Week 8: 25th October

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One World Week

A fabulous week of learning in Year 4 as we studied Madagascar as part of our topic work.

Please look below to gain an insight into some of the things that Year 4 got up to this week:

Locating Madagascar and developing our understanding of using 4-figure grid references was one of the activities that the children learnt about.

Making a chameleon and learning about the wildlife of Madagascar gave the children insight into how it is home to some of the most unique and unusual species of wildlife in the whole world. Madagascar hosts lemurs, fossas, aye-ayes, and a number of other species found nowhere else in the world.  Most of the species found in Madagascar are endemic, meaning they cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Our Madagascan Wildlife Display.
The children also learnt to play a 700 year old Malagasy Game: Fanorona (Malagasy pronunciation: [fə̥ˈnurnə̥]).  It is a strategy board game for two players and is indigenous to Madagascar.  The children loved playing it and felt that it was challenging, exciting but that they needed to be tactical in playing it.  I have sent home the outline of the game for you to play at home as well!
Even Ms Hilton was challenged !

We continued our Topic Work on finding out about the Vanilla Trade and Madagascar’s economy.

In RE we finished our work on psalms and our act of worship today was focused on the remaining days of the Extraordinary Month of Mission.  Each of the children received a special Missio bookmark and prayed that they will continue to spread God’s love among those they meet – keeping God’s mission alive.  Thank you to Darcie for taking photos of our prayer time.

Finally, it was lovely to see so many of you today at the Harvest Assembly and afterwards in class for your child to celebrate their learning with you.

Thank you for your generous contributions.

Have a wonderful half-term.

Mrs McNamara    Ms Varga

 

 

Reception Autumn Term Autumn Term Week 8

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Reception have had a very exciting end to their first half term participating in One World Week with the rest of the school.

In class, the children have been learning about Italy. On Monday, they worked hard to create props for the new Italian restaurant. They then had lots of fun role playing being waiters, chefs, customers and front of house staff.

On Tuesday, Leon from Year 3 came to teach us some Italian songs and told us all about the village that his family come from in Italy. The children then made some Italian lemonade- It was delicious!

On Wednesday, Reception learnt about Pope Francis and the Vatican City. They also learnt about different landmarks in Italy, such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Venice and Milan. They enjoyed making their own models of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from clay and large scale gondolas from the large construction!

On Thursday the children learnt about pizzas and went on to make their own. They also had another visitor, Mrs Bruno, who read them a story in Italian about farm animals and then taught them how to count to ten and say hello, goodbye and thank you in Italian.

It was wonderful to see so many of you at our learning celebration this morning. Thank you for your continued support!

Wishing you all a lovely and restful half term break,

Mrs Theo and Mrs Gymer

Year 2 Blog Week 7

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One World Week 2019

It has been a wonderful week of learning in Year 2. Well done to everyone in Year 2 for their wonderful Home Learning projects on Iceland! We have enjoyed learning all about this wonderful country and it’s amazing landscapes!

Glacier cupcakes were on the menu in Year 2 and the children rolled up their sleeves and whipped up these tasty treats. Everyone went on to write up some wonderful instructions.

We thought very carefully about how Climate Change is affecting our common home. The children learnt about being Zero Heroes and created some beautiful Zero Hero portraits.

Thank you for your generous donations for the Harvest assembly.

It was great to see so many of you at our celebration morning. Thank you for your continued support.

Enjoy the half term!

Miss Davey

Year 6 – One World Week

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We’ve come to the end of our first half term in Year 6, and once again we’ve had a week full of fantastic learning. As part of One World Week, the class has been taking part in lots of activities linked to Poland and its culture: writing poems about the Holocaust, making Wycinanki (Polish paper cutting art), cooking Placki Ziemniaczane (Polish potato pancakes), learning Plynie Statek (a Polish singing/clapping game). We were also lucky enough to have Maks and Oliwia sharing their culture with us.

Wycinanki:

Cooking Placki Ziemniaczane:

Performing Plynie Statek

Writing Holocaust Poetry:

Sharing Polish culture:

This week, we also did an investigation in science to prove that yeast is a microorganism. The fact that it releases gas when activated means that it is respiring and is therefore a living thing.

Some of the Year 6s played hockey at Dame Alice Owen’s School with other primary schools. They showed great tenacity on the pitch and really improved as the afternoon went on. Well done!

Also this week, the children finished their self-portrait collages and used these to make rubbings.

We ended a fantastic week by spending time with our reading partners.

There is no home learning for the half term, so have a well-earned rest, enjoy yourselves and I’ll see you all in November.

Miss Donatantonio

One World Week

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This week, Year 5 learnt all about Brazil. Thank you for some wonderful home learning. There were a range of ideas such as statues, posters, fact files and PowerPoints. We began our week by learning abut the climate zones of the world and where Brazil was located. This enabled us to understand why the rain forest exists in this part of the world. We then moved onto understanding the rain forest biome. By identifying the features of each layer of the forest, we were able to understand the conditions and what sort of life would be supported there. Finally, we learnt about deforestation. We looked at the causes and the effects of this on both Brazil and the whole world. In particular, we learnt about erosion and water quality by  running an experiment on how rainfall affects soil with growth and without.

Today we wrote prayers for the Amazon Synod and its success.

Year 5 also enjoyed getting creative this week. We used collage techniques to make a fantastic Amazon display.

On Wednesday, we made the traditional Brazilian treat: Brigadeiros. On Thursday, we evaluated them and made recommendations for improvements. Many children are keen to try these at home and so the recipe can be found at the end of the blog.

Also on Wednesday, we celebrated our class mass on the theme of Laudato Si. Thank you to parents who attended and thank you to Fr Dominic who came to celebrate with us and teach us a song. The children behaved reverently and the singing was beautiful- well done, Year 5.

This first half term has rushed by and I have really enjoyed working with you all. It was wonderful to see so many of you at the celebration morning and the children thoroughly enjoyed winning the Amazon quiz. They also took great delight in naming any parents found cheating!

 

Wishing you a restful half term.

Mrs Lines

 

Brigadeiros

  • 14 ounce condensed milk (1 can)
  • 4 tablespoon cocoa powder (or chocolate)
  • 1 tablespoon margarine (or butter)
  • 100 gram chocolate sprinkles

 

Put all the ingredients, but the chocolate sprinkles, in a microwavable bowl

  • Microwave it for 3 minutes.
  • Mix it
  • Microwave it again for 3 minutes more.

Let it set for an hour in the fridge. Then roll into balls and cover in sprinkles.

Week 8

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We have had a great week learning about Australia. We located Australia on the map and have been comparing the weather each day with the weather in Potters Bar. The children have enjoyed learning about the Great Barrier Reef and made their own reefs. Our display looks wonderful with lots of animals from the Great Barrier Reef made by the children using different resources.

In PE we learnt a dance to the Australian song Waltzing Matilda.

On Thursday we made an Australian cake called The Lamington cake. The children enjoyed following the ingredients and decorating their cake.

In RE we have been learning about Psalms. We have also been looking at how coral has changed because of pollution and linking this to the message from Pope Francis.

On Friday we had a wonderful celebration morning, thank you for all of the food you sent in. The children loved showing you their dance and their learning.

 

I’m In Year 1, Get Me Out of Here! Today we did a bushtucker trial. The children named the drink Turtle Sick and the jelly Snake’s Slime. All the children and some teachers took part in the trial.

Have a wonderful holiday.

 

Mrs Carey

 

 

Autumn 1, Week 7

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What a week!

We have been learning about India as part of one world week, which has been amazing. The children have located continents, countries and oceans using various types of maps and have also identified physical and human characteristics in both India and the UK.

They have developed their chopping and weighing skills and baked some healthy onion bhajis, which were a real hit! As part of our RE focus this week, the children learnt about Mother Teresa and her wonderful work with the people of Calcutta and have also examined the similarities and differences between Diwali and Christmas.

During our PE lessons, we played the popular Indian invasion games Kabaddi and Hockey, which the children enjoyed.

It has been wonderful to see the children so enthused about learning and share their experiences, special clothing or Indian home learning with each other.

Our Stone Age experience on Thursday was AMAZING! We were visited by two Paleolithic Age people, Mema and Twig, who set up their Stone Age camp in the school field! Throughout the day the children were taught about the different stages of The Stone Age. They learnt how to make a fire using sticks and had the opportunity to gut and cook fish. Making clothing was a particular highlight as was  making string from horseradish stems, that could be used to make fishing nets.  Mema and Twig even joined us for lunch!

Reception Autumn Term Week 7

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Reception have been thinking about growing this week. The children have had lots of opportunities to discuss how they have changed from being babies to how they are now and the things that they are now able to do that they couldn’t do when they were first born.

Reception have also been very busy making props to support the new birthday party role play area. The children have enjoyed making birthday cards, presents, invitations, party banners and party food lists.

In Maths this week, the class have been very busy exploring the number four-  sorting objects into groups of four, finding different ways to make four using different maths frames, looking for objects such as cars that have four wheels and tables that have four legs, drawing four things, writing the number four, finding four sided shapes in the indoor and outdoor learning environments, making four sided shapes from different construction and finding one more and one less than four!

Mrs Gymer and I  would like to invite all parents and carers to join us at our brand new weekly reading session, starting after half term. This is an opportunity to simply come and spend some time reading with your child in the Reception classroom. This 20 minute session will be held every Wednesday at 3pm. Siblings are of course very welcome too, but please leave buggies in the bike shelter for health and safety reasons.

Please come via the main school entrance.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Theo and Mrs Gymer

Week 7: 18th October, 2019

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This week we have continued to enjoy writing towards our non-chronological report on Joan Procter.  The children have been adding subordinating conjunctions and relative clauses to improve their writing further.

In RE we have been looking at the importance of being a missionary as this is the extraordinary month of mission.  They have been discussing about prayer and how they pray.  The children have also examined the rosary as another way to show the importance of prayer and have created some lovely pictures about the various mysteries.

Missio Prayer 2019

In Maths the children have continued with practising their timetables and moved from rounding to a strategy called ‘think 10’ to assist them in solving addition and subtraction calculations.

There’ll be more of this in the week to come.

In History, the children have learnt about Roman Roads and were fascinated in plotting the major roads that were built by the Romans using an atlas.

Home Learning is based on our focus for One World Week: Madagascar.  Please encourage your child to research things about this country and create either an information poster, fact file or leaflet of their choice. There is no Mathletics set for this week or Spag.com.

As was mentioned to you during Parent Consultations a link to pay for the timetables booklet has been organised.

The cost of the book is £1.00.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McNamara

Year 2 Blog Week 6

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In Religion this week we have been learning that the Old Testament has a book of songs and poems called Psalms. The children thought about the meaning of Psalm 1 and created some wonderful artwork for it. We went on to write our own verse based on Psalm 1.

Year 2 used their cardboard boxes to create some colourful enclosures just like the ones we saw in the Reptile House in London Zoo. The children went on to write some amazing reports about the Grand Opening of Joan Procter’s Reptile House in London Zoo.

The remaining cardboard boxes were used to create our very own 17th century street scene. Just like during the Great Fire of London, our timber framed houses with thatched rooves were positioned precariously close together. We also learnt about the Town Crier’s job and we had lots of fun getting into character and spreading the news…. Hear Ye, Hear Ye, a fire has started in Pudding lane and it is spreading fast!

Home Learning: Spellings wk 5.

Whole School Home Learning project for One World Week.

Our country for One World Week is ….Iceland.

Please research Iceland and create a learning poster or some artwork and bring it in next week (Wednesday 23rd)  to share with the class.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Davey