Year 6

 Well done Sanober - you got the golden sticker this week for your brilliant art work using Seurat's technique of pontilism.  

 

Year 6

The Year 6 have been having a "French Experience" here at Windhill21 - with cheese tasting, making crepes and enjoying a typical "French" breakfast of croissants, pain au chocolat and baguette.  The climax of the week was performing "The Hungry Caterpillar" in English and French to Nursery, Reception and KS1.

    

Year 2 Newsletter

Last week the children were immersed in our topic of Australia. 

In art, we have been looking at how the Aboriginal people of Australia use natural materials to create beautiful dot work pictures. They used their art work to tell stories. We created our own of Australian stories using the Aboriginal symbols and we also tried printing Australian animals with ink. 

In our geography lessons we have been learning about the Great Barrier Reef. We looked at maps to find out where it was and we imagined we were fish swimming in it. We discovered that it looks quite different today to what it looked like 20 year ago. We found out about pollution and global warming and how it is affecting the reef. 

In writing we are using The Day The Koala Could for inspiration and we are writing our own ending to the story. We thought about what could happen next through drama and we acted out different scenarios. We used these ideas to help us plan our story ending. This week we are going to be writing it. 

Year 3 newsletter

 Year 3 newsletter

Science

In science, we have been discovering and learning about flowering plants and their lifecycles. To help us understand how these amazing things live, we have planted many seeds and even created a strawberry patch!

Topic

In topic, we have travelled to Brazil and begun to explore the geographical features of the country. We have compared manmade landmarks to amazing natural spaces and investigated how we can identify these. We also researched the Amazon River and how to identify this colossal natural feature by re-enacting the tributaries, main river and the basin.

Maths

In maths, we have become experts in all things measurement and begun converting millimetres, centimetres and even metres! We used real life objects (and even friends) to put our skills into practise!

Year 1 Newsletter

 We love wearing our artist's hats in Year 1 and in order to make thoughtful colour choices for our own seascapes, we have learnt about colour mixing and created our own colour wheels.  We learnt that adding white creates tints and adding black creates shades. 

    

In our next art lesson we used our colour knowledge to create watery paper to print on for our seascapes.  We used a variety of art techniques to make them: oil pastels, smudging chalk pastels, paint washes, brusho and sponge printing. 

We also had an exciting visit from an author!  Dr Leema Jabbar came to read her new book called Hana and the Hairy Bod Rapper to us.  We loved the story about loving yourself for your differences and also learnt lots of incredible new facts about the hair on our bodies and it's amazing functions!

Year 4 newsletter

Our blog this week is dedicated to our topic work so far this term.  We have been exploring the Vikings and questioning whether they are Criminal Invaders or Peaceful Settlers? 

We learnt that the Vikings attacked the island of Lindisfarne in 793AD.  As classes we re-enacted the invasion and half the class became vicious warriors, half became poor monks. 

We also looked at other reasons why the Vikings came to Britain.  As a class we became members of the jury and voted as to whether each Viking was a criminal invader or not.  They gave reasons such as the need for farm land, the desire to get into Valhalla and the need for new customers for their trade.  If the class decided that the Viking was a criminal invader, they would be sent to jail!

Continuing with our topic, today we are looking at a real life Viking will where we will learn about hip what possessions they thought to be important enough to leave to others - hopefully this will teach us about Viking life! 

Nursery Newsletter

We have had a fantastic time in Nursery over the past couple of weeks.  We have had a brilliant hands-on experience with a real life minibeast – Joe Turbo, the African snail, has been visiting our nursery this week courtesy of Olivia and her family.  The children have had a wonderful time holding and touching Jo Turbo and learning all about how to look after a pet snail.  Thank you very much, Olivia, for letting us borrow Joe for a few days.

We have also been creative this week making our own versions of Henri Matisse’ ‘Snail’.  We read the book ‘Snail Trail’ by Jo Saxton (about a snail who visits many artists masterpieces before finally finding his own portrait) and then made paper plate snails by cutting strips of coloured paper and gluing them onto the plate.  We also used Purple Mash on the iPads to create digital versions of Matisse’ snail.

In our SCARF sessions we have been thinking about how we can be great friends.  We thought of the ways that we can be good friends such as being kind, sharing, being fun, helping when we are hurt, etc. We wrote all our ideas down on paper and mixed them up in a big bowl to make ‘Friendship Soup’ and then we had a pretend taste of our special friendship soup!

Over the past couple of weeks, we have had ‘real’ caterpillars living in our nursery.  We have been observing them grow and change into cocoons.  This week, they emerged from their cocoon’s as beautiful butterflies.  We kept them for a couple of days to observe them and then released them in the playground.

The sunflowers we planted have now started to grow.  As part of our maths activities, we have been measuring them using cubes (non-standard units).  We will continue to observe and measure them over the coming weeks.

In PE we have been using bean bags to develop balancing skills.  We have been balancing bean bags on different parts of our bodies such as our head, shoulder, hand, foot, neck, etc. and carefully moving around the space.

Also, for maths we have been comparing lengths and using the language long, longer, longest, short, shorter, shortest.  We did this by choosing a special 'measuring' minibeast then making our own minibeast out of playdough.  We compared them, saying which one was longer, or shorter. 

Year 6 Newsletter

 AMAZING! A word that sums up everything in year 6 this past fortnight.  Firstly, the pupils were amazing during SATs week.  They acted like professionals, set out to do their best and made us proud!  Well done Year 6!  You could not have given it more.  

This last week has been amazing too as we got stuck into our new geography topic, 'Amazing Places'.  We have zoomed into Iceland, land of ice and fire, learning about its unusual geography and geology resulting in it having both glaciers and active volcanoes.  Many of us were unsure about stepping into a natural hot pool but we thought that the idea of geothermal energy was a genius one!  We were also intrigued by the unusual geography of Iran, that not only borders the Caspian sea but also has a salt desert.  We were able to compare and contrast the landscapes, both of which are influenced by their proximity to tectonic plate boundaries. As for Canada, we were amazed by the inhospitable nature of the landscape and its vast size. 

When looking closely at all locations, we also had the opportunity to explore the people and cultures thereon, including languages and customs which sparked our excitement and curiosity.  

The week ended as it began, with a trip to Crucial Crew.  Children learnt some important lessons on how to keep themselves safe as they start secondary school and the freedoms that it affords. All pupils acted as ambassadors of Windhill21 as they walked to the Barnabas Centre and conducted themselves on site with impeccable manners and enthusiasm.  Year 6 - you have been AMAZING!

Year 5 Newsletter

 In year 5 this week, the children have become experts on Orangutans and have written some very detailed and factual non-chronological reports, we look forward to displaying some of their beautifully published pieces in the classroom! The children also created some pastel artwork of Orangutans which really shows off the cheeky, chappies they are. Our science lesson this week, focussed on the question, ‘Do all plants reproduce from bulbs?’ Within the lesson, the children explored different bulbs and we discussed the reproduction of plants from bulbs and bulblets.