I have been out most of this week on a course and it looks like a missed a busy one !

There were school trips to the Tutankhamun exhibition, visits to local areas of interest, walkabouts looking for different types of homes, in fact was anyone in the school this week !!!!!

That's just the tip of the iceberg, look what else has been happening at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School.

Mrs McIntosh - RM - We have been looking at different versions of Hansel and Gretel this week and we had great fun making our very own witch house with sweets, biscuits and chocolates! The children were very good at not eating the sweets (especially when they had glue on them!!) and made brilliant houses!

Next week we are looking at the story of the Little Red Hen - lots of PSHE relating to helping each other.

Have a great weekend!

 

Miss Wakeford - RW -This week RW have been working on the digraphs ‘ai’ and ‘ay’ and have covered the traditional tale of Hansel and Gretel. We made our own houses from sweets and biscuits, talked about healthy and unhealthy food, brought in and sorted pictures of our favourite food and wrote about our favourite food in our handwriting books. Next week, we will be revisiting the phoneme for ‘y’, the digraph ‘ie’ and be learning the alternative digraph ‘igh’. We shall also be looking at the traditional tale of The Little Red Hen.

 

Miss Barrington - 1B - Class 1B have had a fun learning week.  We went on a walkabout on Wednesday looking at different types of homes.  The children took lots of photos which we then looked at on our class whiteboard.  Our favourite photos were of the birds nest and the beautiful stained glass window.  I hope to put them on the page for you to see.

 

Mrs Dutton - 2/1D - This week we have been enjoying many activities to remember our number bonds to ten. We then used this skill to add three or four numbers together quickly! We have worked as a team to make our own newspaper, with everyone writing a report about Mr Grinling, Mrs Grinling or Hamish the cat who all  live together in a lighthouse. We have also made 'dangerous rocks ' biscuits (and enjoyed eating them), discovered what happened to Grace Darling after she became famous and investigated how torches work. We deserve to enjoy a relaxing weekend after all of this! 

 

Miss Bernard - 2/1B - Hello!

Class 2/1B have had another busy week doing their "Lighthouses" topic. They have written newspaper reports based on the "Lighthouse Keepers Lunch". The reports were assessed and I am really impressed with the way the children have tried to imporve their writing. They have been thinking about adding speech  and interesting adjectives, I have really enjoyed reading them. So, well done to you Class 2/1B!! The children have also been writing newpaper reports about Grace Darling in the ICT suite, which they will continue next week.

In Art and DT we have begun to do some sewing. The children are sewing pictures of characters from the Lighthouse Keeper stories and they will be decorating them to make a collage. Well done for the efforts you have made with these, they are looking great and thank you for being so patient. Because it has been difficult trying to get round to all of you when you have had difficulties.

 

Next week we are continuing with our "Lighthouses" topic. Along side this, in Literacy, we are investigating suffixes, "ed" and "ing",looking at alphabetical order and the use of dictionaries.In Numeracy we are investigating right angles. See how many you can find around the home children?

 

Thanks, Miss Bernard

 

Miss Peacher - 3P - Class 3P have worked very hard this week. We have been planning and writing our fairy tales with a twist with some interesting results! In D.T. and Science we are looking at healthy eating. The children have been completing a food diary all week and it will be interesting to see the results. Well done to George who is our student of the week. Also there has been a marked improvement in attendance with only 3 absenses all week. Well done 3P but lets try for 100% next week.

 

Mrs Amran + Mr Bird - 4AH - This week really centered on our visit to the Tutankhamun Exhibition with final research being undertaken prior to the trip.  The children were excited to see the actual artefacts that up until then they had only viewed in books. Everyone enjoyed the day and since Wednesday their experiences have served to stimulate some very interesting sessions.

 

Miss Bolton - 4B - Our trip to the O2 and the Tutankhamun exhibition was the highlight of the week. Maybe even the highlight of year 4 so far! We arrived in good time and had a walk along the river Thames before entering the Dome. The staff there were fantastic and helped organise the tickets and children. There were 11 exhibition rooms full of the most wonderful artifacts, all around 3500 years old. Watching the children's faces of excitment and wonder made the day special for them and the adults involved. I also think this is one of the few trips I've been on in my teaching career where the children came back talking about what they have seen, rather than just lunch and the shop!! 

 

A staff member was told by a member of the public that our children were 'well behaved, polite and lovely to watch enjoying the exhibition'. Year 4 did Darlinghurst proud!

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs Johnston - 5J - Well done, 5J, super behaviour on the trip to Leigh.  We also had warmer weather than 5D! Congratulations to Nathan, Jamie, Joshua, Charlotte and Haleema who received Student of the Week certificates for being super maths ambassadors and explaining a difficult maths concept to the other children.  Well done, I'll soon be out of a job!

Remember to bring in your leaves, stones, sticks etc for your natural collage on Tuesday.

 

Mr Duff - 5D - Being off for most of this week I had to rely on other teachers comments about you to help me write this. So here goes ! Mrs McLauchlan said you were angels, Mrs Cornish described you as fab and Mrs Johnston said you were lovely. Well what can I say apart from a huge well done. Your behaviour was nothing short of excellent. Your attitudes were very mature and not only that you had lots of fun as well ! Maybe I should attend more 3 day courses !!! To say I was very pleased to hear these comments would be an understatement. You did yourself proud. Last things, don't forget your leaves, twigs, sticks, stones, seeds etc for next week and keep up the reading at home. Well done 5D.

 

Phhheeeewwwww what a week. I am off for a very relaxing weekend. I hope you are as well.

 

Have a good one !

 

Fund raising for 2008 ! Please don't forget that if you shop online going through Easy Funding Raising website will earn the school money. It costs nothing to sign up and when you buy something it gives a certain amount back to the school. You can either click here to go straight to the website or click the Janaury Sale button on the front page of the Darlinghurst website.

A huge thank you to those that have already done this, currently we have 34 members and have raised £118.91 but more members are required !!

What's been happening this week at Darlinghust Primary and Nursery School?

Miss Wakeford - RW - This week, RW have been concentrating on the digraphs ‘er’ and ‘ar’. We have continued with our Traditional tales/Books theme and have looked at the story of Cinderella in detail. The children also made their own books about Darlinghurst and went on a walk around the school to decide what to write inside. Don’t forget your warm clothes again on Monday!

Mrs McIntosh - RM - We have been working hard this week with their writing! We do really well at our reading but have found that we need to practice writing those words we can read and the children have done very well! (But please practice as often as you can at home!!) We have been looking at different versions of Cinderella this week and the children have really enjoyed it! Please remember warm clothes for our outdoor PE on Monday. We now do outdoor PE on Monday and indoor PE on Tuesday. Thank you!! Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Barrington - 1B - Class 1B have a busy few weeks ahead of them.  We shall be looking at homes during our walkabout on Wednesday 23rd Jan.  The children have continued to work very hard on their Traditional Story work.  We have been looking at the main incidents this week.  Do you know the title of Mrs Barrington's favourite traditional story?  The children learnt about ordinal numbers this week and enjoyed being judges for their own puppy dogs.  In the next few weeks we also hope to be making our own Gingerbread men.

Miss Bernard - 2/1B - Hello children!

Well done for another brilliant week on our Lighthouse topic!! We have had an exciting time because we had some special science resources in school linked with electricity and our Lighthouse Keeper stories. The resources consisted of a model lighthouse, the little white cottage and various pieces of eqiuipment which enabled the children to make some interesting circuits and carry out some investigative activities. For example, Mr and Mrs Grinling are to old to pull Mr Grinling's lunch basket from the little white cottage to the lighthouse. So the children had to make a circuit to enable the motorised pulley work between the two. They got very excited when they made it move, and even more excited when they made it move faster!

We also had a great creative afternoon when the children role played Grace Darling's brave expoits to music, some children played instruments to create  a storm. We then made and painted items to go in our lighthouse. The children had great fun!

Mrs Dutton - 2/1D - We  have  been  very  busy  this week  finding  out  how  to  make  different  cicuits  to  make  fans  go  round  and lights  turn.  Then  we  used  our  knowledge  to  make  the  light  at  the  top  of  the  lighthouse  shine  brightly. Next  we  made  Mr  Grinling's  lunch  move  from  the  little  white  cottage  to  the  lighthouse,  reversing  the  electric  current  from  the  batteries  to  make  the  basket  with  the  dirty  plates  go  back  to  the  cottage  to  be  washed  up!  Everyone  had  great  fun  thinking  about  electricity  and  lighthouses.

Mrs Peacher - 3P - Class 3P have been learning about food and a healthy diet. They are keeping as food diary next week so that we can see if we are healthy eaters. I will let you know the results as soon as they are in!

Miss Bolton - 4B - Where has this week gone? It really seems to have flown past! One of the highlights this week has been our Literacy work. The class have been breaking down the steps to researching: identifying what we know already; developing a question on what we want to find out; scanning and selecting information from books and the internet; making notes; organising notes; and completing a paragraph of writing on our new found knowledge. The final work produced on 'How the Egyptians made the pyramids' has been top quality. Well done 4B!

Hopefully you have all recieved the letter today with the final arrangments for next weeks trip - check in the bottom of bags if not! The children should have edited one small mistake in that we are leaving at 10am, not 11am.

 

Well done to the children who are regularly reading to an adult at home - am really seeing progress with those children already. Lets get more of you doing the same.

 

Mr Bird and Mrs Amran - 4AH - This week has provided the opportunity for the children to reflect on their progress over last term and also to look forward to their new challenges. The level of excitement has been increasing as they are now looking forward to our visit to O2 for the Tutenkhamun Exhibition. Their research into the subject has been done with added enthusiasm as they are eager to share their results prior to the trip.

 

Mr Duff - 5D - Reading, reading and more reading ! You guys are superb at reading at home to an adult and this week it showed. Our termly reading tests showed that nigh on everyone has made progress in their reading age, this is fantastic ! Please keep it up, I know you will as you have been doing this for a term already, but we are now beginning to reap the rewards. As you know I am off most of next week on a course but I am confident of having good reports from whoever might teach you (don't let me down). Don't forgot you will be going to Old Leigh on Tuesday morning, weather permitting, so please remember to bring back your permission slips. I will see you Monday morning and then again on Friday but I will be ringing Mrs Evans every night to get a report of the day !!

 

Mrs Johnston - 5J - Well done 5J you are great at finding common multiples.  Hockey skills are improving at a tremondous rate - remember to bring in suitable clothing in case we are outside. Keep reading at home and bring in your permission slips for our trip to Old Leigh next week.

 

Mrs Chatterton and Mr Hautler - 6HC - We are really enjoying our Geography topic on mountains. We looked at OS maps of various parts of the UK. I taught them about contour lines and how we can detect mountains from looking at them. This activity seemd to go down very well and the whole class were really focussed.We all enjoyed our Hockey lesson on Wednesday. Some children were showing excellent skills. We also had a great time on Thursday afternoon finding out how to seperate mixtures and solutions in Science. They may want to raid the kitchen to experiment, so be warned!

 

Mr Martin - 6T - This week we are well into the swing of our topic of mountains.  We have been looking at prominent mountain ranges and the challenges brave mountaineers face. If you were going up a mountain, what would you take?  What would you wear to protect you from the elements?  What would you eat?  In future weeks, we will be exploring such quandries. Running parrallel to this, has been our mathematical topic of co-ordinates. We can now locate ourselves on a map so hopefully we won't get lost and stuck up a mountain!

 

As you can see from the size of each blog every class has been very busy indeed !

 

Parents evening will soon be on us so don't forget to return the slips and book an appointment.

 

Have a relaxing weekend

Happy New Year and welcome back !

Everyone is back learning and Christmas is a distant memory, well apart from the extra pounds added to the waist. We are all in good spirits though and the week has flown past.

So what's been happening at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School then?

First, well done to the group of children from Year 3 and 4 that went to St. Christopher's school and took part in an indoor athletics event organised by the Southend Sports Coordinators. Not only did they participate, they went on to be the overall winners ! Well done Miss Slann and Mr Wakeford as well.

Here's what's been happening in the classrooms !

Miss Wakeford - RW - We have had a great first week back! We have revised all of the phonemes we have learnt so far and started our brand new topic of ‘Traditional Tales/Books’. This week, we have shared The Elves and the Shoemaker and have carried out lots of activities based on ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Don’t forget warm clothes for Monday’s outdoor P.E session with Danny, the Southend United football coach.

Mrs McIntosh - RM - Happy New Year to you all!  We have had a great week in Reception - getting back into the swing of things! They really enjoyed telling each other what they got for Christmas and what they did over the holidays. Our topic for this half term is Traditional tales - and our main book this week has been The 3 little pigs. The children did an exciting experiment on Tuesday which included a hairdryer! A big, big plea to you to listen to your child read......it really, really does help!! Thank you to those that do work really hard and spend time going over High Frequency Words and reading books on a regular basis. Mrs McIntosh