Year 4 Roman Palace Trip

In February Year 4 went to Fishbourne Roman Palace. We took part in a variety of workshop activities including dressing up, bridge building and mosaic making.

Butser Ancient Farm Visit

On Wednesday Woodpeckers Class visited Butser Ancient Farm near Waterlooville.  We are studying the Stone Age.  We did lots of really exciting activities.  We were archaeologists and dug up bones and flint, we made cordage items that we could use as a bookmark or a tag for our coats, we also did some chalk carving, and made a wattle fence.  We had two really lovely instructors for the day – Chris and Emily.  It was a really fun day!

By Poppy and Vicky.

Squirrels in the Snow!

Squirrels had great fun in the snow. First we put on our coats, wellies and waterproof trousers. We talked about how to play safely because some areas might be icy which would make it slippery.  Straight away some children made snow angels. Then we all had a snowball fight, lots of children wanted to hit Mrs Homewood with a snowball!!!

After that we made snow men. It was hard work pushing the balls of snow when they had got bigger. The children talked about their size and weight as they played. Lots of children wanted to make an 'enormous snowball'. Freya Smith really persevered pushing her snowball. Some children came and helped her. Edward found sticks to be the arms of his snowman. The children used stones for the eyes and mouth. Some even lent their snowmen their hats! Eve made a snow dog which she could ride on. 

After a little while some children wanted to go inside to warm up, the rest went with Mrs Homewood for a snowy walk to forest school. It was exciting walking through the woods as the snow was quite deep. We found some tracks in the snow. Layla thought that they may have been made by a cat. We discovered that the snow on the big field had started to melt and the children thought this was because of the sun making it warm. We explored how the sound of the snow was different as we walked on it depending on how much had melted. Layla described it as 'slushy'.

Key Stage 1 Nativity

Year 1 and 2 put on a fantastic Christmas Nativity at St Marks Church. All of the children spoke and sang beautifully and looked amazing in their costumes.

Thank you to all parents for supplying such wonderful costumes and supporting the children with such enthusiasm.

The Land of Fire and Ice

This half term Year 3 have been learning all about Iceland.

We have studied folklore, and in particular, elves.  We have also learnt about folk dancing, volcanoes, Icelandic art and the type of clothing needed for the Icelandic climate.

In class we tried Icelandic folk dancing and designed our own Icelandic jumpers. This was great fun and allowed us to get really creative.

Here are Woodpecker class rehearsing our folk dance...

Some of our jumper designs...

We also looked at Icelandic art and were lucky enough to be visited by artist, Anna Dora. Anna originates from Iceland and showed us some of her amazing paintings. She taught us some interesting techniques and we used our new skills to create our own fantastic paintings. It was really good fun and very messy!!

We had some very exciting news recently, Anna's painting, that we were so lucky enough to see in class, is now being displayed in a gallery in New York!!

Towards the end of our topic we learnt about volcanoes and were able to watch some fascinating videos of volcanoes erupting. We then used our newly learned painting techniques again to create our own interpretation of an erupting volcano.

As part of our topic evaluation Woodpecker class had the following to say:-

Dan said "I enjoyed learning lots of Icelandic words, such as mummy, daddy, yes, no, please and thank you."

Alec said "I enjoyed Anna Dora coming in, it was spectacular that she brought in a great big painting and the time with Anna was fun."

Alice said "I liked it when we did our painting with Anna, it was so fun. Anna is the best painter ever.  She painted the Northern Lights and the Blue Lagoon Spa in one picture!"

Freddy said "I liked the Icelandic folk dance because I had a very nice partner and I liked it when we went up and down the line!"

George said "I liked learning about volcanoes because we got to create a volcano out of paint and we also got to watch videos of volcanoes erupting. We had to label a diagram of a volcano too."

Winona said "My favourite part was creating our Icelandic jumpers because I like drawing and being creative."

Val said "I liked it when Anna Dora came in because she helped us with speaking Icelandic and she did art with us."

For our finale we invited our parents into school to share what we had learned. We exhibited our beautiful paintings and demonstrated an Icelandic folk dance.

Hopefully we have convinced a few families to visit Iceland in the future!

Year 6 - Charles Darwin and Evolution

This term in Year 6 we have been learning about Charles Darwin and Evolution.

We carried out research to find out everything we could about his life, his theories and why his work is still relevant and influential today. We applied this understanding in our English lessons to write a biography of Charles Darwin covering all aspects of his early life, his voyages and discoveries and what motivated him throughout his life.

We especially enjoyed presenting and publishing our finished pieces of writing and we now have a clear understanding of all the different features of a good biography.

Year 5 - Design and Technology

In Year 5 we have been studying resistant materials in our Design and Technology lessons.

We started by thinking about what are the benefits and drawbacks of using different types of materials in a construction. We were then given a design brief that we had to follow which was to construct a type of shelter that would be waterproof. We also learnt about how to construct different joins with wood to make our structures strong and sturdy.

All of Year 5 really enjoyed this project and as you can see from the pictures we came up with some creative and original designs!