Year 4 Newsletter

 Last week, Year 4 began publishing their Viking myths in preparation for the book launches we have coming up this week. Many children were able to show off their fantastic computing skills and enjoyed reading back through the fantastic stories they had created.

In our History lessons, we discussed the different legacies that the Viking's had left behind. We discovered that some of the words we use today were actually invented by the Vikings! Who knew that the words 'egg' and 'Thursday' were so old?

Our science lessons have involved us recapping the digestive system and talking about the different functions each organ has.

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 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

 Year 6 fully embraced the Platinum Jubilee last week. Dressed in red, white and blue, they showed enthusiasm for dear Elizabeth II and enjoyed celebrating during their Platinum Jubilee picnic lunch.  In constructing Royal family trees, everyone learnt how the Queen ascended to the throne and who is going to succeed her. In recognising the importance of the Commonwealth to the history of our nation, we spent time learning about the evolution of the Commonwealth, comparing and contrasting it to the British Empire that preceded it. All pupils recognised the importance of the Commonwealth today and its role in fostering international relationships and trade links. Given that we are thinking about equality this week, we were delighted to learn that the Commonwealth Games are fully inclusive for people with disabilities.

But remember - there are certain things you must never do in front of her majesty - including using slang and speaking French! 

We also got back into the swing of our writing this week, starting writing newspaper reports about valuable British artefacts stolen from the nation's museums! Headlines included "Perfect Painting Pinched!" and "Priceless Pot Pilfered!" 

We cannot wait to continue this week as we see what further speculation there is about the whereabouts of the items!  

Year 2 visit Mountfitchet Castle

After learning about castles this term, year 2 visited a Motte and Baily castle.

They had such fun exploring all the elements of the castle they had learnt about.

Some things were very gruesome and punishments were harsh in the medieval times! 

The children tried out the stocks.

Lunch was a highlight too!

They finished the day with some sketching of the environment.

We were very proud of the children who behaved beautifully.

 

Year 2 History - concentric castles

 

The children learnt that the Normans wanted to make their castles even better at defending the enemy, so they designed concentric castles.  They had two walls of defence! The inner wall and outer wall.  The inner wall was higher too so that the knights could see the enemy approaching.

The children worked in teams to create their own concentric castle.  They carefully made turrets/towers, the inner and outer walls and added labels too.

The mummification process

Topic
History

This week in year 3, we have been lucky enough to have a drama workshop led by Mrs Moore. The session taught us the importance of mummification and why the Ancient Egyptians did it!

To warm up our voices and bodies, we did a range of activities that would help us be the best actors and actresses. One activity involved us repeating Egyptian headlines in a newspaper style!

After we were all warmed up, we investigated the process of mummification and took it in turns to act out each step that the Ancient Egyptians took. Mrs Moore was so impressed and could not believe our knowledge on Egyptians, great work year 3!

Year 6 newsletter

Year 6 have come back from half term full of energy, and have had a fantastic first week back.

In English, we have started writing instructions on how to wash an animal....but not just any animal or, indeed, species....the children have been helping ‘pet washers’ learn the very delicate art of how to wash a jellyfish! We have truly enjoyed their rich, varied vocabulary - and had some good laughs throughout the week. Who would have thought you needed a Christmas jumper to wash a Portuguese Man of War?!

In science, we have launched our new topic - Light. We were amazed to learn that the moon isn’t a source of light, and enjoyed discovering that we really cannot see in the dark if there is no light at all. 

Continuing our topic work, this week we have made our own poppies for Remembrance Day on the 11th - and then a second poppy to form part of a wreath from year 6. We will lay the wreaths at the memorial in Bishop’s Stortford on Thursday and think about all the people we’ve learned about who lost their lives, were injured or had their lives irreversibly damaged as a result of World War I. 

We have also immersed ourselves in UK Parliament Week, learning about the value of Individual Liberty. We appreciate fully how lucky we are to live in a society that allows us to speak freely, express ourselves and have choices.

What a great first week back!

Pyramids and percussion!

Topic/music
Today in topic we learnt many facts about the Ancient Egyptian pyramids and used this helpful song to help remind us of those important facts.

In ancient Egypt where the desert sands lay,
The sun beats down and rain stays away,
130 pyramids appear tall,
Even today they stand and don’t fall,
20,000 slaves to build one pyramid by hand,
To make the pyramids appearance regal and grand,
Designed like a stairway aiming up high,
To reach Ra, the sun god, way up in the sky,
The pyramids protected our beloved pharaohs,
Near our Egyptian city of beautiful Cairo.

We used instruments to explore the facts and work out how best to represent different aspects of the song in our groups. After practising with our friends we performed these to our class to put the whole song together for us all to learn and enjoy. 

To explore the pyramids even further we learnt ANOTHER song about the pyramids and the slaves used to construct it. We had a great time understanding rhythm, pace and how we can use actions to help us remember important facts about our learning. A great afternoon of learning and noise, well done year 3!

                                       

Year 2 Newsletter

 In year 2, we have been enjoying our history topic that is all about the Great Fire of London. We have looked at what the houses were like in 1666 and we drew our own.

Did you know that the houses were built with different levels with the bottom level being the smallest? This was so that more houses could fit in. They got bigger as they went up and the bit that sticks out is called a jetty. 

We used black pen to draw the outline and then created the beams using black paper. We also learnt that windows in 1666 were very expensive because they were made out of lead. As they were so precious, if someone moved house then they would take their widows with them!

After we had created our houses, we used poster paint to experiment with different colour mixing to create the fire. We looked at images of fire and saw that the inside of the fire is much lighter than the outside. We created the fire effect by adding a tiny bit of red to our yellow for each layer of our fire.

We think that you'll agree that the image of the fire that we have created looks great! Imagine what it would be like to be amongst all those burning houses!