Lower Primary News
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Summer Term 2018
English
Last term we finished studying Robin Hood. It was wonderful to see how much the children enjoyed the twists and turns as the story developed, engaging excellently with the excitement of the text. This coming term we will move on to explore the story further through reflective writing and drama.
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Maths
We have been busy becoming comfortable with numbers! Number juggling, mental arithmetic, game playing, darts, bingo … anything to help find those all important number patterns and bonds. We have been using those skills to begin looking at working with money as well as seeing patterns in our times tables. Moving into the summer term we are going to be working further on pattern and multiplication, more on money as well as telling the time. We will of course also be strengthening our numeracy skills during our DT work. Measuring, counting screws and fixings, pieces of wood. We will also touch on estimation during these lesson times.
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Science
Last term the children loved learning about electricity, especially playing around with circuit building to learn how circuits work. This term we will be exploring some basic chemistry through investigating different substances and how they can be transformed.
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History
Last term we began with exploring the first life on earth – what it would have been like and different theories around where this life may have come from! We then moved on to look at how life on Earth changes and develops over time, which we will continue with this term.
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DT
We have been busy on our plans for the tree house! Calculating the number of screws and materials needed for the project as well as designing a few proposed ideas for those ‘added extras’. Alongside this, Lower Primary have set about building themselves a Go-Kart. This is now finished and they can be found zooming around on it. The summer term will hopefully give us the dry weather we need to complete the tree house including any gadgets required.
Art
Last term in art we began exploring paper mâché and the the children loved this hands on and somewhat messy activity! We will developing these skills they have learnt through a number of projects as well as making the most of the spring and summer days to produce plenty of outdoor art in the forest.
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Music
Learning two part harmony songs – Beauty and the Beast; learning a German song; practising staying time; starting and finishing together – Happy; moving onto a four part harmony before the end of this school year.
Spring Term 2018
English
Last term we began studying our novel for this academic year, which is a brilliant Barefoot Books version of the Robin Hood tale. It’s been great to see the absorption of the children as the stories are unfolding. We will be continuing to read the story this term, stopping along the way to look at the ways that characters and narratives are developed and presented.
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Maths
We have been focussing on becoming really confident with manipulating numbers, number bonds to 10, 20 and more. Also getting used to juggling different amounts using various operations.
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Going forward, we will be looking further into number patterns and consolidating knowledge of times tables. The goal is for the class to be totally comfortable using numbers creatively in order to solve mathematical problems.
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Science
Last term we focussed on biology, beginning with using the sunflowers we grew at school to explore plant life cycles and then moving on to look at mushrooms, with lots of fieldwork in the forest thrown in! This term we are moving more into the terrain of physics with a topic all about electricity. This will involve the children learning to build simple circuits and then hopefully will develop with some of their own ideas/projects!
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History
We are continuing with the history of the universe. Last term we mainly looked at the birth of the solar system and planets and what the conditions on the early earth were like. This term we will move to look at the first life on earth and how that life changed and developed over time.
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Spanish
Themes include pets, jungle and farm animals; clothes and my house.
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Music
We have been working hard on mastering harmony and learning 3 and 4 part canons. (Where each small group is singing the same material but starts at a different time). We will be sharing our efforts with parents at the end of this term.
Art
Our topic this term is papier mache. we are beginning by gaining confidence with this technique and will then be moving on to working on both a group and individual projects using this medium.
DT
We have been very busy this term on garden improvement outside and smaller classroom based work. The children have installed a new gravel path, cleared the ground to put down new turf, made the stone pit to play in and have given the Wendy house a cosy make over. On the smaller scale we have designed and sewn bags and made Christmas decorations.
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We are looking forward to developing the garden further this spring term and continuing with our bag project as well as starting something new, a class meeting will be held at the beginning of the term to determine what this is.
Autumn Term 2017
English
The children have started making books all about themselves. We have moved on to reading and writing some Autumn poems. After half term we will be starting to look at our novel of the year, a telling of the Robin Hood legend.
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Maths
We are starting the term having fun with 2D and 3D shapes, learning their wonderful names and properties. Please help your child by talking about shapes in your home life. We will progress onto pattern, symmetry, position/direction, area and perimeter!
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Science
We have been using the sunflowers which have been growing at school over the summer to explore plant biology, looking at the functions the different parts of the plant provide for the plant as a whole. After half term we will spend some time thinking about ecology, especially in terms of the New Forest around us.
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History
We are going over some areas covered previously for the benefit of new children to the class, as well as deepening the understanding of our existing children. We are looking at the creation of the universe, birth of our planet/solar system and the origins of life on earth.
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Music
Our music lesson is now one hour a week (as the class is a bit older!) We are learning seasonal songs that families will no doubt get to hear at home. (Ask for a little concert if you like!) We are also thinking about and making artwork about our songs, so we have some great Autumn and Halloween art already.
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DT
We have had our class brainstorming meetings for this subject and have come up with some fantastic ideas for future projects. The nature of our DT lessons remain loosely planned as it is all very much led by the children. Both lower and upper primary feel they would like to get stuck into using the sewing machine to make bags and clothes this term.
Art
We will be continuing to explore different artistic techniques mainly using natural materials and those from the forest around. After half term I hope to work with some natural dyes and textiles.