Foundation- Budding Artists 17/9/21
Look at our fantastic paintings!
We have been in school full-time this week and have been absolutely fabulous. We have worked hard and had great fun getting to know new friends. We have been learning about new routines and have settled in really well.
This week we have started learning about mixing colours and how to hold a paintbrush. We have been talking about the colour of our eyes and hair and which colour paint we should choose. Aren’t our portraits fabulous?
Can you spot yours?
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This morning, Cherry Class had a fantastic indoor PE session. We talked about why yoga is important and how it can help us to feel calm and relaxed. Then we learnt four new yoga poses: tree pose, butterfly pose, happy baby pose and moon pose. Can you remember what they look like?
Today in year 4, we have spent the morning being immersed in our new learning journey called Blue Abyss. At the start of our activity, we had a visit from Mr and Miss Shark. They had a great reception as they danced their way into class to Baby Shark. Not only did we get a great dance, but they led our interactive ‘Plickers’ quiz about the ocean, also we watched an episode of Blue Planet 2 on the ‘Big Blue’. These two activities gave us the chance to question what we already know and what we now want to find out in this learning journey.
It has been so lovely to have us all back together again after a much needed Summer break. Holly Class have adjusted to their new classroom and displayed so many of our Learning Values in doing so.
We have discussed and updated our Zones of Regulation board, spoken about our Growth Mindsets and Metacognition Phases and have shared ways in which we displayed our Learning Values during the Summer break and the first week at school.
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Goodbye Year 3. You have been fabulous. Good luck in Year 4. Have an amazing summer!
As a reward for all of their hard work and to celebrate their time at Hazeldown, Year 6 went on a trip to Crealy Adventure Park. They had a brilliant time on the rides and in the play zones. Thank you to Hazeldown PTA for funding the entry into Crealy – Year 6 thoroughly enjoyed it!
This morning Cherry dissected owl pellets. We learnt where the pellets came from. They are regurgitated by an owl between meals.
First, we had to soak the pellet in warm water for 10 minutes to soften them.
Then, we pulled the pellet apart to see what the owl had eaten. Some of us were fascinated and some of us were less than pleased by what we found. We found all sorts of bones including feet and skulls. We used a bone identification chart to identify the animal skeletons.
Can you remember which bones you found?
This morning, the Saxon village of Hazeldown was invaded by marauding vikings! It began with a voyage across the sea and a march into the village of the North. The vikings soon settled and integrated with the native Saxons. Within the village, house building, bread baking, weaving, potion making (apothecary), runes and pottery activities took place. During all these activities, amazing collaboration was found between the tribes. To celebrate this, great swordsmanship and dance skills were performed in the open arena. To bring the day to a close, a traditional fire ceremony took place to thank the Norse god Odin for nature’s gifts.
Fir Class have been challenging themselves this morning to work out how our number system works when the digits were replaced with symbols. The children had to use their knowledge of number patterns to piece together a coded hundred square. Resilience and collaboration was definitely needed!
Today we went to Plymouth Aquarium on a coach. In the first room we visited there were 38 Starfish and we used our maths skills to work out how many Starfish legs there were. There were 190 in total! We saw a Catshark and learnt they take 9 months to hatch from their purses. We also met Friday the Turtle, he swam over our heads. We found him in the Atlantic Ocean zone. The largest Jellyfish is called a Lion’s Mane Jellyfish, we learnt that the their tentacles can wrap around the walls of the aquarium. We learnt that Jellyfish don’t actually swim, but they drift on the currents. There was a species of fish called Humphead wrasse the first was called Cooper and the second was called Mini. In the Great Barrier Reef zone we found there were 3 types of coral: Cabbage Lever coral, Mushroom coral and Staghorn coral.
Year 5 continued their learning journey, Stargazers, by visiting outer space in the amazing Space Odyssey mobile planetarium. Simon from Space Odyssey was very impressed with the knowledge that year 5 were able to display. The children were able to experience simulations on the Moon and Mars and inside a space station. We discussed black holes, phases of the Moon, star constellations, the size of our solar system, day and night and so much more.
For our Forest School session, the children took part in animal yoga. They had a wonderful session feeling the forces of nature whilst making the appropriate animal poses. We ended the session with some parachute games.
Cherry class were learning to identify different types of lines in maths today. First, we made sure we understood vertical and horizontal lines. Then, we had to use our detectives skills to spot parallel and perpendicular lines. Finally, we had to create our own parallel lines in as many different directions as possible. Once we started we could not stop!
Can you spot different line types around your house?
Exciting news! The results from Sports Week are in…
All of the scores from the KS1 and KS2 races were added together, along with all of the activities that took place on the bottom field.
This year, it was incredibly close with only 1 point between 3rd and 4th place, and only 4 points between 1st and 2nd!
The results are…
4th place – Yellow (438 points)
3rd place – Green (439 points)
2nd place – Red (496 points)
1st place – Blue (500 points)
Congratulations to the blue team and well done to everybody who took part this week!
Oak Class had great fun today enjoying all things sporty. It was great to see such determination, teamwork and smiles. A big well done to everyone!
Hazeldown have had another brilliant day of Sports Week with KS2 running their races on the top field this morning.
The results from the KS2 races were:
Green – 128 points
Blue – 140 points
Red – 144 points
Yellow – 151 points
A big well done to everyone that has raced over the last two days! We have seen lots of resilience and determination, as well as encouragement for team mates.
Tomorrow is the final day of point scoring, before announcing the winners of Sports Week on Friday!
Today, KS1 started off our Sports Week with races on the top field.
The scores from the KS1 races were:
Yellow – 91 points
Blue – 107 points
Red – 108 points
Green – 112 points
It’s very close and there are lots more activities to go throughout the week!
Holly Class have enjoyed their final day at Grenville House. They have had an amazing 2 and a half days and we are very proud of them! They will soon be heading back to school on the coach.
Year Three have been having fun with mirrors and exploring their reflective properties.
We had to decipher Mrs Jeffery’s secret message and then created some of our own. We needed a bit of resilience for this task. We used our mirrors go guide us around a path on the playground. It was very hard not to cheat and look at the floor. We also used them to shine light in different places around the room, see things that were on our backs and look what was on the table when we were under it.
Holly Class have arrived safely and enthusiastically at Grenville House for their residential. They started the afternoon with one of two activities: coasteering or canoeing. The coasteering group walked, swam and jumped along the Brixham coastline. Whereas, the canoeing group explored the Brixham Marina on their canoes, playing games along the way.
Ebony Class enjoyed their final morning at Grenville House with canoeing, paddle boarding and caving. They have had an amazing two and a half days!
Ebony Class have had another amazing, fun-filled day of three activities including coasteering, high ropes, caving and paddle boarding. The sun has still been shining and the pupils have continued to overcome fears, achieving things they never thought they could. In addition, they have shown how caring and kind they are towards one another. Many of them have encouraged each other to jump off the cliffs at coasteering, cheered a friend on for the leap of faith or supported someone through the caves. Well done Year 6!
Ebony Class arrived in a beautiful, sunny Brixham today! After making their own beds and unpacking their suitcases, the children took part in a variety of activities. Some enjoyed exploring the harbour whilst canoeing and others had a great time jumping off the cliffs during coasteering. Our favourite quote from today was “I came here not liking the ocean, and now after coasteering, I love it!”
All of Foundation have loved learning the Enormous Turnip story using Talk for Writing. Talk for Writing is based on the principles of how children learn to read and write. It enables children to learn new language, orally, before writing or reading it. Our children have learnt the story using makaton actions, and created a story map. We up levelled our story map and focused on learning new vocabulary. We used colourful semantics to identify adjectives and adverbs within the story. The children are fantastic at using the new vocabulary in sentences and their own play.
The children are incredibly proud of their performance. They hope you enjoy some of the clips of them performing!
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We also discussed what turnips need to grow. The children enjoyed exploring vegetables outside.We all really liked getting messy! We wrote some superb descriptions of our sensory experience.
Today, Year 6 experienced what it was like to be a camper at Camp Green Lake. This half term, our focused text has been ‘Holes’ as part of our ‘Hola Mexico’ topic. In the book, the campers are forced to dig a 5ft x 5ft hole each day so our Year 6s took part in some drama on the beach and had to dig their own holes. They worked well in teams, even though it was quite hard work!
Here are some pictures of our tired campers!
Over the last two weeks, Year 5 have immersed themselves in the fantastic book, ‘FArTHER’ by Grahame Baker-Smith. By looking at the different strands needed to truly understand a book, they have produced a journey of work slowly unravelling the story. Have a look below at some of the different learning objectives we explored.
Year 3 had a terrifying time this morning. First it was maths, we were learning our numbers from 1 to 20 in roman numerals. If we made any mistakes there would be harsh punishments!
Next, we set sail to Britannia.
After we arrived, we marched to the Caledonia border and set up camp. From here, we sent spies to learn all they could from the savage’s settlements before we battled them. Obviously we were victorious.
Knowing how great and powerful we were meant we could relax a little in the afternoon and focus on more creative activities. We learned all about mosaics and created some of our own.
This afternoon, Year 6 were able to experience some Mexican food in a DT lesson. We focused on the taste, smell and appearance of tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa, sour cream and cheese and chilli sauce and then rated each one. Lots of us were able to try something we have never tried before!
Year 5 have absorbed themselves in all things Egyptian this week during their SOLE based learning; becoming historians and artists all in the same week.
We started our learning journey with our ‘hook day’; exploring ancient artefacts, hieroglyphics, memes and amulets. We have continued through the week studying some of the artefacts found in Tutankhamun’s tomb and investigating what these treasures tell us about ancient egyptian life and the boy pharaoh.
Before Easter, in year 1 we planted a range of different seeds. We had to plant the seeds in the soil then make sure they were watered and placed somewhere where they could get plenty of sun.
When we returned from the Easter holidays, they had all grown loads!
We noticed that the bean plants had grown quite a lot, so this week we replanted them into bigger pots. We also planted an amazing plant which has very soft leaves.
As part of our wellbeing time, we have been going out and watering the plants, as well as checking they’re growing well.
For those of you not familiar with S.O.L.E. (Self Organised Learning Environment), it is an approach to learning.
In Year 6, our topic is currently called ‘Hola Mexico!’ and in it we are learning about the impact of the civilisations of South America on us and the rest of the world.
This week, one of our objectives was to look at a location in Devon and Mexico and compare and contrast them.
Because we were following a SOLE approach – we were able to make our own decisions about our learning.
To start with, some of us decided to use google maps to learn about locations, some of us thought that google earth was more helpful whilst some of used search engines to find useful websites.
Once we had collected the information, we then had another choice – how to present our learning.
Some of us created slideshows, some of us created websites, some of us made posters and some even made a documentary!
This is self organised learning in action and it creates a wonderful range of quality outcomes.
This week in Holly Class, we have been practising our personalised spellings. We used the metacognition cycle to plan how we were going to do this, then we monitored throughout the lesson. Finally, we evaluated at the end to see if our strategy was effective, or if we need to use a different strategy next time. Here are some of the excellent strategies the pupils used.
In Year 5, we have been focusing on prioritising the maths curriculum in order to get ourselves ready for Year 6. This week, we have revisited Number and Place Value through various activities and by placing ourselves in The Learning Challenge.
Today, Year 5 were introduced to their exciting new topic – Pharaohs. Throughout the day we have been working on a number of art and design techniques to produce ancient Egyptian artefacts for our very own museum. Using our metacognition phases throughout, we planned, monitored and evaluated our progress through continuous reflection.
Our focus key skill was to produce various pieces of creative work based on a theme, developing ideas through a range of preliminary sketches and models.
We have had such an amazing day!
Foundation have had a very exciting week learning all about the world around them for our new topic: ‘Big Wide World’. We have been exploring different cultures and countries.
This week, we have been looking closely at Sir David Attenborough and his life. We learnt all about his exiting adventures and discovered that he is a ‘naturalist’. We were inspired by a message from Sir David about climate change and pollution. Because of this, we decided to write some letters to Sir David explaining what we will do to look after our world.
Foundation have had a very exciting week learning all about the world around them for our new topic: ‘Big Wide World’. We have been exploring different cultures and countries.
This week, we have been looking closely at Sir David Attenborough and his life. We learnt all about his exiting adventures and discovered that he is a ‘naturalist’. We were inspired by a message from Sir David about climate change and pollution. Because of this, we decided to write some letters to Sir David explaining what we will do to look after our world.
What a fun-filled afternoon we had at Forest School. We start the session sat on the logs around the fire pit. We close our eyes and use our senses to feel, listen and smell the natural surroundings around us.
We talk about the 4 Forest School rules which are; Listening, Collaboration, Respect, & Be Safe!
There is always a range of exciting activities planned.
In today’s session the children had great fun ‘camping’ in the teepee’s, exploring in the woods and making flower potions in the mud kitchen.
The children at Little Acorns have really enjoyed our most recent topic- Dangerous Dinosaurs! We have discovered interesting facts about herbivores and carnivores! Became palaeontologists as we dug for dinosaur fossils in the sand! We have explored frozen dinosaur eggs! We have built our own dinosaurs from junk modelling! What an exciting topic!
At the start of this week, year 1 received a letter from the Easter Bunny. It said he was thinking of retiring!
We decided to learn about letter writing, then write him a letter to persuade him to change his mind! We worked really hard on our letters and included lots of persuasive language to convince the Easter Bunny to carry out giving out chocolate eggs.
This afternoon, we found out our letters worked!! The Easter Bunny had left us chocolate!
This week at Hazeldown, we have been continuing to develop our metacognitive understanding in the classroom and on the playground. Using our cycle of metacognition phases, we have given ourselves time to reflect on all aspects of school life including: our friendships, our learning and our own progress. We understand that reflecting on the decisions that we make can not only have a positive impact on moving our learning forward, but can also help us to understand social situations that we might encounter during the school day and improve relationships.
Palm Class have been working hard this term learning all about different types of music from opera to body percussion. They have been thinking about different instruments and how alternative pieces types of music make them feel.
Today they finished journaling all their work and worked hard to create their own journey through their SOLE book to showcase their learning.
To celebrate the end of our WW2 unit of work, Year 6 enjoyed a street party in the glorious sunshine this afternoon. We made decorations yesterday to prepare and enjoyed getting into the festive mood with squash, biscuits and crisps!
This week, Year 5 have continued to focus on their current writing genre. We have been reading Tom’s Midnight Garden and exploring the descriptive language used. So far, we have worked on a descriptive list using a colon and semicolons, using relative clauses in our writing and using embedded clauses with parenthesis. We have then looked at how to up level our sentences by differing our sentences starters using our ISPACE Openers resource.
Have a look at some of our work:
Palm Class took part in a ‘guess the sound quiz’ where they had to write down what they thought each sound they heard was.
They then had to decide whether the sounds were easy or hard to identify. It was a fun SOLE activity and got them to listen very carefully to the things around them.
We found the easiest sounds to identify were the dog barking and the bird tweeting. The hardest sound so to identify was toast popping out of the toaster.
Today, the whole school launched The Daily Mile scheme. Everyone embraced the challenge, including the adults! Here are year 5’s efforts:
In maths, we have been leaning about perimeter.
We had great fun yesterday designing floor plans for veterinary surgeries, gardens which needed fences and even writing our name in bubble writing and finding the perimeter of each shape the letters made.
How many sides would you need to measure for a square field if you needed to build a fence to keep your animals in? Why?
Year 6 have been enjoying Science Week this week! At the beginning of the week, we tried an ‘Odd One Out’ activity. We had to look at the similarities and differences between three pictures and then discuss which one we thought was the odd one out and why. Another activity we tried was ‘Zoom In, Zoom Out’ in which we saw a picture of something zoomed in and after each ‘zooming out’, we had another guess as to what it might be thinking carefully about the appearance, texture, colour etc. Here are some of the guesses we had:
Our final activity for Science Week was to create a ‘Robo-bug’. We had to think very carefully about the ‘why’, or the purpose, of the robot and then design it focusing on the features it would need to achieve its goal. Here are some of the designs.
As you know, this week is Science week and year 5 turned into scientific investigators yesterday to learn about the reproductive parts and functions of a flower. Have a look at the pictures below:
Today in class we revisited the Zones of Regulation. (You can learn more about them here: https://www.zonesofregulation.com/learn-more-about-the-zones.html).
After talking about the different emotions that people feel and the zones that those emotions belong in, we talked about how to recognise those emotions. We then watched Shoo Rayner draw the different expressions and had a go ourselves. Can you guess the emotion from the picture?
