Learning Journey – ‘Surroundings’
Reception have started reading the story ‘Super Milly and the Super School Day’. The children have been fabulous at coming up with their own super-hero names and imagining what super-powers they would like to have. On Thursday, they had a Super School day in their fantastic costumes for World Book Day and had a Super Surprise, as Stephanie Clarkson, the author of Super Milly came to do a super-hero workshop with them! Kaboom!!
Year 1 received a letter from Iggy Peck asking what he could use to build with from our classrooms; that got us thinking about writing letters and what features they include. We learnt our school address and some of us already know our home addresses. In Maths we have been developing the skill of counting in 2’s and 5’s to 50. We have been using our Collaboration tools in science as we worked together in groups to investigate and sort objects according to what material they were made from and their properties. We really enjoyed World Book Day and our workshop with a real-life author, Stephanie Clarkson. She inspired us to become authors and write our own fairy tales.
Year 2 have been using our empathy googles in Literacy to understand and describe how Finn, our main character from Ocean Meets Sky, was feeling. We have also used our science knowledge on materials to help him, by writing some instructions on how to build a boat suitable for a long journey. We have started to wonder where this journey will take him. In maths, we have been using 2D shapes to create repeated patterns and to identify lines of symmetry. We even had a go at drawing symmetrical shapes and pictures, which was a bit tricky at first. In science, we have been looking into different habitats as well what kind of animals and plants can be found in each one of them. We had an amazing workshop with Stephanie Clarkson, author of the book Sleeping Cinderella, with some interesting discussions about what makes a good author and where the ideas for books come from. We even attempted to start our own story. Maybe we can be authors when we grow up!
Year 3 had a fantastic World Book Day! The children dressed up in such incredibly, imaginative costumes! (Thank you, parents!) We had a lovely parade followed by a talk by a published author. The children planned and started to write their own stories which they have brought home to finish off. We can’t wait to read them! In science we have been learning all about nutrition and what makes a good, balanced diet. We have been using food decoders to look at food packaging to decipher how much fat, sugar and salt processed foods contain. It was enlightening!
Year 4 started the week by discovering a crime scene near the pond area of the school! We used our asking questions tool to create investigative questions about the giant metal arm and parts we found. We then used our imagining tools to use formal language and write a short newspaper report. We included all the facts and evidence we gathered from the crime scene. In maths, we continue to learn about fractions and focused on finding equivalent fractions using our prior knowledge of times tables. We are enjoying our new guided reading book ‘Letters from a Lighthouse’ where we have been following the emotional journey of three main characters. At the end of the week, we used our empathy goggles to discuss positive and negative emotions that Olive has experienced and what events have caused these emotions. On Thursday, we had an amazing World Book Day! It was great fun completing all the activities and using our imagining tools to create exciting stories during the workshop with the author Ingrid Persaud. To start our new Science topic- sound we carried out a carousel of activities. Each activity produced sounds in different ways, we recorded what we heard, saw and felt from using a drum with rice on top, a tuning fork in a bucket of water and the sound a wire metal hanger makes when banged against objects. We loved learning about how sounds were produced and worked collaboratively during each activity.
A massive well done to the Year 3 and Year 4 gymnastics team who won both the boys and the girls gymnastics trophy at the Southwark inter-schools’ competition on Monday! We are having to buy a new trophy cabinet to house all the sports cups we have won so far this year! A huge thanks to the PE department at Dulwich Wood for making this happen.
Year 5 have continued to find out about Curiosity, the Mars Rover who made the long journey to the red planet, and found out what it took to prepare the rocket and make sure all the systems were working for the mission. In Whole Class Reading, we read about some very important astronauts, such as Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Valentina Tereshkova and others. We retrieved information from the text and identified their biggest achievements. Did you know that Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space and orbited Earth 48 times? On Thursday, it was World Book Day, the costumes were simply amazing! We had such a fun day taking part in a parade with the rest of the school and enjoyed our writing workshop with Ingrid Persaud. The children planned stories in groups, which they then began to write in books that made in class. 5B went to Dulwich Prep for a science workshop, they got the Bunsen burners out, melted ice and were measuring the temperature at different stages in the melting process. They even met the school’s pet python! 5A, you have all this to look forward to next Thursday.
Year 6 had a ‘Show what you know’ week! Using our perseverance, managing distractions and making links tools, we completed our SATs practice papers, which involved consolidating all of our KS2 knowledge! In PSHE, we looked at the events happening in Europe, we used our geography mapping skills, our empathy goggles, our asking questions tool and made links with past events in history to try and understand what is going on. We ended the week on a high with World Book Day. Along with the parade and scavenger hunt, we had a great session with author Ingrid Persaud (winner of the 2018 BBC Short Story of the Year award). We put ourselves in the mind of an author, creating our own short story based off limited options. Our stories were amazing, with a surprising number of different genres, from fairy tales to murder mysteries. After the session, we spent time turning our short stories into published works making books from sheets of plain paper and designing our front and back covers.
Star Pupils this week
Reception: Emma, Shaunnelle, Louie & Wilbur
Year 1: Alex, Alice, Zoe & Alannah
Year 2: Arlen, Alexis, John & Ivy
Acorn Awards
Bronze Acorn Awards – 150 points!
Reception: Edith, Mosiah, Savannah, Aimee, Rebekah, Zayana, Rhema, Romana, Otto, Grace, Aatma, Isaac, Jones & Arlo
Year 1: Aaron
Year 2: King, Hala & Aysha
Silver Acorn Awards – 250 points!
Year 1: Juliet, Dana, Alannah, Safa, Freya, Lev & Cece
House Points |
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Dates for the Diary
- Friday 11th March – KS2 Celebration Assembly
- Friday 11th March – Dress to Express Disco/Festival (FODW Event)
- Monday 14th March – Learning Reviews
- Friday 18th March – Comic Relief Red Nose Day
- Friday 18th March – KS1 Celebration Assembly
- Wednesday 23rd March – A Quiz & Chips (FODW Event)
- Monday 4th April – Tuesday 19th April – Holidays
- Wednesday 20th April – Children Return to School
Learning Reviews Monday 14th March
Please make an appointment via SchoolsBuddy for your Zoom meeting with your child’s Class Teacher.
Please note under the new guidance around living with Covid this will be the last review to be organised in this format.
School will be closed to children on Monday 14th March.
Comic Relief Friday 18th March
Red Noses are now available from the School Office, your child can bring the money in an envelope £1.50 and then they will be taken to the School Office to buy their nose.
This year the noses are animal themed and on the Red Nose Day website there are lots of facts about each animal and ideas around how to build them a habitat. If your child likes Lego or just has a great imagination please take a look here. There will be a House Competition to win the funny nose cup, the winning house will be the one that tells the best jokes so get practicing!
Dress to Express Disco – Friday 11th March from 5.30pm -7.30pm
- A family festival on the playground!
- Entry is £1 via the front gate, no need to book.
- Everyone one is invited from Nursery to Year 6 but all children must be accompanied by a paying adult. Babies in arms go free!!
- There will be drinks, sweets, pizza and jerk chicken to buy at the disco.
More details on the poster below, please join-us in your craziest disco outfits for some well-earned family fun.
Current Events
Some of the things you hear in the news might make you feel worried, upset or scared. It is normal to feel these emotions. Adults can get upset about events in the news too.
Discussing events that have happened in the news with a trusted adult can help you to understand what has happened and how you’re feeling.
If you’re feeling upset, you could also try one of these activities:
- Make a list of things that make you feel happy or safe.
- Spend time with your family, friends or pets.
- Look at some photos of happy memories.
- Watch your favourite film.
- Play a favourite game.
- Listen to music.
- Draw a picture.
- Read a book that you enjoy.
First News is an excellent source of information for children ages 7+ and are currently offering free access to this week’s issue. Subscribe to First News here
Blessing of Animals at St Stephen’s Church – Sunday 6th March
This Sunday 6th March at 4pm, St Stephen’s Dulwich will be warmly welcoming everyone’s pets for a simple blessing. (The pets’ humans are also welcome too if they behave!) The very short service will last around 35 minutes, and features songs sung by the St Stephen’s Children’s Choir such as All things bright and beautiful which we all heard played on the piano in assembly at the beginning of term. Please join us for a fun afternoon of barking, screeching – and singing! If anyone would like to sing with the children’s choir for any of the songs, please email Olly on oliver@lallemant.com and he’ll send you recordings of the music.
World Book Day 2022 at Dulwich Wood