Stanford Junior and Infant School
Living together - Learning together
On this page you can see updates over the term of our activities and learning. As the new term gets underway, have a look at what Pumpkin Class got up to last year.
At Stanford we have a Christmas tradition where each class makes a Christmas hoop to decorate the hall. Each year we have a different theme and this year it was ‘Winter Wonderland’. The children have worked very hard to make decorations to put on the hoops and they look fantastic….don’t you agree?
Juniper class used the story plan created with our visiting author Pippa Goodhart to write our own stories. We edited our drafts and then presented our finished versions in little story books along with illustrations.
This morning Juniper class were proud to share their stories with Pumpkin class.
We thoroughly enjoyed the story ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’ performed through music by MAPAS. There were lots of actions and we learnt all about the different types of musical instruments including ‘percussion’ and ‘string’ instruments.
R.M “The shakers were a percussion instrument.”
O.B “I liked the big taiko drums.”
E.S “I liked the giraffe song when he learnt to dance.”
S.C “I was chosen to play a percussion apple, I had to shake it in time with the music.”
J.M “A bow is made from a horse’s tail!.”
The children in their individual classes have been thinking about Remembrance day, what it means and why we wear poppies. Today we joined collectively for our Remembrance assembly to observe 2 minutes silence thinking about those who have sacrificed their lives for others during times of war. After this some Year 6 children shared poems they have written about the wars.
In Pumpkin class we have been reading a book called ‘The Bottle of Happiness’ by Pippa Goodhart. The children have really enjoyed the story and even created their own bottles of happiness. Today was extra special as Pippa came to visit us! She read stories and shared her books with us, then helped us to create an idea for our own story. We were all so delighted to meet her and learnt a lot about being an author. We can’t wait to write our new story about Winnie The Witch.
Pumpkin class invited parents, carers and other adults into the classroom on Thursday for a special reading event.
As well as reading some of our favourite stories we shared some breakfast treats and juice. Lots of adults came and read with us, we shared picture books, chapter books and information books. Thank you to all who came.
There were spooky spiders, ghoulish ghosts and perfect pumpkins at our Halloween activity event after school.
L.B "I made a ghost with a scary face."
A.D "I liked making a mummy with white strips. I did it by myself."
E.W "I made a spider, I had to twist its legs."
A.V "I enjoyed the hotdog."
Chartwells school lunch company came today and read us the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We learnt about healthy eating and eating 5 portions of fruit or vegetables every day.
Then we made caterpillars and butterflies using a rainbow of coloured fruit and veg. We had so much fun!
Look at all our stars this week, they give us something to celebrate!
Keep making those good choices Pumpkin Class.
As today was World Mental Health Day the children have been thinking about how we can promote positive mental health and what we can do to help us to control our emotions if we are experiencing negative emotions.
In Year 1 they looked at a book called Little Beauty where a gorilla goes through different emotions. The children talked about the different emotions and thought about whether the gorilla had done the right thing to help himself. In
Year 2 the children coloured in hearts and then thought about what they could do if they wanted to feel calm.
Today we have been using a paper copy of the Bayeux Tapestry to follow the story of The Battle of Hastings in 1066. We had already read the story and watched an animated version on line but we have been looking closely at the stitching on the tapestry. We also recreated parts of the battle ourselves through art work.
As part of our design and technology work this term we have been evaluating our castle models.
We thought about the following questions:
We thought you would like to read some of them.
Our Harvest Festival was a joyful celebration introduced by our head boy and girl and Star anise class performed a poem. Rev. Philip Stevens came to say a prayer and give thanks for the food at harvest time. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our celebration, the donations of food will be sent to the homeless charity, Harbour Place.
Well done all of you that got your bee onto the beehive this week by practising your spellings on Spelling Shed.
Stickers are on their way to you today!
Remember to practise every week (new words set on Fridays) to get your bee on our hive.
WELL DONE
What a fantastic activity day we had last week! After collecting so much recyclable material, we designed our castles using them. Firstly we drew what we wanted our castle to look like.
Then we chose the most suitable materials and got making. We helped each other out when we needed to – Mrs Smith said we were great at teamwork.
Finally we painted out models to give them a really good finish.
We will now be evaluating our finished models, keep watching our blog page to see these too.
THANK YOU FOR HELPING US TO COLLECT SO MUCH RECYCLING.