Year 4 Residential. 12.05.2022
Day 3 of our residential at Colehayes, we had a range of activities from Raft Building, Climbing, Orienteering, Shooting and Archery. The day ended with a BBQ in the back garden. All the children had a brilliant time on their last full day.
Year 5 were surprised to find posters up around the classroom advertising for explorers. The children were able to infer from the advertisement that the expedition would take place in the artic and had to work together to brainstorm the skills the would need for the journey. In groups the children had to explain why their skills and experience would make them the best team to conquer the arctic. Today the pupils built on this immersion by finding out more about Shackleton and his preparations.
We had an exciting week at forest school. Caitlin Roach from Redwood Class has officially named our forest school cabin.
After a whole school competition Mr Ludford chose our winner.
A huge thank you from Mrs Carpenter and Mrs Elliott, our cabin is now known as The Hazeldown Outpost thanks to Caitlin. Brilliant work Caitlin.
Today we were given some objects on our tables and we asked what we noticed. We had time to explore them all and talk about them with our partners. We then had to group these objects in different ways. We found ways such as size, colour, bulbs or seeds.
Our partner talk allowed us to share all our knowledge about the different types of seeds we saw. We were able to ask and answer questions too because we found strange protrusions and tunics around bulbs.
We enjoyed learning the skills of being a scientist. 
Apple Class enjoyed the glorious weather at Occombe Farm today. We learned all about how to make pizza and the plants used to make it. We even got to pick our own fresh toppings from the garden. While it was cooking, we went to visit the animals. After lunch, we planted some seeds and headed off into the nature trail to learn more about the plants on the farm.
Yesterday, Year 4 were taken into the hall for a dance through the decades. There was music from 1920s through to 2010s. The children loved the different styles of music and dance that were in these decades. The whole disco was topped off with the children’s costumes. This is just a taste of the different music genres they will be exposed to during our learning journey.
Year 2 have been learning key skills in gymnastics. We have learned how to use the equipment safely; jump whilst making different shapes; make jumps which include a turn and change direction whilst travelling.
Take a look at some of our moves. 
As we approach the end of our ‘Mi familia’ topic, we wanted to celebrate our journey of learning! We began by learning family members’ names with songs and games. This helped us learn more about the concept of the ‘gender’ of nouns that exists in Spanish. We then moved on to sentence building, consolidating our previous sentence level learning and extending with negative verbs and plural nouns by investigating The Madrigal Family Tree (from Disney’s Encanto film) and carrying out some guided writing activities. We then challenged ourselves to plan and produce our own pieces of writing about our own families/ carers, collaborating to provide feedback to each other during the evaluation part of our Metacognition Cycle. The children in Years 3-6 have produced some excellent pieces of writing and as a final part of the process they have demonstrated their resilience by using their purple pens to respond to live marking feedback to ensure even more progress!
This week Year 6, and the whole of Hazeldown, spent all week celebrating World Book Day with several different fun activities.
Our week begun with a whole school Zoom with Mr Goodenough, who read us all a lovely story and informed us of all the great things we would be doing this week.
Throughout the week, we have been immersed in books! We have written our very own class books – writing a short story with only 6 sentences! It was much harder than we thought it was going to be! We have been illustrators. We’ve also had our very Vocabulary Parade and online Zoom quizzes (which Holly won!!!).
It has been a fantastic week with lots of fun but most importantly highlighting not only the importance of reading but furthermore the pleasure it can provide.
Beech Class had a fantastic day celebrating World Book Day. We spent the day dressed as different words and were very excited to show each other our costumes. We also decorated some crowns with our favourite book characters and wore them proudly throughout the day! We were keen to share our amazing vocabulary and we used adjectives such as ‘colossal’, ‘immense’ and ‘ancient’ in our phonics lesson!
Well done Beech Class! 🙂
We really enjoyed World Book Day today and all the activities we have been doing this week. Yesterday, we learned from illustrator Rob Biddulph about how to draw characters from some of his books (we even found some of his books in our Book Buzz area). Today we put those drawing skills to use when making some reading bunting for the library.
As one of our world book week activities year 5 have been learning about the importance of illustrations within books and how illustrators work alongside authors. The children had to follow drawing tutorials and apply our resilience learning value when things weren’t going their way. I think you’ll agree there are some fantastic artists among us.
Throughout the week, as part of our celebration of books and reading, in Spanish classes we will be reading classic tales we all know and love… in Spanish! Today Y3 enjoyed listening to ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The children learnt some new vocabulary and joined in with the storytelling of the repetitive parts of the story. ¡Muy bien chicos!
Well done to Gisella. Gisella has really challenged herself with her reading and is getting much better quiz results. Keep it up Gisella!
Congratulations to Lola. Lola is really focussed with her reading and is getting great quiz results. Keep reading Lola!
Congratulations to Patience. Patience really enjoys reading and is very focussed and organised when she visits the library to choose her books. Well done Patience!
Well done to Teagan. Teagan is an avid reader and enjoys visiting the library to change her books. Teagan also recommends books to her friends. Keep reading Teagan!
Year 3 had fun creating San Valentín greetings in Spanish this afternoon; linking prior knowledge from their ‘Mi familia’ topic to the new vocabulary and expressions. 
We are part way into our P.E. unit – Ultimate Frisbee. This week we played a game that has links to Danish Longball.
The game was very different. One team (defense) had one job – to stop the frisbee entering the goal zone. They could do anything possible, including hitting the frisbee out of the air – they did not need to catch it. The other team (offense), needed to be very tactical, thinking carefully about where and when to go (within the 10 second limit).
After the match, we discussed the skills needed. We found that team work was critical – for the defense making sure enough of the pitch was covered and for the offense spotting gaps and opportunities that others may have missed. Communication was also key, making sure we were working cohesively to reach our goal. As well as that, speed, stamina, accuracy and sneakiness were mentioned as important skills!
I think you can see from the pictures – what a great session it was.
In Year 2, we have been immersed into music. We have learned to use our voices expressively by listening to opera, Native American chanting and listening to Inuit throat singing (which was our favourite).
We have been learning all about the pulse of music and dancing and clapping in time to different songs with varying pulses.
Happily, we have also explored how different instruments work so we can apply this to making our own later in the week during our design and technology lessons.
Fir Class caused a right stink this afternoon when they spent time making poo!
As our hook for our new learning journey – Burps, Bottoms and Bile – the recreated the digestive system to seen
how food becomes poo.
First we cut up the food using scissor to represent our incisors, the used a cup and our fists to do the work of the molars – crushing the food. Syringes acted as our saliva glands and added some moisture to the mix. We then moved the mixture into the stomach which added acid (vinegar) and continued to squash the food.
Once it looked ready, we moved it into the small intestine, we dipped this into our pot of ‘blood’ which showed out the nutrients are absorbed into the blood stream.
Finally, we squeezed out the excess liquid just like the large intestine and then we released what was left from the rectum.
Happy New Year from the Forest School team.
It was a super busy Autumn term at Forest School.
Huge thanks to Sam and Noah for planting our beautiful new trees. And a huge thank you to Becky Jose for donating the trees.
We are very excited as a whole school community to watch our Forest grow.
In Foundation, we have been working hard to develop our writing skills. This week, we decided to write our Christmas lists ready for Christmas Day. We worked so hard to form our letters beautifully and used our phonic knowledge to support us in writing words.
We were resourceful and used sound mats to help us form our letters correctly. We were also resilient and kept trying even when we found it tricky!
Amazing work Foundation! 🙂
What a busy term we’ve had in Spanish lessons in KS2! We have been using all of our Hazeldown Values to learn how to greet people, say how we’re feeling and ask others, ask for school equipment and talk about our personalities and those of our friends plus key vocabulary such as numbers and days of the week. We have begun to learn about Spanish phonics and are acquiring bilingual dictionary skills. We have also really enjoyed using our online platform to play vocabulary games to support our learning.
A huge thank you to the PTA for their donation of £2000 to purchase new non-fiction books for the library. Here is the first selection of books purchased using some of the money.
Here are just a few of the comments the children made about the books:
”Thank you! I get most of my general knowledge from information books”.
”It’s really nice to have books about people I have heard of because it is interesting to learn about other people’s lives”
”Lots of children will enjoy these books”
The children are looking forward to the next books which will be purchased using this generous donation.
Year 5 enjoyed their Hook into their new learning journey Alchemy Island. They listened to some adventurous music and discussed how this made them feel. They solved the riddle to work out where to begin their journey across Alchemy Island and then designed their own portals, using the outdoors as inspiration. We look forward to the rest of the journey!
On Monday 18th October, Year 4 visited the National Marine Aquarium as part of their Blue Abyss learning journey. It was a brilliant day, all the children represented Hazeldown brilliantly. We were treated to a dedicated tour of the Aquarium with a member of staff. After lunch, we were then able to take part in a workshop which meant the children had the opportunity to classify different materials from the stomach of a deep sea animal. This meant sifting through fish guts, eaten squid and devastatingly plastic. Everyone worked collaboratively throughout the day, but most importantly, the workshop made some us have to be more resilient as the smell was not pleasant!
We have officially moved in to our new hut which gives us a magical base for our Forest School learning. Celebrating Autumn with our Autumn King and Queen and beautiful Autumn leaf prints.
The Halloween festivities were incredible and everyone enjoyed potion making and creating spooky spells, setting the scene for a great Halloween.
Have a brilliant half term and we look forward to teaching you all again next time.
At Book Club we read the book The Moth’s Whisper by Miranda Barlow. We then enjoyed making moths using plastic milk bottles, marker pens and UV pens. These moths will be sent to Glasgow to form part of the mass participation art installation ‘Moths To A Flame’ at the COP 26 summit in Glasgow at the beginning of November.
This week in Year Two, we have been learning to count in 2s, 5s and 10s using efficient methods. We discovered we didn’t always need to start from zero everytime. If there were already two groups of ten children on a bus and then children getting on in pairs. we could start at 20 and count on in twos. Can you find anytimes you count in 2s, 5s and 10s at home?
This week in P.E, we were lucky enough to have a visitor to help us with practising dribbling a ball. We then applied our skills into some team games.
Today, we also focused on our catching and being able to stop a ball by putting our foot on the top of it.
In Maths this week, we have been manipulating four-digit numbers to tackle word problems. We have all had to work collaboratively to pull ourselves out of the Learning Pit. During this lesson, we used our Metacognition phases to plan and monitor how we are going to tackle these questions.
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.
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.
