2022 - 2023
Sycamore Class
Sycamore Class
Reading for pleasure is key to maintaining a child’s appetite for books, learning and improving reading ability. Children who are immersed in a ‘reading for pleasure’ culture from an early age are far more likely to transition to secondary school with a bedrock of literacy ability and enquiring minds. Please click on this link for a recommended reading list for different age groups: Primary School Reading Lists for Children aged 3-11
Sycamore's learning 2022 - 2023
PSHE - What makes a nightmare school and what makes a dream school?
Sycamore Class really enjoyed learning about digestion, they started their learning in the science dome. They found out what happens in your body as soon as you have eaten something. This was demonstrated by using different foods, water and even dry ice!
Lots of place value practice in maths!
A fantastic day at forest school - September 22nd 2022
A fantastic day at forest school. We started the day with making little houses for a small imaginary character. There was an extra challenge to build the house off the ground! The children worked so well together showing reciprocity and were amazingly resilient when structures fell down! I was very impressed with their resourcefulness and creativity. The children then worked on creating Roman coil pots out of clay, did a bit of water colour painting and created some fabulous natural collages. The afternoon was full of den building and the opening of several hotels and airbnbs! Payment was in either seeds or leaves! A fantastic day had by all!
Forest School
2/18
Arts week - printing rangoli patterns using polysterene blocks, block printing using string and creating Rangoli patterns out of coloured rice!
Arts week - screen printing with Sandra and creating mini sketch books inspired by the artist’s work.
RE - Hindu gods - silent debate. I know . . . I guess . . . I wonder . . .
Marvin and Milo - English unit hook
Investigating magnets. The children started off by exploring and playing with the magnets. They then moved on to investigating whether bigger magnets are stronger than smaller magnets.
Roman Workshop - Life as a Roman Soldier!
Science investigation - which coins are magnetic?
Gymnastics lessons in PE
DT - The children found out about Roman catapaults and how they were made. They then set about investigating how to make their own catapault. The children designed these and then made them before trying them out to see how successful they were.
Sycamore Class worked really well in groups building paper towers that needed to be strong enough to hold a tin of food. The children reflected on our 4 learning powers as they worked on the challenge. They needed reflectiveness, resilience, reciprocity and resourcefulness in abundance to successfully complete complete the challenge!
Sycamore class were fascinated by this wasp nest which was kindly brought in by the grandparents of some of our students. We were surprised at just how large it was and how hard the wasps must have worked to build it! An excellent example of reciprocity - one of learning behaviours
Sycamore class had a fantastic time at Kents Cavern, walking in the footsteps of stone age people. We found out that Kents Cavern is the only place in the world where three different human species have lived, leaving behind bones and stone tools as evidence. On the woodland palaeo trail we also found out about woolly mammoths and cave bears.
An inspiring live lesson with the 3 engineers. The highlight being the live reading of their book - The Adventures of Scout, Stop Dropping Litter. A perfect intro to our poetry unit on plastic pollution.
Making fossils in science.