Longdown Mobile Farm

What an incredible visit Reception had today from Farmer Ian and his animals! They children loved meeting and petting all the animals and we learnt a lot about animals and their babies which links to our learning on growing. It has inspired lots of farm learning this afternoon so we will be following the children’s interest and working this into our child unified learning. Thanks to Longodwn for another amazing experience!

NSPCC- Speak Out, Stay Safe

Today in Green Council we welcomed an outside speaker.
Sharon Kay works for the NSPCC and she came to talk to us about how we can speak out and stay safe.

One Year 6 rep kindly wrote minutes for us, which our Year 5 rep helped to write up.
He says:
* Buddy the speech bubble is their mascot
* the charity was founded 134 years ago
* Children would work at 5 because they would be able to work in mines and go under machines, mainly because they were small.  Some children got hurt and they wouldn't be able to do things they wanted if they got hurt.
* They go to every school and they choose a fundraising event
* Green Council want us all in Shirley Warren to do a danceathon
* Some schools do a conga line around the school but we decided we will try cultural dancing

Sharon is going to give us everything we need to do this and hopefully we will be able to raise a large amount of money for the NSPCC.

6D Scooter Skills Session

6D won a competition when they recorder the different ways they travel to school over four weeks.

They were rewarded with a session from Bike It Jenny who brought in scooters (and helmets) for the children to try.



First, Jenny tested that the children could stop safely. 

There was a course to scoot round including "roundabouts" (hoops on the ground) and a "zebra crossing" (black and white flag).

The children also had a go at playing musical statues on scooters!
These are great ideas that you could try with a scooter in the summer holidays. If you don't have cones, you could put stones down carefully to scoot around.

Zoolab Visit

We had a visit from Anna and some very strange creatures from Zoolab this week!

Anna showed us how to hold the animals without hurting them and reminded us to wash our hands after touching them.

Can you remember what the creatures were called and any of the interesting facts?

National Clean Air Day

Just before half term, we had a special visitor come to Green Council to let us know about an initiative that Southampton City Council are promoting on Thursday 15th June.

Zaki Mahfoud, Energy Advisor at the Environment Centre (tEC) discussed with Green Council the problems of pollution. His tips were:

* Walk away from the edge of the pavement and cars, that will reduce pollution
* Use roads with less traffic on them
* Take the bus
* Avoid busy roads when you’re outside and playing
* Keep windows closed when there’s traffic

We agreed to tell other children about this in an assembly, which we did yesterday. We also agreed to let people know on this blog.


Zaki is also part of a local community group to try and help be part of the solution.  The website for the group is http://www.shirleywarren.org.uk/ He says that there will be a litter pick in Shirley Warren this Saturday (10th June) 1-3 p.m., starting at the Greenway on Warren Avenue (the Winchester Road end). All materials will be provided. There will be some cake and nibbles in the Ice House pub on Warren Avenue afterwards.

Thank you Zaki for coming into our school and we hope we can all play our part in National Clean Air Day.

People Who Help Us

We have had a busy week in nursery this week with lots of visitors! 

On Tuesday, PCSOs Kate and Simi came to talk to us about their jobs and how they help to keep us safe and happy. 

Yesterday, Redbridge Firefighters came and showed us how they help to keep us safe and how they put out fires.  They even let us have a go with the hose!

Have a safe and happy half term!

RG Farm

We loved our visit from Farmer Ian and his animals last week! The children learnt lots about the animals and how they grow. They listened well to Ian and answered his questions with excitement. This carried on through the week as our learning continued to be inspired. We have made animals on the making table and been writing letters to thank Farmer Ian. what great fun!

Year 2's Midsummer Night's Dream

We had a visit from a lovely lady called Beth. She told us the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare and we did some acting to help us learn the story. What a crazy story it was! We learnt all about the friends, the fairies and the workers and how they worked together to create such a wonderful and interesting story.

Have a look at some of the photos from the day! There are photos of 2W and 2D here.

Teddy Bear Hospital

Yesterday we were very lucky in RG to get a visit from the Teddy Bear Hospital. Some trainee doctors come to help make our teddies feel better. They brought lots of equipment for the children to use such as a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff and syringe. The children loved being doctors themselves and giving these a try. They also taught us about being healthy and safe. The children assessed a home for dangers and helped keep Mr Mischief from making unsafe choices. They put the body parts in the right place on the teddy and discussed if we should eat a range of food always or sometimes.

Visit from our Link School

We were honoured to have Ethel, who is the Headteacher at Tukela School in Zambia, visit us with her two daugters last week.  They were in the UK and came to meet the children and celebrate our fundraising of £100 for their toilets, as well as talking to our Green Council about how we could work together.

First, some members of school gave them a tour. Next the two girls experienced life in Year 4 and Year 6.  After that Ethel and her daughters led a very interesting assembly about life in Zambia.

Here are the Green Council with Ethel, her daughters and our pages of fundraising ideas.  Look out for events later on in the year.

Longdown Farm at Shirley Warren

Children in Reception had tremendous fun meeting Farmer Ian and the animals from Longdown Farm on Thursday, 3rd of March. It was exciting to handle the animals and to learn about what they eat, what their babies are called and what noises they make. The children were very brave to smooth the goats, piglets, ducks, donkey, chickens and they even learnt a magic trick with the little chicks!

PSCO visit to Green Council

Yesterday we welcomed our new PCSO, Adey Griffiths, into the school for the first time!

He met members of the Green Council and a school governor, who wanted to talk to him about how we are trying to improve our school and how we can all work together to make things better for everyone in our community.

We talked about how important it is that children cross the road carefully at the beginning and end of school and especially when there are parked cars, or cars pulling out.

We talked about litter and how we are going to Clean For The Queen on Friday (watch this space for our next blog about that).

There was a lot to talk about!

We hope PCSO Adey will come and meet all of the children at an assembly soon!
Have you seen him around the area?

Green Council with PCSO Adey

Teddy Bears Hospital

RG had a brilliant visit yesterday from some trainee doctors. We took part in 'Teddy Bears Hospital' with our furry friends from home. We had lots of fun learning about healthy and unhealthy food, brushing our teddies teeth, learning about our bodies and what each part does and keeping watch over Mr Bump and Mr Silly so they didn't do anything dangerous in their house. However our favourite part was getting to be a doctor to our teddies using all the special equipment that the doctor brought. We checked their heartbeat, bloody pressure and eyes and gave them an injection or bandage if they needed it. Thank you so much to our visitors for such a fun afternoon of learning!

Cecilia Mansford drops in on Year 2

Last week, we had a visitor from the past! Cecilia Mansford came to our class because she was best friends with a special lady called Florence Nightingale. We have been learning about Florence as part of our Nurturing Nurses topic.

Cecilia told us all about Florence's life and also showed us how to talk with a fan and write with a quill, just like they would have done when Florence Nightingale was alive. We also dressed up in costumes from Victorian times.

Here are some pictures from our day.

Y3S Visit from Neldar the Anglo Saxon

On Tuesday we have a visit from an Anglo- Saxon lady called Neldar. She gave us some exciting activities in the morning where we were able to look through a basket of food that she would make a meal from. We thought about what meal we would make if Neldar came to our house for dinner and we thought about what meals would be very strange for her! In the afternoon we got to complete lots of activities with Neldar and she helped to answer any questions we had about Anglo- Saxon times. We were able to draw a picture of what Neldar was wearing and we became master Historians by using labels for the drawings. Then Neldar showed us some exciting objects and we got to play an Anglo- Saxon game! Thank you Neldar for your wonderful visit and well done Y3S for thinking of such interesting questions to ask Neldar.

Visitors in Reception

'Is it smooth or is it bumpy? Is it slimy or furry? Am I brave to hold these animals to see what they feel like?' - These were the thoughts of the children in RS during the visit from Zoolab. We talked about different textures and described them as we looked at the snail, millipede, snake and rat. Enjoy the photos, they talk for themselves.

Zoolab Visit

RG had a brilliant afternoon today with a visit from Zoolab. The children were ever so brave with holding and touching the animals and we learnt a lot about textures. We met a slimy snail, a smooth snake, a bumpy millipede and a furry rat! We look forward to going on a texture hunt tomorrow around our environment.

Zoo lab

This morning Year 6 had a visit from Heather and Zoolab.  She brought many different animals and talked about them, classifying and describing their attributes.  Here are some of our favourite animals, which we were very careful to handle.

  

It was amazing how Heather had so many exciting creatures in her special animal suitcase!  We couldn't hold Maud, the Bearded Dragon, because her claws might scratch.

Thank you Heather for bringing in you animals.  

Can you remember what we had to do after we had handled the animals?

Accident Prevention!

Yesterday, Year 5 had some visitors from the NHS. They came in to talk to Year 5 about road safety. They took part in several activities, including how they can be harmed if they are hit by a car, what they can wear to make them more visible (high visible jackets), and also how drivers can help too (watch out for pedestrians and other cars/vehicles). Great fun was had by all of Year 5 and we now know how to keep ourselves safe! Thank you to our visitors.

Year 4 Ancient Egyptian Day

On Wednesday 14th May, Year 4 were lucky enough to spend the afternoon as Ancient Egyptians! Taia - a visitor from Ancient Egypt - came and talked about Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife and some of their burial customs.