups might even be made some delicious pine cone tea!

We have also spruced up our Sensory Garden and Den Building areas ready for exploration.

We hope you enjoy the last few days of your holidays!

See you very soon!