Author: St Mark's Teacher

The children have continued to enjoy our project this term. They have been very excited watching our caterpillars grow and turn into cocoons. Everyday, they were watching to see when they would emerge and finally they did – ‘beautiful butterflies’ were the comments from many children as they watched them spread their wings. This week, we released the butterflies and watched them as they took flight.

We wrote poems using our senses and imagining what the butterflies might see, hear, taste, smell and feel as they entered their new world. We also enjoyed recounting how the caterpillars grew into butterflies and wrote about this in our English this week.

Yesterday, we all enjoyed using our sense of smell, taste and sight when making our vegetable kebabs. The repeating patterns the children made on the kebabs were fab, they smelt delicious and all the children said they tasted ‘yummy!’. It was great fun. The children enjoyed writing their own simple recipes for their kebab, so they should be able to tell you how to make them.

As the children approach the end of this project, we would like to invite you to come in and see their artwork in the small hall on Wednesday 23rd October, 8.30-8.45 am.

Thank you for all you support.

The Year 1 Team

Thank you to everyone who has sent back the reply slip regarding cabin groups for Windmill Hill. Please rest assured knowing that these requests will be kept strictly confidential and will not be shared with other children. Your replies, along with the children’s requests of who they WOULD like to share with (which they completed today) will massively help us now in organising the rooms to ensure ALL children feel happy 🙂

We sent home a few extra letters today to those children who haven’t yet brought their slip back. Please simply send back the replies blank with your signature if there is no one your child shouldn’t share with. This way, we know you have definitely seen the letter.

 

Next week, the children will gather again for more Windmill Hill excitement. We will share with them the video from last year, have a quick look at the website and give them the opportunity to ask any questions that haven’t already been answered.

On the final day of half term, Thursday 24th October, we will tell the children their cabin number, the cabin number of the nearest adult and their activity group number. This will come home with the children on a little information slip along with the password for parents to access a special area of the school website where we will post updates while we are away. With this, the children will also bring home the activity timetable and hopefully, the canteen menu. For those children needing a little help with organisation, you can then help them pack clothes for each day according to the activities they will complete (e.g. an extra pair for any days involving muddy/water activities!). Additionally, the menu might help those children who are fussy eaters or who have allergies to plan their food choices with the help of you!

 

Quick reminder – All medical consent forms should now have been returned. If there is anything else that comes to mind that you haven’t included on these between now and the trip, please inform us as soon as possible. Equally, feel free to come and ask us any last minute questions!

 

24 sleeps to go!

Year 6 Team

 

 

Even the rain didn’t stop us learning! What a lot we learnt on Friday when we visited Stonehenge! The children were a credit to our school and behaved beautifully throughout the day.

More photos to follow……

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the parent helpers that joined us on our trip. We can’t offer these opportunities without your help.

Year 3 Team

 

Year 2 have been having lots of fun learning about the Great Fire of London. We’ve used the 5 W’s of Newspaper reporting (Who, Where, What, When, Why) to find out all of the key facts about how the fire started and why it spread so quickly. We’ve used these facts to write some amazing newspaper reports that you will be able to see in their books when you visit us on parent’s evening. Do use the Knowledge Organiser that we sent home to test your child on the facts. We’re sure you’ll be surprised about how much they now know.

We’re currently investigating fire safety in our school to help the children understand that fire safety has hugely improved since the Great Fire of London.

 

The children are also excited because we have introduced Times tables RockStars today. They will be coming home with their login details tomorrow. These will be inside their homework books. When they log in they will be able to create their own avatar and then will complete a short skills test game called the ‘Gig’. This may contain some challenging questions that your children will probably not currently be able to do. Please don’t worry about this. This is used to create a baseline to show how your child improves with their mental maths skills throughout their school career. The children will then be able to access our year group section of RockStars where they will be able to develop their skills with their 2 times tables. If you have any questions, please pop in and speak to your class teacher.

 

We look forward to seeing you all at one of our parent’s evenings.

Year 2 Team

 

We are looking forward to our school trip to Stonehenge on Friday! We have been watching the weather forecast very carefully and it has constantly been changing. Sadly, it looks like it is going to be a rather wet day so children need to dress appropriately. There is very limited shelter so providing things below is extremely important. 

Clothing
School jumpers and polo shirts
Trousers/ leggings
Trainers (That may get muddy!)
Waterproof warm coat with a hood

Lunch
A back pack with lunch in this (bear in mind they will be carrying this all day)
Water bottle

Year 3 Team

Thank you! 

Thank you so much to all the parents who attended our Windmill Hill Chat on Tuesday evening and our Year 6 Curriculum morning on Thursday. We hope you found both of these informative. The PowerPoints for each presentation have been uploaded onto our website in case you missed either of them, but please feel free to pop in and ask us any questions about the year ahead should you require.

Bush Tucker Trial

The children have certainly got their teeth stuck into our first topic, Rumble in the Jungle, starting with an Amazon Rainforest inspired ‘Bush Tucker Trial’! They were offered jungle delicacies including Parrot Intenstines (strawberry laces), Frogs’ Eyes (peeled grapes and raisins) and Sloth Droppings (prunes and chocolate covered raisins)!

Lots of eager children keen to try the ‘Parrot Intestines’!

‘Worms in Mud’, anyone?!

The ‘Monkey Vomit’ clearly went down a treat!

Brandon’s face lit up at the sight of ‘Frogs’ eyes’!

The ‘Wild Fungus’ was all a bit too much for Sophie!

Smiles all round for ‘Forest Floor’!

After this, the children created their own descriptive Amazon restaurant menus, featuring some of these delicious sounding meals along with their own unique creations! Why not come along to our Amazon project outcome on Tuesday 22nd October, where you may be tempted to try some of these delicacies for yourself!

Amazing Artists!

Wow – we have been truly amazed by the incredible artwork the children have already produced since starting Year 6. We have used Georgia O’Keefe’s style to inspire our own ‘close ups’ of Amazon flora and fauna. Can you guess which creatures are lurking in the rainforest?

 

A Few Reminders

• Windmill Hill consent forms need to be returned by Tuesday 8th October. Please inform us of ANY medical/sleep issues, even if you think it’s not worth mentioning, so we can all have a really successful and positive week.
• CGP SATs Revision Books payments are due by Monday 4th November. These are a fantastic way to prepare your children for their end of KS2 SATs.
• Social Media use amongst the children has already been brought to our attention. Are you aware of what apps your child is using and what messages are being sent? Most of these apps have a minimum age restriction of 13, if not older.

Year 6 Team