Junior School Newsletter – Lent Term 2021 – Week 4

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

YEAR 6

What an explosive week it has been in Year 6, with gunpowder plots, rocket launches and racing heartbeats! Our topic work on ‘Politics and Parliament’ has taken us back in time to study significant events when people have disagreed with the government, which led us to research Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot.

The children enjoyed creating information posters and then re-enacting certain scenes in a Horrible Histories style; the Tower of London scenes were torturous! Our Rocket launch experiments are well underway in Science, so send your videos in as soon as you can and you could win a prize that is out of this world!

YEAR 5

As another week comes to an end, I could not be prouder of the children in Year 5.

We have had an amazing week of learning and laughter. Despite all being connected on a remote Zoom call, we are still very much a team. The children are learning new skills not only in their Academic studies but as people. They help each other, make each other laugh and show empathy when it is needed. They are truly remarkable and I am constantly humbled by their resilience. 

We have moved onto Fractions in Mathematics and have had a great week learning all about equivalent fractions and mixed numbers. Spanish continues to be taught and enjoyed by all and Salvador Dali has been the artist of the week. 

Year 5 has talent is on Friday… who knows what secret talents Year 5 are hiding! I will let you know next week!

YEAR 4

At the end of last week, Mr Turner set all the children in the Junior School the challenge of making someone smile… Well, Year 4 have certainly made me smile!

The work that the children have been producing, particularly in Maths this week, has been amazing – we have some talented mathematicians in Year 4! They have been multiplying by 2- digit numbers, by 3-digit numbers and have even multiplied more than two numbers together! In our topic, we have been thinking about Roman soldiers and have started to make some Roman shields – hopefully next week we will be able to practice our Roman soldier battle moves!

YEAR 3

Another busy and fun-filled week for Year 3!

The children are loving our Science unit about rocks and fossils, learning to be palaeontologists, and we even made our own fossils out of salt dough! We are delving deeper into the Stone Age, learning about how to be hunter-gatherers and what the homes in Skara Brae were like.

For Maths, this was our last week on multiplication and division, and the children have learnt many different strategies over the past weeks to have in their Maths toolbelt.

In English, we are mastering the use of speech marks and prefixes in writing. Well done Year 3, keep up the amazing attitude towards our learning! 

YEAR 2

Year 2 have been learning about the Great Fire of London and this week we have been learning about town criers. The children have written their own message to warn Londoners about the fire. Archie and Dolly have recorded themselves announcing their messages. (You can see them on our Flickr album).
https://vimeo.com/506132652

YEAR 1

This week, Year 1 finished our class book ‘Goldilocks and just the one bear’. We found out that Goldilocks had moved to the big city and Baby Bear had stumbled upon her apartment, and Goldilocks was now a grown-up. We created some excellent drama pieces to show the dialogue
between Goldilocks and Baby Bear after all these years and thought about what Goldilocks might have done since the last time they saw each other. Some of our ideas included going on holiday to Spain, going to university, getting married and having a baby.

In Maths, we have been solving word problems involving addition. In Topic, we have created mini books with facts about the different countries in the United Kingdom. We have been making observations in Science and comparing our cress seeds. So far we have found out that cress grows in the dark, but it is yellow instead of green, and the seeds won’t grow if they don’t have water.

RECEPTION

There is a reason we learn rhymes as young children. They help us develop an ear for our language. Rhyme and rhythm highlight the sounds and syllables in words. And understanding sounds and syllables helps kids learn to read!  

We have been looking at rhymes this week, through stories and games. The children created a very long rhyming string together using three and four-letter words. We have played odd one out with different rhyming families. Reception has also taken part in a fun competition which encourages them to use their senses and imagination to create their very own original riddle. They could write a riddle on any theme, from our current book ‘The Gingerbread Man’, to people, places or animals.  

This is the riddle we wrote together as a class:

What could it be?
Follow the clues and you will see…
It says “You can’t catch me”

It smells of biscuit
It feels hard and crunchy
It tastes like ginger


Have you guessed what it could be?

NURSERY

After reading ‘A Thing called Snow’, I promised the children it would be here on the weekend and how right was I? It was lovely to hear about the children’s adventures even if it was only a slight dusting of snow. However, it was still magical and some of them will have never seen snow outside their front door before.

This is the last week of our winter theme which has provided us with so many activities and learning opportunities.

We made snowballs using scrunched up pieces of paper with a number written inside during circle time. The children had to throw them and then try and match their number to a friend who also has the same number. The children thoroughly enjoyed this, as we do not usually encourage throwing paper!

This week we also created our own Jackson Pollock paintings using winter colours which was so much fun. We did not get too much paint on the walls and definitely not one to try at home.

It’s bird watching weekend this weekend so we thought we would help attract the birds in our garden by making feeders for them. We used the apple cores from breakfast and threaded Cheerios (other cereal available) on string and hung them out in the garden. Hopefully, we attract more than the daily seagull that pays us a visit.

The babies have been exploring this week. This is very important for their development both emotionally and physically. They learn more about the world and how it works this way. It’s one thing to talk about objects but to actually feel them, hold them and taste them is another level. It is also important for their motor skills, as they can persist until they get it right which boosts their confidence and competence as they begin to think ‘I can do it’.

AWARD WINNERS

Reception – This weeks certificates of achievement go to Oskar and Darius.

Oskar is making fantastic progress, especially with his reading. He has even had time to make a super PE video with his Mummy for our weekly PE lesson.

Darius has been trying hard with all aspects of remote learning. I was particularly impressed with his fantastic science video, wearing safety goggles and gloves Darius showed us a volcanic eruption.

Year 1 – Well done to Ryan for receiving a certificate of achievement for excellent communication skills in his drama activity, and to Larry for excellent effort in his Maths work this week.

Year 3 – Caitlin for outstanding writing and Nicholas for maths.

Year 4 – Reuben for showing great independence in his writing – he wrote a brilliant diary from the perspective of the main character in our book.

Roman I for showing great independence in all aspects of his work. He has been in school as a key worker and is so organised; he is always ready to get on with his work, actively participates in our lessons and follows the instructions for each task carefully! 

Year 5 – Bailey for an amazing effort at all times and across all subjects, and Ruby for always being cheerful, always engaged in the lessons and fabulous work.

Year 6 – Blossom (6S) for outstanding enthusiasm in all activities, Liberty (6S) for outstanding enthusiasm in all activities, Lake (6R) for outstanding contribution in-class discussion, and Buster (6R) for outstanding contribution in-class discussion.

ROSSALL ROCKET CHALLENGE
Mr Cond–sorry, we mean Albert Einstein, has challenged our pupils to build their own Rossall Rocket! In this two minute tutorial, Albert demonstrates just how easy they are to create. Send your videos/photos of your attempts to [email protected]

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PICTURES FROM THIS WEEK