'To bee, or not to bee: that is the question'

Hamlet

Hamlet' was the Shakespearean play performed to children at Stanmore Primary School on Wednesday . All the classed loved being up close to the Young Shakespeare Company as they acted their way through this classic tragic play. A huge 'well done' to the children who participated in the action - these parts included trees, gates, soldiers and an old man. The whole audience joined in with the performance - what a fabulous afternoon!

Rowan Class

This week we are focusing on how to measure capacity and volume. We used varying containers to estimate and measure volume. By reading a scale we were able to understand and measure capacity.  If a container did not have a scale on it, we quickly realised that we could pour the liquid into a container that did have a scale.

Birch

As part of the Arts Award (Discover), yr 3 and 4 and musicians in other years, were treated to an afternoon featuring two musicians from the Turner Sims Concert Hall in Southampton, building on previous sessions, where the children learnt about the roles of others who work in the music and performance industries. Alex (saxophone) and Joe (double bass) played a selection of jazz medleys, with the children encouraged to sing and clap along. We are very much looking forward to next Monday, when we will be visiting Turner Sims for an afternoon concert of music and song. 

Sycamore

This week Sycamore Class have been involved in some amazing performances. On Wednesday afternoon we had the opportunity to watch Hamlet performed by theYoung Shakespeare Company. On Wednesday after school we performed our brilliant play ‘The Bee Musical’ the children performed confidently and we were all so proud of them! On Thursday we watched a short performance of some jazz musicians who came to perform in school to give us a sneak preview of the concert at Turner Sims Concert Hall that we are visiting on Monday. What an exciting week! 

Yr 5 6

Year 5 and 6 have been working hard this week, creating unusual animals and habitats based on our text ‘The Wonder Garden’. We have explored a range of different grammar techniques and are now looking at whether we should allow outsiders to come and visit our beautiful lands. Oak class have also been using the natural landscape to create their own art installations in the Quad - see if you can spot any.

R2L

Our target in R2L this week has been "I can talk to others politely." We continued  to sing our song "It's not what you say, but the way that you say it" to remind ourselves that even words like "excuse" me and "thankyou" need to be said with the right tone, pitch and facial expression. We thought about having an imaginary filter in our head to catch our thoughts before they left our mouths. We practised this by fishing out all of the unkind words that we said from the duck pond.  We also though carefully about the power of our words and how it might make someone else feel. Everyone agreed that kind words said with in the right way helped everyone to feel welcome, valued and happy.

New additions to our school

Guinea Pigs

This week we invited two new members to our our Stanmore School - Oreo and Bubble. The children all voted for their favourite names and these were decided at random during the celebration assembly -they definitely suit them.

Many of the classes have been to see Oreo and Bubble this week and we can’t wait until they are strong enough to go outside into their run. Thank you to The Friends of Stanmore for buying our new friends and their home and thank you to Mr Foard for putting it all together.

Catkins

This week, we explored the text 'Rosie's Walk', a story about a blissfully unaware hen and a mischievous fox who runs into mishaps! The children did some excellent writing to Rosie to explain where the fox had been on the farm and some even created their own story maps! The children then created some 'Rosie's Walk' inspired art including handprint hens and honeycomb! We checked on the growth of our bean plant and conducted an experiment to see which plant will grow the tallest, the one in the cupboard or the one outside! The children then enquired further about farms, and we learned about the role of animals that live on a farm. The children had a go at 'milking' cows and shearing sheep! Lastly, we visited our new guinea pigs. The adults were impressed at how respectful Catkins were when visiting our new school animal! Super job Catkins!

Rowan

What do plants need to grow?

Last week, we set up an investigation to explore what plants ( grass was the focus) needed to grow and be healthy. 

First, we explored our school grounds to see where grass grew and identified why it was able to grow successfully. We quickly realised that grass wasn't growing as well in our woodland areas as the grass might not have had as much sunlight or water.  To set up the investigation we used four pieces of turf and labelled each grass sample with one of these labels: water and light; water and no light; light and no water; no light and no water. 

Our predictions were all very similar, as we understood that the grass without water or sunlight would not be healthy as it didn't have the things it needed to grow.  

We really enjoyed observing the grass samples this week, as we could clearly see a difference between the grass that been kept in the dark and the grass that had more light. Hurry up next week! We want to see what has happened to our grass!

Birch

Birch Class have been introduced to the wonderful world of Shakespeare this week! They are studying 'The Tempest' and have been exploring the main characters and settings. As part of this work, they created freeze frames of the opening scenes from the play. They will be drawing on what they have learnt to write a playscript later next week.         

Sycamore

Sycamore Class have been becoming creative with music and science, creating their own musical instruments and thinking about how to alter the sound as well as how the sound is made.

Year 5 and 6

Children in Elm, Oak and Aspen have been writing newspaper reports this week based on their text ‘King Kong’ by Anthony Browne. We have loved exploring whether King Kong is a ferocious monster or an animal that has been taken out of it’s native land. The writing has been excellent and we have explored using high level punctuation and direct and reported speech.

R2L

Our target this week has been "I can accept the decision of adults." Building on from last weeks target, the children have thought about what the role of a teacher is at Stanmore Primary School . They decided that its was a teacher's job to teach new learning, teach new skills, keep children safe, model the right choices and to have fun! The children enjoyed a variety of activities this week including Lego building, making play dough, playing competitive games and making bird seed feeders.  The children agreed that although sometimes it can feel tricky to accept the decisions of adults, ultimately, the adults have the children's best interests in mind. 

EAT them to DEFEAT them

Amazing Vegetables

This week the children took part in the ‘Eat them to defeat them’ campaign which is designed to encourage more children to try a range of different vegetables. Mandy has provided new and exciting tastes for the children and the whole school took part in a competition to design a poster. The 5 winners each received a big bag of vegetables!

Catkins

This week we have explored the text Handa's Surprise and have learnt about the variety of fruits that the animals stole from Handa's basket! The children were asked to write about the animals and the fruit they stole! In Catkins, we have also been exploring how we keep our body healthy, specifically about which foods we should be eating and how we can protect our teeth! Forest school fell on our snowy day and the children loved investigating the snow and were even able to make a snowman! 

Maple

This week Maple class have continued their exploration of London by becoming tourists. We explored the 'Visit London' website and discovered some amazing things to do. We then watched some videos of the amazing landmarks and activities that you can visit in London! 

Rowan

This week we have been busy planning, drafting and redrafting excellent instructions based on the text, Storm Whale. 

Noi- a lonely boy- finds a washed-up grey whale on the beach and he decides to take it home so he can care for it. We started off by looking at how we could write a set of instructions for washing a whale, just like Noi does. Through shared writing we were able to identify and use adverbials and imperative ( bossy) verbs. When given the choice of what we wanted our instructions to be based on, we came up with some imaginative but wonderful ideas: How to play volleyball with a whale to how to teach White Rose Maths to a whale. Wow- We really are becoming confident writers in Year 2!

Birch

In RE this week, Birch Class have been continuing their unit on 'Ritual', and thinking about the ceremony attached to the Paschal candle. They learnt about different parts of the services where Paschal candles are used, and freeze framed one aspect of them in their groups. 

As part of our Arts Award (Discover), we welcomed Vanessa and Jo from the Turner Sims Concert Hall back into our class and learnt about some of the musicians that play at their venue. The children listened to jazz, thinking about how musicians are able to improvise, and used different drawing materials to 'record' what they had heard. These will be used as part of the advertising material for the concert later in March - how exciting!

Year 5 /6

Children in year 5 /6 have been looking at natural art this week and have created their own natural masterpieces following the work from Andy Goldsworthy.

R2L

Our learning target this week in R2L has been "I can respond to all adults appropriately". We identified who the adults were in our lives and thought about what their main job was - to teach us how to make safe and good choices. We considered the phrase "It's not what you say, but the way that you say it!" and decided that singing  the phrase was a helpful reminder. Not only did we make a paper chain of kind words to cover R2L, but we were also politeness detectives around the school. The children used role play to "teach the teachers" and thought hard about how they spoke to each other. R2L discovered that please was the most popular word used by the Stanmore community. R2L collectively decided that Stanmore School is a happy school to belong to.

World Book day

Catkins

This week we have focused on growing. We read the story 'The Jack and the Beanstalk' and explored different beans and seeds. We also enquired about what we need to help a plant grow and read 'Jasper's Beanstalk' to give us some ideas! We invited a enthusiastic gardener (our very own Mrs Head) to teach the children how to prepare the soil and plant the beans. The children wondered where the beans will grow best! We will be monitoring the growth of these beans over the coming weeks. Last but not least, Catkins loved our World Book Day activities! We read the story 'Pattan's Pumpkin' and imagined what we would store in our pumpkin in case of a flood! In the afternoon, the children made their own potato characters and described their characteristics to adults! Super job Catkins!

Rowan

This week, we have been exploring units of measure with rulers and metre sticks and using the words length, and height. We quickly realised that a cm is smaller than a m, and were able to group our measurements in two groups: less than a metre and more than a metre.

R2L

This week in R2L, we have been looking at why there are rules. We have discovered that rules are mostly in place to keep us safe, to help us to know the right choices to make and to provide order. When playing games, we agreed that when everyone follows the rules the games are much more fun as we all know what to do. However, if the rules suddenly changed, it was very frustrating. We even had our own R2L orchestra where we had to watch the conductor very carefully! We decided that most rules are cool!

World Book Day

Rowan

We used the beautiful book, Pattan's Pumpkin to lead our writing. First, we explored a range of fruits and vegetables; we focused on texture, smell and colour and created expanded noun phrases.  In the Indian fairy-tale, Pattan grows a ginormous pumpkin which saves his village from a flood. We wrote our own instructions for growing pumpkins, followed by created our very own potato pals! 

Birch

Birch Class had a wonderful time on WBD, dressing as their favourite characters and listening to work from an award-winning author. They loved making the potato that they has bought in into their favourite book character using their creativity and imagination! I think that they look amazing!

Sycamore

This week we celebrated World Book Day. Firstly we looked at the poem ‘Sandwich’ by Valerie Bloom who is a Jamaican author who now lives in Kent. Afterwards, we created our favourite book characters out of a potato! Who knew potatoes could be so versatile! 

Year 5 /6

Year 5 and 6 had great fun on World Book Day, creating characters from favourite books from potatoes. Inspired by the exciting story, 'King Kong' by Anthony Browne the children used their empathy skills to imagine that they were one of the main characters (Ann Darrow), writing a letter home using evidence for the text. We also looked at the beautiful book ‘Change Sings’ by Amanda Gorman and looked at how we can all make a difference.

EARA

This week, four young leaders from Year 5 travelled to Waterlooville to take part in our first Equality and Rights Advocates meeting (EARA). This group has been set up to ensure that children have an active role in ensuring our school is inclusive and accepting of all different people, wherever they are from and whatever their ability. During the meeting the children met an artist who specialises in  using art to express his emotions and feelings and they had a chance to create their own masterpieces depicting an emotion they felt strongly. 

The group will meet regularly and will use their platform to inform and educate others on the importance of acceptance and kindness.

Science, Art and Pancakes.

Catkins

We kickstarted our week with pancake day preparations! The children designed, labelled and then decorated their own pancakes! We also had some messy and active pancake activities to stimulate discussion! This week we began our new topic 'Ready, Steady Grow!' which focuses on learning where our food comes from, how food is produced and the lives of animals on the farm. We created our own farm shop that sold fresh produce and even had the chance to use our 5 senses to explore the wonderful fruits and vegetables we had delivered! Catkins then did some super sketches of their favourite fruits and vegetables! Well done for another fantastic week!

Rowan

This week, we have been inspired by the artist Yayoi Kusama- (The Queen of dots), to create our own sculptures. For our innovate challenge, we had to design a flower template, draw it on to a paper plate, cut it out and paint it using bold colours. 

Birch Class

Birch Class have been continuing their work on forces and magnets. This week, they have used magnets to sort magnetic and non-magnetic materials. From this, they discussed the question,' If all magnetic materials are metals, are all metals magnetic?'.  The children worked in pairs to discuss, prove and share their ideas. 

Sycamore

This week Sycamore Class have been learning about the water cycle. We brought this to life to using plastic bags to show precipitation, evaporation and condensation and water collection that occurs within the cycle. This has also linked in with our English work based on a book called 'Rhythm of the Rain'. 

Year 5 and 6

The first day of term started with the discovery of  a mysteriously large footprint at Stanmore school. The children followed this intriguing find with an exciting treasure hunt to learn more about the creature who produced the footprint and the story surrounding it.

Learning through experiences

Catkins

Although it is our final week before half term, Catkins has remained as busy as ever! This week we focused on the number 8, looking at some creepy creatures that have 8 legs and how we can represent 8 on a tens frame! This week marked the last session in our 'Long Ago' topic. We looked at old toys and how we can identify if a toy is old or not! The children then became toy makers and made their own wooden peg dolls inspired by the toys children would make in the past! The children have enjoyed becoming historians to investigate the past during this topic. T Lastly, the children had a fabulous forest school session with Mrs Jupe! The children learned how to navigate around a fire safely and even were offered a marshmallow for their listening! Well done Catkins for a super start to 2023!

Maple

Another great week for Maple class maths! The school has invested in some fantastic new resources for the children to use, magnetic foam tens frames. These have proven fantastic for modelling maths concepts and the children have loved using them to investigate those concepts and deepen their learning. What a fantastic investment. 

Rowan

This week, we have been investigating which bag would be the best to use in the rain. We made predictions, decided how we would carry out our investigation and talked about fair tests. With the varying materials, we filled each bag up with the same shopping and poured the same amount of water on to the bags. We quickly realised that the plastic bags were the best as the material is waterproof and did not absorb the water. However, the string bag was the worst in the rain as the water rushed in through the holes and made our shopping very wet!

Mr Foard paid us a visit this week!  Jobs has been our focus for PSHE this half term, and we all decided that we would like to find out more about Mr Foard's jobs. We asked him some very thoughtful questions- we found out what he is afraid of too!

Birch

Birch Class have been exploring soil this week as part of the 'Rocks, Relics and Rumbles' topic. We took samples from different areas of the school grounds and used the soil testing chart to work out what type of soils we had. We also examined the contents of soil by mixing a sample with water and leaving it to settle, so that we could clearly see the different layers.

Year 5 and 6

This week the children in year 5 and 6 took part in a food sustainability day at Winchester College. The children had a great day and they took part in a range of activities, including: making soup, learning about the digestive system (using tights and a jam sandwich), powering a smoothie maker using a bicycle, planting trees for the King’s coronation and learning about the importance of reducing food waste.

R2L

This week's target has been "I can use my words when I am upset." The children have had fun reading The Colour Monster, sorting their feelings out and then putting their own "feelings" into a jar. They have also practised using their words when they were upset through role play with the puppets.  The children have discovered that it is ok to feel upset, but by using their words and letting others know how they are feeling enables them to find a solution to their worries.

What a busy week!

Catkins

This week we continued on our journey of exploring what life was like long ago! We were so pleased when William's Nan came to visit us and share her memories of growing up, school and chilly winters! The children also investigated their own families and found that all of our families are unique which makes us all very special!

In maths we have been investigating the numbers 6 and 7! We met Louise the Ladybird who enjoys her spots being decorated in different ways! The children used Louise to show how they can represent 6.

Maple

Maple class have created some amazing transient art this week during our new art topic 'Rain and Sunrays'. They looked at weather motifs and then created transient art using a range of loose resources. We had some amazing results! 

Rowan

This week in Rowan class, we have been investigating the strength, texture and absorbency of paper. By observing, tearing and touching we were able to conclude that cardboard was the strongest, tissue paper was the smoothest and a paper towel was the most absorbent. In art, we then used our knowledge on absorbency to create stunning filter paper flowers.

Birch

As we approach the last week of the half term, Birch Class's Matilda themed dance is coming together beautifully! We are learning to improvise, use facial expression in our moves and this week, we have added in a prop. The children have loved portraying the character of Matilda in their dance work; this week, we joined together all of the different sections that we have developed so far into the main piece.    

In science this week, Birch Class have been continuing their work on 'Forces'  by exploring non-contact forces and magnets. They have worked with the magnets to find the poles, magnetic attraction and repulsion. We are looking forward to investigating different magnets in our next lesson.

Sycamore

This week in Sycamore Class we have been investigating temperature. We had to find out the best way to slow down the melting process. Every 15 minutes we had to measure the temperature of different ice cubes either in different places or covered by different materials (hopefully acting as thermal insulators). 

Oak Class

Oak class used a torch and ball to represent and describe Earth’s rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky.  

Fire service visit

The children in Year 2 , 5 and 6 enjoyed a visit from the Fire Service who taught them about:  the main causes of fire and how the risks can be reduced, the triangle of fire and what to do in the event of a fire.  

The children loved the interactive presentation and learnt many key skills in staying safe in the event of a fire starting. Some children even tried on the protective suits!

Proud of our Achievements

Maple Class

This week Maple class have been continuing their journey into maths mastery by learning addition within 20. They have been learning about number bonds to 20 using concrete resources and have really been really enjoying their learning. 

Rowan

This week we have learning all about multiplication! We have moved on from equal groups to using arrays. We investigated how many arrays we could make with the same total of counters and then wrote down the multiplication and addition sentences.

Oak

In science, Oak class used a ball, flat table and small figure to test Aristotle's observation that the Earth was spherical in shape after watching ships sail over the horizon.

R2L

This week in R2L we have been thinking about how we can focus on our own behaviour. We tried a variety of activities including decorating cupcakes, making badges and exploring nature trails where we had to think really hard about what we were doing. We learnt that by thinking about our own choices and not allowing other things to distract us, we had positive outcomes. This made us feel happy and proud.

Netball club

The children are learning new skills in Netball Club and they are looking very smart in their new skorts.

A wonderful week at Stanmore

Maple Class

Maple class have finished their shelters this week. They designed their shelters on paper using a design criteria and then constructed it out of various junk modelling material. They thought carefully about its design, both functionally and aesthetically. We then reviewed our shelters as a class to see if they served their purpose! 

Rowan

This week, we have been understanding what erosion is and how it impacts the coastline. With an erosion demonstration, we saw that the waves washed away the sandcastles but when we built a seawall the sandcastles were protected as the wall acted as a defence.

Sycamore

Sycamore have been looking at rivers around the world, recapping lots of positional language for geography. 

ELM

Elm class have been looking at some of Picasso’s work in Art this week, focussing on his continuous line drawings. We then attempted to replicate some of them and explored the use of different shading techniques.

R2L

This week, we have been looking at different ways to help us calm when we are feeling strong emotions. We have learnt that by disrupting our thoughts by doing activities like arts and crafts, breathing, yoga and cooking that we can help ourselves to feel better.

Football

A group of year 5 and 6 children took part in a football festival at Kings, where they endured the freezing weather and played 8 games against different teams. They represented the brilliantly and showed great sportsmanship. Well done everybody.

Our Amazing Work

Look at all the amazing work that the children have completed at Stanmore Primary School.

Our creative curriculum

Rowan Class

This week, we began by sketching roses and carnations looking closely at the shape and form. We then added water colour and focused on the varying hues.

Birch class

Birch Class have started their new PE unit, which for the spring term will be dance. We are learning steps to dance to a beat and developing our use of facial expressions to represent the characters that we are portraying. The children enjoyed learning a jazz square and using it to improvise a dance in the style of Matilda - they were brilliant!

Year 5 and 6

The children continued to look at Earth and Space in Science and this week they created a visual model of the planets, using fruit to see a different perspective of the distance of the planets from the sun.

Four children from Year 5 were chosen to complete a Sports Leadership Course at King's, where they learnt about what makes a great leader and different sporting activities that they can implement in their role as leaders.