Talking Tuesday – Oracy Challenge – 11.05.21
Oracy is all about how we communicate and the ability to express ourselves well. Each week, we will be sharing an oracy challenge for you to try at home for ‘Talking Tuesday’.
We had some fantastic responses to our Talking Tuesday challenge last week, our favourite answer was: “I would like to live in space because I wouldn’t have to carry heavy bags after I went shopping.”.
This week’s oracy challenge is: “A dragon would make an excellent pet.” Do you agree or disagree and why? The important part of this question is ‘WHY?’. Can you justify your opinion using metacognition?
If you would like to, you can share your responses to the oracy challenge with your teacher or you could do this in the comments below. We will share some of the answers with next week’s oracy challenge.
The children in Ash and Beech have blown their teachers away this week with their incredible maths skills. They employed the metacognition cycle to support them in planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning. The children used our ‘Plan, Monitor and Evaluate’ board to plan what resources they would use to help them explore the composition of 13. They then experimented with the resources and monitored their progress. Some children decided to change resources and could articulate why they had decided to change. We created some fantastic number sentences and partitioned number 13 in many different ways. When we had created or number sentences, we evaluated our progress and explained what we would do differently next time.
We had some fantastic discussions and the children used their metacognition reasoning to justify their choices:
“We were successful because we used the numicon. We could see that a 10 and a 3 can make 10.”
“We used the double sided counters because we could turn them to show 13 as one lot of 10 and 3 lots of 1.”
“We used the bugs, next time, we would use the stacking counters because the bugs were tricky to count.”
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.
We talked about Muslim beliefs and the meaning behind them. We also discussed the importance of respecting the beliefs of others. We then spent the afternoon creating posters on the The Five Pillars of Islam and talking about the similarities between Christianity and Islam. The children showed empathy towards others in the class who have different beliefs to theirs.
The Little Acorns had another fun filled afternoon at Forest School. We started the session around the fire pit. We closed our eyes and used our other senses to take in our surroundings. We then split into groups and took part in 3 different activities. The children made ladybird pictures by printing half an apple in red paint then carefully added on its features with a fine paintbrush in black paint. They made ‘flower soup’ and ‘mud pies’ in the mud kitchen and matched numeral and quantity correctly by counting the spots on each ladybird pebble and counting out the corresponding number of pinecones.
Today, Cherry class were revisiting how to bridge through 10 using multiple methods. This was something we have been finding challenging, so we’ve reflected and decided to spend another day learning about it. We worked collaboratively with our partners to understand how to use different methods to solve the problem. Today, it was more important to understand the method than knowing the answer.
As part of our latest topic ‘Big Wide World’ the children at Little Acorns explored a variety of tasty delights from different countries. We talked about which country the food originated from and compared it to the food we eat at home. The children tried samosa’s, spring rolls, pizza’s, croissants and noodles! What tasty treats!
In Ebony class we are at the end of our literacy unit. This unit has been inspired by the book Holes by Louis Sachar.
In the story, our main character is sent to a camp as a punishment for a crime he says he did not commit.
The final outcome of this unit is to write a letter to a judge to try and get him to do something about the despicable conditions at the camp.
We would love to be able to send the letters to the actual judge, but as this is a fiction book that is not possible. Instead, we are going to send the letters to Louis Sachar to show him what his book has inspired.
Year Three have been taking it in turns to visit Rome using virtual reality.
So far we have been most impressed with the statues, the roads and The Temple of Caesar.
What would you like to explore?
This week in Foundation, we have been riding bikes. We have been lucky enough to have instructors from ‘Bikeability’ come into school and teach us how to ride a bike. We have been balancing on balance bikes and developing our gross motor skills. We have learnt the importance of bike safety. The children have been inspired by looking at world-class cyclists. We even have a future Tour de France winner in our midst, with their North Star aspiration “to be the next Bradley Wiggins”.
The children produced some super writing all about their cycling experiences.
The children were so inspired to become Tour de France cyclists. They wore their own yellow jerseys. We even created our own class jerseys!
The children in Foundation have been learning all about the world for our new topic: ‘Big Wide World’. We have been exploring the Earth and have been learning about the 7 continents. The biggest continent is Asia and the smallest continent is Australia.
The children created their own map of the world and added pictures of the animals that live in each continent. The children used our Learning Values to support them when creating their world map. They collaborated, were resilient and demonstrated their fantastic relationships by choosing which team would complete each continent. 
A member of Apple Class received some exciting post this week from His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales! Back in January during our learning topic ‘Magnificent Monarchs’, this particular child wrote a letter to the Prince of Wales, offering him some advice after being inspired during the topic. Although quite delayed, Apple Class was delighted to hear the response! 
In Apple class, we explored plants and did some observational drawings of them. Firstly, we watched ‘Austin’s Butterfly’ and talked about how we can plan, monitor and evaluate (metacognition) our work and improve it through several attempts. We had to look carefully at the size, shape and texture of the plants and work together to give each other effective feedback. We had lots of fun and enjoyed using colouring pencils, wax crayons and art pencils to complete our drawings! 
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.
The Little Acorns have loved making their own music on our very own sound wall!
This week in PE, we set the children a collaborative challenge. The children had to cross the river with only three lily pad hoops. We used the metacognition cycle to plan, monitor and evaluate our trip. The children planned a route across the river. They worked as a team to move across the river. Half way across, several children changed their plan and found a quicker way to travel. The children confidently discussed why they had changed their plans.
“We improved because we knew if we threw the hoops a long way we could get across quicker, but then we fell in.”
“We each had a job and it made us quicker.”
When the children had made it across the river, they re-evaluated their plan. The children found more efficient ways to cross the river and had another go. All of Foundation collaborated to achieve success. They confidently shared their plans and explained their thinking to their peers.
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!
Today we discussed what our bodies need in order to give ourselves the best chance of staying healthy. We talked about what the benefits of eating a healthy balanced diet has on our bodies, as well as exercising regularly and getting plenty of sleep.
Following our discussion, the children prepared their own fruit kebabs! Using child friendly safety knives, they each cut pieces of melon, pineapple, banana and strawberry and added it to a wooden skewer. Don’t they look delicious!
After eating the healthy snack, the children commented on how they felt they had more energy for the rest of their fun packed day at Little Acorns!
In today’s P.E lesson, we looked at improving our batting and bowling skills.
To throw the ball we had to remember to grip it using THE CLAW. This helped the ball leave our hands smoothly.
We also worked on our positioning and making sure we stood side
ways to strike and bowl.
This week in Ebony class, we were learning about some new vocabulary for our ‘Holes’ topic. We introduce these words using CIP (Communicate in Print) which is an approach that matches symbols to words to help us remember them better.
Usually, when it comes time for showing our understanding, we write sentences.
This time, we decided to think about, and plan, our learning.
The class were given time to plan what they would do. Once they had done the work, the class were given time to look back at their approach and evaluate it. When using the metacognition cycle, it is important to give the time to evaluate so that we know if an approach works for us or not.
Oracy is all about how we communicate and the ability to express ourselves well. Each week, we will be sharing an oracy challenge for you to try at home for ‘Talking Tuesday’.
We had some fantastic responses to our Talking Tuesday challenge last week, our favourite answer was: “The Santa hat is the odd one out because we only wear it at Christmas. We can wear the other hats at any time of year.”.
This week’s oracy challenge is: Would you rather live in space or live underwater and why? The important part of this question is ‘WHY?’. Can you justify your opinion using metacognition?
If you would like to, you can share your responses to the oracy challenge with your teacher or you could do this in the comments below. We will share some of the answers with next week’s oracy challenge.
In our P.S.H.E lesson today, we discussed lots of ways of keeping safe online and how much we can trust different websites. Mrs Jeffery read us a statement and we had to think about if it was true or false and why we thought that.
What do you think about this statement?
Most 12 – 15 year olds who go online say if they visit a new website they would check it first.
It’s true!
You can do a safe browsing check on a website to see if you can trust it.
Cherry class were exploring expanded noun phrases today. We are going to be writing our own myths next week, so this was a perfect opportunity to practice using expanded noun phrases. We were very creative and were able to use powerful adjectives to describe our nouns. When we were confident with our phrases, we wrote sentences remembering not to write a verb between our noun and preposition. Can you write any more expanded noun phrases?
Palm Class were learning all about the parts of a plant yesterday. What better way to learn than taking apart the plants themselves and investigating what they can see under a microscope. Palm Class were amazed at what plants and flowers looked like under the microscope and how different types of flowers varied. The children were fantastic investigators and showcased some excellent scientific discoveries.
To sign up and get your tickets OR renew your ticket go to www.yourschoollottery.co.uk/play and search for HAZELDOWN PRIMARY
Tickets are £1 – jackpot is £25,000 and one lucky ticket from Hazeldown School could win 30% of our ticket sales each week. The more tickets we sell the BIGGER the prize fund!
This half term if you are in the draw on SATURDAY 5 JUNE 2021 you could be in with a chance to win 1 of 5 £100 B&Q Gift Cards!!!!
Get your ticket by 11.59pm on Friday to be entered in the draw on Saturday. The draw takes place at 8:00pm on Saturday and winners are notified by Your School Lottery.
Please share with friends and family and help us raise some ££ #supportyourschool
Good Luck 
As part of our learning topic “The Scented Garden’, Apple Class brought in lots of flowers, herbs and plants to recreate our very own Hazeldown Garden centre. We talked about the properties of the plants, how they grow and how we can look after them, asking plenty of scientific questions. We enjoyed discovering the enchanting fragrances of flowers and herbs too, using our 5 senses to explore the plants in different ways. Some of us did some observational drawings, smelt the plants, take close up pictures, look through a magnifying glass and dissect some flowers. We found it fascinating and we are excited to continue our learning topic! 
Foundation have had an exciting start to the Summer term. We have been looking at the ‘Big Wide World’. We discussed different journeys we have taken, and why journeys to different places are important. We had a cognitive conflict when discussing the question – “What is a journey?”.
We set up a road journey outside and the children loved exploring it.
We also enjoyed looking at how people use dance as a celebration in different countries.
During this week, Year 4 have been set a challenge as part of our topic on the Blue Abyss. They were asked to design, test and create their own submarine. In order to achieve the end product of a waterproof Submarine, the children have had to use collaboration, resilience and resourcefulness. We have been using our Metacognition cycle throughout this week to plan, monitor and evaluate each stage of our DT challenge. Here are a selection of photographs showcasing the learning journey.
. 
Today, Cherry class became Roman Gods and Goddesses. We are writing myths as part of our new topic and to help us understand the structure and features of a myth we created freeze frames based on the myth of Proserpine and Pluto. We had a lot of fun working collaboratively and we are excited to create our own myths. Can you remember what happens with Proserpine and Pluto?
To start our topic ‘Hola Mexico’, Ebony class made fruit cocktails.
To start with, we had to remind ourselves how to safely use a knife. We learnt about using ‘the claw’ to hold items safely, making sure the knife was sharp and how to be safe generally when cutting and holding a knife.
After that, we has some time to plan what was going to go into our drink. We had a range of juices to choose from as well as a range of fruits. Some of us took a risk and chose fruits or juices we were not sure we liked.
Once we had chosen, it was time to peel and chop our fruits ready for the drinks. Then we added the juices and finally a bit of lemonade to sweeten it all up.
When we tried our mocktails, some of us did not like them, so we spent time evaluating our plan and thinking about what we might do differently next time.
As today is the Queen’s 95th Birthday, we decided to celebrate and have a tea party in the garden. The children prepared their own sandwiches, then enjoyed eating them outside in the sunshine with a fruit salad.
When we came back from our daily mile, we were shocked to find that the devices had gone on strike!
As a class, we had to decide how we were going to get them to come back to work. We thought of some reasons including: promising to look after them more, using them less and making sure they get charged.
We thought that we may need to use emotional language and present a strong a argument.
We then had a go at writing letters to persuade the devices that we do deserve them!
This was our elicitation task, we will be using this to indentify the skills we need to write a high-quality presuasive letter.
Why not ask your child if they managed to get the devices back off strike.
Oracy is all about how we communicate and the ability to express ourselves well. When teaching oracy, we put more intention behind how we guide and organise children’s talk. For example, when we gather for group work or discussions, we provide the children with talk ‘rules’, roles, and tools.
Each week, we will be sharing an oracy challenge for you to try at home for ‘Talking Tuesday’.
This week’s oracy challenge is: Which is the odd one out and why? The important part of this question is ‘WHY?’. How do you know this is the odd one out? Can you justify your opinion using metacognition?
COGNITIVE CONFLICT: Miss Banning says “There is no odd one out as they are all hats.”. Do you agree or disagree? WHY?
Our new learning journey is called ‘The Scented Garden’ and today we went on a walk around the school to discover what flowers we ready have growing in school. We found daffodils, daisies and buttercups but we couldn’t find geraniums or hydrangeas. We had a conversation about why this would be. It was so lovely to be in the sunshine and we now can’t wait to create our very own garden centre later this week.
Today, Year 3 had their class parties to celebrate all the birthdays that have happened this term. We ate party food, showed off our dance moves and played with our friends. We always look forward to this time of term. We had a lot of fun today celebrating parties and breaking some of the rules!
The children at Little Acorns have been making their own rainbow potions made from coloured water, glitter and flower petals. They have also been planting cucumbers, sunflowers, primroses and pansies to make our garden look pretty. We hope the cucumbers will grow to be nice and juicy so we can enjoy them at snack time!
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!
Today, Year Three were investigating what causes earthquakes. We investigated, modelled what happens and then set about presenting what we found out. Some of us chose to collaborate and present our learning by creating videos. Others chose to draw diagrams or make models with reflective sentences. Can you remember what causes an earthquake and where they occur most frequently? 
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.
Ash and Beech have had some very exciting visitors. An incubator arrived with 10 chicken eggs. The incubator kept the eggs warm and we watched as the chicks started to hatch from their eggs. The chicks started off looking rather soggy but soon warmed up and got very fluffy! We learnt all about the life cycle of a chicken and shared our own knowledge with our friends. We learnt that the orange/brown chicks are females (hens) and the yellow chicks are males (cockerels).
When the chicks were dry and strong, we moved them to the brooder box with a special heat lamp to keep them warm. The chicks huddle together to keep warm.
We used the chicks as inspiration for our literacy writing and wrote some independent sentences about the chicks. We used some of our fantastic adjectives and were resourceful by using the vocabulary wall. We loved challenging ourselves to up level our sentences and encouraged one another to be resilient.
Beech Class had a fantastic time at Forest School! They made some beautiful ‘flower eggs’ and carefully decorated them. They threaded the flowers through the cardboard using their fine motor skills.
We also developed our oracy skills by debating. We used the question ‘Are Eggs Alive?’ as our hook. We discussed our ideas and decided that not all eggs are alive as you can buy chocolate eggs! We used some fantastic metacognition reasoning to elaborate and justify our opinions. We then extended our learning even further by discussing some statements. We found ourselves in a cognitive conflict but collaborated as a team and got out of the Learning Pit!
We got to have chick cuddles! We were very careful and patient with the chicks and loved holding them.
Don’t forget it’s TOMORROW!!!
See the poster for details
Which rules will you break…
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!
In Apple class, we made Easter baskets using coloured card and glue. We had to follow instructions very carefully and showed great resilience, co
llaboration and empathy when making our baskets. Some of us even made eggs out of paper to put inside our baskets – it was lots of fun and we cannot wait to use them for an egg hunt in the holidays! 
In Ebony class, we have been celebrating the end of the war – V.E. day!
Today, we have been preparing for our street party to celebrate the end of World War 2.
As you can see from the pictures, we have enjoyed getting into the festive mood after all the bombing and rationing.
Check back tomorrow to see how our street party went.
Today, Cherry class used collaboration, relationships and empathy to understand and discuss what makes a friend. We talked about if there was a difference between best friends and a friend. Then, we created drama pieces about what a kind friend looks like. Lots of our dramas showed friends listening carefully, solving problems, being kind and spending time together.
The children in Foundation had a fantastic afternoon learning all about capacity. We had a ‘capacity race’ and moved the liquid from one container to the other. We collaborated and supported our team mates. We used key vocabulary such as ‘full’, ‘half full’ and ’empty’.
Well done Foundation! 🙂
Over the last week, year 4 have been making links between fractions and decimals. They have been learning about decimal notation and that tenths and hundredths can be expressed as decimal fractions.
Fir Class have really embraced Forest School this half term. They have been learning new skills and also carrying out a range of science based activities as a follow up to Science Week.