The Chronicle

As part of our investigation into Book One of The Spiderwick Chronicles in English, the children have been creating their own faeries (magical creatures that you might find surrounding the Spiderwick Mansion). After two weeks of careful research and experimentation, the children chose their favorite creation to explore further. Using fine line pens and an ink wash, their work was transformed into the pages you might find in the ancient dusty tomb from the secret room of the Spiderwick Mansion! We’ve loved reading about the faeries Junior 6, well done!

Over the last few weeks, Junior 5L have been learning about our solar system and the planets that inhabit it. They have been researching two different theorists (Copernicus and Galileo), exploring day and night and creating unique mnemonics to help them remember the order of the planets. Junior 5L have been curious while investigating the different phases of the moon using biscuits as a resource!

This week in Junior 4 we have been carrying out investigations which involve how to change the pitch of a sound. We looked at various instruments that play a variety of notes and made some predictions. We then made our own panpipes and investigated how the pitch of the sound changed as we blew across different length pipes. We came to the conclusion that the smaller the pipe, the higher the pitch of the sound. The longer the pipe, the lower the pitch of the sound. What an interesting outcome!

As part of our Science topic on nutrition and healthy eating, Junior 3 have been investigating how much sugar is in different drinks. We have been working like super scientists to make predictions, ask questions and learn how to read nutrition labels before finally interpreting our findings. Our investigation confirmed some things we already knew, but it also threw up some surprises. Such as the amount of sugar contained in apple juice and the fact that water contains no sugar at all! We recorded our results neatly in a table and had a go at creating a bar chart. Keen to display our findings and educate the rest of the school about our sugary discoveries, we weighed out the amount of sugar 350mls of each drink would contain and created a display for all to see.

It has been a fun-filled week in Junior 2 again. In Maths, we have focused on number bonds from 10-100, related facts and fact families. In English, we thought about what kind of dragon lies inside of us. Some examples are ‘Inside of me is an angry dragon who stomps from room to room; inside of me is a tired dragon who curls up asleep in the corner.’ Our Science lessons are taking off with great imagination and environmental awareness. We have discussed materials around us and been on a material investigation tour around the school. We are keen to find out the properties of materials, what things come from and learn how they are used. Is it a suitable material for the right job? We are all looking forward to our trip to Warwick Castle next week to support our work in History.

Junior 1 have loved their Maths lessons this week as they have begun to explore the concept of splitting amounts into two. Everyone loved using the counters and the ‘Part Whole’ boards to find the whole or two parts of the numbers. There was lots of investigating and discussions as everyone shared how the different amounts could be split in a variety of ways. This work then led on to addition and how two numbers are combined by using the addition symbol. Our Science lessons were equally practical as we investigated our sense of touch with the feely bag to describe whether items were smooth, bumpy, rough or spiky. In Geography, we learnt about the different compass points and placed animals correctly on the grid according to north, south, east and west. For History, we have begun to look at the Victorians by learning about their houses and comparing them to houses of today. 

This week in Reception we have been sorting in Maths! We have chosen our own rules for sorting in the classroom and the children have worked together to organise and differentiate between lots of different maths equipment. We have also been out into the outdoors, collecting autumnal objects and sorting them too! We enjoyed our Harvest Mass on Tuesday and the children sang at the top of their voices!

This week we have started thinking about Autumn and Harvest. We have enjoyed reading the story of the Little Red Hen, which inspired us to make some bread. The children kneaded the dough and made snips in it to create their rolls into little hedgehogs.

In Dormice, we have been using our fine motor skills for colourful bead threading and Miss Mary helped us bake biscuits. 

Outside, the Dingle Dangle Scarecrow came to Little Crackers. We sang the scarecrow song and made scarecrows with spare clothes. We stuffed our scarecrows with lovely soft barley straw after having felt it, smelt it, rustled it and scrunched it.