First of all can I apologise for no BLOG entry on the last week of last half term  This was simply because of a gremlin creeping into our systems at school and causing havoc!! Anyway he has been found and dealt with and we are back to normal !!!

 

 Charles Darwin 1809-1882

This week has been all about Darwin!! With his 200th birthday this year Mrs Dutton and Mrs Chatterton decided to celebrate this fact and have worked very hard to give all teachers a pack of goodies, which included lots of information, facts and bundles of super activities all about this famous historical figure. A huge thank you to Mrs D and Mrs C for your help, it has been an excellent week

 

 Headlines from Mr Knight

I hope that you all enjoyed the half term holiday. The weather was rather good for a change and it is quite clear from the children that many of you took full advantage of the better conditions. The children certainly seem to have a received a boost and they have started the new half term in a very positive manner.
 
As many of you will know Mr Rice's funeral took place during the break from school and was very well attended by many members of the school and wider communities - in fact there was barely room in the chapel to accommodate everyone. It was a very fitting tribute to a very warm, friendly and generous man who will be sadly missed for some time to come. We will be raising some money for a memorial at some time during the next few weeks - I hope you will be able to support us with this effort.
 
The next few weeks will rush past and before we know it we will be half way through the summer holidays. Fingers crossed for a really successful six weeks!!
 
 
So what else has been happening at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School this week?
 
 Nursery - We liked playing in the garden this week in the lovely sunshine. Some of our beans have grown but some did not do very well over the half term holiday. We did hand printing with Mrs Essex and mixed two colours to make a new colour by putting one colour on one hand, the other colour on the other hand and then rubbing them together to make a new colour.
 
 RW - Mrs Dutton and Ms Thomson - This week we have dressed up as pirates, we have made pirate hats using semi circles and rectangles and pirate ships from recyclable packaging, We have designed under water pictures using a computer and we have been thinking about how many paces we need to go to find the buried treasure!
 
 RM - Mrs Collison and Ms Thomson - Ahoy there me hearties!!  A great and vey funny week has been had by all!!   The children have had lots of fun exploring their imaginations and pretending to be pirates of the Cariibean Sea.  We have travelled across the Atlantic Ocean from England in search of a fabulous place to bury our treasure in the beautiful country of Jamaica (although I did lose a couple of children overboard as they fell off our pirate ship!!!
I am so proud of all the children from this week, as always, especially with our visit from an HMI Inspector who commented that the childrens learning and development was outstanding!! Well done everyone.  Here's what the children have said:
 
 
Holly said 'I have liked learning how to spin hoops around outside in the garden. It has been lovely and warm.'''
 
Ellie said 'I have enjoyed coming to school and learning about finding treasure in Jamaica.'
 
Laura said 'I enjoyed pretending to be a pirate and rowing Captain Collison's ship to Jamaica!'
 
Olivia W said ' I enjoyed learning and really did enjoy circle time with Mrs Thomson because we had to help Peter Pirate find friends because he kept stealing gold and  
                     didn't have any friends.'
 
Looking forward to next week and our 'Big Plant Hunt' and learning about Charles Darwin.
Mrs Collison & Mrs Thomson
 
 1/2B - Mrs Barrington -Class 1/2B have had almost 100% attendance this week, this just goes to show what a fit and healthy class we are.  This term our topic is the Seaside already the children have drawn some super shell pictures, which will be going up on display.  Our literacy work this week was based around the story Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell.  The children wrote about the work that their grown ups do at home and would like me to include examples in the blog. 
My Mum does the cooking and l ask, "what's for dinner?"  by Anita year 2. 
In my house I tidy up my bedroom and my mum says, "How goes the work?"  by Lilly-Rose year 2
My brother and I tidy our bedrooms and my mum and dad say, "How goes the work?"  by Cosmo year 1 
Class 1/2B would also like to add that they are really looking forward to having a push and pull day when they can bring their bikes, scooters and skateboards into school.
 
 1/2D - Mrs Dutton - As if to coincide with a few days of sunshine, our topic this term is The Beach and we have been looking at and drawing the fine details of shells, coral, sponges and star fish. We have had more letters about where our Flat Stanley’s have been ( and many of them have been to different beaches in the UK and Europe) and enjoyed looking at these places in our atlases. One Flat Stanley went to the dentist on his trip. Ry said  “ I went to the dentist and my Flat Stanley did too with my cousin”. To commemorate the birth of Charles Darwin, born 200 years ago, we have been looking closely at the different seeds and plants found on  our school field  and we are trying to grow some.
 
 3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

 

We have had such an enjoyable "Great Plant Hunt" week. We began by hunting for plants around the school grounds and we found quite a few which we tried to identify using our identikit. We are looking forward to hunting for some more when we go to ChalkwellPark. The children and I have had great fun investigating the life of Charles Darwin; he was such an interesting man. Here are some of the children's thoughts on the Charles Darwin activities that they have been doing:

 

“I enjoyed writing about the life of Charles Darwin because it was fun"- Aaliyah

"I found it interesting because we can do what he did"- Evan Hayward

“I enjoyed it because I always wondered who was on the back of a £10 and now I know who he was and what he did"- Scarlett

"I enjoyed doing Art, it was fun because we used paints, charcoal and pastels to do pictures of Charles Darwin"- Ryan

"I loved our Charles Darwin work because the things he has done are interesting to learn."- Josh

“I loved the Plant Hunt because I got to find plants that we have not paid attention to on the field while we were playing"- Thomas

"I liked the Plant Hunt because all the plants are pretty."- Bethany

 

In Numeracy we have been investigating the use of Venn and Carroll Diagrams to sort data:

 

"I liked doing Venn and Carroll Diagrams because I really enjoy doing Numeracy"- Ella

"I thought that it was interesting because you might need them sometimes and it's good to know how to use them."- Natasha

"l liked the problem solving activity with Carroll diagrams because Numeracy is my Favourite subject"- Brendan

“The Venn diagrams were good because they are something interesting to learn about”- Raman

 

Here are some other activities that children have enjoyed this week:

 

“The Science assessment on plants was fun to do because there were different things I liked doing on the test”-  Alfie

 

“I enjoyed the French word search because I normally find them boring but I liked words from a different country”- Mikayla

 

We have also had two new students join our class this week Molly and Max, who is from France.

 

“I have enjoyed my first week, but I find it strange because I am not speaking French”- Max

 

“I have enjoyed my first week because I am back with my old friends” (Molly used to come to our school) - Molly

 

Phew! That was a long blog!

 

Enjoy your weekend everybody! - Miss Bernard

 

 3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - All this week we have been looking at the life of Charles Darwin, the man on the back of a £10 note. In PE/Drama we did freeze frames to show different parts of his life and in music we went on a "Thinking Walk" using musical instruments for some different animals that Darwin might have seen on his travels. In Literacy we have been looking at what happened to him during his life, with his wife and 10 children. In numeracy we didn't do Darwin but we have been looking at days of the week, months of the year and Venn diagrams and Carroll diagrams. In Science we looked at how plants grow under different conditions, and some even tried the cress, it was quite spicy and I thought it was yuk!! - By Libbie
 
 4B - Mr Lloyd - We've been so carried away with work the past 2 days, we forgot the children writing the Blog! Our main work this week has continued with our history of film topic and we've been looking at animation. The class were amazed to find out that the older Disney films were all drawn and the past 2 days have found out how hard they are to do.
We have been lucky enough to borrow equipment from Belfairs to allow us to do this. The class have planned out their own story and currently in the middle of completing 30 drawn frames, each one with elements that move slightly. This is becoming a job and a half! I have to commend the class though for their perseverence and patience with this. We will then photograph each one and load it onto Movie Maker, add titles and credits and hopefully end up with a (very) short animation. We will let you know the end results next week.
 
 4J - Miss Bolton - This week the whole school have been learning about Charles Darwin and in year 4  we had a 'Great Plant Hunt' on the field. Everyone especially enjoyed this because it was adventurous. We practised our letter writing skills by writing letters telling Charles Darwin what we have been doing.On the last two days of the week we created our own animation cartoons,using equipment kindely lent by Belfairs school.We are looking forward to showing Mrs Johnston  our finished animations!! By Alexia, Mia and Tayla.
 
 5D - Mr Duff - What a fantastic week. Darwin, and more Darwin!! We started of by making our own "quadrats" (observation areas) on the school field, just like Darwin. We then went on our Thinking Walk, just like Darwin. We made drawing of our findings, just like Darwin. Are you seeing the pattern!! It has been great to following in the footsteps of such a historial and famous scientific researcher.
 
We used some very informative websites, which I promised to post of this weeks blog.
 
Click here - for The Great Plant Hunt
 
Click here and here for Evolution websites we look at regarding Darwin and Change
 
We even managed to fit in lots of other things this week as well!! PE focused on Borough Sports activities and not to forget our weekly trip to Blenheim for our swimming lesson. In maths we are finishing off our revision sessions and will be having a couple of tests next week.
 
Daniel, Devang, Michael, Tia, Cian, Callum and Asan all participated in an orienteering festival held at the school, well done to you.

Graham from Creative Partnerships came in to talk about our musical designs, he was very very impressed. We will get a chance to make these next week !!
 
Phewww, what a week - another busy one to come next week though - enjoy your weekend!!
 
 6M - Mr Martin - This week in class 6M we have been learning about Charles Darwin, it has been 200 years since his birth!!
We have also been making dioramas for our perfect garden, the winner will get a £10 gift voucher from a shop of their choice. We have been making our own sea creature to see how they have adapted!!! We hope everyone has a nice weekend!!! By Jamie and Haleema
 

 6H - Mr Hautler - We have had quite a relaxed week. We have been looking at Charles Darwin, who looked at animals and evolution. We designed our own creatures. We then designed what they would look like one million years in the past and one million years in the future. In music we learnt about guitars and how to play them and we were shown different guitar peddles like the wha wha peddle. This week has been really fun!

Ellie and Ryan