Learning Journey – ‘Foundations’
A snapshot of our week:
Reception role play area has turned into a fire station and the children have thoroughly enjoyed pretending to be fire fighters. The children listened to a story about a great fire in London which has led to investigating interesting facts about the River Thames. The children have been great at using their ‘Asking Questions’ tool, as they want to find out even more information about the river and its more than 200 bridges! In maths, we have been using our number bonds knowledge to work out problems where some of the information is missing, using ten frames to work out the answers.
Year 1 have been using their imagination tool all week long! It started when we came into the classroom on Monday and noticed some very unusual looking footprints. They were larger than humans and seemed to have long, curly nails. It turned out to be a … Yeti! However, we soon found out from our book ‘Yeti and the Bird’ by Nadia Shireen that the Yeti was incredibly lonely. We couldn’t believe it when a letter was posted to our classrooms from the Yeti asking for advice on how he can make friends with others. The excitement didn’t end there … as we were talking about what advice we would give him, the Yeti strolled through the door! We used our empathy goggles to give him advice on how to make friends, and we realised that we shouldn’t judge things based on what they look like because he was actually very friendly. We wrote a letter of advice back to him and hope it helps! In science, we have been thinking about the foundations (linked to our learning journey) of plants. We started by looking at where plants begin – as seeds. We each have a seed in a bag, and we’re going to document its growth in our plant diary. In maths, we have been exploring quarters, and were surprised to find out that a quarter is just a half of a half!
Year 2 have been consolidating place value of two-digit numbers and comparing numbers using mathematical symbols. We are now much more confident in our understanding of numbers and the different ways to represent them. Year 2’s guests (caterpillars) have become chrysalides (cocoon) and we will need to wait for a few days before the process of metamorphoses is completed and they emerge as wonderful butterflies. This is related to our new literacy book called ‘Tadpole’s promise’ by Jeanne Willis where we will be looking at life cycles of different animals. We are so excited to share our new findings with you over the next few days!
Year 3 have immersed ourselves into a world of suspense… we have come to a massive cliff-hanger in our book; Escape from Pompeii and we have been using our imagining tools to brainstorm mysterious vocabulary and come up with dramatic sentences to create atmosphere and suspense. We have to wait till next week to find out what happens! This has linked so well to our geography and computing where we have been finding facts about volcanos, considering the pro’s and cons about living near a volcano and making fact files. During our Maths lessons we have been using our perseverance tools to master everything related to telling the time. It would be great if you could support your child by practising at home. Thank you!
Year 4 have had another fun week of learning! In literacy, we have continued to read Gulliver’s Travels and we have begun to plan our own versions of the classic adventure and creating our own fantasy islands to explore. In maths, we have moved on from decimals to look at money, applying our new understanding of decimals to practical, real world problems. We have continued to learn about rivers in geography by looking at the various ways that people can use a river – there are many! Finally, in science, we have been exploring changing states of matter by heating and cooling solids and liquids. We investigated this by making chocolate cornflake nests, heating and cooling chocolate, which the children obviously loved!
Year 5: collaboration has been our main focus this week. In PSHCE we worked in groups to think about what our bodies need to be healthy and why people make choices which are not so healthy. We created an interpretive dance as a group to depict the Viking story of creation, in numeracy we used cartoon characters for our groups and constructed characters using specific angles and measurements. In PE we have been playing rounders, practicing throwing and catching in rounders, we applied our crickets and tennis hitting skills and had the best game ever.
A special mention to the tennis teams (Y3 and 4 and Y5 and 6) who also had to collaborate, Y3/4 team won silver and Y5/6 team won gold at the Southwark Schools tennis tournament. A special mention to Koto in Y3 who was a member of both teams!!
Year 6 have started our new text ‘Children of the Kingdom of Benin’ which links with our learning journey of Foundations. We discovered that the Kingdom of Benin existed not that long ago between 900 AD – 1897 AD, coinciding with a lot of European history such as the Vikings and the Battle of Hastings. As well as this, we located the ancient kingdom of Benin and noticed that it used to be where Nigeria currently is! Some children went home and carried out extra research, subsequently they found out that they are actual royalty! We are excited to learn more about the history of Benin. Yesterday we went to Chessington World of Adventure and had an amazing day and now have even more ideas for our DT project on fairgrounds, thank you to the Parent helpers for coming with us.
Star Pupils this week
Year 3: Precious, Lilianna, Sapphire and Nathan T
Year 4: Anna, Peyton, Molly & Thelma
Year 5: Wendy, Raphael, Valentina & Hayley
Year 6: Neli, Emil, Alex & Muzzikir
Acorn Awards
Bronze Acorn Awards – 150 points!
4B: Peyton & Amira
Silver Acorn Awards – 250 points!
Y3B: Zafirah
Y4A: Makeda, Emmanuel, Daisy, Jack, Elijah, Belinda, Alma, Nouvelle, Jessica, Gerard & Antonella
Y4B: Dino, Benji & Joseph
Y5A: Hafsa, Lily, Nana, Rocco, Frank, Emilie, Prime, Blake, Bella & Hayley
Y6A: Youness, Ralph, Princess, Pemi, Jeannie, Ava, Muzakkir, Xaynee, Calista, Laurie, Isabella, Alfred, Alex & Michael
Y6B: Isabelle, Aaryn, Rylan & Mel
Jubilee Day – Friday 27th May 2022
Dulwich Wood children will be celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on Friday 27th May with a picnic style lunch, dressing up and sharing cake!
What to wear: Children can come dressed as their favourite royal past, present, future or make believe from around the World!!
What to bring: children can bring a picnic blanket to sit on at lunchtime, Chartwells are providing a special picnic lunch, see menu below.
Royal Bake-Off: Children can enter the Bake Off by making a Jubilee themed cake and bring it in to be judged by their class.
What’s happening: Teachers will be organising fun games and activities for the children throughout the day. The School Council, with the help of Year 5, have given the Teachers lots of great ideas.
Dates for the Diary
- Friday 27th May – Jubilee Day
- Monday 30th May – Friday 3rd June – Half Term
- Monday 6th June – INSET Day
- Tuesday 7th June – Children return
- Friday 17th June – Fun Run
- Saturday 9th July – Friend’s of Dulwich Wood Summer Fair
- Tuesday 12th & Thursday 14th -Learning Reviews 3:30pm – 7pm
- Thursday 21st July – Term Ends (school finishes at 1pm
Velodrome Trip
We need as many Parents to come with their children on this amazing trip to cycle at Herne Hill Velodrome, please keep the date free.
Dates:
Tuesday 14th June – Year 4
Tuesday 21st June – Year 3
Friday 1st July – Year 2
Friday 8th July – Year1
Friends of Dulwich Wood: if you would like to be on the mailing list to hear about Friends of Dulwich Wood events, or are not sure if you already are, please email: friends@dulwichwood.com
Jubilee Art Competition
In Monday’s Assembly, Georgina (Woody’s Mum Y3) donated an amazing collage of the school which Woody’s Grandma had created. She shared a message from Grandma which has inspired lot’s of children to get creative with their portraits of the Queen for the Jubilee art competition. Remember there are categories for all age groups, use your imagination tool, any media is fine and get your portraits to Miss Bishop before next Friday (see poster below).
A huge thank you to Christine Hodson, we all love the picture of Dulwich Wood! It will be displayed outside Miss Rowe’s Office for everyone to see!
Jubilee News!
Dino will be singing for the Queen on June 5th! We are so proud of Dino, in Year 4, because he has been selected to be part of a children’s choir which will be singing outside Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queens Platinum Jubilee. He told us ‘ I am mostly excited but am nervous as there will be around 22,000 people watching’ and many, many more because the performance will be televised and shown around the world!! Well done Dino!