Reduce, Re-use and Recycle with Potter Class!

Reduce, Re-use & Recycle!

On Friday the 27th September the whole school had Global Goals day. In nursery we decided to focus on the importance of recycling. The children were shown 3 different coloured bins and we explained that each bin was for collecting a different type of material. The blue bin was for paper and cardboard, the red bin was for plastic and the yellow bin was used for metal such as tins and cans. After the children had discussed why it is important to recycle they got to take part in a treasure (trash) hunt outside where they found the recycled items and then had to sort them into the correct bin. We read stories about recycling and discovered we could recycle other things such as clothes that had got too small or give our old toys to charity shops. We discussed how we can re-use rain water as there was a picture of a water butt in the story and this also gave us an opportunity to talk about solar panels on roofs. Some of the children understood the suns rays could be re-used and changed into energy for the house. The children were engaged and showed good understanding of this important subject. We also spoke about how they can collect recycling such as empty yogurt pots, cereal packets, plastic bottles and kitchen roll tubes etc. to make models such as rockets, robots and houses in school time. If you would like to collect some recycling at home, please make sure all reclaimed materials are washed thoroughly. We will be placing some bags for you to put the items in within our nursery playground next to the creative shed.

Magritte class go meat free on Mondays!

This week, as part of Global Goals Day, we have been understanding the causes of and effects to our world of the growing population.  We realised that farming animals at the current levels and beyond is possibly the biggest contributor to the destruction of the planet. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/21/lifestyle-change-eat-less-meat-climate-change

That's why we have made persuasive videos using CLIPS on the ipads to convince everyone to cut down their consumption of meat by going meat free on Mondays.   There are QR codes displayed in the learning zone and we hope to release some of the videos via the school's Facebook page.

Although the issues were serious, these photos show that we had a lot of fun preparing the videos and we learnt a great deal in the process.  One or two us might even become foley artists!

Global Goal Day

Today (Friday 27th September) Windhill21 celebrated Global Goal Day with a focus on Climate Change. In year 6 the children took a narrower focus to look at the impact of clothing and the fashion industry and the use of plastics on climate change. Having completed some research to find out the true facts and statistics, the children then created their own educational and persuasive videos. Their videos are not only technically brilliant but also include some heart wrenching information about the damage being caused to our planet. These videos will be available to watch on our school website in the near future. Keep a look out!

Year 6 WW1 Workshop

 On Tuesday the children were fortunate enough to attend a WW1 drama workshop led by Mrs Moore and Mrs Millward. The children were encouraged to show empathy towards the soldiers of WW1 by acting out scenes of 'going over the top' and experiences on No Man's Land. The children responded to stimulus including the poem  'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen and a clip from the TV series Black Adder. We were so impressed with the children's maturity towards the touching topic. Their expressions and body language were outstanding!

This workshop led the children to write letters or diary entries from soldiers in the trenches of WW1.

Reception: Global Goals Day

Children in Early Years have been talking about the small changes we can make in our daily routines to work towards a better future for our world. We pledged to be mindful about our water usage, the way we dispose of recyclable materials and making green choices!

The children were particularly interested in talking about plastics:

"The beaches have loads of rubbish on them"
"Some animals get stuck in plastic"
"The turtles might touch and eat them plastics. They might die or hurt themselves"

London Transport Museum

Yesterday, Year 4 were lucky enough to go to the London Transport Museum in Convent Garden. We spent the morning looking at the exciting exhibits which taught us about the construction of the London Underground and how London has changed since it was invented! We loved looking at the real buses in the main room and exploring the smaller displays which we so beautifully made. 

We also had a workshop run by the lovely Emily who showed us exactly how the London Underground was built and developed. We were amazed at how they managed to do this without our modern day machinery and technology! 

Y5 – Online safety – SMART

The Year 5 computing theme this term is Data Matters.  The children will investigate the concept of “big data” and its use in the world. They will review different data file types. They explore binary form and develop understanding of computer networks. They will search more efficiently and investigate their digital footprints (or ‘digital tattoos’), building safe and responsible use of online spaces. Their big project this term is to design and create a flat file database and use searching and sorting to process the data they collect into information, developing accuracy and efficiency.

To start off this term we have been spending the first weeks reviewing and refreshing ourselves with online safety, how to keep safe online and how to spot potential dangers.

We have been using ‘NearPod’ to record answers to questions such as ‘What is Cyber Bullying’, and ‘How can you use Social Media Responsibly’?  We finished off with a Kahoot quiz on online safety www.kahoot.com.

Stay SMART!

S - Safe - keep your personal information safe.

M - Meet - Don't meet up with anyone you have met online.

A - Accept - Don't accept files or a download that is sent to you.

R - Reliable. Not everyone you meet online is reliable.

T - Tell.  If in doubt, always tell an adult.

What do we mean by Online safety?

“To be safe online you don’t make friends who you have met online.  Also don’t meet up with someone you have met with online because they might be dangerous.  Don’t write or give people your name, address, phone number or email.”

What are the dangers or concerns using social media?

“The dangers are someone who you don’t know could message you and send you inappropriate photos and ask you personal questions like where you live and your age.”

How can you use social media responsibly?

“Put your privacy settings on so no one can follow you without your consent and so no strangers can put inappropriate comments on.”  “Be nice online and people will be positive back.”

London Topic!

In our Topic lessons recently we have been using maps to navigate around London. We started by looking for the four figure grid references and used these to help us locate sunken treasure along the River Thames!

We were then set a challenge by Miss Woodcock’s cousin from Australia to help him find his way around the tourist attractions of London using the London Underground. We used the tube map to find the quickest route between the attractions and told him where to change tubes and which lines he would need to take!

Y4 – Environmental Data Collection

This term the Year 4 computing Topic is Keeping Informed.  They will Begin to understand the difference between data and information. They will use sensors (on iPads) and other tools as part of their investigations. They use branching and flat-file databases to enter, organise and search data, deriving information which they present in different forms.

For the first couple of weeks Year 4 have been collecting environmental data on sound and light from around the school.   They will enter this data into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, create graphs and perform simple analysis of this data, such as where in the school is the noisiest location!

Y2 – Messages and Virtual Worlds - Class Artist pictures

In Year 2 Computing we have been using technology to transform portrait photos of ourselves into ones very like our class artist.  Kusama class have been using a simple paint program to add Kusama like ‘spots’ to their portrait photographs.  Warhol class have used an image converter to transform their portrait photographs into stylised Pop Art pictures.

Y2 topic this term is Messages and Virtual Worlds.  The children will explore ways of sending messages using digital and non-digital systems. They will investigate the history of messages. They will learn to send and receive emails and read and comment on blogs. They will explore simple virtual worlds. They will create algorithms linked to their simulations and will program onscreen characters. They will further develop eSafe practice understanding the need to keep personal information private.

Y3 – Timeline of storage

In Year 3 the children have been learning about digital storage including bytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes and how 1 byte is used for 1 character (letter, number, punctuation or space).  They have looked at the history of storage devices, creating a timeline for these such as 5 ¼ inch floppy discs, 3 ½ floppy discs, SD cards and USB drives.  We worked out that a modern 128 Gigabyte USB stick is the equivalent of 91,008 3½ inch floppy discs!

The Y3 computer topic this term is Authoring.  The children will investigate computing storage capacities and ways of saving data. They will develop understanding of the school network and operating systems. They will use varied resources to create digital content, creating and manipulating images and words. They will select and use software to create non-linear content for specific audiences and objectives.

Y1 – Mouse Control Skills

The Year 1 topic this term is ‘Let’s Create’.  We will be creating some simple images and drawings using our new Purple Mash learning environment applications.  Y1 will begin to explore digital texts, using varied devices and software to create digital content. They will investigate differences between input and output and hardware and software and will explore the idea of a network related to computers at home and school, logging on to their area with support.

Being able to control the mouse on a computer is easy for older children and adults.  However, if you have never used one before it can be a tricky skill to master.  Year 1 children have been practicing their mouse control skills this week, developing their hand eye control and understanding of clicking and dragging objects on the screen.  This is an essential skill for computing and one that is slowly being lost as we move towards ‘swiping’ on phones and tablets.

If you wish to support your child in developing their mouse control skills at home the links to online mouse control games below should help:

https://www.abcmouse.com/email/mouse-and-pointer

http://primarygamesarena.com/Topics/Mouse-Control

http://bomomo.com/

We have also used a free painting tool called Tux Paint to help with mouse control.  You can download this great free piece of software from http://www.tuxpaint.org/

Year 1 Maths

Year 1 have been using manipulatives to show the value of one more and one less of a number. We have used bead strings and cubes to help us with this. We have also been exploring patterns representing numbers and learning how to subitise.

Marvellous Me

Our topic in nursery this term is ourselves! We have read lots of stories such as ‘What Makes Me, Me’ by Ben Faulks and David Tazzyman as well as ‘What Do I Look Like?’ By Nick Sharratt. We have sung songs like ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes.’ The children have been very creative when making their own faces. They looked in the mirror and then selected a range of loose part materials such as conkers, string, beads to use. These became eyes, a nose, ears, a mouth and some children made sure they have eyebrows and eyelashes. The children really enjoyed making their own face and it stimulated lots of mathematical and comparative language as they counted how many eyes they have and then compared the eye colour with their friend.