Home and School Learning Blog 2019-20
Supporting your child with their social and emotional well being
Here you can find links to some resources which might be useful in talking to your child about the pandemic and about returning to school. If you need support with this, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
3 July 2020 - Robotics
Mr Holton's key worker pod has been busy honing robotics and design skills this week. Using Lego and the Dot and Dash robots, the children had to design a structure that would allow their robot to carry a small ball over a distance. After some great success, we added an extra rule - the other robots could try to knock the ball off their opponents! In the end, only one robot was left standing - well done to Jake, Joe and Amber's team!
3 July 2020 - Down on the Farm
This week our Reception class learning has been focused on farms. The children have been learning about pigs and helping them keep cool on the ‘mud’ (aka coffee– they were also learning the ee sound!) They have been exploring materials and creating collage sheep, writing the farmer’s shopping list and ordering the farm animals from 0-20.
10 July 2020 - Sports morning
Some of our key worker pods have enjoyed a range of novel sports this morning including welly wanging and egg and spoon races!
27 June 2020 - Treasure maps
Year 2 have been learning about turning clockwise and anti-clockwise in their home learning this week and have been using maps to explore positional language. Here are some examples of the great work that has been produced!
27 June 2020 - hunting for mini-beasts
Our Reception classes have been learning about mini-beasts this week and have been making bug hotels. Year 3 Carroll class have been looking at nature in their gardens in their home learning.
27 June 2020 - enjoying our outdoor learning
We have been making the most of the shaded woodland areas in our school site this week. Some of our classes have made crowns from the wild cherry trees in the woods.
12 June 2020 - Ladybirds
Our Reception classes have been learning all about ladybirds this week. They have been hunting different types of ladybirds, creating ladybird art and practising their number skills using ladybirds.
19 June 2020 Learning about spiders
Our Reception class pods have been busy learning all about spiders this week. Although we can’t have our normal swimming lessons this year, the children have been taking part in pretend swimming lessons with Mr HB which was great fun.
Year 3 home learning 19 June 2020
Carroll class have been learning about the water cycle this week. Well done to all of your for your great work on Seesaw.
Week beginning 1 June 2020 - Rainforest creatures
In their home learning, Carroll Class (Year 3) have been learning about rainforest and jungle creatures.
5th June 2020 - Building a Tippy Tap
In the school garden yesterday, the children helped to construct a 'Tippy Tap'! This is made with scrap materials, and is an invention which means that you can clean your hands in the garden/woodland area without touching anything - a great invention!
12 June 2020 - Year 2 Seesaw
Year 2 have been busy on Seesaw this week. You can see here some super work from Rio and Evie on their 3d flower creations.
Wednesday 13th May 2020
In school, we started the day with froggy yoga and then we created our pond!
Once the hole had been dug we placed our container in the hole, surrounded the pond with pebbles and stones and importantly some stone stairs for our frog to climb out.
Monday 18th May 2020
Today's outdoor learning included planting our cabbage plants then an afternoon in the woodland making dens, learning woodcraft and mud plastering!
Reverend Matt's assembly
Rev Matt from St Leonard's Church has recorded an assembly for us, focusing on the Easter season which Christians celebrate until the end of the month.
Thursday 7th May
Pixie in Bloom created a whale and then collected enough containers to demonstrate how much milk a baby whale drinks in a day- 200 litres. Amazing work Pixie!
Monday 11th May 2020
Mission Possible! Phonics with Mrs Child!
Tuesday 12th May 2020
Mrs Childs led a session with younger children to look at the phoneme 'air', after which we explored the properties of air resistance linked to the ability to catch items with our fine motor skills. All carried out with water balloons!
Friday 1st May 2020
Today, lots of Seesaw learning occurred – giving pupils a chance to catch up on their home learning. The morning also saw the children take part in the live broadcast of our YouTube channel in Ahlberg class. The afternoon split into board games for the older pupils and the chance to make scarecrows for our younger children to place in the garden.
Monday 4th May 2020
We did some work in the garden, and worked hard planting new hedges.
Wednesday 6th May 2020
We did went on some listening walks and did cosmic yoga!
Year 2 Garden Birds project
Over the Easter holidays, Year 2 Ahlberg were set a project to investigate the birds that visits our gardens. Ideas for learning included watching birds that visit the children's gardens, creating a bar chart to show the types of birds and quantity of birds that visit, writing a fact file about a chosen bird and then designing and making either a bird house or bird feeder.
James made a bird feeder and posted some pictures on Seesaw showing how he did it. Well done James—what a great piece of work!
Home Farm Rocks!
Bloom and Rosen class have had a keep in touch week this week and have been decorating stones and leaving them for their friends to find on their daily exercise.
Wednesday 29th April
This morning the pupils made their own giant bubble machines! Planned and created from scratch, one bubble was so big, Jake nearly flew away!
Wednesday 29th April
The ‘Lockdown Crew’ (their name) created a laser obstacle course and we filmed Beau trying it out!
Tuesday 28th April 2020
As well as some Seesaw online learning, today’s learning involved making castles and catapults, mixing DT with Maths and Science!
Monday 27th April 2020
In school we have made the most of the sunshine by doing some work in the allotment and doing some den-building in the woodland area.
Thursday 23rd April - Mini Sports Day
We had 4 different activities chosen by Molly.
She modelled and supported younger children to achieve their very best.
Friday 24th April 2020
Today in school we have explored all things colourful! Firstly, we discussed the different colours of the rainbow and in which order they go in. Then we explored how we could make a small amount of colour travel across our rainbows using kitchen roll. We had lots of different ideas and even a competition about which rainbow would ‘travel’ the furthest.
Time Capsule
Our Year 2 staff have shared a printable 'time capsule' template with pupils on Seesaw. It provides a great opportunity for reflection, writing and creativity. The template is here to download if you would like to try it.
Monday 20th April
Today is the first day of the summer term so our YouTube live streams started again this morning at 10:00am. You can catch up with it on our YouTube channel if you missed it. In school, we did some work in the allotment and made the most of the sunshine by building some dens in the woodland area.
Tuesday 21st April
In school, we had virtual swimming and beach lessons, a wild scavenger hunt for science and some seesaw activities and art.
Wednesday 22nd April
Today in school we had fun playing volleyball using the EYFS outside area fence as a net.
How to Catch a Star
Sofia has created her own version of the story How to Catch a Star. We think it's fantastic - well done Sofia!
Monday 6th April 2020
Mondays are gardening days. Mr Lewis today was taken on a tasting journey of the gorgeous greens in our poly tunnel.
Finley has been very proactive with his watering and has kept them alive and growing well....we re now bedding in the peas and beans!
Friday 3rd April 2020
Today we made an obstacle course out of speed stacks on the playground and completed the course on the scooters. We talked about the course being harder the closer the stacks were to each other. We timed ourselves to see if we could beat our score and then made some changes to the course to see if we could beat it further.
We went on SeeSaw and Nessy to complete some learning activities and we watched Mr Holton's stream and played the quiz.
Wednesday 1st April
We started the day on the gym equipment outside and had a kick about with a football and the goals. After that we focused for a while on our own activities on SeeSaw and other learning platforms. After lunch we got busy with the speed stacks, realising that they created some impressive towers! We also took part in some watercolouring and craft.
Thursday 2nd April
Practising keepy uppies!
Thursday 2nd April 2020
We've been watering the allotment to help it grow.
Wednesday 1st April
'Supertato!' A story for you to listen to at home with Mrs Humpreys
Wednesday 1st April
Thomas has been making a triceratops!
Wednesday 1st April
Take a look at Joshua and Mia's HIIT Home Farm Challenge!
Monday 30th March 2020
Today we had our second day of Mr Setford’s planting preparation. We’ve harvested leaf beet, kale and rocket but also planted lots of veggies to grow over the summer. Finley and Mr Setford also took the chance for a bit of woodworking to fix one of our raised beds too! A quiet but really fun day too!
Wednesday 1st April
'Whatever next!' A story for you to listen to at home with Mrs Humphreys
Wednesday 1st April
Tommy teaching us about dinosaurs!
Thursday 26th March
We had some fencing lessons in the playground, and we've been doing some DT, using tools to make moving vehicles and unicorn carriages!
More Dungeons and Dragons!
The KS2 group continued to take the fight to the goblins of Phlandelver! Klarg the goblin has been defeated!
Friday 27th March 2020
The end of a long week and the Home Farmers are ending the week listening to Mrs Humphreys remotely.
Tuesday 24th March - We've been practising our writing, and we played a game of outdoor bowls!
Wednesday 25th March - We had gym with Joe Wicks to start our day and then we had Hockey outside and a nature walk.
Thursday 26th March
Here's a story from Mrs Humphreys for you to share at home
Monday 23rd March 2020
We have 26 pupils in today and three teachers leading some fun and active learning.
We've been making the most of the sunshine today with Wayne Setford who has been working with the children to kick start our allotment back into shape ready for the growing season. Maybe we’ll be in a position to provide small fruit and veg parcels to the community in Summer! The children here definitely seem excited by it.
The children have been working with Mr Setford to plant some new hedging donated to use by Colchester Borough Council.
Tuesday 24th March 2020
You can see some more coverage of our hedge planting on Youtube!
Tuesday 24th March - Dungeons and Dragons
The KS2 team took a trip to Phlandelver, getting lost in the forest and fighting off a horde of goblins. Of course, we're not talking an actual trip - we are socially distancing and responsible - but instead a quest using Dungeons and Dragons! Our trusty team included a sorcerer, a warlock, an elf and two humans, and they successfully infiltrated Klarg's lair and dealt with the beast. It was great to see the children get involved in roleplay (including voices and actions for their characters!) and you've never seen so much excitement over rolling a 20 on a dice before.