Bring a Dad to School Day !!
Today saw our annual Bring a Dad to School Day. There were lots of activities going on in classrooms ranging from playing board games to trying to get a hard boiled egg into a milk bottle!! Lots of energy was seen in the playground and that was just from the Dads!! In fact one of the Dads said to me if only we could bottle the energy seen and use it and from what I saw we could have used the energy to power the school for a whole term!!
So a huge thank you for your enthusiasm and we will see you again next year!!
Football match against St.Michaels
"Head"lines from Mr Knight - NEW To The BLOG Yet again the week has flown by! This week I was lucky enough to attend a meeting being held by an organisation called QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum authority) to talk about the primary curriculum review. A well known academic, Sir Jim Rose, has been looking at the content of the guidance that schools receive regarding what is taught in primary schools and is making suggestions about how things need to change now and into the future. During the meeting the attendees were given a sneak preview of the new plans and were also given an opportuntity to discuss what was good and what caused concern. A very interesting opportunity to be part of a huge national development.
On a more local note we are still finding lots of parents are ignoring our requests to stay out of the car park - especially in the morning when breakfast club is starting. I am very worried that at some point a child will be hurt by a driver not looking carefully enough and I think that would be devastating. The advertisement on the television about car accidents is one of the most powerful I have ever seen - I would hate that person to be one of our parents or the victim one of our children.
So what else has been happening at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School this week?
So what else has been happening at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School this week?
Nursery - We have all painted a picture which is going to be stuck into our special book, we paint one every term so that we can so how good at painting we are. We had a new fishing game this week, we were much better at it than the grown ups in our room!!!RM - Mrs Collinson - The children have had a great week and have really demonstrated what superstars they all are at exploring new ideas. The dads and uncles had great fun too today!! Thankyou.
Here's what they have said about the things they have enjoyed this week:
Laura said 'I enjoyed looking at and drawing exotic fruit and
tasting the delicious mango.'
Tyler said 'I put sunflower seeds in the pots and watered
them.'
Holly said 'I enjoyed making flowers for our new Garden
Centre. My flower is pink and blue and costs
10 pence.'
James said 'I liked the smell of the pineapple, it smells
yummy and tastes nice.'
So you can truly see what lovely experiences the children and grown ups have had! Looking forward to next week when we start exploring plants. Have a great weekend.
RW - Mrs Weston - RW have had a very enjoyable week continuing with our 'Growing' topic. We have looked at various seeds in packets and in a range of fruits, did some maths with seeds (number bonds to 10), implemented pastel observational drawings of fruit in a bowl, weaved our own fruit bowls and printed fruit inside (based on the story 'Handa's Surprise'), drew and labelled fruit in the ICT suite and looked at and tasted exotic fruit (mango). A great big thank you to all the dads who came to school on Friday morning - the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and couldn''t wait to tell me what they had done. Alex 'loved it when daddy did junk modelling' with him and Jayde said " I liked it when daddy drew a bus." If any dads want to come in and visit or help at any other stage, Mrs Weston would be more than happy to have them and the children would be thrilled! 2/1D - Mrs Dutton - We have had another week of reading poems, thinking about why we like them and looking for rhymes, alliteration and repetition. We have started to investigate the conditions which make cress seeds grow best and we will find out if our ideas are true next week. In Numeracy, some of us have been thinking about our times tables while the rest have been using number lines to subtract. We have also been thinking about the story of Easter. 2/1B - Mrs Barrington - Class 1/2B have continued their work on poems. They are now real experts at noticing rhyming words, repeating patterns and alliteration. Well done! In numeracy some of the children have moved on to multiplication and now know their two's five's and ten's times tables.
We have also covered the Easter story which is suitably portrayed in a cartoon version video, appropriate for younger children. We shall be continuing with Easter next week and you never know may even get some chocolate.
3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - In science this week we played "Who wants to be a Millionaire" a quiz all about teeth. Some of us didn't get very much money but we had fun playing. We also looked at the teeth we left in milk, water, orange juice and coke. We had only left them in there for a week and the one in the orange juice was all white where the acid had rotted the enamel but the one in the coke was all brown and disgusting. Yuk!
We have also been writing an adventure story in literacy. Our stories take place in lots of different place. Mine is in at the park and a p[olice station and Devlin's is in a haunted pyramid.
On Bring a Dad to School Day we made some paintings, finished our Anglo-Saxon houses and made them a village to live in as well as making biscuits and an Anglo-Saxon shield.
3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!
We have had a very busy week in our class. The children have been trying very hard, in numeracy to tell the time using 5 minute intervals. Most children are getting the hang of it, we are trying to remember to practise as much as possible so that we don't forget. Here are some comments from children about activities they have enjoyed in class this week:
" I really enjoyed learning how to tell the time in Numeracy because we learned about telling the time by counting in 5's. Not just the hour and half hour"- Josh
" I liked our role plays that we did that helped us to plan writing our adventure stories. We used pictures to help us think about settings, characters and objects in our stories"- Phoebe
"I like our adventure stories that we are writing.We have to try and make them exciting by thinking about things like, what is going to happen next?"- Alish
"I have liked putting our Anglo Saxon books together, it's fun learning about the Anglo Saxons"- Thomas
" I have enjoyed writing our Easter stories because I am learning more about Jesus"- Mikayla
"I like my animal project.Did you know that goats are really popular because they make goats milk, cheese and meat?"- Hannah
" I have enjoyed learning about teeth and how they grow."- Bethany
Thanks for your contributions children, I so glad that you are enjoying your learning so much.
Have a lovely weekend - Miss Bernard
4B - Miss Bolton - The best thing about this week has been a mad day of paper mache. The children have designed a mini chair for a celebrity or friend. We then cut out the foam basis and covered it in layers of sticky newspaper. By the end of the afternoon, more glue was on fingers than on chairs! However, lots of fun was had and the chairs are starting to look good. This week has also seen our annual Bring a Dad to School Day. Its such great fun but us teachers have a tough time controlling the mischievious additions to the class!!
We will be counting at the end of Friday how many aluminium cans we have collected this week for recycling and working out how much energy has been saved. Please keep them coming in. The children are really getting into the spirit of recycling and looking after our planet.
4J - Mrs Johnston - A big thank you to all the 'dads' who visited 4J today - I'm sure 17 must be some sort of record! What a creative lot you are. Thank you for sharing your skills with us. I hope you had fun, we all did and we didn't set the school on fire with the egg in the milk bottle trick, despite Mr Duff's worries!
Thank you too, to the mums who came in to help with our art session this week, helping decorate our chairs and making the clearing up vanish! I really do appreciate all your help and support.
5D - Mr Duff - Busy week yet again!! Lots going on and lots to fit in. I was really pleased and amazed on how quickly you picked up finding fractions of a number. Show your parents this weekend, they will be amazed too!! The persuasive writing is coming on nicely and next week we will be writing our final piece. Also the workshop with Andy Rotherham on Thursday morning was super and you gave me some great feedback as well. Well done to Cian, Jack and Ethan for representing Darlinghurst and 5D at the Westcliff High School for Girls Science Fair. I have yet to speak to you about this as it was on Friday afternoon but I am looking forward to hearing all about it.
Mrs Amran told me that there was a fantastic photo of 5D in the Evening Echo on Thursday. It was linked to our Animation Day with Belfairs but I am yet to see it. So if you have a copy at home, please bring it in on Monday so I can have a look please !!
Remember it is Earth Hour on Saturday night between 8:30pm and 9:30pm - Please switch off !! Well done to Lauryn for making a superb Earth Hour poster at home - it looks fabulous !
Lastly, Friday was all about the Dads! Can I say a big thank you to all that came in, it was great to see you. I will leave this week's entry to the blog with the children's comments about this day. Have a great weekend !
It was really fun - Callum
I loved playing Monoploy - Rhion
Monopoly took ages ! - Ed
I liked spending time with my step-dad - Shabnam
It was excellent - Zhana
5B - Mr Bird - This week provided children with the opportunity to participate in some different activities which served to stimulate very useful group cooperation. The first of these was the meeting and briefing of the two groups who are going to be involved with a number of very different learning situations the week they return after the holiday. Several children have now got to that 'I can't wait' stage, as I am sure you will know. Lively discussions took place about what unusual activities would challenge them, both at Darlinghurst and the Isle of Wight.
Following on from this, 5B and 5D had an excellent chance to work together on a variety of team building tasks presented by Mr Andy Rotherham. When I asked the children what they thought of the session they were very positive and, I am pleased to say, identified a key factor to group success - listening skills!
The week ended with three 5B children, together with others from the school, representing us at a science event held at Westcliff High School. Unfortunately their fourth team member was unable to attend as he had fractured his ankle, we all wish him a speedy recovery. The team enjoyed the experience and I think it would be fair to say, they demonstrated an inovative and truly scientific approach to their investigation. This was yet another great example of what can be achieved by team work.
Still on the theme of teams, I know that most of you will be aware that a member of our class team will be leaving us at the end of this term after 19 years. Mrs Day has been working with this class since September 2007 and during that time has given excellent support to all the children and invaluable assistance to me. Clearly she will be missed and we all hope that she enjoys her retirement. Typically she has ensured that Mrs Jones, who will be moving into 5B, has been given everything she needs for a smooth transition.
Finally we were pleased to see some of the children's Dads, Granddads and uncles who were able to attend and participate in the construction of a team game challenge on 'Bring a Dad to School Day'. This activity was enjoyed by all and the children were able to ensure that the adults didn't get too many chances to cheat.
6M - Mr Martin - This week, in 6M, we have been doing some pre-SATS tests and the positive thing is we have all improved in our scores, which is fantastic!! We have also been designing rain collectors to catch rain, which will also help us water our plants organically. We were researching about tomato products to sell on our school stall (these tomatoes will be organically on our school allotment). Bring a Dad to School Day was fantastic even though we only had 4 dads. The dads all participated in everyday school activities like spellings, tables and P.E. - Jamie and Haleema6H - Mr Hautler - Hi dudes and duddets this is Dan and Elouize this week. It was a crazy week as we had lots of tests and when we say tests, WE MEAN TESTS!! The football match was great !! The footballers tried very hard even though they lost 5-0 to St Micheals!!! Year 6 made up some games, BAMBOOZEL, Around the world maths, poorest millionaire and battle of the sex's. The whole of year 6 thanks you for reading this. Bye !!!!!!!!! See you again soon.....