Wednesday 19 December 2018

Year 1 Autumn 2

Year 1

This half term we have had fun in our Art lessons finding out more about colours
We learnt which colours are the primary colours and after looking at paintings by Piet Mondrian, we used these to make our own fantastic owl pictures.
Then we experimented by mixing the primary colours to discover which secondary colours we could make.
 
 





We have also been researching the Great Fire of London. We started by thinking of questions we wanted to find the answers to. Then we used a variety of sources to discover the answers. These included non-fiction books, paintings and the internet.
Now we have learnt lots about the Great Fire of London, here are some of the questions we found the answers to.






In R.E. we have been thinking about candles; how candlelight makes us feel; how we use candles in celebrations and how we sometimes use candles to help us remember people and events. We learnt how important candles are for the Hindu festival of Diwali and how they are used by Christians during Advent. We then made our own Christingles.



 

In Literacy we have been getting into the Christmas spirit by looking at Christmas poetry. We have created our very own Christmas poems using different verbs with the -ing suffix. 
 


Tuesday 18 December 2018

Year 2 A Growing Adventure





A Growing Adventure



We have had another busy half term learning about dragons, looking at how plants grow, raising money for children in need and even learning how to wash a woolly mammoth!
In October we had news that a dragon called the Hampshire Ridgeback Dragon had been spotted flying over Aldershot! We learnt all about this dragon and this inspired us to write reports about our own dragons.
















We also had lots of fun raising money for Children in Need and had to investigate where Pudsey had disappeared to. We made wanted posters and helped Pudsey prepare for his Children in Need party with some exciting maths problems to solve!


As the weather got colder, we had a think about how that can affect plants. We explored the school grounds to see if we could spot different types of plants and flowers and used these to create some amazing sketches and collages.  






We have also had great fun reading and exploring the books 'How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth' and 'Clockwork Dragon'.


Now it's almost Christmas we're very busy doing lots of festive things. The Christmas plays were amazing and we all did such a great job learning all the lines, songs and dances.

We're so excited for Christmas but can't wait to find out what next term has in store for us!






Being creative!

The last week is here and we are still in full swing! 


The children were given some different coloured paints as well as a lot of white paint and given different objects to print with. Lots of the children were inspired by somebody making a snowman so they made their own snowman pictures. Some children added hats, buttons and arms too!


We are busy making our Christmas cards - here is a sneak preview of the cards that Maple Class are making... we don't want to give to much away! 



As well as being creative in the art area, we have been enjoying drawing on the Interactive White Board - one of the children here is drawing a monster! We have been changing the colour and size of the pen we are using and making sure we put our name on the picture so that it can be printed off. The children measure the length of their turn by using a sand timer. 

On top of all of this fun, we have been working hard in our other areas of learning. We have been making the most of exploring how the weather has changed our outside area including when the water tray froze all of the sea creatures - the children enjoyed describing what had happened and explaining why it had happened. 

We hope everybody has a safe and fun break from school for two weeks and we look forward to seeing you back on the 8th of January 2019!



Tuesday 11 December 2018

Nearly there!


Even though we are getting closer to the Christmas holidays, all of the children in Early Years are still working extremely hard. They have all just completed their final performance of the Nativity and we are so proud of how well they have behaved and how well they learnt their songs and dances!

We have set up our own Post Offices in the classrooms where the children can write and post their own letters and wrap up their own parcels. We have set up scales so we can compare which objects are heavier and lighter. 




The elves have been getting up to all sorts of adventures that the children have loved writing about. Some of the children have an elf at home and have enjoyed sharing stories from home about what their elves have been doing. Today, Carrot the Elf (from Maple Class) had some different sea creatures in the water and was looking at which ones were floating and which ones were not floating. They were noticing similarities and differences between the different sea creatures and comparing them. 



We have been using different technology in class and we have been encouraging the children to either write their name on their work if it's on the Interactive Whiteboard or to use the class cameras to take a photo of what they have been doing (making sure to include their name label or a sticky-note with their name written on so we know who the photo belongs to!)



We are so pleased with what the children have already achieved during their short time at Alderwood and we are looking forward to seeing what else we have to come this year! 😁


Wednesday 5 December 2018

Christmas 2018



We had a very busy day taking part in lots of exciting and fun activities in Year 4. Our main fundraising activity was a sponsored silence which was successfully completed by everyone, including our teachers! During the silence, the children made posters explaining why fundraising is so important. We had a fantastic day and managed to raise a significant amount of money for Children in Need - well done Year 4!


We have also been lucky enough to have a representative from Aldershot Cricket Club who has spent time teaching us correct bowling and batting techniques. They were very impressed with the children and are hoping that there may be some future cricketers in our midst!
Preparations and rehearsals are well under way for our Christmas Production, ‘Lights, Camel, Action!’ The children are working hard to perfect their songs and dances, and are very excited about performing in front of an audience. Thank you to everyone for supporting us with costumes and props and for your patience with the practice at home. We know you probably know the words as well as we do by now!