The Shire

In the Shire this week we have looked at celebrating the Chinese New Year. They dressed in party clothes with a red and yellow theme. In Pixies, they had red and yellow rice to play with on the sensory play table. The role-play area was turned into a Chinese restaurant with menus, decorations and Chinese lanterns. 

The Shire made paper snake chains, lanterns, snakes and fans. They made four snakes and measured which team's was the longest. Then they made one long snake from the four chains and measured it. They practised tai chi and sang Chinese songs. Then they had Chinese food to eat with chopsticks and tried on Chinese clothes.

The Dragons

The Dragons visited Cadbury's world, where they learnt how chocolate was made.

They went on rides, and had a go at tempering chocolate. 

The Wizards 

In English this week, the children have finished their Scottish Island fact files: adding photographs and editing their work before printing. They have started to research and make notes about Galileo from an information book in preparation for writing their own biographies. 

Linking IT and Greek Myths, the Wizards have created their own animations or games linked to The 12 Labours of Heracles. They enjoyed listening to the story and drawing images of each task to help them remember what happened. 

In Maths, the children have been calculating angles of both straight lines and triangles; the children in year 6 have also been measuring different types of angles using a protractor.  

We have also found out about the Chinese new year with the children retelling the story of the Chinese Zodiac race organised by the Jade Emperor. They have also used their origami skills to create their own paper fortune cookies!

Happy New Year! 

Wizards

This term has begun with a new topic - We are Thinkers. As part of our Geography, the children have started to research various holiday destinations in the UK. They have gathered information about activities, location, where to stay in a range of places, as well as looking at both human and physical geography. Using atlases and the internet, the children have labelled a variety of different holiday destinations on a map of the UK. 

This term, the Wizards will also be finding out about Ancient Greece and the myths from this time. They began by looking at The Tale of Persephone and Hades: they listened carefully to the story before creating some lovely storyboards depicting the main events. 

The Shire

When out and about this week, the children in the Shire went to measure trees. One tree had a circumference of 4 metres 90 cm! They will be measuring them again to note the changes. 

They noted the buds on the trees, and crops starting to grow in the fields. They also measured their height and discovered the very exciting tape measures that wind up!

This term the Griffins and Elves are reading The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch. They have also been scavenging around school for different materials.

The Pixies have been looking at how we communicate with each other. They came in to term with a new post office role-play area. They have been writing and posting letters, buying and designing stamps. They have read and been inspired by the book 'The Jolly Postman'.

They had fun baking marble cakes this week.

This week the Dragons took a time-travelling trip to the Tudor Age at Sulgrave Manor. They learnt about how the Tudors lived; how they dressed, ate, slept, cooked, wrote and danced. The dragons got to dress in Tudor clothes, write their names with Tudor pens in Tudor-styled letters, and learnt dance moves in Tudor style!

The guides were very complimentary about the Dragons in regard to their listening skills and shapes on the dance floor!

In class, the Dragons have finished their miniature portraits in the clay frames that they made last week.

The Wizards

This week, Wizards have continued writing their diary entries in English about life for children during the industrial revolution. 

As part of our RE, the children have been looking at world faiths, including the Jewish festival of Hanukkah and the Hindu and Sikh festival Diwali. The children have drawn a storyboard of the Rama and Sita story to help them to retell the story verbally. They have also been looking at the Christmas Story through our readings for the Nativity next week. 

Our layered portraits (in the style of Mike Barrett) are now complete. The finishing touches included blending the portrait with the background as well as adding some ink quotes and pictures from the era. The children really enjoyed the process, which included watching each part on video before they continued with their artwork. 

In DT, the children are making Christmas decorations to hang on their trees at home: these have been created using different stitching techniques with the support of Mrs. Attwood, our resident expert!

In PE, the children put all their netball skills into practice by playing matches, focusing on footwork, different types of passes and shooting skills. 

Finally, thank you to all those parents who came to watch the brass assembly: the children worked really hard this term and did a magnificent job of playing jingle bells in two parts. Another busy week for the Wizards! 

The Shire

In the Shire, the Elves, Griffins and Pixies have been busy rehearsing for the Nativity next week. Elves and Griffins continued making Christmas cards and stars, also focusing on phonics and spelling tests. They have been busy with data handling, taking surveys of favourite ice cream flavours and the most popular Beatrix Potter character, which had interesting presentation of character attributes and result interpretations!

The Pixies have been learning about shapes and went on a shape hunt around the school and in cooking they iced some Christmas biscuits.

This week the Pixies came into a winter wonderland in the classroom as it had snowed! They had magic sand snow to play with and were retelling the story of The Snowman in preparation for the visit to the ballet on Wednesday. They have baked lemon drizzle cake this week.

When out and about the Shire made journey sticks. They walked to the recreation ground, picked up nature items they found and attached them to the sticks, they will compare and contrast what they found with sticks they will make in the summer. The Elves and Griffins have been making portraits of James 1st and Guy Fawkes in the style of Andy Warhol and also experimented with blending chalk which had the benefit of turning them blue like smurfs!

This week we had a SIAMS inspection and are thrilled with how well the children represented the school. We are glad to report that it was clearly seen that we live out our values in school.

The Dragons have been continuing to study Tudor life in preparation for their visit to Sulgrave Manor on 12th December. They have been creating Christmas presents and cards and making great progress towards their brass sharing assembly. They have been reading the book 'The Lost Words' and finding out the names of plants and animals in our environment. 

Outdoors we have planted our trees in the garden. 

In the Wizards class this week, we started with a Street Dance Workshop where the children learned different styles of street dance including breakdancing. At the end of the session, they performed a routine. Everybody enjoyed this and realised how energetic the sport of dance can be!

In Art, the children drew their portraits of monarchy from either the Georgian or Victorian period (in the style of Mike Barrett) ready for creating our layered portraits next week. The children have also created their own advent calendar which will start very soon. Take a look up in the Wizards class window next week...

The children have also been learning more about the Georgian era of History including why we ended up with kings and queens from Germany as a result of issues with having a Catholic monarchy. 

We have been busy learning lots of songs ready for the Big Christmas Sing as well as our own Nativity, and we are looking forward to taking part in the Big Christmas Sing on November 29th. Hopefully, this will get us in the mood for Christmas!

The whole school took a festive trip to see the Snowman Ballet, which was a delight and the children were a credit to the school and their parents.

Wizards have continued to research the Industrial Revolution this week, focusing on some of the machines which were important in the mechanisation process: these include the Spinning Jenny, the Power Loom and the Watt Steam engine, which helped to power the various machines in the factories. Our findings should help us answer the question 'Why did England become known as the Workshop of the World?'

They have also been drawing a family tree for the House of Hanover in preparation for looking in more detail at the kings and queens in the Georgian and Victorian periods. 

In Art, the children have been doing some printing using polystyrene squares to create a pattern to make a calendar. Next week, they will be creating layered portraits of the Monarchy in either the Georgian or Victorian eras. Another busy week! 

Biscuits baked and decorated by the Wizards to sell for BBC Children in Need.

In the Shire we have looked at Armistice Day and poppies. The pupils learnt about the different colours of poppies and what they represent. For example, the purple poppies remember the animals that died in the war. They created some poppy art with poppies that they had coloured and made fingerprint poppy pictures.

When baking this week, Pixies made some thumb biscuits with jam that looked like poppies.

The Dragons studied money this week using different amounts of coins and notes. They have costed and ordered trees and shrubs for the eco-garden according to which ones will yield the crops needed for activities, with Mrs Blackwell.

The gardeners have been in school helping to finish digging the beds we will need for our shrubs and trees, although the children had already made a great start! They have also placed gravel around the raised beds to reduce the amount of mud brought into school. We will be able to get the bare root plants in the ground so they become established over winter.

Dragons have started to create animations with Mr Hornibrook for our summer film festival.

Pupils have started to look at historical diaries and some have even been inspired to write their own diaries at home. 

Key Stage 2 started writing computer programmes to complete time-travel missions for the Sphero Global challenge. More to come on this - watch this space!

Our first half term in The Shire has finished and what an amazing time we’ve had!