Sally Atkins
Outdoor Learning Day
Sally Atkins
Significant people and outer space
Sally Atkins
Shakespeare, Space and Chocolate!
Sally Atkins
Captain Tom
Sally Atkins
Welcome Back

Science

Marvellous Maths and Science

Maple

In Y1 the children have been learning the names of the seven continents and exploring where in the world they sit. The children have explored google earth as well as making the continents out of playdough and labelling them. In Maths YR have been focussed on circles and triangles and have been using great mathematical vocabulary to explain the difference.

Rowan

Rowan class have been working so hard in their addition and subtraction maths journey these past few weeks. We have been looking at adding two, 2 digit numbers together where we might need to do an exchange. They have been using the base 10 cubes, place value charts, and their own whiteboard jottings to figure out these tricky questions. Amazing work! 

Birch

In Birch Class, we have been investigating to see if all seven year olds have the same sized skeleton. We carried out our data collection, collated the results and used this information to answer and explain our question.

Sycamore

In Sycamore Class, we have been focusing on using jottings rather than doing the calculations in our head. Although it can be impressive to solve something mentally, generally using jottings (such as pictures, bar models, noting down multiples, etc.) is a helpful technique so that you don't need to hold as much information in your head. 

Aspen

Aspen class were exploring the world of engineering this week when they learnt how pneumatics used compressed air to create motion. They were tasked with using pneumatics to make a 'talking box'

In art, we were learning how Taoties were created during the Shang Dynasty. First, we explored the process of bronze casting, and how that has developed throughout time.  To practise casting, we are going to be using a different method each week, so we can reflect on the processes, difficulties and successes. This week, we used silicone moulds with a skin-safe casting plaster called Alginate. 

Most of us were able to see a casted shape, however, we also found that the plaster and water ratio wasn't always consistent so some shapes did not set.

Year 6

This week the children have been learning about a variety of ceremonial dance in PE, they then practised the Haka in groups, before performing their compositions in front of the rest of the year 6 cohort. 

R2L

In R2L this week, we have considered whether it is ok to make a mistake. We decided that EVERYONE makes a mistake sometimes, but the important thing is to learn from our mistakes so that we know how to be successful next time.

We all had to learn patience, kindness and resilience this week as we created a variety of images to commemorate Remembrance Day. You may have seen our Poppy sun catchers on our window! The week ended with Poppy Jam tarts which Mandy kindly cooked for us in her kitchen. Thank you Mandy!

Guinea Pigs

Using switches and going Greek!

Catkins

The children in catkins have been really busy this week writing letters for people around the school. Check out their fantastic writing.

Year 1 and 2

This week in history we have looked at Mary Anning and the importance of her historical discoveries. The children were very excited to have one of the history boxes from Hampshire history centre come to class and enjoyed exploring the different artefacts. The children made excellent links between artefacts and could explain which source of information was the most important and why. Quite a few future palaeontologists in year 1/2 I think!

Year 3 and 4

Year 3 /4 have been experimenting in science with switches to turn a bulb off and on. They have learnt about conductors and insulators.

In Geography they had to present all the knowledge they have learnt about the production of chocolate from Bean to Bar and the importance of Fairtrade chocolate. Our outcome shows the whole journey of a chocolate bar, from the harvesting of cocoa beans to the nipping down to Tesco Express to buy an emergency bar Miss Evers’s favourite Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate!

This week we have worked hard to publish our books based on the Roald Dahl classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In our versions, there was a sixth lucky golden ticket winner! All of the characters then visited an extra room in the factory before our new character met a sticky end!

We are very proud of them!

Year 5 and 6

This week, Elm class have gone all GREEK! We have spent time designing and moulding a Greek theatre mask out of paper mache.

In DT, we have been tasting a range of typically Greek foods. Next, we will be creating our own meal based on the food we tasted but the recipes must have a twist! Olives will not be appearing in many meals- these were not a favourite in Elm!

Rivers, Sausages and Electricity

Year 5 and 6

Year 5 and 6 took part in a school trip organised by Winchester College this week to explore their nature reserve and learn more about life in our local rivers. Activities included: lighting their own campfire, cooking sausages over the fire, learning how the chalk base of the river affects the purity of the water and identifying some of the many creatures that live in our local rivers.

The weather held out for all groups and everyone had a fantastic time. Some of the comments after the trip included:

“I loved that we were able to see dragonfly up close.”

“I never realised there were so many different animals living in the rivers and that fly larvae could look so different form each other.”

“The walks were beautiful and the sausages were delicious!”

Thanks go to Winchester College for allowing us into their nature reserve and leading the tasks and for Mrs Horkan for organising the trip.

Year 3 and 4

This week, Year 3 and 4 have been learning about electrical circuits. They explored the components of circuits and used this knowledge to look at images of circuits and predict if they would work or not. The children used a variety of bulbs, buzzers and motors to check their predictions. What a lot of bright sparks!

Year 1 and 2

We began to look at the artist Andy Goldsworthy this week in year 1/2. We researched him using the chrome books, drawing his sculptures and making notes about his life. Then we had a go at creating Andy Goldsworthy inspired art using natural objects we found in our outside area.

Juniper Class experiment with Skittles

In Juniper the children have had a week of exploring different ideas through science. We have attempted to make balloon powered cars, catapults from lolly sticks and have taken part in experiments with colour. Look below to see the result of our Skittles experiment.

Enterprise week

Grow a pound

This week our year 5 and 6’s were given the challenge of taking a pound and creating a product for others to buy . All the children have been working throughout the week to design / create their products ready to sell to the rest of the school this Friday. As you can see from the photos, they all worked incredibly hard and would like to thank everyone for all their support. We will let you know how much they raised when it has all been counted.

Empathy Day

The children at Stanmore School celebrated EMPATHY day through a variety of exciting activities.

Empathy is the ability to feel and understand other people’s emotions and perspective. Almost like you are stepping into their shoes. At the current time we have never needed empathy more than ever.

The children learnt that empathy can be learnt, reading is a key tool to building the emotional literacy of children and young people, by identifying with book characters, we can all learn to see the world from other points of view.

The children wore their empathy glasses to find shoes hidden in the school grounds with clues to characters they have encountered in the books they have read this year.

 They also drew kindness monsters and made empathy resolutions.

Year 1 and 2

This week we began a new topic called "Gone for Good," and as part of it we went on an archaeological dig! The children were equipped with tools and spent some time discovering some lost artefacts. They made links between them and predicted what they might be. The children thought about what makes something a historical discovery or not and we are looking forward to exploring the mystery of history throughout this topic.

Happy half term

Well done year 6!

This week our Year 6’s have completed a mock SATS weeks to enable them to fully experience life at the top of the school and to allow staff to see how well they have progressed. All the pupils were impeccably behaved and to celebrate their achievements, the children were treated to pizza and a film on Friday afternoon. We are all extremely proud of them.

Year 3 and 4

As part of our Art and DT curriculums, the children have been learning to sew. After practising on a piece of card , they moved onto Binca to develop their running stitches. Some children learnt how to cross stich too! They tie-dyed a piece of fabric and will be using their sewing skills to create a quilt piece.

We also built our own looms and learn to weave, selecting different colours and textures of fabric and wool for effect. We think that they look fabulous!

This week in RE, Year 3 and 4 have been learning about Sacred Places, what it means for something to be 'sacred' and how this may make us or others feel. The children have thought about what they might put in a shrine within a sacred place and why.

We have also performed the play scripts that we had written based the opening scene of “The Tempest”. We needed to learn about how to write a play script, including the use of colons and brackets for stage directions.

Outdoor Learning Day

KS1

The whole school took part in a range of activities throughout the day, including building small den villages out of natural materials and creating hanging art. The children all had a wonderful time and even managed to avoid the rain long enough to eat lunch outside! Thank you to all the parents for ensuring that the children were dressed for any weather.

Year 3 and 4

The children in Year 3 and 4 thoroughly enjoyed the Outdoor Learning Day. The children decorated their initials using natural resources, created art with nature and adding extensions and new additions to the house ‘villages’. In the afternoon they were set the challenge of measuring an amount of water using different types of containers and everyone rose to the occasion. We all had a fantastic day!

Year 5 and 6

Year 5 and 6 came prepared for Outdoor Learning Day and had an amazing time working in different places of the schools grounds to create natural art and face challenges. The children created some fantastic water colours, as well as making the alphabet out of natural resources, creating their own animals and even measuring the whole field using only one 30cm ruler! the children especially enjoyed weaving different materials through the fences. It was a really great day!

Year 5 and 6 writers

Is this a dagger I see before me?

This week, Year 5/6 have been using drama to explore Shakespeare's well-known play, Macbeth. Focusing on Macbeth's speech in Act 2, the children were asked to define unknown words to help them understand what was being said. They were then given the tricky challenge of translating the speech and rewriting it themselves using modern-day vocabulary.

Significant people and outer space

Year 1 and 2

Year 1/2 had a dress up day this week. The challenge was to dress up as a significant individual and come prepared to share 5 facts about that individual. Some children chose someone from history, past and present and other children chose a family member. We had Florence Nightingale, William Shepherd, Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks and Archimedes to name a few. The children were great at presenting their facts and very had clearly done a lot of research. Their historical knowledge and ability to recall facts about significant people from history has really improved during this topic. We are looking forward to seeing if they can now argue who they believe is the most significant individual drawing on all this knowledge they have acquired.

Year 3 and 4

The children in Year 3 and 4 have been exploring the Shakespeare play, The Tempest, in writing this week. They have been creating cartoon strips of the story and freeze framing a snapshot from a scene. After getting to know Prospero, the main character, the children have used their understanding of his character to write a message in a bottle to describe what he is like.

In maths, we have been learning about parallel and perpendicular lines - we enjoyed making different examples of these lines using art straws.

Oak Class - Our Solar System Blog

This week in science we have been learning about the Solar System. We are never going to forget this!

We had some fruit, raspberry, peppercorn blueberry, cherry, tomato, watermelon, grapefruit lime and apple, we had children hold the fruit, and the toilet paper. 1 piece of paper was 16,000,000 km.

Comments from the children about the lesson!

It was fun although some of the fruit got a little squished

I would really like to do something like this again and this time get to eat some of the fruit

We lost the peppercorn but we found a small stone instead

My favourite part was holding the watermelon!

It was amazing, I loved seeing everyone holding the fruit and holding the toilet paper down!

Elm Class

Written by Charlotte:

During our science we have been doing research on the solar system, this week we have been focusing on the moon and the ways it changes. We used oreo’s to display the moon cycles for example: new moon, crescent, first quarter, last quarter, full moon The moon has cycles because one side is always light and as it orbits the earth we can see it in sections.

Written by Rebecca

In art, we made some beautiful thumb pots in the style of ancient Greek pots! At the end we evaluated our pots and decided what went well and what didn’t go so well. Everyone got their hands dirty and had a go, they look very authentic, good job everyone!

Shakespeare, Space and Chocolate!

Year 1 and 2

Year 1/2 have been exploring the work of Andy Warhol in art. Today we were appreciating the different ways of printing, looking at the effects that are created and which methods are better than others. All of the children created some great prints and are planning and then making their final space themed print in the next couple of weeks.

Year 3 and 4

This week the children completed some experiments about melting, using ice cubes and chocolate. They had to record the temperatures and their observations. We also discussed what the particles look like in solids, liquids, and gases.

In our geography work we have been looking at maps, using tracing paper to show the physical and human geographical features of Africa. We are sure that you will be impressed by the photos, but they look even better in real life!

This Friday we were really lucky to be able to watch a live performance of the Winters Tale by the Royal Shakespeare Company and watched a video of The Tempest. The children all really enjoyed it and can’t wait to explore the play further over the next few weeks.

Finally, we have written some amazing, descriptive narratives based on a story called 'The Promise' by Nicola Davies. We have been using expanded noun phrases as well as creating exciting sentences using things such as repetition, alliteration, and similes. Also, we are proud of our lovely handwriting and spelling. We have been working really hard on this since Easter.

Year 5 and 6

Oak and Elm class have been exploring Space this week, learning interesting facts as well as researching planets and creating their own information fact files. We learnt that it would take over 100 days to reach the Earth from the Sun, and also that sunlight takes over 8 minutes to reach the Earth’s surface.

We have also continued our work on ‘Shadow of the Minotaur and have produced some fantastic descriptive writing about stepping foot into the Minotaur’s maze!

Captain Tom

On 6th April 2020, Captain Tom set out round his garden to thank our NHS heroes. One hundred laps later, he’d raised an incredible £38.9 million for the NHS Covid-19 appeal.

As this Friday would have been Captain Tom’s 101st birthday, we decided to build on his legacy and take part in the Captain Tom 100 challenge. Classes were challenged to read for 100 minutes and to take part in linked Maths activities.

Yr R

We used flowers and tens frames to find 100 objects in our outside area. The children loved collecting the items and counting together to support Captain Tom.

Year 1 and 2

The year 1/2 children in Rowan and Maple were challenged to see if they could collect 100 items that they found outside into a hoop. They worked as a team to collect the items and thought about how many of each item they needed in order to make 100, some grouping in 10s, 20s, 25s and 50s. This was a brilliant way of showing all that we had learnt in our multiplication and division from this week.

Year 3 and 4

As part of our recognition of the Captain Tom 100 Day, we have been writing some futuristic descriptions of what we think that our school, house or street might be like in 100 years time. We had lots of suggestions about hovering cars, robots to bring cups of tea and even portals to take us to other worlds! In maths we were estimating using money, length and mass. We had to think flexibly about the best ways to measure based on the equipment that we had. Added into all of that, we have achieved our 100 minutes reading challenge!

To complete the Captain 100 challenge, Birch class worked in teams to collect stones, twigs, daisy or leaves: estimating when they had 100 grams in their bags. Two groups managed to estimate 100 grams correctly with a range of 50 grams to 650 grams.

Year 5 and 6

Oak and Elm class have completed their 100 minute reading challenge for Sir Tom Moore! The children loved watching the ‘ temperature’ rise on their scale to show how many minutes they had left to go. This was their way of commemorating the life of Captain Tom and classes also completed a selection of Captain Tom themed Maths and English tasks, including writing acrostic poems using the words ‘One Hundred’.

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