Hawks' Spring 1 Blog
Date: 5th Jan 2022 @ 12:36pm
Week 1
Happy New Year!
It has been great welcoming all children back to school this week and hearing all about their holidays. On Wednesday we had a well-being day. On this day we took part in mindfulness activities, reflected on the previous year, and set our own personal new year's resolutions. We were also lucky enough to have a yoga teacher come in and lead a session with us! Our classroom became a cinema on Friday afternoon and we all got cosey with our favourite PJs on and our cuddly toys. We even had popcorn! This was our treat for winning the punctuality draw for this term.
This week we have immersed ourselves in our new topics. In Music, our topic is Glockenspiels. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this instrument and even performed a duet using an 'easy E'. We also began our Science topic (electricity) which involved us exploring different resources and putting these together to try to make a successful circuit. Everybody was able to create a successful circuit that lit a bulb. In Maths, we have been comparing numbers and became the greater than, less than, and equals symbols in order to do this.
Week 3
Another busy week in Hawks! We have expanded our knowledge of electricity through further exploration of circuits. This week we investigated adding multiple components to our circuits which included buzzers, motors, and switches. In Geography we have been to Russia! Researching the human and physical geography of the largest country in the world has allowed us to put together a detailed plan for a non-chronological report. Next week we will be combining this knowledge with our English knowledge as we compose our very own non-chronological reports. We also created our very own branching database in Computing which allowed us to sort animals based on their attributes.
Week 4
Hawks have become tour guides this week as they have been writing non-chronological reports about Russia. If you see a member of our class around, be sure to ask them for some information about the largest country in the world! In PE, we have been continuing to explore a variety of different tennis skills such as controlling the ball and aiming at a target. Our ball skills have improved immensely since the beginning of term so well done Hawks! In PSHE we have been exploring how we can be our best in different ways. This week we discussed how we can keep ourselves healthy and try our best to avoid illness. We created handwashing posters and even conducted our very own handwashing experiment involving bread! Stay tuned for our results...
Week 5
In our English lessons this week we have been exploring the book 'The Day the Crayons Quit'. Amazingly, the children have been able to put themselves in the shoes of the crayons in order to write their own letters back to Duncan (the crayon owner). In our RE lessons, we have been exploring the Christian faith. We have investigated the festivals celebrated by Christians such as Christmas, Lent, and Easter. Excitingly, we have also started our Design and Technology topic for this term- lighthouses. By exploring the key design features of lighthouses, the children have been able to successfully label a lighthouse, which will help them when they plan their own model lighthouse.
We have continued to enjoy our weekly Forest School sessions where we have made photo frames, animal habitats, potions and even had a go at whittling.
Week 6
What an exciting week in Hawks class! We began the week by making smores around the fire in Forest School. They were so yummy! In Maths, we began our new topic-measurement, length and perimeter. We have been using our rulers and metre sticks to measure various things around the classroom and the playground. The children have loved getting hands-on with their learning. A member of our class even drew a huge line across the playground and measured it using a trundle wheel. It was 56 metres long! On Wednesday, we ventured to sunny Portland for our first school trip of the year! Each and every member of the class (and all adults) made it to the very top of Portland Bill Lighthouse, and back down again. We are so proud of everyone as some children overcame their fears in doing this. This week was also Children's Mental Health week. Throughout the week we have been paying each other compliments, recapping 'The Colour Monster' story, enjoying yoga sessions, revisiting strategies to help us manage our emotions, learning a song, exploring 'Safer Internet Day', and we even had a (paper) snowball fight with our worries. To end a very positive and enjoyable week, we achieved 100% attendance. Well done Hawks!
Week 7
On Tuesday we came to school to find our chairs on strike! They had written us a letter and all stacked themselves up in the corner. Apparently, they were fed up with the rocking and trumping! Lots of children denied these allegations but we all agreed that we needed to persuade our chairs to come back. Therefore, we used our persuasive letter writing skills to compose letters back to the chairs and by lunchtime, they were back in their rightful places. A very eventful day! We also began constructing our very own lighthouses using the knowledge we had gained from our trip to Portland. First, we planned them out thinking about the key structural features and the materials we were going to use. Once construction had begun, we also had to think about how we were going to ensure our lighthouses had a working lightbulb. We cannot wait to finish these off and show them to you!
