Spring Sunshine at Forest School. 27.3.20
Everyone in school enjoyed the glorious sunshine at Forest School on Friday and it was ‘all hands on deck’ as some of the staff worked to get the pond finished! Our pond is looking amazing and is bursting with life. We found newest, frogs and oodles of tadpoles!
At Forest School, we made fairy fires in scallop shells, created fairy and elf homes in the woods, searched for mini beasts with the Early Years children and practised out knotting skills. We also planted butternut seeds to take home to grow over the Easter holidays. Everyone was awarded a Forest School certificate by Mrs Carpenter at the end of the day, to celebrate their achievements.
We really missed all our friends and hope you were all able to enjoy the sunshine in your garden, if you have one.
Take care everyone!
This week’s results:
Ebony 16,424 v Holly 13,173
Bonsai 7,267 v Monkey Puzzle 370
Redwood 2020 v Fir 218
Oak 11,504 v Cherry 4223
Apple 222 v Palm 87
Congratulations to the winning bands. A new battle will start on 14th April so get practising!
The Key Stage 2 children, who were in school today, enjoyed a lovely sunny day at Forest School. We welcomed our Year 3 children who haven’t experienced Forest School before and they very soon became experts!
We started with a scavenge hunt with two teams searching for corks and pine cones. After a welcome drink of hot chocolate, the children then whittled hazel sticks and made mini fires with a flint and steel. Meanwhile, others searched for mini beasts and enjoyed playing and exploring in the woods. Spring is definitely on it’s way and our Forest School area is looking so pretty with primroses and daffodils springing up everywhere.
In the afternoon, the children learnt how to build a fire and we used our whittled sticks to cook marshmallows on the fire to make smores. They were very sticky but delicious!
All week, classes in each year group have been battling each other on Times Tables Rockstars to win this week’s Battle of the Bands. Children score points for every correct answer they give during the week.
In Yr 2 Apple Class are the champions scoring 222 to Palm Class’s 87
In Yr Oak Class were victorious with 11,504 against Cherry Class with 4,223
In Yr 4 Redwood won with 2,020 to Fir’s 318
In Yr 5 Bonsai are the champions with 7,267 to Monkey Puzzle’s 370
And finally, Yr 6 champions are Ebony with 16,424 to Holly’s 13,173
The competition starts again on Monday morning at 8:50am and will continue until 3:15pm on Friday. Don’t forget to log in to your account and do your bit. Next week’s Battle of the Bands results will be posted on Friday.
Year 5 had a fun time in Forest School today and came up with some great ideas for carrying on Forest School at home while school is closed for a while. They enjoyed playing the game ‘Farmer and Foxes’, making dens, abseiling down the muddy slope, searching for mini beasts and creating a drum orchestra!
We’re very excited to find out what ‘mini’ Forest School projects you will come up with while you’re at home! Have a look at the list Bonsai came up with if you need any ideas. Why not practise tying different knots; there are some really good animated videos on how to tie knots on YouTube!
John Dougherty author of over 30 books including ‘There’s a Pig Up My Nose’ and the ‘Stinkbomb and Ketchup Face’ series of books was in school reading extracts from his story and poetry books. John also played his guitar and sang songs with the children. There was time for questions and answers at the end of each session.
John stayed at the end of the day to sign copies of his books.
We are very grateful to the Pavilions Teignmouth for helping us organise this event.
Foundation had a great time meeting John Dougherty and listening to his story ‘Theres a Pig up my Nose!”. We all found the story very funny and even sang a song about it! 🙂
The children in Foundation did 13 laps of the playground for Sports Relief! We ran, jumped, hopped and skipped! Well done Foundation 🙂
This morning, year 6 helped to raise money for Sport Relief by running the Sport Relief mile on the play ground.
Both Year 5 classes had the opportunity to learn about bees and making honey from a local bee-keeper in Forest School today. Mary A’Hearne and her partner have many hives around the Teignmouth and Dawlish area and Mary brought in a hive in to show the children and she explained how bees make honey (there were no bees in the hive that she brought in!).
It was fascinating to find out about all the different jobs bees have in the hive and to learn just how amazing bees are! The children learned about the waggle dance that bees do, which shows the other bees where the best places are to get nectar! At the end of the session, Mary let the children taste some honeycombe as well as honey that had been made by bees from the flowers of two different trees: chestnut and sycamore. What an incredibly interesting day – we all learnt so much!
Using a green screen app, our year 6 pupils have brought their writing to life, creating news reports on the importance of exercise. Watch their reports below:
Year 1 children were invited to the library after school where they enjoyed colouring in butterfly pictures and making butterflies. The session finished with the children listening to the ‘Monkey Puzzle’ story. There was some great audience participation.
Redwood class had a great time in the sunshine at Forest School today making daub from mud, straw, water and clay! They mixed it all together with their hands and squished it onto the fencing to make a ‘wall’. Another group weaved willow to make the wattle, while two other groups searched for mini beasts in soil and created drumming rhythms with our recycled bins. Lots of collaboration was used as well as resilience and some risk-taking too!
This afternoon, year 6 started practising parts of a gymnastics sequence. We practised forward rolls, teddy bear rolls and then put these together for the first part of our sequence.
Have a look at the sequence below to see what we will be doing over the next few weeks.
Year 3 have been tackling the tricky subject of fractions! They have been showing their understanding of parts and wholes all week and today they began working on tenths. The children were able to use images and express the fractions they could see in many different ways. Their work was amazing; deeper understanding was shown by all.
This afternoon year 6 started the topic Tomorrow’s World. Over the next three weeks, everyone will get a chance to use the virtual realtity headset. We have also started to experiment with using circuits, learnt how simple circuits work and what happens when the output is changed.
We have recently received a very kind donation from one of our families and we used it to buy trees for our Forest School area: willow, hazel and apple. We started planting them today in the Forest School area and had some great advice on where to plant them from a parent who is a tree surgeon. It was incredibly hard work and the children in Year 6 were extremely resilient. They were rewarded with some well- deserved hot chocoate which was made with water heated in our Kelly Kettle!
Year 6 had a busy day at Forest School today! Luckily we also enjoyed some lovely sunshine in-between the showers! One group spent time designing a Parkour course and devising a Parkour routine. Parkour is where you move rapidly through an area, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, vaulting, rolling or climbing in order to travel from one point to another, in the quickest and most efficient way possible. We have a number of pupils at Hazeldown who are very skilled at Parkour and it’s fantastic to see them sharing their skills at Forest School.
Year 5 spent the day learning all about composting and how to make rot pots with Alex Mack, an education officer from Resource Futures. She explained the importance of the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and taught the children how to turn simple organic matter into compost. The children filled plastic bottles with layers of wet and dry materials such as paper, grass, leaves, fruit and veg waste and a small amount of water. Each week, we’ll observe them and monitor the rotting process.
They also learnt what can and can’t be composted. Did you know that it could take over 100 years for a crisp packet to decompose because it is made from ‘metallised’ plastic film.
The children also had fun finding mini beasts in soil and using magnifying glasses to examine them in detail. We found some pretty speedy centipedes!
We were very lucky today to have a music lesson based on our topic. We first listened to Egyptian music and identified the different instruments we could here. Then we composed our own Egyptian piece of music in small groups. It was very loud but we had a lot of fun!
Today, our year 6 pupils have been using a green screen app to film their news reports about the importance of exercise.
Keep an eye out for the finished product which will be available on our website next week!
We all had a fabulous treat today as we were entertained by two exceptional classical musicians Alfie and Rebecca. This was organised as part of the Teignmouth Classical music Festival. They played all manner of instruments including violin, viola, bassoon, glockenspiel, xylophone and piano. They played music from a range of composers and periods. Both were amazing musicians who swapped instruments constantly. We would like to thank Rachael Shearmur from the Teignmouth Classical Music Festival who organised this event.
We would also like to encourage you to visit some of the many events that are taking place in the following weeks in Teignmouth, a leaflet was sent out last week.
The children were absolutely engaged throughout the performance and we all had a wonderful afternoon.
Apple class looked fantastic today dressed up as their favourite book characters. An enormous thank you to all the parent/carers for all the effort in making the children look brilliant.
The children all looked amazing in their World Book Day costumes, thank you to everyone that helped with the costumes.
In addition to dressing up for World Book Day, we held a Share a Million Stories assembly. The children sat and listened to a story called “Ameliaranne and the Green Umbrella” which is 100 years old! We also had a visitor from Morrisons in Teignmouth who presented us with a selection of books for our library, these were received by two of our librarians. Thank you very much Morrisons.
Foundation children were invited to the library after school where they enjoyed colouring in pictures of Zog and making Zog masks. The session finished with the children listening to the story of Zog with some great audience participation.
Year 3 have been researching Cruella de Vil, as part of their Heroes and Villains topic, with the aim of eventually writing a biography about her life. Today, they were very lucky to have a visit from the lady herself! The children were able to interview her and ask her lots of questions and find out all the juicy details about her life!
Fir Class invaded Forest School today as Saxons and beat their drumming rhythms to show they had conquered England! They also learnt how to build with wattle and daub. The ‘wattle’ was made from willow which was woven around hazel sticks. The ‘daub’ was a messy business, made from a mix of mud, clay and straw – and they mixed it with their bare hands and their feet!
Another group made bird-nest bags to hang in the trees for birds to find materials to make their nests with. They filled mesh bags with upholstery stuffing, wool and tiny twigs.
We were very lucky in Bonsai today as we had Mr Milson from TCS visit. We learnt a lot about how to perform rolls safely and how to perfect them like a gymnast. We also had a go at counter balances and counter tension moves. At the end, we were very lucky and got to go on the apparatus. We have a lot of fun and can’t wait for next week!
Year 3 were lucky enough yesterday to have some gymnastics training from a specialist gym teacher. They were able to practise 3 different types of rolls, counter and tension balances and were even able to use some of them on various pieces of apparatus.
In Year 6 we are currently making scripts for a TV show about exercise. Just before half term we wrote persuasive texts to convince people to exercise more. We are now converting these texts into a script for a TV show.
As a part of this we have learnt to make our show clear, concise and correct. Some of us were checking the facts we want to use whilst others were taking elements of our writing and putting them into a script.
Year 3 have started a new using on fractions today. They started by exploring the part-whole relationship. The children could recognise what made the whole and then identify part of the whole. This understanding will be really important when understanding fractions.
We had so much fun in Literacy today. We played different games to help us learn and use a range of interesting vocabulary. We tested our memory skills to match words and pictures, we played a fun dice game and we drew our own pictures to go with different words. We acted out words, came up with words with the opposite meaning and practised putting the words into sentences.
To end the session, we played word bingo. The children were so excited, you could hear their squeals up and down the corridor!
Monkey Puzzle were very lucky to have a music session with a specialist his afternoon composing their own Egyptian music pieces. They had to listen to pieces of music, try and identify what instruments they could hear and then re-create those pieces in groups. It was a very fun, but loud, afternoon.
One of our hard-working librarians has been helping Mrs Hurt to collect the ‘Share a Million Stories’ totals from each of the classes.
The total of stories shared so far are a whopping 1374!
Well done everyone; keep on sharing!
Year 3 had an afternoon of musical appreciation this afternoon as they immersed themselves in different classical scores created to depict various film villains. First, the children moved their bodies to the music and discussed how it made them feel. Then, the children used different symbols to represent dynamics, tempo, timbre, duration and pitch creating their own graphic scores. They listened to: The Imperial March from Star Wars; Miss Gulch’s theme music from the Wizard of Oz and Voldemort’s theme tune from Harry Potter.
This week, the Year 6 children who didn’t go on the Residential, became Native Americans for a few days and enjoyed exploring the Forest School area in their tribes. They had tribal tasks to complete, such as: making a headdress, creating tribal war paint designs for their faces, climbing trees, devising celebration drumming rhythms and making a 5 minute fire to boil water in a Kelly Kettle so they could have hot chololate. They also learnt how to make friendship bracelets and wrote a legend describing ‘how their tribe became’. Each task required different skills, but resilience and collaboration were needed for every task! It was lovely to see some sunshine and some children took a rest from their tasks to bask in the sun – even in a wheelbarrow!
Wow, what a brilliant week! All of us (children and adults!) have had a fantastic 5 days. The children have demonstrated so many of our school learning values and we have been incredibly proud of how they have pushed themselves to achieve things they didn’t think were possible! Additionally, they have been so polite and encouraged and helped each other through all of the activities.
For our last activities, some groups ventured up to Berryhead for orienteering whilst others climbed the high ropes or went stand up paddle boarding.
Well done year 6 – you have been a pleasure to take on residential!
To kick off World Book Day month, Mr Ludford came into Redwood class to share some of his favourite story – The Twits, by Roald Dahl.
The children loved hearing Mr Ludford read and are looking forward to Mr Hardee and Mr Goodenough coming into class to share theirs as well.
We have had another excellent day at Grenville House with the sun even making an appearance for us! Pupils have continued to overcome fears and have achieved things they never thought they could. They have also continued to demonstrate excellent positive relationships and collaboration – always offering to help and encourage one another. Some of the activities today have included: orienteering, canoeing, indoor climbing and caving.
What a wonderful day we’ve had at Paignton Zoo to kickstart our new learning journey ‘Paws, Claws and Whiskers’. The rain held off, the sun shone and lots of the animals were out and about too!
Here are some of our favourite pictures:
This morning Monkey Puzzle had fun testing each other on the ‘ly’ suffix that we have been focussing on this week. They played a super suffix board game which allowed them to practice the ‘ly’ words and if they made a mistake they had to write them out and miss a go. I think great fun was had by all. Fantastic collaboration skills were shown and the morning flew by…time flies when you’re having fun!
Year 6 have had another amazing day with caving, coasteering, canoeing, high ropes and stand up paddle boarding.
We have put together a short video capturing some of the best moments so far.
Enjoy.
Next Tuesday… we would love to see you !
This morning Monkey Puzzle were lucky to have a Tag Rugby session with a highly skilled coach. They worked really hard on their fitness and passing skills as well as team work. Some really good skills were shown when searching for space and intercepting the ball and they were all worn out after the session.
Today was a day of overcoming fear and showing a great deal of resilience! Throughout the day, all pupils took on the elements during their coasteering activities. Some of the groups were jumping off rocks into a stormy sea during a hail storm- which seems to have become a bit of a Hazeldown tradition at Grenville. We were so proud of them all. They were incredibly brave and so caring towards one another, supporting each other through the challenging times. During the storm, other groups were taking on the high ropes- not allowing the hail to prevent them from carrying out the ‘leap of faith.’
The staff at Grenville have also commented on the lovely manners that our pupils have demonstrated throughout their stay so far. They are all having such a great time, accomplishing things they never thought they could. Parents… you should all very proud!
Today, Year 3 have begun their new topic, Heroes and Villains, by pretending to be villains and trying to send secret messages using codes. First, they learnt how to use a code wheel. Then they made different invisible inks one from lemon juice and the other from bicarbonate and soda.
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The PTA are pleased to announce that from today we have a textile recycling bank!
It is located in the staff car park.
We can recycle unwanted clothes, paired shoes (tied together), handbags, hats, bags, scarves, ties, jewellery, lingerie and belts.
You can pop suitable items in anytime and these will help towards raising funds for the PTA.
Happy Recycling!!
Beech and Ash class had great fun today. They used their fine motor skills to grip the tricky word pancakes and flip them into the pan! They read phase 2, 3 and 4 tricky words! Great work Foundation 🙂 
