Ringsfield Church of England Primary School

Before the summer holidays we planted some sunflower seedlings and we then returned to school to amazing sunflowers. They are all different sizes and have different sized heads.

We have  had so much fun finding out lots of facts and exploring them. Here are some of the activities we have enjoyed.

Our Child of the Week focus was Japan. We found out lots of fascinating facts and enjoyed learning about a different culture. 

Robyn has her own chickens and we are very pleased she wanted to share her interst with us. We had some chicks come to visit us at school to help us understand Robyn's experience at home and to find out about them. Firstly, we looked at the life cycle and then Mrs Hadingham shared lots of facts with us such as what they eat, how they keep safe, and the difference between a female and male chicken. The children were very excited to meet the chicks and all wanted to hold them or stroke them.

We had been doing lots of matching and sorting so then wanted to develop our understanding of pattern. We looked at natural patterns such as animal and flower and then moved on to creating repeating patterns using different resources and equipment. The children made some super patterns.

We continue our interest in animals and have learnt some new knowledge about how to take care of guinea pigs. We were all very lucky to be able to handle the guinea pigs or stroke them and we did it very carefully.

We are really enjoying our Little Wandle Phonics, especially the rhymes which help us to learn the phonemes and how to write the graphemes. We are also doing lots of initial sound work and blending and learning some tricky words.

We have been planting daffodil bulbs ready for the spring. Lucile told us all about how the bulbs can survive through winter when it is cold.

We have been busy taking part in activties including balancing, climbing and jumping and learning how to use the equipmwnt safely. 

We used tennis rackets and balls to practice our skills when using equipment.

Jack's family are Australian so we have been learning all about a different country and culture. Jack's mum kindly made us an information poster and some yummy lamingtons and anzac biscuits.

We have been investigating our environment to observe changes that have happened. We found lots of fascinating things such as mushrooms, acorns, pine cones, different coloured leaves and a hedgehog home. We talked lots about why the changes have happened.

We also explored pumpkins and learnt they can also be eaten!

We had an exciting week finding out about the celebration Diwali and we learnt that the festival of lights is bright, colourful and an exciting time to celebrate happyness and joys and good over bad. The children listened to stories including Binny's Diwali and took part in creative activities making diva lamps, creating Rangoli patterns using different media and painting mehndi patterns on their hands. We also produced a Diwali dance using traditional music and scarves and tried on some traditional clothes. 

The children learnt lots about a different culture and the beliefs and as a class demonstrated a good understanding.

One of the children have a real interest and knowledge of flower varieties. We talked about the shapes and colours and then decided to explore this further. We were fascinated by the colours and patterns that were made on the material by pressing the flowers. 

After reading the Jill Murphy story 'Whatever Next' there was lot of conversation about experiences of picnics. We talked about what food we might take on a picnic and everyone agreed on sandwiches. We then decided to make our own sandwiches.

First the children wrote their own instructions. To make the sandwiches the children then needed to demonstrate the ability to use a knife to spread butter and jam and then cut the bread in half. 

We have have a new woodwork bench which we will be exploring. We have been talking about safety and how to use the tools and we are looking forward to planning and making lots of creations.

The children came to school dressed as a book character and took part in a whole school catwalk. They made some fabulous story boxes that they shared with each other, we read lots of stories and particularly focused on traditional tales and story maps and the year 3 and 4 children came to share a book with us. It was a wonderful day to share our love of reading!

We have had a super week investigating! We carried out experiments in school and the children also brought their own experiments to share at the Science Fair!