Oak Tree Class Blog
Oak Tree Class Blog
Week 7, ending 16 December
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Sorry - this has been lurking in Drafts....oops
Wow - what a week! And what a term! That’s a wrap for our first term in Y5 at Rufford Park (for all of us) and I am very proud of all the children have achieved.
As well as all the academic work over the past 14 weeks, including a fabulous Topic about World War 2, the children have begun to master the basics of ukulele playing, behaved impeccably on a school visit to Eden Camp, assisted our young buddies in Reception a couple of times, presented an end of term assembly to many parents and started to become excellent Upper Key Stage 2 role models to the younger pupils in school.
Unfortunately, we haven’t had chance to complete our DT unit on Seasonal Food – so if you get chance to cook chicken and vegetable kebabs and rice, I am certain the children can tell you all about the nutritional values etc of each ingredient.
Also, we are hoping that the children will be hunting around the house for any school reading or library books – we hope to replenish our book shelves with all the returned books at the beginning of next term.
This week has been full of Christmassy Maths and English, crafts and fun events, like our Movie Afternoon on Monday (see separate extraordinary blog post) and our Class Party on Wednesday. They have all made a lovely Christmas card, so if this hasn’t been given to you by Christmas Eve, please have a look in their school bag and retrieve it!
Thank you for all the £ donations for party food and it was lovely to see so many of you attend the WW2 Christmas Assembly on Wednesday (we were very amused to see how many Oak Tree Class family members had the misfortune of locating a ’12 Days of Christmas” card under their seat and had to stand up many times during that song. Thanks for being such good sports!)
Also, on a personal note, thank you for helping me to settle in so well to the Rufford Park community and for all my Christmas gifts, too! You are very kind.
With the warmest of wishes for a happy festive season!
See you in January.
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Extraordinary Blog - Class Treat
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
This afternoon, Monday, the children in Oak Tree Class really enjoyed the Movie Afternoon/Trim Trail Interval, as their treat for donating the most items in KS2 for the Christmas Fayre.
Thank you very much to the Friends of Rufford Park for giving us this opportunity - we felt very special!
Week 6, ending 9 December
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Show Music has greeted the children each morning this week, which has seemed pretty appropriate, as we have all been practising (at home AND at school, it seems!) for next Wednesday’s Y5/6 Christmas assembly. We are looking forward to sharing our work and our Christmas singing too. Looking forward to seeing you there, too.
Workwise, the children in Oak Tree have been furthering their knowledge of Fractions in Maths, and of Electricity in Science. One of these subjects has certainly been more fun than the other this week – I’ll let you try to guess which one! It was super to see so many faces light up when they realised that their homemade switch actually worked! Eureka!
A little more work has been done on Yeadon’s AVRO Factory and we have finished the WW2 journey, by evaluating which major event was likely to have been a historical turning point for the Allies – a very interesting discussion.
We are all looking forward to our winning Treat Afternoon, courtesy of FORP (next week!) and, of course, to our Christmas holiday!
Have a suitably busy, yet festive, weekend!
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 5, ending 2 December 2022
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
December already!? We haven’t gone Christmas-Crazy just yet in Oak Tree Class, you will be pleased to know, but we are busily practising a set of carols and readings with WW2 themes for you to enjoy on Wednesday 14 December. Hopefully, everyone has returned their ticket slip by now…
This week, our mornings have primarily been taken up with completing Autumn assessments in maths and English; we have had fun in other curriculum areas, though!
In our history topic session, we evaluated sources of information about the Blitz in 1940 and were surprised to realise that the ‘stiff upper lip’ played a huge part in thwarting the German’s plan to demoralise the British public. How funny we found the photograph of a milkman still going about his daily duties while all the buildings around him had been reduced to rubble! It certainly made us re-evaluate our original thoughts about the devastation of the Blitz.
We have started reading an auto-biographical account of a man, John Denison, who spent his teenage years in Yeadon, during WW2. Recognising street names and other places he talks about, including the old Avro factory, has sent ripples of delight across the classroom at times. We looked at Google maps too to help us get an idea of the area that John writes about, including gauging the size of the Avro factory during the war. These memoirs of John Denison have really helped to bring our topic alive – the local link has been fantastic!
As we haven’t been able to use the hall for any PE lessons this week, due to EYFS/KS1 Nativity rehearsals, we have embarked on a Daily Mile session, where we tried to run a mile. We calculated how many times we would need to run around the MUGA, plus a little extra up and down the path, would equate to a mile. We have done this a couple of times now and it has been so pleasing to see the children wanting to improve their own record each time! We have also introduced Go Noodle dances as part of our PE sessions. Ask your child to tell you all about “Banana, Banana, Meatball”!
Thank you again for all your donations for the school Christmas Fayre. They were certainly worth it – Oak Tree Class (along with Cherry Tree Class) won! So FORP (Friends Of Rufford Park) has been in touch to congratulate us and we are currently in discussions as to what our ‘treat’ will be…
Homework this weekend is a bit of Maths and Spellings, as usual, as well as learning a poem off by heart: In Flanders’ Fields.
Have a fun-filled weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 4, ending 25 November 2022
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Northern Soul has been our theme music all week – such a splendid way to start each day! It was so entertaining seeing the children join in with some ‘oldies’ this week!
In Maths this week, we have needed to recap and revise Addition and Subtraction methods, as crucial aspects seem to have been forgotten by most! You may notice that this forms part of our homework - do please join in with the addition/subtraction game in a bid to support their learning.
This week’s English has finished with thoughtful character studies about the man in The Piano – and I have been so pleased to see the effort from each and every child to improve their handwriting in their published piece.
Yet more skills have been learned in Tag Rugby with Matt this week – we now know the three main ways a rugby ball can be thrown. These sessions are so much fun!
Ukelele lessons are going from strength to strength, too. Silent Night and Jingle Bells are being learned right now, so hopefully we can impress you with our playing before the Christmas holidays.
Don’t forget it’s the Christmas Fayre on Saturday – thank you for all the donations you have been sending in for the Christmas Movie Treat. (We are extremely hopeful that we could be the winners…. watch this space!)
Have a super weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos