Rowan Class 2022/2023

Wednesday 8th March 2023 - School is closed due to snow

We have certainly woken up to a Winter Wonderland here in Bentley.  Please stay warm and safe and have a go at the activities below.  Please note that if you don't have access to a printer for the Maths sheets, please just open them on a screen and discuss the questions with your child.

Apologies if the Year 2 video link was broken - mine seems to be taking me to the wrong video.  This link should work

https://vimeo.com/430109458 

English:

Write a description of what you can see outside today and what you have done today.

Remember to use adjectives to add interest.

We have been learning about conjunctions so try this challenge too:

Year 2: Write a sentence with 'and' in it.

Year 3: Write a sentence with another conjunction in (see the picture below for some ideas)

For more about conjunctions you can watch this quick video.

Don't forget to read back through your writing to make sure you have used capital letters and full stops and to make sure you haven't missed out any words.

Afternoon work: Geography

Last week we learnt about physical and human features on the Isle of Coll.  Please watch this video to recap this learning. (Click the word video above to launch the lesson).

The main activity is to have a go at drawing a map of where you live.  Click here to launch the lesson and just to your best!  I can't wait to see how you have got on, please bring them into school tomorrow.

Spring 2 - 2023

Welcome back, we hope you had a lovely half term and have enjoyed seeing those signs of spring!  We are delighted to welcome Mrs Bhatti as the Rowan Class teacher and Mrs Brooking as the Rowan Class learning support assistant.  Mrs Bowden will continue to teach Rowan Class on a Thursday and Mrs Cowie will cover PPA on a Friday afternoon.

The children will be learning about plants in Science, about the Isle of Coll and mapping skills in Geography and about William Morris in art.  We will be learning about position and direction and in maths and also continuing our number work on subtraction, multiplication and division.  In English the children will be looking at non fiction writing about plants and the Katie Morag books and using both of these to improve their reading and writing.  I must say that the children have come back from half term full of enthusiasm for writing and I have been extremely impressed by their writing in class today!

P.E. is on Mondays and Thursdays so please come into school wearing PE kit on those days.  Rowan Class will not be having P.E. with Chelsea on Wednesdays for this half term.

As ever, please do drop us an email or call the office if there is anything that you would like to speak to us about.

Please take a look at the photos from the Titanic trip below.

Best wishes,

The Rowan Class Team

February is here already!

The start of 2023 has just flown by.  We can't wait to share some of our work with you at the class assembly on Thursday (2nd February).  It is not long until our school trip - please see the parent mail about this.  Apologies for the confusion about homework last Friday, all the children now have their homework up until half term in their school bags.  You can also see the homework in the homework section of this web page.  We have put a handy knowledge organiser there to help with the science homework.  Please keep going with TT Rockstars too.  

11th January 2023

We have already been back at school for over a week and we are getting back into the swing of things.  We have started our topic about The Titanic with Mrs Yates and with Mrs Bowden we have started learning about the food we eat and nutrition.  We are studying a book called The Flood in English which is unique because it has no words - the children are coming up with wonderful possible words and two even went to show Mr Jennings their work this week!  In RE we are continuing to learn about Judaism and what Passover means.  Expect to hear all about the work of Georges Seurat and pointilism as we study his work in art this half term.  We will keep you up to date with everything else over the next few weeks.

As a whole school we learnt about the blessings at Epiphany and please do take a look above the main door at school as there is a blessing for all who enter our school.  Today in assemby Revd Matt and Gemma showed us actions that go with the 'teaspoon' prayer (Thank you, please and sorry) that we can use while praying.

Chelsea P.E. is on Wednesday 25th January and Wednesday 8th February.  Children should come in to school wearing their P.E. kit on those dates as well as on Mondays and Thursdays. 

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2023 in Rowan Class.  We are so excited to be back together again and we are thrilled to welcome Phoebe into Year 2.  We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas break, the children have shared lots of memories this morning and it was lovely to hear that their best memories were of the people they saw and the fun they had with them, rather than the presents they got.  It sounds like they all had a magical time.

We have a busy term ahead with a school trip planned - more info will follow very soon.  Our PE days are still Mondays and Thursdays and sometimes Wednesdays too.  As soon as we have the list of Wednesday PE days we will share it on here.  Show and Tell is still Wednesdays and can we ask that the Show and Tell is linked to something we are learning in school or to something that they are particularly proud of.  Our Proud Cloud still has some space so keep sharing all those achivements with us please.

Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas!

We are in our last week of Autumn term.  After an absolutely superb Nativity last week we have a more relaxed week this week.  We have been learning about Hannukah and the importance of light in many religions.  We have also explored Christmas Around the World and the children really impressed us with a song that they all know about the continents.  Tomorrow the children will watch Lessons and Carols at the church after a delicious Christmas lunch and on Friday it is the Christmas party.

The only homework for Christmas is to relax and make memories with your family and we look forward to seeing you in 2023!

Update 4th December

We have a very exciting week ahead of us!  We are performing our nativity on Wednesday and Thursday.  Please could you ensure that your child has some base layers (leggings and long sleeve top are ideal) in school in a named plastic bag.  We have all the costumes sorted and can't wait for the big performance!

Update 23rd November

We have just uploaded the photos from our school trip last week.  As you can see the children had a brilliant time and we covered some history, science and geography through learning about explorers now and Captain Scott and Captain Oates' Antarctic expedition.

PE Kits - please can children keep their PE kits at home and come in to school wearing their PE kit on Mondays and Thursdays.  We also have one extra Chelsea PE session next Wednesday (30th November) so please can children also wear their kits then.  

Lost Property - we reunited a lot of lost property with children this week but we still have an enormous amount of unnamed clothes at school.  If you are missing something please jot it down in the reading record book (item, brand and size please) and we will do our best to find it.  Please could we ask for everything to be named - just biro on the label works well.

Hot Chocolate night - we look forward to seeing your children in their PJs on Friday night, for more details see last week's parent mail.

Nativity  We have sent home scripts and are so impressed with how well the children already know their lines.  We are hoping to supply all costumes ourselves but we will ask people by the end of this week if there is anything that you need to bring in. 

School photos  The links are now live so please take a look!

Homework  If your child's homework book is at home please could you send it in to school.  In the lead up to the nativity their homework is to learn their lines, learn their weekly spellings, read and keep on with TT Rockstars.  After Christmas we will start more formal homework again in their red homework books.

Thank you for all your support as things get even busier in the run up to Christmas.  If there is anything you would like to talk to us about please just let us know,

Many thanks,

Mrs Yates and Mrs Bowden

Update 11th November 2022

It was lovely to catch up with most of our parents on Tuesday night, thank you for your time.  If you weren't able to come to Parent's Evening and would like to see Mrs Yates or Mrs Bowden please drop us an email and we will arrange a time to meet.

The children have worked hard all of this term and have managed to fill their marble jar, so this Wednesday we had a relaxing movie afternoon with popcorn as a treat!

Next week is very exciting as Tuesday is the Rowan Class School Trip.  

We will be visiting Gilbert White’s House in Selborne on Tuesday 15th November, to learn about Captain Robert Scott’s expedition to the South Pole in 1910-12 and the part that Captain Laurence Oates played. We will be doing a variety of activities both in their Education Centre and Gilbert White’s House.

The children will be leaving on the school Minibus at 9.30am and returning to school by 3pm.

Please let us know prior to the trip if your child suffers from travel sickness, or of any medication that needs to be given on the day that is not routinely given at school.

Children will need:

· To be dressed in usual school uniform.

· Wet weather gear – Boots or Outdoor shoes and Raincoat – as they will be outside some of the day, possibly in wet grass.

· A named, refillable water bottle – water only please!

· A named packed lunch in a disposable bag.

P.E. Reminder:  The children have PE with Chelsea this Wednesday (16th) so please can they have their PE Kit in school.

Show and Tell:  This is on Wednesdays.  We do ask that Show and Tell is related to a topic we are learning about or is something that the children have achieved and are proud of.

We are so proud of Alba who has just finished swimming 5K for Children in Need.  She swam her first full length of a swimming pool on 4th October and completed the 200 lengths that she needed to swim on 26th October.  She has raised over £1000!  Well done Alba and thank you to all the classmates who went along to watch her finish her challenge!

It is time for half term!

Well what a wonderful end to our first half term!  We had a special Diwali day organised by Gyan and Roses' family.  We made spice mixes, sampled spices, made diya lamps, did a treasure hunt and made beautiful sand rangoli patterns.  It was a fun day and we were incredibly impressed by how much the children learnt throughout the day.  Their enthusiasm and energy was wonderful to see and watching them dance along to the drums was a very special moment.  Our huge thanks to Rav and all her family, to Mrs Arrowsmith and FOBs and to Mrs Dunne our governor for all their hard work making today happen.  We've popped a few photos up below and keep an eye on the website as we add photos from each of our house groups.

Hopefully your children brought home their Rowan Class poem with our wish that you have a lovely restful half term.

We can't wait to see you on Tuesday 1st November!

Update 10th October

Well it is only two weeks until October half term.  Time is flying by!  The children have been super busy learning about Scott of the Antarctic.  They did some wonderful writing at the end of last week and we were incredibly impressed by them all.  This week started in a very exciting way - with a visit from Hampshire Police Officers.  We heard the sirens, tried on the outfits and asked some brilliant questions.  There are some photos below.

Homework came home on Friday and is due in on Wednesday please.  Do come and ask Mrs Bowden or Mrs Yates if you have any queries at all as we appreciate that this is the first homework we have set.

Our Collective Worship theme this half term is thankfulness and Rowan Class are beautifully articulate during assemblies when they share what they are thankful for.  We are encouraging the children to concentrate on what they have to be thankful for so please do ask them when you get a moment.  We are thankful for the many talents in Rowan Class.  We have had Man of the Match for Benedict and Bear of the Match for Bradley added to our Proud Cloud.  Well done!  Ben also took part in the Alton Rugby Tournament along with many other children and parent volunteers from Binsted school.  What a lot we have to be proud of and thankful for!

Enjoy the lovely Autumnal sunshine and keep an eye out for inspiration in nature on any walks you go on as we will be discussing this in art for our Andy Goldsworthy work.

Update 29th September:

We can't quite believe that it will be October in a matter of days!   We sadly said farewell to Mrs Ismay on Friday, but we will certainly try to invite her back into Rowan Class to share her art expertise with us very soon.  We have really enjoyed having her with us for our first month back, thank you Mrs Ismay.

We have had a lovely week exploring nature in the playground for our Andy Goldsworthy art work (see pictures below) and having our first go at 'Big Write'.  Big Write is when the children are given a topic to write about and this will happen a few times a month with the aim of giving them confidence to 'have a go' and to write about anything.  They were all amazing and should be very proud of themselves.  We also added some swimming superstars to our Proud Cloud this week - well done Marley and Huey.  Next week we will send the children home with homework and their TT Rockstars log in.  There is guidance about homework in the section below and in the homework books.  Please do chat to Mrs Bowden or Mrs Yates if you have any questions about this.   You may have noticed that the children came home wearing their PE kits on Wednesday.  This will be the case again next Wednesday (5th Oct) as we are fortunate to have the specialist PE teacher from Chelsea a few times each half term.  If they have PE on Wednesdays, they won't have PE on the Thursday afterwards.  They will continue to have PE every Monday though.

Take a look at our yearly plan which is now available to see in the section below - it is going to be a brilliant year!

Thank you once again for your support this week.    

The Rowan Class Team

Rowan Class 2022/2023!

Update 22nd September:  We have enjoyed learning about harvest this week and why we thank God for the wonderful food we have and for the wonderful people who grow and prepare it for us.  Thank you to William for sharing lots of knowledge about harvest time on his farm!  We hope you enjoy our harvest poem at the Harvest Festival tomorrow.  Enjoy our beautiful paintings too!  

Year 2 children will have brought home their Oxford Owl ebook log in for this year.  They will have a new password this year.  Please do log on and take a look at the books.  Year 3 we are going to give you a password too and Mrs Bowden will be available to show parents how to use the ebooks as this will be new to you this year.  We have also updated the 'Spellings' section below with an overview of the phonics based spellings that we are looking at this term.  We have also learnt about noun phrases and contractions in English this week.  

Also congratulations to Ben for being 'Bear of the Week' in Football (Man of the match!), to William for gaining his library challenge Gagdeteers meal and goodies and to Alba for a Distinction in her LAMDA.  What a talented bunch we are!  Keep us up to date with your children's achievements as we have a new 'Proud Cloud' in our cloakroom that we want to fill up.

Enjoy the harvest festival if you are able to attend tomorrow and have a wonderful weekend too,

The Rowan Class Team

Update 16th September:  Well done to all of Rowan Class who have settled in brilliantly.  They are a wonderful group of children!  The past week we have been busy creating fact files about Queen Elizabeth II and learning about her fascinating life and some of the history that she lived through.  The children have also written to King Charles III and Mrs Morton will be posting those letters to him.  We know he will be inundated with letters but we very much hope to get a reply.  Some members of our class have been to London and Windsor to pay their respects this week and they shared that experience with us.  We have also managed to squeeze in some Maths around our work about the Queen and our initial focus is place value with Mrs Bowden and fractions with Mrs Yates.  The children have all been stars and worked incredibly hard so we expect that they will enjoy the rest that the extra long weekend will give them. 

Thank you to all the parents for all their support so far and have a lovely weekend.

REMINDER: P.E. is on Mondays and Thursdays.  We will sometimes have some time with the Chelsea FC coaches on Wednesdays too so please ensure your child has a PE kit in school at all times.  Thank you.

We are so excited to start our new school year.  We will be updating this page soon, in the meantime please see the information below which you should have found in your child's bag too!

Welcome back to school!  We have had a lovely first day with the children and they have settled in quickly.  Here are a few things for you to be aware of over the next few weeks (please also keep an eye on the website for more information).

Mrs Bowden and Mrs Yates are the class teachers, Mrs Randall and Mrs Ismay will be the teaching assistants and Miss Jones is a PGCE Student teacher working with us this term.   

Mrs Bowden teaches Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings and Mrs Yates teaches Wednesday afternoons, Thursdays and Fridays. 

At the moment we have PE on Mondays and Thursdays.  The children need to keep their PE Kit in school.  They need a white t-shirt, blue or black shorts and/or jogging bottoms and a plain blue or black hoody or sweatshirt.  They need to keep PE trainers in school too.  We had our first PE lesson today and the children could do with some help learning how to do up buttons, tie shoe laces and how to turn their clothes the right way round please!

Please make sure your child has a clearly named water bottle.  Children can also bring in fruit, vegetables, crackers or cheese – please try to avoid sugary snacks and too much single use plastic.  Please note that we are a nut free and lentil free school.

If there is anything that we need to know, please do write in the reading record books, however if it is urgent please email or call the office. 

We will be sending out homework in a couple of weeks, in the meantime please read daily with your child.  They will get a house point every time we see that they have read to an adult/older sibling. 

We will give you more information about our topics soon but prepare to become experts in magnets and forces and Scott of the Antarctic! 

We are always available to chat if you need to and we look forward to an exciting year ahead,

The Rowan Class team

Noticeboard from 2021/2022 

Today we were set the tasty task of designing, drawing and labelling our own tasty fruit kebab! We labelled our kebabs and chose different pieces of fruit that were worth different amounts of money. Then, we added up how much each of our kebabs was worth to test our money counting skills. 

What a healthy and tasty breaktime snack! The raspberry macaroon treat was obviously an added bonus! 

Today we became parents to some Jelly Babies! We were set the challenge of naming them, giving them an identity and designing and building homes for them! We also designed a healthy lunch for them and some of us took our babies to playgroup! Emily set up a whole nursery of Jelly Babies and routinely checked on them throughout our break times. Bradley had a very naughty baby who needed lots of body guards to keep his baby safe! Some babies had caravans and various modes of transport created, such as Raffey's Jelly Journier'! 

Sadly parenthood in the heat took its toll on our Year 2 and 3's today, and some babies may have been eaten in the process by 3pm. We still had a wonderful time and lots of fun! 

What a super day we had at the SeaCity Museum in Southampton! Our tour guide Andy taught us lots of new facts about the Titanic and we impressed him with our lovely listening, knowledge and enthusiasm too! Highlights included the artefact guessing game, the ice cube sinking challenge, the lifeboat passenger debate and our sound map building activity. We also enjoyed the Titanic steering game and stoking a fire for the engine room! We learned that the White Star Line always named their ships with 'ic' at the end, and that the dummy funnel played a huge part in one mans fight for survival. A BIG thank you to Mrs Dorans and Mrs Cooke for being designated drivers and helpers, and for Stella's mum for our radio shout-out that made our journey back in the minibus just that more exciting! Well done to the children for such a wonderful day out .

Lest We Forget

To remember those brave soldiers that fought for our country, we have created some beautiful soldier silhouette art. We started by ripping and tea staining the poem ‘In Flanders Field’ so it looked like it had been tucked into a soldiers pocket all through the war. Then, we designed and filled in our silhouettes with markers before getting messy with paint and oil pastel poppies.  Please see photos below to check out our outcomes!