ISSUE FOUR
What a way to start Friday! This morning the ‘Great Green Wall House Challenge’ was launched and the children have immediately begun completing tasks to earn kilometres for their House. We are aiming to clock up 8,000 kilometres which is the length of the Great Green Wall in Africa. So far, we have seen children completing 5km walks and runs, 10km bike rides, litter picking, making bird feeders, recycling, helping around the house and we can’t wait to see what else they do. Each task earns them a set amount of kilometres and the Houses are having a virtual race across the continent of Africa, taking them from Senegal in the west, to Ethiopia in the east. The theme of ‘Musicals’ for Miss Danby’s Daily Wake Ups has been uplifting and has featured some popular choices from The Lion King, The Greatest Showman, Mamma Mia, Matilda and Wicked to name a few. We also had some exciting news this week – the first was that we have been chosen by Andy and the Odd Socks to be one of 21 schools in the UK who will perform on this year’s antibullying week theme song! The second piece of exciting news was that one of our Year 2 pupils was thrilled to receive a Blue Peter badge in the post today! He had written a letter and sent a photograph to tell them about his efforts to learn to skateboard – well done!
It’s been another busy week on the After School Activities channel this week, with newspaper activities with Mr Smith, origami tutorials, drawing with Rob Biddulph (author of Odd Dog Out) and a wellbeing activity on Wednesday. Lots of children have been enjoying our Storytime channel too. Now, onto our featured year group of the week – this week we are focussing on Reception, where we have welcomed one new pupil into our learning family this term.
The Reception children have been enjoying a range of different traditional tales, this week being based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears – perfect for National Storytelling Week! They proudly shared their letters of apology to from Goldilocks to the three bears, using their phonics skills brilliantly and thinking carefully about their letter formation. They have been practising measuring capacity and volume in Maths, using vocabulary such as more, most, equal, less, least, empty and full to compare different quantities and amounts. They also compared differently sized bowls by finding out how many cups of oats fitted in each one. They have been exploring sharing amounts equally, starting to use ten frames and part, part, whole models to help them. This week’s music lesson was water themed and the children used bottles to make their own sploshy, splashy sounds. They have really enjoyed finding out about Chinese New Year in MFL. Chinese writing is tricky but it has been great to see them having a go at writing the characters for ‘Goat’ or ‘Monkey’ depending which year they were born in. They also made some super Chinese dragons. The children designed and made their own puppets, based on fairytale characters of their choice. The challenge to design and make a chair for Baby Bear, using materials of their choice was tackled willingly and with great imagination. Miss Danby’s ‘Happy’ dance proved to be very popular in PE, with children sharing videos and photos of their moves on their form PE channels. The children have also taken part in two Play Projects over the past few weeks and we have seen innovation, imagination and tremendous enjoyment wrapped up in the learning that takes place during a Play Project. What a busy week you’ve had, Reception – we’re sure you’re all ready for a rest before next week!
The Family Challenge is to start work on the virtual race across Africa’s Great Green Wall. Perhaps you’d like to come with us? Have a lovely weekend, everyone!
