News

We are really impressed with how the children have settled back into school life after a lovely two weeks off. They appear recharged and ready to go. This week we had the book fair at school and the children were very excited to explore the books on offer. Don’t forget to come to the fair and see the brilliant range of books you can buy to encourage your child to read at home.

This week we also started to plant our class vegetable plots. We spent some time weeding and preparing the ground before planting our first batch of vegetables. We are looking forward to seeing these grow over time and are keen to improve our green finger skills.

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We started our new topic, ‘Through the keyhole’, this week with a focus on how the Roman empire grew from Rome to take over most of Europe and some of North Africa. The children were enthralled to learn about how quickly the Roman army invaded the countries around Italy and about how clever the Romans were. Did you know, for instance, that the Romans invented both roads and toilets! Using maps and atlases, the children coloured the countries the Romans took over using different sources of evidence to help.

Before we learn more about the Romans we’re going to briefly learn about the Celts, who come before the Romans on the historical timeline.

This week in Foundation Stage…

Learning Journeys

The children have been looking back at their learning journey folders and reflecting on how much they have learned since they started school.  If you would like to take your child’s learning journey home for a few days to share with your child, please just ask the class teacher.

Measuring

In maths this week we have been exploring using different ways of measuring length using standard (centimetres and metres) and non-standard (cubes, bricks, hands, steps) units to measure.  The children made homes for some of the toys and measured to check that they were the right size.  Ask your child to help you measure something at home.

Football

It was such a lovely afternoon on Friday that we ventured onto the field for a game of football.  This proved to be very popular, with lots of children joining the game and demonstrating great teamwork.  Some of the ball skills were particularly impressive!

 

House Tag Rugby Results
Blue 3 v 5 Red Yellow 6 v 6 Green Green 5 v 3 Blue	Red 10 v 4 Yellow Red 7 v 3 Green Blue 5 v 7 Yellow

House Tag Rugby – Final Table
House	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
Red	3	3	0	0	9
Green	3	1	1	1	4
Yellow	3	1	1	1	4
Blue	3	0	0	3	0

 

Year 1 1st  Lauren Watkins [Blue] 2nd  Adbullah Mirza [Yellow] 3rd  Daniel Stiff [Green] 4th  Adam Grierson [Red]	Year 2 1st  Nora Djotni [Red] 1st  Spencer Pengraeve [Yellow] 3rd  Daniel Henley [Blue] 3rd  Isaac Jenner [Green]
Year 3 1st  Jessica Mummery (Red) 2nd  Rayhan Oubihi (Blue) 3rd  Areeba Zahid (Yellow) 4th  Malachi Pomfret-Grey (Green)	Year 4 1st  Nina Lees (Yellow) 2nd  Jayden Elliot (Green) 3rd  Kathryn Ballard (Red) 3rd  Kenzie McCarthy (Blue)
Year 5 1st  Ellie Watkiss [Blue] 1st  Holly Oakley [Red] 3rd  Adhvyth Anand [Green] 4th  Janis Zelenka [Yellow]	Year 6 1st  Ruben Calutas [Green] 2nd  Alex Routledge [Red] 2nd  Rebecca Mummery [Blue] 2nd  Lois Casey [Yellow]

It’s been another busy week in Key Stage 1…

We have been continuing our hard work on our Flower Power topic, but have taken some time away from it recently to learn about nocturnal animals and the recent solar eclipse. We have drawn some fantastic nocturnal animal posters and discussed the habitats they live in. We finished our solar eclipse work by using pastels to draw night time and solar eclipse scenes. A big thank you to Mr Pechell who helped to improve our artistic and observational drawing skills.

The week finished with 1/2 MF’s Spring assembly where the children described the weather and changes we see in Spring and sang Spring songs. All the children worked extremely hard to learn their assembly parts and did a superb job. Well done !

After the Easter holidays we will be starting our new topic “Reach for the sky” where we will be learning about the life and work of Douglas Bader.

Key Stage 1 would like to wish you a very Happy Easter.

Last week was such a busy week as it was FSDT’s class assembly, Mothering Sunday AND Red Nose Day! Phew!

We all spent the week making cards and flowers for the special ladies in our lives and thinking about what we could do to say thank you for all they do for us.

It was a chance for us to show how much we have learnt in RWI by doing some independent writing about why our mums are special. You can see the writing here:

FSDT used the things they had made to practise for a class assembly. We were all very brave and stood up in front of the whole school and the parents.

To start, we used British Sign Language to ‘sing’ along to Mama by the Spice Girls.

After that we spoke and showed our cards. Finally, we sang a song to the tune of ‘You are my sunshine’

You are my Mummy, my lovely Mummy, You make me happy when skies are grey, You’ll never know Mum, how much I love you, You are the best in every way.

Each person spoke up really well and we hope that you enjoyed the assembly as much as us.

On Friday we made our faces funny for money by wearing red noses and boppers to school.

 

Well we hope you are ready to be blown away by the year 3/4 production. The last two weeks have been full of rehearsals and the hard work is paying off. We would like to thank all the parents who have helped us collect props and those who have been creative with their child’s costume as this really has made all the difference.

This week was also parents evening and it was an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to reflect on the progress your children have made over the year. We loved seeing how proud you all are of your children. Don’t forget if you ever have anything you wish to discuss you can book an appointment to speak to your class teacher or team leader (Mrs Reece) at any time.

We look forward to seeing you next week for the children’s production of Snow White!

This term the children have been securing their understanding of area and perimeter of shapes through both practical, outdoor and classroom activities.

Through looking at floor plans and understanding scales, the children used various measuring equipment to accurately measure perimeters and to use these values to find areas.

Outdoors, the children drew their own shapes using metre sticks and used trundle wheels to measure larger perimeters. Indoors they used matchsticks to make and measure shapes.

The children have also been looking at angles in shapes and now know what acute, obtuse, right and reflex angles are.

 

We have had an exciting week in Key Stage 1!

Our current Topic theme is called Flower Power so we have been learning all about the different signs of Spring that we can see around us in nature. As we have had warm weather and sunshine we have spent lots of time outside looking for the signs we have learned about.

Our focus during the afternoons this week has been Science. We had already written fantastic setting descriptions of a Spring morning which were so good that we had to go and read them to Upper Key Stage 2. Our use of vocabulary has improved dramatically this year and we are getting better at structuring sentences.

One of the most exciting things we have done this week is learn about lifecycles. We have concentrated on the lifecycle of a frog but we have also learned about butterflies as well. We all went outside to the school Nature Garden and collected frogspawn for the classrooms. Now we are waiting (not very patiently!) to find out what will happen when the tadpoles hatch and begin to develop…

Next week we will be learning about the solar eclipse (find out more about the solar eclipse on CBBC Newsround) that is taking place on Friday 20th March…

Miss Anderson

1/2D raised a grand total of £80.40 from the cake sale on Friday 6th March.

Well done to all the children and Miss Anderson!

What a week!

This week has mainly been taken up with rehearsals for our up-coming production. Most the children are doing a fantastic job and taking on advice on
how to improve their performance.

Mrs Timbers has been an excellent role model for the children and has really bought out some of their dramatic personalities.

We would like to thank all the parents who have been working with their children on improving their performance but also like to remind those who do not yet know their lines that time is running out. We hope you are looking forward to seeing your wonderful children shine in this show.

Writing stories

This week the children have enjoyed writing their own story episodes based on ‘I Believe in Unicorns’. All of the children had the opportunity to create a new ‘incident’ to add to the story and to plan and write independently. We then encouraged the children to up-level their work by improving their vocabulary choices and checking for common errors.

The children have loved their learning around I Believe in Unicorns and we are now moving on to explanation texts.

Within maths Mr Lovegrove and Miss Saunders’ sets have been learning the different names for angles and triangles, and Miss Timms’ set have been exploring 3D shape nets.

This week has been very exciting for all the children in Key Stage One as we had our school trip to the Winchester Science Centre.

On Wednesday 4th March all the children in Year 1 and 2 travelled to Winchester to visit the Science Centre and Planetarium. We left school very early but all the children arrived at school on time with huge excitement!

We made good time and arrived at the centre just as it opened where we were welcomed by the education staff. First we saw a fabulous show in the planetarium which included seeing the earth, moon, sun and stars in the night sky above us; the children learned about the various constellations in the sky and picked out their personal favourites. Mrs Baker was invited up to the front to play the part of the sun (using a torch) orbiting the earth which demonstrated night and day.

Throughout the whole day the children were impeccably behaved and were excellent role models for Beechwood.

After the planetarium show the children were split into two groups and took it in turns to look around the centre and take part in a workshop. The workshop, although educational, was a lot of fun with the children in teams building the best rocket they could.  The children came up with names for their teams and then predicted how long their rocket could stay up in the air.

Once the rockets were built the children went outside to see their rockets launched which was the best bit!  The teams pumped air into their rockets that contained water until the compressed air forced the rockets into the air.  The best rockets remained in the air for almost 3 seconds.  Evidently the longest time a rocket can remain in the sky is 3 ½ seconds so Beechwood did very well!

The centre is full of hands on Science activities and the children had plenty of time to explore, learn and ask questions about what they experienced.  Then after a trip to the shop the buses returned back to school.

The whole day was a huge success and hopefully the children came home having learned something new about Science.  Well done Key Stage One you were an asset to the school – what a fabulous day!

 

I was walking down a  street when a light appeared.  I knew was the light came  after me because I did not do my homework. As quick  I took out my home learning book and dashed through the road back home but it was then when I realised the light was chasing me.

Never wasting a moment, I went to find my best friend and tell her what was happening. Then I found out that because I would not do my homework the light turned my street in to a ghastly street. It turned dark muddy and a forest.

COACH!

I strode into a desolate garden belonging to an abandoned house.  Although guilt was eating me up I was jealous of how brave Jasmine was.  If mom found out where I had been I would never see another day light. Mom had murdered someone, and could do it to her only child me Josette Osabutey. Anushka, my BFFE had warned me how dangerous it is here but I never listened to her.

If I choose to turn back I would die of embarrassment. If only I was not so stubborn and took her advice.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Over the past two weeks, Foundation Stage has been immersed in Chinese culture, food and language as we celebrated Chinese New Year.

Physical Development: Moving and Handling

Using scarves and instruments, we moved like dragon dancers in PE. We are trying to make our movements more controlled and think about using the space effectively.

Literacy: Writing

Did you know that Chinese characters are written down the page instead of across? We had a go at copying some characters onto our wishing strips.  To develop our muscles for writing we tried drawing symbols in dried rice.

Maths

This week we have been focussing on adding and discovering some number facts. Using pegs on a coat hanger, we investigated different ways to make 5 and 10. We are also starting to double and halve amounts of objects.

Understanding the World

We learnt about why and how Chinese New Year is celebrated. We know that Red is a lucky colour and liked the idea of receiving money in a red envelope. In the afternoons, we practised answering the register in Cantonese.

Our new Tinkering Table is proving to be a big hit. We have tried undoing nuts and bolts; used screwdrivers to take plugs apart and even investigated the inside of a computer keyboard. We really need donations of (safe) mechanisms for us to take apart. Please see one of the Teachers if you can help.

Expressive arts and design: Exploring and Using Media and Materials/ Using Being imaginative

The role-play area became a Chinese restaurant where we took customers’ orders, stir-fried wool ‘noodles’ and practised eating with chopsticks. Lots of great language was used.

We used puppets and small world toys to recreate the race that the Jade Emperor used to decide which animals would go first in the Chinese horoscope calendar. The New Year is the year of the goat (ram/sheep).

Sing along with this Chinese New Year Song which will tell you more about how to celebrate. http://www.nancymusic.com/Gunghayplay.htm

In Other News…

The Foundation teachers are constantly striving to improve the learning environment for the children. Fundraising has started to enable us to refurbish the storage and fabric of our classrooms but we have a long way to go. Here’s an example of the sort of furniture we are aiming to purchase. As you can see, it is ideal for enabling the children to access resources independently and is designed to create a calm learning environment. What do you think? Do you have any ideas for how we could raise the thousands of pounds we need? Let us know!

 

 

 

I Believe in Unicorns…

Last half-term Years 5 and 6 visited Winchester Theatre to watch Theatre Alibi’s production of I Believe in Unicorns. They had been studying this book within their English lessons. The show focused around a young boy grappling with a country at war and the struggle he, his family and his friends faced due to this.

The actors and actresses were brilliant – a real joy to watch; they recreated the story perfectly.

After the show the children were lucky enough to meet the cast and the director and ask any questions that they had. This was something
that they particularly enjoyed, and that we’re thankful to Theatre Alibi for organising.

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Hello, and welcome back to the start of a new half term and to our new Foundation Stage blog.  We are looking forward to sharing our learning with you here and hope that you will enjoy finding out about some of the things we have been doing.

The first half of term has been a busy one. The children really enjoyed the stories in Mrs Downes’ Paddington story book so we decided on a Paddington theme for our learning.

We discovered that Paddington Bear was found by the Brown family at Paddington Station, so we looked at maps of the underground to see what other stations there were.  We found lots of different ways of making our own maps- we even sewed our own London Underground map.  You can see more of our work on our huge Paddington display in the corridor outside the classrooms.

We also discovered that Paddington Bear went on a very long journey from Darkest Peru to London, so in PE we thought about different ways of travelling.  We journeyed high and low, using the ladders and wall bars and other large apparatus.  Mr Sewell the Sports Assistant showed us how to balance using different points of contact and helped us to talk about which muscles we were using.

We learned that we had to be very sensible when climbing and using apparatus, and we quickly became very confident.

We also found out that Paddington wanted to be a great artist so we sketched and painted portraits of a friend.  You can see our pavement gallery displayed in the main corridor by Mr Davies’ office.  We used paints, pastels and collage to make our portraits and we are very proud of our work. We even made the frames!

We will update you again soon with news from our recent Chinese New Year celebrations!

Miss Penn

This week Key Stage One have been beginning to explore their new topic ‘Flower Power.’ Throughout the topic we will be looking at nature including plants, animals and the weather during Spring. The children are as enthralled as usual with this topic and have begun to create their classes’ topic tables and working walls.

The children are fantastically enthusiastic and take it upon themselves to bring in items from home to contribute to the display and were given time within lessons to find books, materials and objects from around the school.

We begun the topic by writing a descriptive piece of writing about Spring, which some of us proudly read to a Year 5/6 class (who were astonished by our adjectives). Ask me about it at home and I will happily tell you all about Spring!