Junior School Newsletter – Michaelmas Week 9

This week’s newsletter for Rossall Junior School and Nursery.

YEAR 6

Remembrance Day has been at the forefront of our activities this week and the children have been learning about the significance of the poppy and carrying out activities to acknowledge those that lost their lives through conflict. The artwork has been outstanding and the Remembrance pebbles that the children have painted have created a striking memorial at the front of Junior School.

Remembrance Day has been at the forefront of our activities this week and the children have been learning about the significance of the poppy and carrying out activities to acknowledge those that lost their lives through conflict. The artwork has been outstanding and the Remembrance pebbles that the children have painted have created a striking memorial at the front of Junior School.

The Rossall Rotation is one of the many highlights of the week and from Beach School to baking, we headed off to the Cookery Department for a spot of Muffin Making! What a wonderful time was had by all and we’ve certainly got a class full of star bakers!

YEAR 5

Another busy week for Year 5! We have enjoyed reading the opening pages of  our new book, ‘The Lost Happy Endings’. The children have worked hard finding clues in the fabulous pictures and text about the main character, ‘Jub’. We have investigated place names that are rooted in Anglo Saxon history and have discovered their meanings. The force has certainly been with Year 5 this week! The children had great fun experimenting with force meters. We looked at how strong the force of gravity is between the Earth and various objects in the classroom.

On Wednesday the children made their own poppies and poppy wreaths. We watched the Remembrance Service and observed two minutes silence together in our classroom.

YEAR 4

Year 4 have been busy this week – we have created a wonderful timeline in our classroom, organised into chronological order by the children! It starts with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and takes us right up to modern times with Princess Diana! In our new science topic ‘Listen Up’ we visited the music department to help us understand how sound is made – we use our observational skills to look at a range of musical instruments and realised that movement and vibration is how sound is made! We have done some fantastic writing to encourage people to visit  ‘The Place Between’ in English and this has also been the inspiration for our Henri Matisse ‘paper cutout’ art.

YEAR 3

This week we have really been pushing ourselves in our maths to master carrying when adding and subtracting. We have also continued to deepen our exploration of artic areas in our Pole to Pole unit, researching about polar climates and planning travel routes from the UK to the South Pole!

YEAR 2

In Maths this week we have been mastering how to add and subtract two digit numbers. We have learned how to use the column method in our learning and we have even been carrying numbers into the tens column! In Literacy, we have revisited what an adverb is and have used them in our descriptive writing; we have described how Plop, the baby owl, moves and used them to aid our description of fireworks. In Science, we have been focussing on food chains. We made our own owl food chains and identified the producer, consumer and predator. On Wednesday, we took part in the Remembrance Service, holding our pebble poppies!

YEAR 1

Nibbles has caused more mischief in Year 1 this week. He has managed to nibble his way through lots of books and ended up in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He has caused lots of damage in the house of the Three Bears and we have had to help Daddy Bear to write a list of things he will need to replace. We have also written about how the characters have felt when Nibbles has destroyed their things.

We have talked about our favourite stories and have been using our puppets and theatre to retell stories and make up our own adventures. Let’s hope Nibbles doesn’t get into our favourite stories!

We have also been learning about Remembrance and have created some art work to help us understand the symbol of the poppy. Thank you for your efforts at home with our Remembrance activities.

RECEPTION

Poppies are a common sight in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day, a mark of remembrance for those who have fought or fallen in wars across the years. We commemorated Remembrance Day in different ways – through the creation of poppy-related crafts such as painting stones, creating badges, tracing poppies, counting out poppies and the painting of observational poppies. A simple but profound act, the two-minute silence, was held at 11am on Remembrance Day, it was a gentle way of introducing the children to the concept of remembrance. We also enjoyed watching a short two minute CBeebies film entitled ‘Poppies’ which follows a rabbit playing in a meadow that gradually becomes a First World War battlefield. It was a really beautiful piece to watch and was a great way to introduce our discussions about Remembrance Day.

NURSERY

This week in the nursery, our children have continued to flourish through their weekly enhancements. ‘Move it Monday’ was a stomp, march, skip to the beach. On ‘Magnifico Martes’ we incorporated Spanish instructions, ‘up, down, stop, go’ into an active game in the garden. Our Well-being Wednesday was all about taking a moment to think of others and recognise all that we have to be grateful for, we also observed a two minutes silence, and decorated pebbles with commemorative poppies to mark Remembrance Day. Our ‘Theatrical Thursdays’ were all about following a rhythm and keeping to the beat, as we made music using instruments, our voices and body parts. Finally ‘Fresh Air Friday’ was a chance to learn about how the weather impacts our environment, realising rain makes the ground extra ‘squishy’ and how it can be tricky to hear each other or even run fast on a windy day. 

In the baby room, our Sanderlings have had a busy week of outdoor activities and sensory play. They enjoyed a morning at the beach, digging and mark making in the sand, whilst watching the world go by. It was especially fun splashing in the puddles made by the sea and banging the pebbles together to make sounds. The children have experienced the fun of large scale drawing and painting, causing lots of mess and smiles along the way. They found that their toy cars got stuck in the mud, just like our ‘duck in the truck’ story, on Wednesday, having lots of fun rolling the cars through the mud and exploring the texture of wet mud on their hands. It was also lovely to see the babies exploring the impact of their actions with playdough, using their hands to mould and squeeze the dough, whilst using the animal figures to create footprints in the playdough. What a busy week we have had! You can now follow our nursery on Facebook and Instagram, to see all of our lovely experiences and for ideas to try at home too.

AWARD WINNERS

Reception – Valencia – Headteachers Award for brilliant phonics and writing. Oskar – certificate of achievement for competence in segmenting during phonic activities. Darius – certificate of achievement for recognising all numbers to twenty

Year 1 – Stanley and Isla for excellent effort in Maths.

Year 2- Rupert for helping others in their learning and Aaron for his improvement in reading. 

Year 3 – Rhiannon for Maths and Sam for Writing.

Year 4 – Zizi for always putting in 100% effort into everything and Kieran for amazing, creative ideas in our English lessons.

Year 5 – Ruby and Daniel got these awards for being Star Bakers! Isabelle was the Junior school TT ROCKSTAR champion. She won the most points overall this week. Year 5 remain undefeated Champions!

Year 6 – Aaru won the headteachers award for outstanding persuasive writing about saving tigers. Isaac won the class award for their mature attitude to learning. Ruby won the achievement award for consistently acting as a role model both in and out of class in 6S.

NOTICES