Rowan Class 2022/2023

Fieldwork Fortnight - Rowans and Oaks

We had an awesome Geography day which included a fieldwork trip to  Stubbs Farm for the Geographical Associations Fieldwork Fortnight. 

We began the day by using Google Earth to locate the UK, Hampshire, Binsted and Stubbs Farm. We used this knowledge to create our own nested hierarchy to develop a sense of place. We then looked at some old maps and aerial maps to see how Binsted and the local area had changed. We discussed the mechanisation of farming and how this might have impacted on the maps. We also designed our own natural maps for a little figure we have chosen. We used sticks for footpaths, logs for mountains, rocks for houses, hazel nuts for cactus and even created our own lake. 

After lunch we went in the minibus to Stubbs farm. We looked at the different crops and put them on our maps. We also looked at the different and barns. We saw the granary and talked about why the granary was on stilts. We talked about what natural and man-made features look like and sketched these. Unfortunately  it rained very hard so we sheltered in a barn before heading back to school. 

Timelines of famous queens 

KS1 Mapping Morning 

We joined up with Oak class to talk about maps! We looked at all different types of maps including ordinance survey maps and spotted familiar places and features using the key. We then went outside into the school grounds and created our own maps and keys. 

Bug and Bird Houses 

Miss Dewey set us a half term challenge to design and build a bug hotel and Rowan class really rose to the challenge! They were so good and will be placed around the grounds very shortly. 

Welcome back! 

I cant believe it is the last half term of this academic year! This half term we will be looking at and comparing the lives of both Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth I. We will also be looking at the importance of having a nutritionally balanced diet in Science. We will be applying this knowledge in DT to design a healthy picnic lunch. Our text this half term is The Crow's Tale by Naomi Howarth. In Maths we will be revisiting Time, so please do keep asking your children what time it is!  We will also be revising and consolidating our phonics knowledge. 

Homework, like last half term will be set on a Friday and due in on a Wednesday, with Times Table Challenges and spelling test taking place on a Friday. Please do practice these at home with your child. Thank you.

Releasing our butterflies!

During our topic on life cycles we planted flowering beans which are now in our class vegetable patch. We also observed caterpillars turn into butterflies. On the final day of the half term we released them and some children were lucky enough to hold one. 

Worms!

As part of our science topic on Rocks we have been learning all about soil formation and the role worms play.

We went onto Chicken Hill to make our own mini compost bins. We layered soil, food scraps and shredded paper into our compost bins before digging and adding some worms and a drop of water! 

We even found an old glass bottle and some broken pottery, whilst digging!

National Numeracy Day!

We had a great day celebrating National Numeracy day. We joined in with the live quiz, went on a Maths Treasure hunt on the school ground to find out the secret code to escape the forest and then played Maths board games. It was such a great day having fun with maths! 

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.

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! 

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!