That’s all folks …

So here it is my final ever Fordham Blog !!

Firstly I have been incredibly touched by the genuine support I have received over the years from the parents of those I have taught (and even some parents whose children I didn’t have the pleasure to teach!).  I am particularly impressed by those who have responded to the Blog over the years – a highlight to read Mrs Squire’s comments!! – and offer a big thank you!

To all my colleagues who have been amazing.  A truly wonderful bunch of hard-working staff who ooze ‘team’!  Thank you for simply being the best, you make a working day so joyful. 

Finally to all the children.  You should be so proud of yourselves.  You work incredibly hard too achieve all that you do.  The school is full of many characters, too many to mention.  It has been my absolute privilege to be part of your lives. I hope that, like me, you have memories to treasure.

Mrs S x 

Hold tight, we are off to Brazil!

Class 3, both Mrs. Ward and myself are looking forward to learning with you after the Christmas holiday. 

We will be starting our theme 'Around the World in 50 Days' with a visit to Brazil.  We will be watching the film Rio and studying the book too.  Don't worry if you haven't seen it we will be watching lots of parts and using it for our first adventure story unit in English.  In Music we will be travelling north to Jamaica and sharing the rhythms of Bob Marley, learning some of his songs and adding our own music to them.  In Maths we will be doing further learning on calculation methods with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  Starters to lessons will be to practise those times tables, place value knowledge and speed up our fluency of other key recall facts.  In Science we will learning about humans and animals, starting with preparing a healthy menu and then cooking it and inviting special guests in to sample your cooking talents.  We will also be making our own muscles and skeletons!  We will be having some special 'animal' visitors in February to learn more about different animals in our world.
In theme afternoons we will be looking at the problems in the rainforests of South America and the pollution in the big cities.  This will be linked to our artwork in the first half term.

RE will be looking at 'Sacred Writings' initially linked to Judaism.
Please login to your Active Learn (don't forget there is a link on the right and on the Learning Zone on the website) and keep reading your Bug Club books and have a go at some of those maths games to get that fluency going for next term.  We will be assigning new books and games linked to our first maths unit soon.
For some extra holiday homework and for 3 extra housepoints, please watch the clip from Rio on the next post and leave a comment describing the setting using at least 2 adjectives and 1 adverb.  We look forward to reading them.
Have a wonderful Christmas holiday everyone!
Mr. Wainwright

Watch a sample clip of Rio

Bug Club Reminder (and House Points)

Dear All

I know it is unusual to get a mid-week blog from me but I just wanted to let you all know that every child in Class 3 has been allocated further Bug Club books and maths games today.

I apologise to Lucy who has been waiting aggggggeeeeeesss!!!  But there should be enough to keep you going now Lucy until Christmas. 

The following children have each gained 3 house points for their very active participation with Bug Club (make sure you put your house points in tomorrow):

 Lucy, Charlotte, Louie, Imogen and Henry.  Well done, really proud.  

There were quite a few children who have got a number of allocations that have not been opened (some in excess of 20 allocations).  Please remember that this is a wonderful resource to help children both in their reading comprehension and with their mental maths.  We are aware that there are a few technical issues with running some of the games on tablets (I think the children say they are quite slow), but the reading books should all be able to be opened and accessed.  

I have purposefully tried to allocate books which will stretch the children a little further.  I would ask you to urge your child to 'have a go' - even if it's just the first chapter or couple of pages.  It is really important that the children do this and have a go at the first few bug questions, as these are all testing the children's comprehension skills. 

As a school we have access to the assessment of these books and bug questions for each child, so this information helps us to plan our guided reading sessions based on the children's learning needs.

Thank you.


Mrs S





  

Power Down Day and all that ...

We seemed to have space raced through this week!  Firstly I would like to say a big thank you for the amazing rockets that have been created as part of the children's home learning.  And an even bigger thank you to all those families who remembered the restriction on size!  As I hope some of you will have seen, the rockets are now flying in space (well, ok hanging from the lights).  I am sure you will agree that they look marvellous.  We had a real array of creativity from edible to lego built rockets.  

Next week's home learning will be to produce a guide for 'everything you know about fractions'.  Again this can be as creative as you like from pop-up posters to models showing factions.  The home learning will be due in on Monday, 7th December 2015.

This week the children have begun to learn more about fractions - recognising what a fraction is and its equivalence.  There has been some great progress this especially from the Year 2s.  Next week we will be learning fractions of amounts, objects and numbers and learning that if we know, say, 1/4 then we can work out 3/4.

Literacy next week will be continuing to learn how to write that all important description of a scene - the where and the when.  Last week we had fun learning that we could use our five senses to help us write scene descriptions.  

The children had a great couple of days learning and composing their own musical pieces with Mrs Martin at the beginning of the week.  Well done Mrs Martin and Mrs Sibley for not complaining too much about the headaches!  

Our space helmets continue to be the focus of our afternoons.  We have added visors and a layer of white paint.  Next week we shall complete our space logo to add to the helmets.

Today the children have all enjoyed learning in the dark as the School took part in Power Down Day.  The morning saw the children design their own garden. The brief was to design a garden to attract bees.  As we know bees are a vital part of our eco-system and I think the children all enjoyed the challenge.  Some great designs were created and all will be entered into a class competition with the winning design being created in our own Veg Trugs (kindly donated by Friends of Fordham).  

This afternoon the children produced posters to encourage people to remember the 4 Rs - re-cycle, reduce, reuse and repair.  We had a very good chat about how the children and their families might try to use one of these at home. Watch out for children turning lights off behind you and asking for teddies to be sewn up!

Have a great weekend.

Mrs S

A little bit of extra home learning - thank you Imogen!

We created our own Space timeline

Fabulous edible rocket

Sophie used her design skills from lessons to create the perfect plan to build her rocket

Now it's your turn - composing their own space theme

Cutting the shape to size and adding visors

Adding a bit of measurement to Power Down Day 

Cosmic Learning!!

This week we  discovered our camera!  So a catch-up of photos at the end of this blog.

Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to Friends of Fordham for the donation of a new Class camera.  We shall take very good care of this one and make sure it doesn't get misplaced (or taken by strange aliens!).

The children have been busy making their own space helmets out of art roc.  We just have the Year 2s to complete next week. Art roc is a plaster of paris which is incredibly messy and so we would like to say a special thank you to Mrs Sibley (who resembled a snowman after her two days of helping the children) and Mr Martin who had the task of mopping up after us!  This week we shall hopefully have 'dry' space helmets to  design and paint.

We have had a great week continuing our learning of multiplication and have progressed to division. The children will continue this next week to make sure they are confident in solving multiplication and division problems before moving on to fractions.  Please continue to practice times tables at home - it makes all the difference.  Well done to all those children who are having a go at Mr Wainwright's multiplication challenge - keep going and get that masters certificate!

During literacy we have continued to learn how to write newspaper reports.  Today we wrote our final plan for writing our own newspaper report on the Apollo 11 moon landing.  It has been great to hear that the children have been discussing this at home - Dylan has certainly learnt from his Dad! Well done both.  We will then move on to writing adventure stories.

Our Year 2s joined Mrs Masterman and her class on a wonderful visit to the Cathedral this week.  I know that they all came back excited and enthused after their visit.  Talking with Mrs Masterman it seems the trip was valuable to our children's religious learning with many activities such as role play and writing prayers.  Thank you to Mrs Masterman and her team.  Can I just remind families of Year 2s to also check the Class 2 blog for updates on our joint learning, particularly for Science.

The Year 3s are continuing their science unit on light.  This has involved blindfolds to help us learn that dark is the absence of light and how important it is to wear florescent materials to be safely seen at night.  Next week we shall progress to understand that light travels in straight lines.

Homework was sent home this week.  Especially for Sophie's Dad, we have asked the children to build their own rocket (this will help the children to write descriptively next week).  Can I ask that the children make a rocket which is no longer than 30 cm.  I am sorry if this restricts those creative minds, however it is just a simple case of having enough display space in the classroom.  The models can be made out of any thing (cardboard, recyclable bits, tins etc). I have even heard a whisper of an edible rocket!

Thank you for supporting our School Council and their efforts to raise money for Children in Need today.  The children looked marvelous and I am told by Mrs McMillan that the Cake Sale was a great success.  I can't wait to find out how much the children raised.

Finally, next week is Friendship Week.  It seems timely to remind the children of the importance of e-safety and in particular 'on-line friendships'.  Perhaps you could also discuss e-safety with the children at home.  To help you these are the websites we recommend : childnet and kidsmart. The links for which can actually be reached through the Parents section of our main website (Safeguarding and Child Protection).

Using our senses to guide ourselves through the dark!

Watch out for those planets as you travel through space!

Mirroring movements is an important aspect of creative dance

Creating movement to Holst's Mars from the Planet Suite

Yes, the Space Dome!

Apologies for wet uniforms this week!

We had to measure first to create the right size ....

of our balloons!

Cutting the art roc - a very messy business

Our first collection of space helmets.

Rocket maths - finding missing multiplication numbers

We are safe, we are seen, we are reflective
(and in the background our display to help us order the planets, created
by the children)

In a dark cupboard - investigating light!

Reflection from a light source

Our children in need day!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs S

Mnemonics, space domes and the first boy to fly to the moon!

What an eventful week back, although I am bereft of photos for you because I have misplaced my Class camera. As soon as we are reunited I shall of course upload! 

So to try to give you a tester of the children's learning this week without pictures:  we started the week by creating funny mnemonics to remember the order of the planets: My Vicious Elephant Mostly Jumps Silently Under Nettles was just one example. 

Next we began to learn how to use a grid to help us multiply 2 digit numbers by both 1 digit and 2 digit.  Some children have even begun to use the expanded column method to multiply.  We shall continue with multiplication next week.  

In English we are looking at Newspapers (Recount).  We have begun by learning by heart a news article, which involves George winning a competition to be the first boy to fly to the moon.   By learning the text this way it will help the children remember key words and phrases or when they write their own independent newspaper article next week.

The children all enjoyed the Space Dome.  We learnt wonderful facts about space and I am sure the children will draw on these in their work during the coming weeks.

We have also begun our unit on Creative Dance.  We are preparing a dance about a new alien coming alive on a plant - all to Holst's piece Mars from the orchestral suite "The Planets".  This also links to the children's appreciation for one of the 10 suggested classical pieces by the BBC that children should know. 

 So until I find my camera that's all folks!



Mrs S

(Don't forget all those valuable house points that your children can earn by commenting on our blog!)

A good time to reflect ..

As our first half term draws to an end it is a good time to reflect on the learning in Class 3. We have been super busy and I cannot believe all that the children (and adults!) have managed to achieve in just one half term.  The children all seem to have grown in maturity since September and it has been an absolute pleasure to watch them develop.

To finish in style during the last week, the children were entertained by Mr Rob Malcolm's apple press and took great delight in sampling fresh apple juice.  Of course we had our little show of acting skills in "The Enormous Fordham Turnip" and to complete the week the children learnt about many Special Places of Worship with Mrs Allen and used the ipads to 'green screen' themselves at these places of worship.

It was a delight to meet all the parents with their children during our two-day parent consultation sessions.  I hope that these were beneficial to you.  It certainly was for me, I have never known the children so quite!

The home learning has been incredible this half term and I would like to thank all who have actively encouraged or worked alongside their children to produce some wonderful work.  It was lovely to hear such enthusiasm at the parent consultations. And of course I have taken on many suggestions and yes, you will be building your own rocket (thank you Mr Browne!).

On return to school our destination will be Space.  With the arrival of a Space Dome to start our topic week we shall be learning about the solar system,  We will shall look at space travel and find out who who was the first man on the moon before, as a class, creating our own timeline of space travel.  It goes without saying that we shall be creating our own astronaut's helmet for all that travelling we shall be doing and, of course, a moon buggy to travel in.  We hope to discover a new plant and obviously that may mean even some strange aliens to help us learn about multiplication and division and there will definately be some recounts in the shape of newspaper articles and putting to good use all our persuasive tactics to encourage people to travel to our, hopefully, newly discovered planets.

Oh and on top of that .... it will be Christmas preparations !!

Enjoy the rest of the half term.

Mrs S

Jonty teaching the 5x table - a very good job!

Sharing our home learning

I think Jack won the spelling game!

Learning our spellings is fun - especially the games

The Apple Press visits!

Green shooting (or blue!)

If you look closely you can see the background the children have chosen,
but importantly what they control on the ipad