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Aston Rowant Church of England Primary School

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Aston Rowant Church of England Primary School

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Squirrel Archive 2018 - 2019

Welcome to Squirrel Class!

2018-19

 

POP UP LITERACY FESTIVAL - I AM AN ARTIST! 
 
As part of the Pop Up Literacy Festival, Squirrel Class went to the Waddesdon archives to meet Kertu Sillaste. Kertu is an Estonian author and illustrator who makes picture books about art. She taught us that art should have us thinking and feeling, both when we look at it and when we create art ourselves. Kertu showed us how she likes to illustrate using lots of different media, techniques and textures. We then had a go ourselves! 
Find out more about Kertu Sillaste and her work on this website: 
 
Squirrel Class had an amazing trip to The Living Rainforest. We learned all about the different plants and animals found in the rainforests of the world. The children were in awe of the huge leaves and brightly coloured creatures. We took part in a special tour to help us learn about the food we eat that is grown in the rainforest and how we can help to make sure this is sustainable. The trip was a great opportunity to compare the rainforest with our learning about food growth, animals and geography in the UK this term. 
Hooray, UK! We launched our Summer term topic by finding out lots of information about a given country in the UK. We then took turns to teach the rest of our friends in Squirrel about our country. We love learning from each other! 
Year 2 made a poster to  give examples of apostrophes used for possession - what great teamwork! 
We have been continuing with our work on Andy Warhol by creating portraits of our favourite celebrities, as well as self portraits. 
We were the first class to run a marathon distance at running club! 
Squirrel Class have been investigating different ways of testing the strength of magnets. 
We shared bread and 'wine' (black current squash!) during our RE lesson to help us to imagine how Jesus and his disciples may have felt during The Last Supper. 

Plant Detectives! 

We have been working towards our CREST Science awards in Forest Friday by being plant detectives. We found plants growing in unusual places around our school and tried to give explanations as to how they got there.

The Big Science Event! It's that time of year again! Squirrel Class have been very busy putting their 'working scientifically' skills to the test in order to create their entries for Science Oxford's 'Big Science Event'. The children have come up with their own questions and investigations to answer them. They then create a poster to record the process and their findings. We had some very interesting (and delicious!) questions in Squirrel Class this year including: 

 

  • What is the best position for your arms to go when you are running?
  • Do older children line up Lego bricks faster?
  • Which material makes the best house for Sid? (our class mascot!)
  • Which type of Lego brick is best for building a tower? 
  • Which chocolate melts the quickest? 
  • Do people with bigger feet kick footballs further? 
Our Science work this week has made us think of lots of questions for our 'Wonder Wall...'
Squirrel Class received a letter from Mr Andrew Newton at The British Scientific Society. He wanted our help to find out all about forces and magnets through fun investigations which he can then use at his science fair. Of course, we were happy to help and got to work straight away! 

Wow! The RAF STEM Ambassadors visited our school today and what an amazing launch it was to our British Science Week celebrations. We took part in so many different activities to foster a love of STEM subjects. Activities included: making and launching rockets on the playground, programming robots and debugging algorithms, making really strong structures from only newspaper using force and design, and junk modelling race cars. There was so much opportunity for team work, discussion, creativity and problem solving.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Squirrel Class loved sharing their favourite books as part of our World Book Day celebrations. We took part in a book swap, dressed up as our favourite characters, shared our favourite stories, made book marks and made our own books! Can you guess who we are? 
We have been learning about Andy Warhol and the pop art movement in our Art lessons. We had a go at creating some pictures using his 'blotted line' printing technique. The technique is very simple, however it takes a lot of little steps and patience.
Our class reader this term is 'The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark' by Jill Tomlinson. We will be writing fact files about Barn Owls like Plop. We asked questions about Barn Owls and then used the RSPB website to find out about the British Bird.
We launched our new class reader in Literacy. Mrs McCleary gave us some mystery items and told us we had to include them in our story. We invented a story, sharing our ideas in groups, drawing story maps and writing small sections. We then presented our story ideas to the rest of the class. It was really fun and we came up with some very imaginative ideas!
Our finished instructions: 'How to catch the Iron Man'. 
We worked with fire in Forest Friday! We started fires using flint and steels on cotton wool and then popped popcorn in the fire saucer. We know how to use fire safely and sensibly. 
We have been very busy learning about Venn diagrams in Maths. We sorted capital letters using our chosen criteria. We used mirrors to determine whether the letters had lines of symmetry and 'angle finder fish' to determine whether or not they had right angles! 
We have been learning more about 2D shapes in Maths this week. We have been completing lots of different challenges to practise describing properties of 2D shapes including sides, vertices and lines of symmetry. 
We have been working in pairs to make sequences in Gymnastics. We loved performing for our friends.
A very wet and windy Forest Friday! We loved experiencing the elements whilst den building, squelching in the mud and whittling
'How to catch The Iron Man'. We have been using our class reader to write instructions this week.
Internet Safety Week 'Our Internet, Our Choice'
 
We have been working together to learn how to keep safe on the internet. We learned about digital footprints, reliable information, and what to do if we get that 'Uh Oh' feeling.
We have been continuing with our Shadow Puppet Theatres in Science this week. We used our knoweldge of materials to select the best translucent material to use as a screen for our theatre. We also experimented with moving the light, colour mixing and sound effects to enhance our story telling. 

We made a Christingle to take to our Candlemas service in Church. This is one of our favourite traditions in the Spring term. 

 

We have been using our knowledge of light and shadow to continue with our shadow puppet theatre project. We chose to make our puppets from black card because it made the clearest shadow. 
Squirrel Class had an amazing trip to The Look Out Discovery Centre in Bracknell this week. We had the opportunity explore and problem solve through play based exhibits. In the morning we participated in a show about light, where we learned about colour mixing, UV light, shadows, light beams and how sun cream works to keep us safe. Our day finished perfectly with a walk back to school the fresh snow flurries! What a lovely day! 
We have been thinking about being quiet, calm and peaceful to help us with our thoughts and feelings. We loved spending time in our favourite outdoor, peaceful spaces during Forest Friday and writing prayers to help us to reflect and be thankful. 
In Science we have been learning about reflection. We had some challenges to complete using mirrors.
Our PSHE topic this term is 'Who am I?' We are learning what makes us special and how to love ourselves, our similarities and our differences through our developing sense of self. Have a look at our self-portraits! 
Mrs McCleary got the 'dark den' out so we could test which materials show up better in the dark. We have also been continuing to make our shadow puppet theatres. 
Come rain or shine we love using our outdoor environment to inspire our learning. We went on a 'simile hunt' to help with our creative writing. We found tree bark 'as bumpy as bubble wrap' and the rain was 'as gentle as a cobweb'. 
Awe and wonder in Science! 'I wonder....' all about Light! Squirrel class had some interesting ideas! 
We have been using story maps and story stepping to help us to retell The Iron Man. 

We have loved starting our new class reader this week 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. Mrs McCleary read the first chapter and we described the Iron Man using expanded noun phrases. We also took part in some role play, imagining how the broken pieces of the Iron Man would move across the beach to find their way back together. 

 
We have been working hard to understand division with remainders this week. 
'BRIGHT SPARKS' We loved launching our topic this week with lots of different activities to explore light. We looked at how the light helps us to see more clearly and spotted different colours of the light spectrum by blowing bubbles! We will also be making 'light whizzers' and shadow puppets so keep an eye out for those! 
...and there's more!
In our RE lessons this term we are learning to retell bible stories where miracles might have happened. We have been questioning whether Jesus really did perform miracles. Our key questions this term are: Could Jesus really heal people? Were these miracles or is there some other explanation?
Christmas craft week! One of our favourite ways to spread Christmas love and kindness is to make cards and gifts for our family, friends and neighbours.
Squirrel Class have shared 'A Christmas Truce' this week, a beautiful story of finding love and peace at Christmas even in times of conflict. 
Inspiring young scientists...We had an amazing visit from Science Oxford. We learnt about the Science behind rockets and space travel before designing and making our own rockets to launch on the school field! What an amazing world we live in. We developed our 'working scientifically' skills by making predictions, observing what happened and evaluating our rockets. Everyone got involved and loved it!
More rockets...
Loving what we found today..We made some Christmas stars out of willow to decorate our classroom. 

 

Squirrel Class have been sharing God's love by participating in a traditional Possada celebration. The children have been taking turns to give Mary, Joseph and Donkey a home for the night before bringing back to school. We have been sharing a special Possada blessing in class each day. 

Loving God's world..We made 'wind catchers' today in Forest Friday. 

Squirrel Class have been considering what our Core Values mean to us and what they look like around school and at home. The children came up with some really thoughtful ideas and can use our display to say where they have seen our Core Values being shown each week. 

 

We really enjoyed taking part in 'RE Inspired'. We retold the Nativity story, made Christmas cards and sang some Christmas hymns. We used this time to think about the true meaning of Christmas.