The Great Fire of London has come to Maple Class.
We have already created fire artwork using oil pastels and today we used a different medium, paper. We put the scissors to one side and ripped red, yellow and orange paper into different sized strips before layering them to get the effect of flames. Some children used a pencil to curl the strips of paper.
We have been learning about the events of The Great Fire in 1666 and know that the diary of Samuel Pepys provided lots of information. If you follow the link below, you can learn more about the events and play a few Fire of London games along the way.
We have been using oil pastels today to create a fiery background. Some of us drew swirls, some lines, some chose triangular shapes to create flames. We then blended the colours together using our fingers. It was messy work, but a lot of fun.
We looked at a variety of pieces of art depicting flames to get ideas. We also cut out silhouettes of buildings which we will stick to our backgrounds. We worked really hard to carefully cut out the buildings.
We are looking forward to building model houses soon in preparation for our Celebration event.
We were very lucky today to have a visitor come and see us. Mr Wade spoke to us about renting an allotment, the types of vegetables you can grow and the history of the allotment. Did you know, allotments first came around in the 16th century? Our favourite story involved some naughty sweetcorn-loving badgers!
We are very excited to see what else we will learn in our new topic.
This week we have started our new topic in year 5; Allotment. Today, we were researching where different regions of the UK are located and the types of farming they are responsible for. We are very excited to start our new topic and finding out where our food comes from!
Today in the Nurture Room we introduced the topic ‘Romans’.
The pupils were fully engaged and enjoyed finding out about the Romans. The pupils were also keen to find out more …. What will we find out next time?
Monkey Puzzle had great fun this afternoon becoming rap artists. They were creating raps and backing tracks on garage band making sure their lyrics would be good enough for the gate keeper to let them into Dragon Vine Towers on Alchemy Island. They tried really hard to create a variety of beats and the results were great!!!
Bonsai have been exploring Alchemy Island. We have been creating our own islands and putting our map reading skills to the test! What would you find on the Alchemist’s island?
This afternoon Monkey Puzzle have been busy creating their own islands, using co-ordinates to find their way through Alchemy Island and writing detailed descriptions of their journey. A lot of the children have really thrown themselves into their new learning journey and have created excellent mystical islands full of imaginative creations.
This week Bonsai class have been busy journaling their topic work ‘Off With Her Head’ into their SOLE books. We have really enjoyed learning about the Tudors.
Year 5 had an interesting afternoon looking at grand Tudor houses and finding the area of the rectangles they could find within the house. Some children really challenged themselves to estimate the irregular shape areas as well.
Today Year 3 said goodbye to the butterflies we have been looking after for the past four weeks. When they arrived they were caterpillars, just 8mm long. We fed them and watched them grow until they were ready to become cocoons. In total, five of our cocoons hatched and today we released our five Painted Lady butterflies beside the Butterfly Bush on the school field.
Year 3 have had a fantastic time on the farm today, learning all about where their food comes from and what goes in to making it grow. We met cows, pigs and sheep and had a good look at all the produce grown there. Thank you to West Town Farm for making us feel so welcomed and to all the parents with came with us.
Year 3 have had an exciting afternoon planting their runner bean plants into big pots – ready to grow tall and strong! They are in pots outside Cherry Class and we hope that they will get plenty of sunshine and some rain over the half term holiday. When we took them out of the seed trays we could see the roots curled like string around the soil and the seed which had split in half to allow the roots and stem to emerge.
It was lovely today to stand back and see the range of activities happening in our S.O.L.E. sessions. One one classroom we had children: using Google Maps to explore local and national locations, creating a perfect plate of Chinese food (in their opinion) and using pop up cards to reflect on Chinese new year.
In the other classroom the children were busy learning a range of french vocabulary as well as researching what different Hindu symbols meant.
Another fabulous day at Hazeldown Primary School!
As a part of our ‘China’ Learning Journey, Year 4 have been learning how to use Garage Band. This app is a great way to make music. Using a variety of instruments you can create a great sounding track. In our first session we experimented with the different instruments and had a go at making our own track.
Later on we will be using our skills to try and make a piece of music with a Chinese theme.
In S.O.L.E we have been learning how to use the app Garage Band. This is a music making app that enables you to record tracks from a variety of electronic musical instruments.
These tracks can then be combined into a music track.
We are just starting to use this app so please check back soon and see if we have made sweet music!
Today Redwood Class was invaded by a rowdy group of Vikings!
This week Team 2 have had lots of fun collaborating to design and make their Lego Dragons. 
In team 2 we have been making Viking jewellery! Year 3 even had some help from some year 4 SOLE superstars who gave us tutorials on what to do.
We have applied our previous learning of instruction writing to write instructions of what YOU need to do to make some beautiful Viking jewellery at home!
Cherry Class were very excited this afternoon when Mrs Hard delivered a parcel for them! When they opened it they found a Bear and a letter! They are really excited about getting to know their new arrival!!
Today, in Oak Class, we have been finding out the French translation for what we want to be when we grow up. Can you guess what we want to be? Capitalise d’un navire, chanteur, gymnaste, agriculteur. 
Year 2 have enjoyed using their pebbles today to make their very own minibeasts. We now have an amazing selection of ladybirds, bumble bees, big, scary spiders and beautiful butterflies.
Well done Year 2 for being soooo creative!
Miss Floris
Palm class created their very own dinosaur timeline, whilst looking at the different dinosaur eras in time. We found out that the Stegosaurs was alive in the Jurassic period, around 150 million years ago and that the Ichthyosaurs lived during the Mesozoic era.
Palm class had a great afternoon making their very own Dinosaur Top Trump Cards! Then of course, they got to play against each other with their Top Trump cards. Some great work from Palm Class, well done! ?
This week, ‘Lord Ludford’ introduced an exciting business challenge to our year 6 children in the style of The Apprentice.
With a £5 investment, the children will work in teams of 5 to create their own business plans. They must choose a product to design and sell which will be sold to children and parents at the end of the topic. After making back the initial investment, the profit will go towards a treat for year 6. The winning team will be given the opportunity to choose what the money is spent on.
Good luck candidates!
As we start our new topic, we had a range of activities to explore today. We used magnifying glasses to look closely at different fossils, continued to practise our measuring skills, role played going back in time, had a go at drawing around dinosaur stencils, used to the clock to play ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ and some of us worked with the teachers to do some writing.
We are having a busy afternoon with lots of dinosaur activities. We are doing some guided writing explaining what we found when exploring yesterday and imagining we are explorers and fossil hunters just like Mary Anning! What is your favourite dinosaur and why?
A huge thank you to everyone who came along and shared our ‘Greece – Now and Then’ Learning Journey with us. Year 4 had great fun showing you everything they have been learning.
Year 4 are getting prepared for their Living Museum this afternoon. We can’t wait to show you all what we have been up to!
The Year 3 and 4 classrooms have had the aroma of a Greek restaurant for the past two days as we have all made and tasted a Greek Salad! Some of us liked all of it, some were less keen on the olives and red onion and some of us really didn’t like it at all! Some of us were really surprised at how good it all tasted together!
During the first two days back, year 6 have been learning about some of the festivals celebrated in France. Some of which have included:
Jour de l’An (Bonne Annie), L’Epiphanie and La Chandeleur
They have learnt some of the key phrases relating to the food eaten at the festivals.
In addition to the language skills, children have also made Breton Biscuits which are popular in Brittany.
Year 6 have been investigating how medicine has changed over the decades. They have researched influential people in the industry of medicine and explained what they did to advance medicine and health care.
Can you remember what the people in the photo are famous for?
Year 6 have been learning about how the heart works: They have created their own diagram, labelling the important components and explaining the function.
Can you remember what each labelled feature does?
This week, year 6 have been working hard to present their SOLE work in a creative way. The children have been reflecting on the skills, knowledge and the learning values which they have developed during the topic. 
This morning Year 1 spent their time reflecting on all their learning from the Trash Bash Topic. We hope you’ll enjoy reading them at the celebration event on Friday.
Fir Class are really enjoying their Graffiti Workshop with Krishna. Lots of laughter over funny elephants, snakes and a cyclops! I wonder what our finished boards will look like?
This afternoon Year 2 have had a great time completing a range of activities linked to our topic of Trash Bash.
They were sorting different materials and explaining why things went where they did, they recycled old bottles and created shakers, made predictions for science and created some circle art. All were engaged and loved the different activities.
We are however needing some more small drinks bottles, so please bring any in for us if you have any!
This afternoon in SOLE we watched a short video which told us all about why we should recycle and what we can recycle. We discussed what we had learnt from the video and decided about how we could represent this through drawings and writing on a poster. We collaborated on our team tables to make giant colourful posters! 
Governor visit – Mrs Parfitt keeping us on our toes!
Lovely to have a parent governor give up their personal time to check on the quality of our curriculum and it’s recording. Mrs Parfitt visited classes, looked in several books across the key stages and held an impromptu SOLE book forum with various children from year 6. Her findings will be reported back to all governors and those thoughts and findings, as always, will be published, as appropriate, on the Governor section of our website.
After leaving our eggs to soak for just under a week, we removed them from the liquid today and found some surprising and scary results! While the water had not changed the egg at all, the other liquids had caused the eggs to crack, discolour and soften, and the shells to dissolve (fade away).
Look at the photo – which liquids did the most damage? Which are worse for your teeth?
This afternoon, year 6 have been finalising their moccasins. The finished products are very impressive!
It has been great to see children using collaberation to support each other with the sewing skills required!
Cherry Class are investigating the effect of different drinks on our teeth. We are using hard boiled eggs to represent our teeth and have left them sat in glasses of water, coke, cherryade and orange juice. We also put one in vinegar as we’ve learnt that the bacteria in our mouths produce acid when they feed on the sugary food we’ve eaten.
What do you think will happen to each egg? Why?
Year 3 and 4 enjoyed a visit from a local dentist this afternoon. She taught us how to clean our teeth properly, which foods and drinks are good for our teeth, and even let some of us dress up in dentists’ gowns, masks and gloves.
Did you know that you should clean your teeth BEFORE breakfast?
This afternoon, year 6 have been continuing to carry out a number of tasks relating to Native America.
These include:
-Designing and creating a landscape of the United States, labelling the states and signifying the location of the major Native American tribes
-Making a group totem pole using paper mache
-Designing and making moccasins using sewing skills such as the blanket stitch
A very productive afternoon was had in Year 6 with everybody actively doing something creative linked to our topic of Native Americans. Maps of North America were made that identified the locations of the different tribes, large class totem poles were added to and covered in papier-mâché and the patterns for their moccasins were created in preparation to for their sewing this week.
Redwood Class had an amazing day out at Devon County Show yesterday. Here is just a sample of all the wonderful things they enjoyed. A huge THANKYOU! to all our volunteers who came with us and made it all possible.
This afternoon, year 6 have been explaining their learning from the last 2 topics: Another Level and Inter Outer Space.
They have thought carefully about presenting their work in a creative way and have used impressive writing techniques to explain their in-depth knowledge of the scientific concepts.
This afternoon in sole we were very busy! Lots of us made paper mache planets and we also explored using bee bots. Our mission was to create a planet and try and get the bee bot to land on it. We had to navigate the bee bots correctly to complete our mission!
We also challenged ourselves by seeing if we could make a light bulb light up! There was some great collaboration and team work going on in Palm class this afternoon!
The children have been working in their triads to complete the tasks included in our topic ‘Another Level.’
With a heavy science focus, children have learnt about food chains, adaptation and plant life. Furthermore, they have developed their art skills by drawing animals and the parts of plants and flowers.
Year 3 and 4 collaborated this afternoon to create prototypes of our Stomp Rockets! I wonder if they will fly?! Find out later! 
