Year 4 Newsletter

 Wow, what a busy week it has been in Year 4!

Writing

We have just started writing our own Viking myths in our Writing lessons. It has been fantastic to see so many children's creativity come to life as they imagine themselves as a fearless Viking God or Goddess. We have discussed our striking features and why we are Gods that should worshipped by the Viking society!

Topic

Finding out about the Vikings has really inspired so many children in Year 4 and it has been wonderful to see so many of them immersed in this topic. We spent last week looking at Alfred the Great, discovering what made him great and how he unified the country between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. Using freeze frames, we explored what Alfred's life might have been like and how he worked tirelessly to improve Britain. 

Science

Wow! This week Year 4 have been making poo! Yes.. Poo! We used everyday materials to create the digestive system and replicate the journey that food goes on when travelling through our bodies. We were amazed with how the children threw themselves into this experiment and many of them acted like true scientists. 

Year 3 Newsletter

 Year 3 Newsletter

Topic

In topic, we have explored the importance of the Amazon Rainforest and its role in helping to prevent climate change and help us to breather. Additionally, we explored what crops we import from all over the world and what we specifically import from these hot, humid and heavily rained in areas. To do this, we took a close look at the packaging of this fruit and found their locations on a map. We even got to try some of these exotic fruits!

Science

As we near the end of year 3 science unit "plants", we are still continuing to push and challenge our learning. 

This week we have become experts in pollination and the process that follows. We also investigated what types of creatures can be pollinators and the importance of the role they play in helping plant life to grow.

Some key words we have learnt this week are: 

• nectar
• pollen
• attract

Year 2 Newsletter

Last week year 2 were finally able to show off their well-rehearsed singing skills at the Bishop's Stortford's Year 2 Music Festival. 

The children have worked so hard, practicing their songs and wow, didn't it pay off!?! For those that were able to come and watch, we are sure that you'll agree that the children were absolutely amazing!

They performed 'water' themed songs as a choir with two other schools, which was no easy feat as they had to make sure that their actions were synchronised and that they kept in time to the music.  

They also performed their very own class song too. They had the audience bobbing along in their seats and no one left the auditorium without a huge smile on their face. 

All the teachers in Year 2 would like to say a massive well done to the children! You were so professional and did a brilliant job! 

Reception Newsletter

The Reception children loved taking part in Equality Week. They immersed themselves in a book called And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins who fell in love and had wrote their own versions of the story during their literacy lessons. The children then continued on with the penguin theme and learnt all about the life cycle of penguins. We looked at the features of penguins, labelled pictures and made their own collages and illustrations of the birds with oil pastels.

 

In maths we have been looking at doubling and relating it to odds and evens. The children did really well with this and were able to show us their own doubles and not-doubles with unifix cubes and Numicon. We were talking about the odd Numicon pieces looking 'odd' because they have a bit 'poking out'!

In our RAW lesson this week, we've been looking at homes. How homes are different all over the world and why. We then tried to make a home for Bertie the Owl and discussed what a good home would need. Some children then made their own homes out of junk modelling, drew their own homes and labelled them and went outside and made Bertie a different home choosing any resources they could find. And last but not least, we've been looking after all the beans that we planted and making sure they've got enough water in all this heat! Another busy, but fun, couple of weeks in Reception!

Nursery Newsletter

There was a huge amount of excitement in Nursery this week as we had some very wriggly visitors!  Worms!  The real live worms were the latest minibeast we have had visit us, helping the children to explore and investigate our topic of Minibeasts.  The children were fascinated with the real worms and, after learning about how to look after and handle the worms gently, were very enthusiastic to hold them.  They even placed them on their wrists saying they had worm bracelets!  We worked together to make a ‘wormery’ for our worms and we will observe them over the next few weeks.  We learned that worms have no eyes or ears.  They have a mouth but with no teeth.  We learned the special scientific name for creatures with no backbones – invertebrates!  Did you know that the longest worm in the world can be up to 3m long!

One of our Maths activities last week was the Super Worm Hula Hoop game!  The children had to throw bean bags into a hoop and then record how many were inside the hoop and how many were outside the hoop.  They were asked to record the activity using their own symbols and numerals as well as saying one number for each bean bag in order.

Our Sports day is Monday 18^th July.  Last week we used our PE time to practice some of the events on the school field.  We practiced our hurdles and bean bag throwing as well as our running races.  The children are very excited about Sports day and more information will be provided shortly.

We have been celebrating Diversity Week at school.  We joined the Reception classes to create a Wonderful rainbow mural.  We also joined Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 in a celebration parade on the field.  We made flags and listened to the older children sing songs and read their poetry.  We had some fantastic Equality books, and we had a guest teacher visit us, Miss Hodges from Year 5, who read us a lovely story.

Year 1 Newsletter

 What a busy couple of weeks we have had in Year 1!

Seacole class loved every minute of their visit to the library and were so well behaved.  We are very proud of them and their enthusiasm for reading!  

'That's the way to do it!'

In our history lessons, we have been discovering how the Victorians entertained themselves at the seaside! We made our own Punch and Judy stick puppets and performed our own puppet shows to the class. 

We also enjoyed ice cream the way the Victorians did...in the form of Hokey Pokeys.  We found it is not easy and extremely messy eating ice-cream from baking paper, however it is just as yummy!

 

Mini tennis is the name of the game for our PE lessons this term. The children have been practising their racquet skills, rolling balls to their partner on the ground.  Next steps, in the air! 

Year 6 newsletter

 Another busy fortnight for year 6, who are, as ever, working their hardest in their lessons - and on their burgeoning acting careers, as we rehearse for our end of year production. 

In science, the children have taken their understanding and knowledge of evolution and adaptation and begun their own scientific investigation on how these theories apply to plant life. Using baby spider plants, we decided to change one key variable on sustaining plant life to see how this could impact growth. Some children have decided to change how much light the plant will have, some to change the amount of water, some the temperature of its environment - and some the type of soil. We are hugely excited to record our findings scientifically - against our control - and challenge our own initial predictions. The knowledge the children have taken from this unit is hugely impressive, and they should all be immensely proud of their scientific working skills.

In reading, we have stepped into the fascinating world of ‘The Nowhere Emporium’ - this wonderful tale of magic and mayhem has us all gripped, and the children are showing their trademark curiosity when encountering new characters, new settings - and new vocabulary.

Our Amazing Places topic has set the year group on a virtual world tour! They are so fascinated by different countries - and this has expanded into learning more about culture, language…and building general knowledge about capital cities, continents, and famous landmarks on a daily basis. We are sure they would ace a round on MasterMind.

Even in their free time, the children are busy around the school - helping with sporting events, creating pieces of breathtakingly beautiful art, devising games for their younger school mates….and, as you can see from the below, helping harvest a very impressive crop of radishes from the school allotment!

Well done, as always, year 6 - what a positive week you have all had.

Year 5 Newsletter

The children in year 5 have learnt about the global crisis - child labour. In our Writing lessons, the children have explored how big companies exploit young, innocent children to work in their factories for low pay which denies them their education! We have chosen to write a persuasive letter to John Stones to help 'tackle' this issue! In reading, the children have loved learning abot the Highwayman Poem, by Alfred Noyes and I think their favourite lesson was when we acted out stanzas in small groups! The children spoke with great confidence and expression! We also want to say a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all of the Year 5 children who sang their hearts out at the Year 5 Music Festival - You were AMAZING and made us very proud! 

Year 1 newsletter

In year 1 we have been continuing with our seaside topic by learning all about Victorian bathing costumes in our history lesson. We really enjoyed looking at pictures of Victorian bathing costumes and comparing them to modern day swimming costumes. We had a real debate about which they would prefer to wear now- most siding with modern day, however Kalvin made a good point that in a Victorian bathing costume they were protected from jellyfish stings and sunburn! Here are a few of the children's comments:

“I think modern because you won’t wear a big dressing swimming costume, modern won’t make you sink as much.”

“Modern because different sizes or things like it might come in shorts or shirts or all in one.”

This week Nightingale went on a local trip to the Bishop's Stortford Library! We were really excited to find out how to sign up to the library, how to use the kiosk and how many books you can take out at once- 30! We had a look at the fiction and non-fiction books and ended our visit with story time before we left. Seacole are really excited to go this week!

Year 5 Newsletter

 In Year 5, the children loved learning about the Queen and her Jubilee. They were very interested to learn about etiquette when meeting the Queen and the many things you should not do - such as, selfies are a BIG NO! To set us up for Equality Week, we explored the poem, Still I rise, by Maya Angelou and the children learnt about her history of being a black woman growing up in a difficult time, but this did not stop her with her dreams. The children have also been working extremely hard learning the songs for the Year 5 music festival at South Mill Arts and we are excited to share this with you. 

Year 3 Newsletter

 Year 3 newsletter

Writing

In writing, we have been inspired by the poem "The little boy who cannot see." This poem is a great reflection on Equality Week and what it means to be different and view the world from a different perspective.

We met with the Guide Dogs Charity and discussed how blindness can affect a person's life and met some very important furry guides that help visually impaired people with their daily lives.

We went on a colour walk and investigated the other sense that could be used to describe colour like 

• Yellow is the feeling of the sun on your face.
• Green is the smell of freshly cut grass.
• Blue is the taste of the sound of a whale's song.