PE in Reception

In Reception, the children have been exploring gymnastics in their PE sessions. Miss Freeman was very excited to come in to see how brilliant the children were with their listening skills, their ability to assess and manage risk and of course their gross motor skills. As ever, Miss Freeman set our children a challenge, to grow our brains even more! Being mindful about our body positions, each child was able to have a go at doing a forward roll safely. We needed to remember to look after ourselves by tucking our chins into our chests and planting our hands firmly on the mat. 

The children cannot wait for their next PE session!

Yoga with "The Wonder tree"

Linked to our focus about "busy bodies" this week Nursery had their first yoga session with Sara from "The Wonder Tree." The children learnt 5 different balances - mouse, cat, dog , bird and tree which they used to help Sara tell a special stretchy story. 

 

We look forward to seeing her again over the next 6 weeks. 

Learning to belly breathe - taking our belly buddy on a balloon ride

 

Listening with great attention and engagement to Sara

 

 

Bird pose in our stretchy story

"Busy Bodies"

This week at Nursery the children are learning about their bodies and how to keep their bodies healthy.  On Monday,  Harold shared a special song using different parts of the body with the children called "wiggle and jiggle." Harold told the children that one way to keep your body healthy was to do exercise. The children showed Harold their jumping , balancing, hopping and running skills!  Harold told the children about the heart and the lungs and how amazing their body is. Afterwards some of the children made an obstacle course for Harold and his friends to use do their exercises this week.

To celebrate our amazing bodies we are painting self portraits and exploring different textures with our sense of touch.  Darcy S loved the feel of the cotton wool and told Mrs McC it felt so "soft" and  Anthony like the feel of the straws and told Miss W they felt all "squashy."




Today we had a surprise!! Dr Fitheart came to visit us in the immersion room. She told us about how amazing our bodies were too and helped the children to think of more ways to keep their body healthy such as eating healthy food, drinking lots of water and making sure we get lots of sleep at night time. We showed Dr Fitheart how amazing we are at stretching and moving in different ways. She thought we were very clever!! We had a great time - thank you Dr Fitheart for a great surprise.

Why not try this short calming mindfulness video at home as a way of relaxing and calming your body in preparation for a good night of sleep! We tried it today and the children told me it made them feel really happy!!

 

 

Inference in Year 6

Today, the year 6 children have been sharpening up their inference skills. After watching the Titanium music video, the children have been interpreting the lyrics during their reading lesson. They were hooked!

Interfaith week -Agent Reflector

Last week was Interfaith Week at Windhill21. A time when the school community takes time to celebrate the different faiths in our community. It's a time when pupils and teachers take a deeper look at the values we share and learn about the different beliefs and practices of those around them.

This year we have linked Interfaith week to one of Global goals the children have been focussing on "No Poverty." All year groups started their learning with the story of "The Good Samaritan" from the Bible and took part in a range of activities to compare the Christian response to poverty to that of other world faiths such as Islam , Buddhism , Hinduism and Judaism.

The week included a whole school assembly to launch the week, P4C discussions, drama and a range of Reflection stations in the Atrium for each year group to visit with their teachers.

Here is a flavour of some of the Reflections the children took part in this week.

"Prayer and hope tree"- a place for pupils to take time to consider
things they were thankful for or take time write a hope or prayer.



"The world we live in" - with so much going on in the world pupils were invited to look at the pictures of poverty- including homelessness, hunger, draught and natural disasters and take time to think or find out about these issues and place a candle on the country they were thinking of.

"Climate change"- linked to last terms global goal of looking after the world we live in. Pupils made pledges of how they could help preserve the environment for the future.

"Peace and Justice"- linked to the global goal number 16 "peace and justice" .Pupils were asked to reflect on a quotation from Mahatma Ghandi about responding to those who treat you unfairly and how those from the Hindu faith may respond in situations of injustice.

"The Good Samaritan"- Who is your neighbour?  At this station pupils were encouraged to take time to show empathy and reflect on our responses to helping others we don't know or who do not share the same views as us.

"Reduced Inequalities".
We are all different- we look, behave and believe different things often
but in this diversity we have  different talents and gifts we can use to help those around us.
What is your gift/talent and how will your use it to help others?

Finding out about what others believe- at this station pupils were asked to reflect on the Muslim act of Zakat ( charity) and respond in their own way -reflecting on why this was important and taking time to think about their own point of view.

Interfaith week in Nursery

Last week was Interfaith week for the whole school and was linked to the whole school global goal of No Poverty.

In Nursery we read the story of "The Good Samaritan" and talked about what it means to be kind. 

We watched the following video clip called  "Am I Kind" to help us talk about what being "kind" meant. The children were quick to recognise that sharing toys with other people - even if they didn't want to was a kind act.

During our "choosing time" the children were keen to make their own "Look out" telescopes like Miss Woodhouse's  to "keep an eye out" for their friends and help anyone who might be sad or hurt. 

The children continued to explore these ideas in their  role play and showed how they would help someone who was hurt and were very caring in the way they bandaged, wrapped up and cared for the injured dolls - just like The Good Samaritan did in the story.

Interfaith week in Reception

During Interfaith week, the children in Reception have been thinking very carefully about lots of different concepts. To start the week, the children shared the story of The Good Samaritan, a story from the Christian special book called the Bible. Following this, we explored the word 'good' and came up with characteristics of someone that was 'good'

"They have to have good listening ears"
"They need to be caring and look after people"
"They don't all look the same. Lots of different people can be good"

The children they drew their very own 'good creature' including all the features that they felt reflected what it meant to be 'good'. We also enjoyed interacting with the special reflection stations set up for us this week:

Here, Bobbi and Oliver closed their eyes and made a wish for people living in poverty all over the world. They placed their candle on a part of the world that they felt needed their wish to come true.

Ellie explained how she was thankful for her mummy and the teachers looking after her,
drawing a little heart for the Thankful Tree.

Here, Nico, Ethan and Fletcher made pledges to look after their world. Ethan pledged to use less plastic to help look after all the creatures of the world. Fletcher and Nico both said that they wanted to look after the animals too.

Celebrating great writing this week!

In Year 4, we have been totally inspired by Shackleton and his crew and our writing has been the best ever! To celebrate the achievements in Moore class, a display has been put up to reflect our theme. Well done Moore class!

Year 3 Spring Term 2 Updated Timetable

Please find below our updated timetable for Year 3 for after half term. Please note that we now have PE on a Tuesday morning and a Thursday afternoon.

Chocolate Taste Testing

Year 2 have had the BEST afternoon ever!  We have been taste testing different flavours to decide which flavour combination works best with chocolate. We taste a range of flavours from caramel to chilli! The children had some hilarious facial expressions when tasting. Fun was had by all.

The Chocolate Snatcher strikes again!

We wrote questions for the Chocolate Snatcher to answer. We left out some Kitkats to tempt the Snatcher to answer our questions and he did! We used this information to come up with a plan on how to stop him. The children have written excellent instructions which will be passed on so that the Chocolate Snatcher will be stopped once and for all!

Year 2 Forest School

Kusama has an amazing time in the forest yesterday. They worked incredibly hard to create a 'tree spirit' from clay and natural resources. I was impressed by their imaginations and their brilliant team work

WANTED: Chocolate Snatcher

What a crazy day we have had! When we arrived at school we saw that the classrooms had been trashed and Miss Millar and Mrs Myer’s special chocolate had been stolen! The police have sent us some more information and we now know that the snatcher likes children, it sweats chocolate when it is nervous, it’s is 60cm tall and it’s very quiet but it does make a squelching noise when it walks. The children are busily investigating what has happened and will be reporting soon on what they have found out.

Safer Internet/Anti-Bulling Week

Safer Internet/Anti-Bullying Week

All week the children have been learning about ‘respect’, both online and offline.  The children have been discussing what respect is and what it looks like in real life. 

In Year 1 and Year 2 we began by looking at what kindness is and how we can be kind to each other and how acts of kindness can be a powerful thing.

We then watched a short video of children talking about respect (https://bit.ly/2tf7BQa) which led to a lovely discussion on what the children think respect is.  The children then split up into small groups and planned their own video on respect and what is means to them.

Some of these can be seen by scanning the QR codes below.

Key Stage 2 watched three videos of children talking about different scenarios.  The year group had to spot if any of the videos could be deemed as ‘bullying’ and/or cyberbullying.  A very interesting discussion ensued in all year groups as to what the differences and similarities are between bullying and cyberbullying.  Through conversation the children concluded that both have many similarities, such as emotional and mental, and only a few differences such as physical bullying, face to face and being able to hide your identity online.

From this start, the children then went on to discuss ‘respect’ and what is means to give and receive respect from others.  They were given the opportunity to write what respect means to them as a paper ‘tweet’ and a ‘Wall of Respect’ was created.  This has been displayed in the Learning Zone.

Stay and play sessions

Today the Nursery children invited their special grown ups in for a stay and play session to show off some of the skills they have been learning in maths. The atmosphere was so positive and it was great to see the children so enthusiastic to show their grown ups what they could and of course collect those all important stamps for their challenge card. 

Using positional language.
Where is Incy Wincy Spider hiding? Is he on top, under or behind the drainpipe?
What could you use to play this hide and seek game at home?

 

Wiggly Snakes- practicing and understanding language of longer and shorter
Can you make some long and short snakes at home too?

 Make a pattern using the bears! What comes next? Can you tell me what the pattern is?
What toys could you use to make patterns at home?

Shape Hunting- being aware of shapes around them and talking about similarities of shapes.
How many shapes can you find at home?

 

Antarctic survival skills... in miniature

In the snow last week, Moore class were desperate to try their hand at building snow shelters. Sadly, the cold white stuff disappeared before we had the chance. However, we had a go at building mini ice structures today with ice cubes and salt. The salt allowed the ice cubes to bond as it melted the edges. It was trickier than we thought but perseverance paid off!