Friday 19th November

 

Dear Squirrels,

I hope you've all had a great week. I saw my first Christmas tree this week! Rumour has it, it's only 5 weeks until Christmas...

Learning in Squirrel class this week

At the beginning of the week, following on from the research the Squirrels have been doing on plants, an investigation took place. The Squirrels were challenged to find out what plants need to grow well. Research told the children that plants need air, water, soil, nutrients and light to grow well. However, to be sure of this the children needed to prove it by investigating. 

Plants were observed under the following conditions:

No water

No roots

No soil

No warmth (placed in the freezer)

No light 

No additional plant food.

The children predicted that no plants would survive except for the plant that did not receive additional food. Much to the children's delight, their predictions were right! I think it is fair to say that the children know what is needed for a plant to grow well. 

Possessive apostrophes - Squirrels have been working away on their possessive apostrophes. They are very good with them, I must say!

Maths - As we started our new chapter on division, Squirrels have been looking at sharing an amount into equal groups and looking at how many equal groups they have made. The children have been looking at the link between division and multiplications - the commutative law. 

Bossy verbs and instruction writing has also been a theme in class this week. Squirrels used their knowledge of imperative verbs to design instructions for 'how to care for a chicken.'

Year 3 children completed their first aid training this week which they found useful. 

Finally, after a very busy week in Squirrel class, the children enjoyed a baking afternoon in the hall on Thursday afternoon with Mrs Wright. 

Have a super weekend Super Squirrels,

From Miss Swain and Daphne

. 

Friday 12th November

Dear Squirrel families, 

I hope you have all had a super week. 

What have we been learning in Squirrel class this week?

Maths 

We are coming to the end of our unit on multiplication. 

The Year 2 children have been working incredibly hard on their 2, 5 and 10 times tables. We have been using arrays to learn the commutative relationship between a multiplication sentence. For example:

2 x 4 = 8 therefore  4 x 2 (must) = 8 because multiplication is commutative.

The Year 3 children have been busy on their 3, 4, and 8 times tables. They have also been looking at arrays and the commutative relationship. They have also been recognising patterns between the 4 x table and the 8 x tables. For example:

 4 x 4 = 16 and therefore 2 x 8 = 16.

Mantle has been exciting with the poor old Ancient Oak Tree! The Mayor is still insisting it is cut down. The arboriculturists (Squirrels) and the Mayor are now in discussions, via letter, to come to a compromise.

As it stands the Mayor is investigating whether a new oak tree could be planted.  She has asked the arboriculturists to investigate what would be involved in planting, caring for and maintaining a new oak tree. The children are currently researching and learning about plants so that they will be able to report back to the Mayor. 

On Thursday the 11th November the children from Whaddon went to St Mary's Church to pay their respects with a minute's silence. They also placed some  poppies they had crafted, with thought-provoking prayers written on them.  The children also completed a piece of poppy art work for the classroom 

Squirrels, I have noticed how well some of you are doing with your Doodle maths so I have added some extras on there for you. 

We have just completed our class reading book which was 'The Proudest Blue.' A very beautiful story written by fencing Olympic medallist Ibtihaj Muhammad. 

From Miss Swain and Daphne 

Friday 5th November

 

Dear Squirrels,

It was lovely to see you all again after half term. I'm sure you have all grown in your week off!

As always, it's been a busy week settling back into our learning in the Squirrels' class. 

In Mantle of the Expert

The Mayor's mere suggestion that the 'ancient old oak tree' is no longer safe and requires cutting down has outraged the children. As a result, they decided to write a letter to the Mayor to persuade him NOT TO CUT DOWN THE TREE! The children had many valid reasons to support their argument... 

• The reduction in oxygen and the increase in carbon dioxide was of concern to some children.  
• Concerns for the inhabitants of the tree. 
• How the local villagers would feel about cutting down a tree that has been a part of their families heritage

With these concerns in mind the children took 'posh' pens to paper and wrote a persuasive letter to the Mayor.

In Maths

Having completed our chapter on place value, column addition and column subtraction we are now moving on to a new chapter which is multiplication:

• Making equal groups.
• Identifying how many are in each group.
• Drawing equal groups (can be simple dots).
• Writing repeated addition number sentences and multiplication number sentences. 

As this is a new chapter, much the work the children have been doing has been using concrete apparatus and pictorial representations.

Please continue to work on your times tables, spellings and reading at home. 

Year 2: 2, 5 and 10 times tables

Year 3: 3, 4 and 8 times tables

Please remember that doodle maths is available for you to practise the maths we have been learning in class. DoodleLearning | Personalised Online Maths & English  

Children are welcome to change their reading books in class at the end of the day. 

Each child in class is heard by a teacher every week. This term we are working on comprehension, retrieval and inference of text which you will find pointers to on your parent teacher meeting email. 

Those children that received a KS1 (Year 2) work booklet before half term please continue to work through it and feel free to bring it in to show me when you have finished. 

Guy Fawkes: I thought some of you may like to listen to the gunpowder plot story and learn about the history of bonfire night as it is Friday 5th November.

Why did The Gunpowder Plot happen? | History KS1| BBC Teach - YouTube

On Thursday this week the children celebrated Diwali, the festival of light. The children made Rangoli patterns and learnt about the story of Rama and Sita.

You can share the story together here.

Finally, I will leave you with a glowing fire to keep you warm now that the temperature has dropped. 

See you all on Monday.

Have a super weekend!

From Miss Swain and Daphne 

Friday 22nd October

                                                          Happy Half Term 

Dear Super Squirrels,

 I hope you have enjoyed this half term as much as Daphne and I have. The things I have enjoyed are: 

. Getting to know you

.Teaching you

.Listening to your stories and ideas

.Mantel - The Ancient Oak Tree and Scaredy Squirrel

.Forest School

The things Daphne has enjoyed:

.Attention from all of you

.Ear strokes.

.When you talk to her

We have had a very busy half term. You should all be incredibly proud of yourselves. I am proud of all of you!

I will be sending home updated spelling booklets on Friday. Please just focus on five spellings at a time. Master these spellings and make sure you are able to apply them in a sentence before moving on to the next five. Everyone has progressed in their spellings. Keep up the good work. Well done and keep practising! 

Keep reading... Please do share the books you have been reading at home. It would be good to have some recommendations - so if you have enjoyed reading a particular book and would like share what you enjoyed about it, please do bring it in when you have finished reading it. 

Maths facts - ongoing practise of maths facts will always help your learning. Fluency of maths facts will enable you to learn new concepts. All the maths facts are on the Squirrels class page on the school website. 

You may like to keep a diary or a scrap book of your the things you do during half term. If you do and you would like to share it to the class, please bring it with you when we return to school.

 Wishing you and your families a very happy half term. Daphne and I will look forward to seeing you all in November!

From Miss Swain and Daphne

Friday 15th October

                                                     

                                                    

Welcome all to Squirrels' blog,

I would like to share with you the learning children have been doing so magnificently in class this week. In maths our unit on addition and subtraction is going well. Squirrels have been learning to subtract using column subtraction. As always, the children are encouraged to use concrete objects to begin with until they feel secure enough in their understanding before moving on to a pictorial representation and finally confident to apply their knowledge abstractly. They are all doing a grand job at this!

Having completed a character description using sub headings on Scaredy Squirrel, Whaddon Squirrels continue to have lots of fun in their mantle, 'The Ancient Old Oak Tree.' Unfortunately a storm struck the tree this week causing damage to two of its main branches. Thankfully our 'team' (Squirrels) of researching arboriculturists rose to the challenge of saving the tree despite the Mayor's concerns that the tree was a danger to the village and must be cut down for safety reason. As a researching team the arboriculturists have discovered ways to save the tree. 

SPaG (Spellings, punctuation and grammar) 

Continuing with work on suffixes. Squirrels have been learning the spelling rules and applying them for the ly suffix. Interestingly, Squirrels happily performed their harvest festival rehearsal magically with lovely smiles.

In class we continue to practise spellings, handwriting, maths facts and times tables.

Please remember... you can access the Squirrel class pages on the school website. Each child also has access to Doodle learning for maths, spellings and English as well as Rising Stars for a selection of year 2 reading books. 

If you are unsure of your child's log in for Doodle, please refer to Parentmail dated 15/09/2000

As always Squirrels, have a super weekend!

From Miss Swain and Daphne 

Friday 24th September

 Happy Friday 24th September to you all,

                                                              

I hope you are all well. We have had yet another super week in the Super Squirrels class. Lots more virtual marbles in the virtual marble tin for super learning. Squirrels have been discussing positive learning behaviours and applying it to their learning. 

In Super Squirrel class this week, we have completed our unit on place value. Our new unit in maths is addition and subtraction.  

In handwriting, Squirrels have bee practising letter formation and thinking about the relative sizes of the letters. Yr 3 have been looking at the suffix 'ly' and the spelling rules that apply. Yr 2 have been busy working on their sentence structure ensuring that 'every sentence every time' is neatly written, phonetically plausible and punctuated correctly.

In our mantle the children have been using iPads and non fiction books to research which animals would live in an ancient oak tree. Squirrels were very excited to learn about the famous 'Major Oak' tree and imagine the possible stories from Sherwood Forest that it may hold. They were astounded by its size and tried to imagine its width - 11 meters! 

You can view Major Oak here. 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Hopefully the sun will continue to shine

From Miss Swain and Daphne 

  

Super Squirrels: Friday 17th September

 Welcome Super Squirrels families to the Super Squirrels class blog 2021 

 Red Squirrels (Yr2)

 Grey Squirrels (Yr 3)

Hello!

I will be updating the blog with the latest news and pictures from the Super Squirrel class. I am delighted to say that the children have settled into their new Squirrel cohort with endurance, wisdom and compassion. We have a very happy drey filled with lots of busy Squirrels. 

As a class, we discussed what our expectations of each other were. The Squirrels decided that kindness, being a good friend and a smart learner were of high importance. The Squirrels have been incredibly considerate towards their friends and have had positive attitudes towards their learning. As a result of their respect towards each other and their super attitude towards their learning the children have already earned 20 virtual marbles in their virtual marble tin. 

Some of the things we have been working on in the Super Squirrel class this week:

We have started out new mantle topic, 'The Ancient Old Oak Tree'

The children have all been squirreling away practising their times tables.

In maths the have been looking at place value Red Squirrels 2 digit numbers, Grey Squirrels  3 digit numbers.

We have started reading 'A Letter to Pluto' as a whole class which the chilldren are enjoying very much.

During handwriting and spellings Squirrels have been using their new posh pens.

The children have been learning about communion in R.E

and much much more...

On Monday the children's spelling booklets will be going home in their book bags. The spelling books have been updated this term. The highlighted spellings are the ones the children know. The blank ones are the ones the children need to practise. Could you please support your child/ren at home and encourage them to practise their spellings regularly. Please only concentrate on the next whole blank page. We will update booklets each term. 

                                          Thank you

You could try:

Rainbow writing   

Pyramid writing   

             c

            ch

            chi

            chil

           child

           childr

          childre

          children  

Writing backwards and forwards e.g.

The word children: nerdlihc  - children 

You could also try playing look, say, cover, write and check. Your child looks at the word, says the word then covers it over before having a go at writing it.

Please also remember to check the class page on the school website for maths facts to practise. There are some fun games on there.

Super Squirrels, do remember to enjoy a range of books at home as well as school.

Have a super weekend, Super Squirrels. 

See you on Monday, 

Miss Swain and Daphne