Welcome to Chestnut Class

Hello and welcome to Chestnut Class! I am Miss James, and I will be your new teacher this year. We will also have the wonderful Mrs Clark who is our teaching assistant and will be there to support our learning. We are both really looking forward to welcoming you into our new classroom where we will do some fantastic learning together. We have a very busy term ahead of us and we hope that you are as excited as we are to get started!

There are some things that we need to remember this year:

• PE kit: your full (named) PE kit needs to be in school every day.

• Reading: daily reading at home is strongly encouraged and progress with this will be celebrated in class through the 100 club. Please listen to your child read regularly and record this in the back of their orange Learning Destination (Homework book); please ensure their homework book is sent in every morning.

• Spellings and maths homework will be set on Monday each week and are due in on Friday. Please encourage your children to write sentences with their spelling words.

• The learning destination book can be used for any other home learning that your children wish to do. They will always be rewarded for this.

Science

In science this term we have been learning all about electricity. We began by making human circuits and we learnt that unless a circuit is connected in a loop, electricity will not flow and as a result the circuit will not work. We also had a go at creating circuits, we used bulbs, motors and buzzers. After this we conducted a test to find out which materials were conductors of electricity.

Geography

This term in Chestnut class we have been learning all about the Rainforest. We started the term by drawing our topic covers whereby we spoke about perspective and shading of our animals. We were really impressed with our drawings and how they turned out. We then went on to look at where the Amazon rainforest is located, we used globes, atlases and google earth to help us! During this term we also learnt all about the animals that live there, the different layers of the rainforest, the weather and lastly the products the rainforest provide for us.

Guided reading

This term in Chestnut class we have been reading the ‘The Water Horse’ by Dick King-Smith and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. After we finished reading this book we took the opportunity to base our pebble treat around The Water Horse story. We spent the morning watching the film which was super interesting because it was slightly different to the book, and we learnt even more about the characters. In the afternoon after visualizing Crusoe the water horse, we created clay sculptures of Crusoe! We think they look amazing! 

Writing

In writing this term Chestnut class have been writing their own Kenning Poems. We based our poems on the sun and we were able to create some beautiful poems, we even shared some in our celebration assembly in front of the whole school! 

Stone Age

In Chestnut class some of the children took part in a home learning project where they were asked to research and create a Stone Age settlement. We were blown away with the effort that the children had put into these amazing settlements.

History

 In history this term the children in Chestnut class have been learning all about the Stone Age. One of our fantastic facts was all about pictographs. During the Stone Ages they used to draw on the walls of the caves, these pictures told us stories about their lives. The children had a go at creating some of their own pictographs, we think they look amazing!

Remembrance Sunday

In Chestnut class this term we celebrated and remembered all of those who were lost in the war. We looked at all of the different poppies and we created some of our own beautiful poppy artwork.

D & T - Robots

This term the children have been working hard in DT. We have been learning about mechanisms and how they work. The children researched mechanisms and learnt all about them in preparation for using them in their final creations. The children designed, made, and evaluated their own robot which used a pulley and pivot mechanism. We were very impressed with their final pieces!

Science

In science this term we have been learning about plants. We set up an investigation to find out what would happen to the plants if they did not receive everything that they needed. Here are some of the children writing up their results.