This week’s newsletter for Rossall Junior School and Nursery.
YEAR 6
What a performance! Our Drama lessons have been a real hit in Year 6 with the delightful Mr Veitch. The children have been developing their techniques through role play and are scripting an assembly to perform ‘live’ to a laptop near you very soon!
YEAR 5
Year 5 have enjoyed another busy week of learning. In our English learning around our chosen book, Annie has persuaded a barrel maker to build her a super strong barrel and she has hired a manager called Frank to promote her daredevil stunt. We are very excited to find out what will happen when Annie finally achieves her goal!
Rossall Rotation was enjoyed by everyone on Tuesday. As you can see from the photographs the children made full use of the fabulous surroundings to build shelters for mice, mini beasts and birds. It was suggested that we may need a shelter for crocodiles…….Mr Turner assured the children that we do not!!
The children are thoroughly enjoying taking part in sport lessons, it is great to see them outside and active.
YEAR 4
We have been ‘gorilla mad’ in Year 4 this week! Inspired by our book, ‘Gorilla’ we have watched gorilla films, asked questions about gorillas, researched gorilla facts and drawn gorillas! In our topic, we have started to look at the different climates that there are around the world and what their weather patterns are like – as the weather has turned colder this week all of us in Year 4 we are wishing we lived in a tropical climate instead!
YEAR 3
This week in Year 3 we have continued our “Keeping Healthy” science unit by learning about bones and skeletons. Our skeleton’s job is to enable us to move, to give us support and protect our organs. We have been helped out by “Mr Skeleton” who has taken residence in the classroom this week!
We have also been continuing our maths learning of place value with 3-digit numbers up to 1000.
YEAR 1 AND YEAR 2
In Year One, we have read more of our class book, ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers. We have created a lost and found office in our classroom to see if we can help Penguin find his way home… but nobody is missing a penguin. What are we going to do next?
We have helped the lost and found office by writing lists of items people have lost and found, thinking very carefully about our phonics.
We have continued to think about our 5 senses during our Science lessons and completed a listening quiz and smell pot investigation. The children enjoyed sharing their findings from the weekend prep, a senses hunt.
In Year Two, in our Language work, we have been busy working on nouns and introducing noun phrases to describe the main character Timothy Limpitt, from our class book, ‘The Troll swap’. We have also applied this work to our Science and have been using noun phrases to describe different materials. We have investigated natural and man-made materials, and went on a material hunt around the School, trying to find different natural and man-made materials.
RECEPTION
In Reception, we have set up an Autumn exploration table for finding out about natural objects and learning about the seasons. Incorporated with our family and class nature walks, it has become a lovely way to find out about Autumn together in a hands-on way. The huge tubs of treasure sit on the nature table ready to be used, examined and played with in any way that the children choose, along with magnifying glasses for looking closely at their details.
Now we have lots of treasures in school, we have been exploring them this week. We have used mirrors to make patterns, roll them, stick them into play dough and even used them as money in our role-play area. We have also done observational drawings of the natural objects, colour mixing and leaf printing.
On walks, we have found so many leaves of all different shapes, varieties and colours, which have lended themselves nicely to sorting and classification activities back in the classroom. The pine cones and conkers have been great objects to use to practise our counting skills.
The children have loved touching and handling all the objects and describing how they look and feel. There has been plenty of scope for discussion about the contrast in textures between shiny, smooth conkers and their spiky outer shells and the variety of shape and sizes between the different leaves, seeds and pine cones. We have also added some information books about trees, seeds and leaves for the children to use.
NURSERY
Babies are hardwired to take risks from birth from their first breath to their first steps and to trying new food. The benefits of risky play are to be able to manage risks later on in life. Through support this week from the staff in the baby room, the babies have taken many risks. They are learning to stand up against the furniture, trying to walk their first steps, using the slide in the garden and attempting to crawling around the nursery. We encourage the children to ‘have a go’ which will develop a ‘can do’ attitude so they are open to new experiences.
This week is the Great British Beach Clean, so we have been talking to the older children about the importance of taking our rubbish home if we cannot find a bin anywhere. We have also been reading the story, ‘Someone Swallowed Stanley’ which is about the increase of plastic in the sea and the effect it can have on the sea life.
AWARD WINNERS
Congratulations to this week’s award winners:
Reception – Kaxshaan for being a risk taker and trying new activities. Oskar for trying hard in all activities.
Year 1 – Emma and Abrianna
Year 2 – Jude, Dolly, Spencer and Rupert
Year 3 – Nicholas and Caitlin
Year 4 – Roman and Emily for the wonderful start they have made to Year 4. Michael for being Principled – for following the agreements we made in our Year 4 Class Charter, and Jack for being an Inquirer and finding out about the teeth of different animals
Year 5 Joshua and Bailey
Year 6 – Blossom and Thera
