Willow Class 5 Million Word Challenge: Current word count: 4, 787, 612
Welcome to Willow Class!
Willow Class are Year Five and Six pupils, taught by Miss Thomas.
Mrs Fisher also teaches us once a week, and we are lucky to be supported by Mrs Bowers.
Our theme this term is Revolution! We will be learning all about life in the Victorian times, including the Industrial Revolution.
Our Parent Pack and Knowledge Organiser for the Spring term can now be found below. Please do get in contact if you have any questions about these!
Important links: Willow Class Book Blog
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World Book Day
We love World Book Day! This year, we were celebrating the Children's Laureate Joseph Coelho- we wrote some biographies about them and then some poems inspired by his work!
Our favourite part of the day was getting to share some of our pictures books with our friends down in Ash Class.
Skellig sketches
We’ve been reading the wonderful book ‘Skellig’ during English this term. In our most recent chapter, Skellig reveals his wings! We used charcoal and chalk to sketch the image that author David Almond creates using his words, responding to his descriptive language.
Greystones Iron Age trip
We had an incredible visit to Greystones Nature Reserve for an Iron Age experience day! It was incredible to see maps of this once Neolithic settlement, and we loved walking around the site to spot what once would have been the defensive walls. In the replica Roundhouse, we had a wonderful time baking Iron Age bread, trying our hand at firelighting and wheat grinding, and building our own wattle and daub walls!
Class Presentations
Parents have now been emailed the elements of their children's presentations that they have worked on in school. Below are some FAQ regarding these:
FAQs about our presentations:
- Children’s presentations should ideally be between 2-3 minutes long. I have advised the children to read their scripts/rehearse what they want to say alongside their slides and time how long these take, adding more to them if needed.
- They do not need to learn their scripts off by heart, but they should feel confident about what they are going to say so should practise plenty of times at home.
- All scripts and/or slides that children have prepared in school have been done on iPads (on the Pages and Keynote apps)- but if you do not have Apple products at home, should be able to be accessed and edited on Microsoft products (Word and Powerpoint) instead. If these are edited at home, they will need to be emailed back to me when finished (along with their scripts, if they have not been printed out at home) so that children can use them for their presentation.
- Children do not have to have a Powerpoint/Keynote on screen, but most of them have opted to. These could include personal photos and videos of them doing their hobby, for example, as well as text and other pictures.
- Children are very welcome to bring in props on the day e.g. uniforms and costumes, equipment or artefacts.
Artsweek- Skull studies
Before we create our final clay scultures, we focused on sketching skulls. These are a common feature in Damien Hirst's artwork!
We looked incredibly closely at the shading that was needed, and practised using different types of pencil in order to do this.
The results were fantastic!
Artsweek
This week, we're exploring the work of Damien Hirst and will be creating clay self-portraits- with a twist! To prepare ourselves, we've worked really hard on looking closely at our faces and sketching them. Aren't they incredible?! Can you spot who is who? We're really proud of them!
The Five Million Word Challenge
Can Willow Class read Five Million words this term? This averages at around three novels per child!
Who will read the most? Can anyone beat Miss Thomas' word count?
Children will record finished books in their reading records- these will need to be initialled by a parent at home. They will then bring them to school where we will find out the word count and add them to our class total!
(We will be using these websites to check the word count, if you would like to keep track at home:
https://www.bookconnections.org/
https://wordcounters.com/word-count/search/
They are not 100% accurate, and some books are not featured- don't worry, Miss Thomas will work them out!
Autumn Term 2023 Highlights
Christmas performance
We worked really hard on our Christmas performances of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ and ‘Silent Night’- including a verse in German! We hope you enjoyed them- here they are if you’d like to see them again!
Marvellous Mould!
In Science, we have been learning all about micro-organisms and how important they are in the world around us. We're investigating what factors can affect mould growth by carrying out a two-fold experiment. First, which environments may increase mould growth, and which surface contact may also increase this.
We'll let you know our findings!
House Captains
The greatest honour bestowed upon children at Andoversford has been decided! This week, our House Captains and Deputy House Captains have been chosen in an exciting anonymous voting process. They can't wait to get stuck into their first responsibilities- including leading their first celebration assembly this Friday! Well done to everyone who wrote such fantastic, passionate letters of application.
Hockey
This week was our first Hockey lesson- we enjoyed learning how to dribble (despite the drizzle!) and keep control of the ball when changing direction. We look forward to improving our skills over the course of the term, leading to us being able to play a full game!
Our first book choices of the year
So exciting!
We were especially excited by the new selection of books bought for the class- so many new authors, stories and non-fiction books to explore!
Useful information for Parents
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SATs Information for Parents
We have now held our SATs information meeting for parents- thankyou to all who came! If you did not attend (or would like to check any information), the presentation used can be found below.
Please do remember that if you have any questions or concerns, get in touch!
Signing up to our Book Blog
Dear Parents,
Our Willow Class Book Blog is now live! This is the blog where children will share at least three book recommendations each term. They will also be able to use this to search for book recommendations from their peers.
You can find it here: https://willowclassbookblog.edublogs.org/ or using the link on our webpage- although due to privacy settings, you will not be able to see this until you have signed up as below.
Every child in the class will need to be signed up for an Edublogs account by a parent. Whilst Edublogs is a site designed specifically for school-based blogs and is as secure at possible, it will be down to parents to ensure that children are using this safely and respectfully. This is why we are asking for parents to sign up their children up for an account using their own email address.
Parents, you will need to:
- Register your child up for an Edublogs account using your email address at www.edublogs.org
- Ask your child to pick a username and password and ask them to record this down to ensure that they remember it. You do not need to click ‘I want a site’, as our site is already set up!
- Email me (via the school office) to let me know the email address and username that you have used. I will then add each child to allow them to contribute to the blog- they will then have access to post on it.
- Your role is now complete! (Other than overseeing children’s use of the blog at home).
Once all children are signed up, we will look at how to write a post successfully in school, alongside some Computing lessons on Internet Safety. This will be your child’s first of three book recommendations this term- so they will just need to do two more between now and half term!
If you have any further questions or concerns, please do get in contact.
Thankyou for your support,
Best wishes,
Miss Thomas