Investigating symmetry

Today in Year 4, we have been identifying lines of symmetry in regular polygons. We quickly realised that the number of sides is equal to the number of lines of symmetry. Sadly, this was not true for irregular polygons and, despite folding a rectangle, we are still struggling to accept that you cannot fold it diagonally....as for parallelograms...do they really have no lines of symmetry?

Gymnastics Competitions

BSP Gymnastics Competitions

The past two weeks have been successful for our gymnastics squads. All the children that attended have shown real commitment to their gymnastics journey. Throughout the competition they all showed determination, passion and courage. Performing as individuals and being judged on their individual performances was a very pressured environment, all children stood up to the pressure and executed beautiful routines and vaults.
 
Wednesday 23rd January saw the KS1 gym squad competing in a floor and vaulting competition. Each child completed the same floor sequence and vault. After all competitors had performed the results were announced that Windhill had won both the Vault and Floor competition making them the overall competition winners! This was a wonderful achievement and the first time our KS1 children have ever won this competition.

The 30th January saw the Lower KS2 children take their opportunity to perform in their competition. Each child had to perform a vault and a floor routine. The standard of gymnasts at the competition was incredibly high across all the fourteen schools. At the end of the competition the results of discipline each discipline were announced. Windhill placed second on the floor 2, first in the floor 1 and first on the vault. Meaning by the smallest of margins (0.35points) our children were crowned overall competition winners.

A huge congratulations to all children, you were phenomenal!

KS2 Gymnastic Squad - Winners

  

Mask Designs

Year 1 continued their journey on mask making.  last week they looked at different expressions and emojis.

This week they drew their designs and thought about the parts which will be sticking out on their masks.

Can you tell if they are scared, happy, surprised or angry?

Year 1 Drama Workshop

Today we enjoyed a very exciting drama workshop in which we became superheroes tasked with a mission to save the world! We loved getting into character and had lots of fun visiting the rainforest and planting trees and flowers.

We loved helping on our mission to save the planet.

Drama Workshops!

Reception and Key Stage 1 were very lucky to have a drama workshop today provided by: Perform.

In Reception and Year 1 we visited the Planet Party Land! Where all of the Party People were always leaving the taps on and not looking after their planet! We had to become super heroes with our friend 'Super Dooper Hero' and help save Planet Party!

Super Dooper Hero took us on a trip to the Rainforest to collect trees and plants to plant on Planet Party, but when we got to Planet Party to plant the trees, the Villian: The Big Bopper found us so we had to stop and pretend to be trees so he couldn't see us!

We planted all of our trees and managed to get back to safety on our rocket ship!

We had an amazing time pretending to be Superheroes with Perform!

Reception Story Club

Today in story club, we heard a very scary story! Luckily, it had a happy ending...

"The Wolves"
written by Leo

Once upon a time there was a wolf and he went to eat some little piggies. The wolf found somebody friendly and he didn't want to eat him. Instead they both wanted to play together on a cloud and they lived happily ever after. The end.

The children enjoyed acting this story out very much and spent a lot of time practising their scared faces when they were about to be gobbled up!

Year 2 Global Goals

A few weeks ago, Avamay and Sophie had an idea. They feel passionate that the whole world needs to know about the Global Goals. They thought that we could ask each country to photocopy the goals and hand them out to everyone in their country. A brilliant idea, but it may be hard to achieve. But then we all put our brains together problem solved. We came up with a plan. We have made the 17 Global Goals and we are going to post them on Facebook. Then hopefully, all of our lovely grown ups can share the post and the Global Goals can go worldwide! Watch this space...

Year 1 Phonics meeting

If you missed the phonics meeting today and would like to understand more about the Year 1 phonics screening please watch the 'Phonics screening' video on Ruth Miskin's website.

https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/

Miss Hall showed a great website which has mini lessons on to teach each sound.  Have a look at Mr Thorne - website with mini lessons for each sound.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7sW4j8p7k9D_qRRMUsGqyw

Some fun games to play can be found on this site
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm


If you find any good apps or resources that your child enjoys while learning their phonics then please share these via the class 'whats app'.  

If you have any further questions please ask the class teacher.

Fun in the forest!

Today we learned some Polar survival skills in the forest. We created working sledges and tripods for smoking fish. Given the lack of trees in Antarctica though, these skills are much more suited to the North polar regions!

Shanghai Maths

We’ve finished! We’ve had an amazing two weeks with Amy learning some brilliant maths all the way from Shanghai! We will really miss her and can’t wait to carry on practising what she has taught us!

Drawing emotions in Year 1

In Year 1 we have been looking at African masks and thinking about what emotions they show. We also looked at emojis and discussed which emotion they represented. 

In preparation for designing our own masks, we then had a go at drawing some different emotions, thinking very carefully about how our features change to reflect how we are feeling.

Hickory Dickory Dock!

Our focus rhyme this week is Hickory Dickory Dock. As part of our phonics activities we listened to this version of the rhyme and then used musical instruments to represent each of the animals that went up the clock.

 

 

This made Miss Woodhouse wonder what animals the children would like to go up the clock!

 

Miri thought a snake would slither up the clock.
So she drew her snake on a post it note which we stuck on our rhyme map.
Miri used instruments to sing the rhyme through !

Theo G thought a snow man would wibble wobble up and down the clock!

Darcie W suggested a spider could go climb up the clock!

I wonder what else might go up the clock tomorrow!!

 

Numbers in the 'teens' have a group of 10...

In Year 1 we are learning all about 'teen' numbers (11-19) this week. Today we have been exploring how teen numbers are made up of a group of 10 plus some ones. We will be practising reading and writing the teen numbers as digits and as words.

 

Year 6 - cold task writing - Theseus and the Minotaur

Today, the Year 6 children have started to learn about the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. After watching a short film animation, the pupils discussed how they would structure their writing based on the story. Using descriptive vocabulary, powerful verbs and varied sentences, the children began to craft their cold task. 

Story Club - Reception

The children were so excited to attend Story Club today! They were full of the most magnificent and imaginative stories... Here is just one of our stories from today...

Once upon a time there was a lot of fairies and they went flying through the jungle to try and find tigers. Suddenly, they found some friendly tigers and then the fairies invited the tigers to join their tea party. 

The end.

Our author chose to act out the story whilst it was being narrated. The actors thought carefully about how to portray a friendly tiger and made thoughtful links between our characters and the story The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr.

Row, row , row the boat!

Last week we learnt "Row, row , row the boat" at carpet time. As the week went on the children began to suggest other things we might see as we rowed our boats down the river!

 

Ariana suggested we might see a "scary ghost so don't forget to scream" and Radley thought we might see a "rhino" and we mustn't forget to "charge and hide."

 

In our small group times we practiced counting using our fingers to touch and count each person in the boat  and some of the children used junk modelling to make their own boats which they tested in the water tray!

 

Year 4 Newsletter

It seems like much longer than 10 days that we have been back at school when we reflect on everything that we have learnt so far! We started the term by considering our key question “Should people go to Antarctica?” . Then we reviewed historical evidence (diaries, photographs and letters) in order to piece together the events of Captain Scott’s final expedition. After learning about this tragic adventure, most of  us concluded that people should not go to Antarctica because it is too dangerous! In literacy, we have also begun learning about Shackleton’s subsequent  trip to Antarctica as we acquired our sea legs on board the Endurance. We practised scrubbing the decks and climbing the rigging before setting sail for Buenos Aires. We will learn more about Shackleton and use key parts of this story as a stimulus for writing first person narratives this term. In Science we have been sorting materials into liquids and solids and asking ourselves why some solids can be poured! This last week has also been very special for Moore class as they welcome two teachers from Shanghai for maths.

Year 3 Update

This week, Year 3 have been busy continuing to learn about their new topic of Ancient Egyptians! This has included learning how to use an atlas, using evidence to find out more about the Egyptian climate and we have even learnt some Egyptian style music!

At the beginning of the week the children took part in the worlds largest lesson and spent time deciding what we need and what we want and then considered what we can change to help poverty around the world.

In English this week the children have been internalising their new model adventure text to support their understanding of sentence structure and features of an adventure story.

In maths the children have been learning how to use the formal written method of subtraction which we will continue to practise over the following week.

We are looking forward to another busy week ahead of us including Towns Class assembly on Friday 25th at 2.30pm.

Year 2 Newsletter

We’ve had a very busy few weeks in Year 2! In maths Warhol class are very lucky to have Amy, a teacher from Shanghai, to teach them. We have had lots of visitors to come and see the brilliant maths lessons she is teaching. The children have been so respectful! In English we have started a new unit on setting descriptions. In RE we have learnt more about the religion of Islam and what Muslims must do when they got to mosque. Last, but certainly not least, we have continued our journey about chocolate by learning about the country Brazil and answering the question ‘what is different about Brazil and the UK?’ 

Agent Problem Solvers in Degas!

In Degas class Agent Problem Solver set us a challenge:

To build a wall for Humpty Dumpty which was:

1) Strong

2) Tall

3) And wouldn't fall down!

In house groups the children set to their challenge and worked as a team to try to build their very best wall for Humpty Dumpty!

There results were:

France

India 

Sweden

Mexico

Canada 

Canada had the tallest tower at 27cm tall! Well done Canada, Agent Problem solver will be so happy you helped to solve his problem!

Year 1's amazing artists!

Wow!!!! 

Mrs Hall and Mrs Price are amazed at what fantastic artists they have in Year 1.  

They made observations of African masks and drew them with oil pastels. They had to look very carefully.

They looked at colours and patterns and had to match these to their drawings.

later in the term they will be making their own 3D masks.  Watch this space!!!