Kingfishers in action!

Kingfishers in Action!

Growing and Changing

This week, we have been celebrating Refugee Week across the whole school. In Kingfishers, on Friday, we had some lovely parent helpers as well as some children from Key Stage 2. We made homes for our Moomin Village using junk modelling, made kites (we will decorate them next week) and baked some delicious New Year cookies based on an Afghan recipe.

We’ve had a busy few days in school this week.

Thank you to everyone for your support of Sports Day. We had lovely weather, great effort from the children and finished with a shared picnic lunch.

On Thursday, we went to Africa Alive to find out about baby animals and how they grow. The children were brilliantly behaved, shared their learning and asked questions during our workshop, and remained enthusiastic throughout the day.

This week in science, we have been thinking about seeds and what they need to grow. We have chosen a seed, predicted what plant we think it might grow into and planted it in a pot. Over the coming weeks, we will keep a plant diary to watch and record the changes and growth from a little hard seed into a strong healthy green plant.

We are learning about fractions of number and shape and have been using resources to share into equal groups.

In RSHE, we have been sequencing the stages of human life at the same time as practising our cutting and sticking skills!

This week in RSHE we have been finding out about looking after a baby. The children have thoroughly enjoyed dressing, feeding and bathing our ‘babies’.

Eco Warriors

24/03/2025

In music this term, we have been finding out about improvisation and composition. This week, we composed rhythms, in small groups, and played along with Four White Horses on our claves.

In geography, we have been learning about the oceans of the world and used our computing knowledge to play a game identifying the locations of the 5 oceans: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic.

17/03/2025

We have been using our knowledge of multiplication this week by making arrays to match given times table calculations. We have also started to think about division in terms of sharing into equal groups. This week’s Secret Mission is to practise the 2 times table using a variety of methods – see Tapestry for more information.

03/03/2025

In maths, we are beginning to learn about multiplication and division. This week we have been skip counting to learn how to count in 3s, and sharing objects into equal groups.

03/02/2025

Following on from our learning about climate change, we investigated whether melting sea ice would make sea levels rise or fall. We placed some small an one large chunks of ice into a container with some water and placed a rock to represent an island in the middle. The children thought about what might happen to the ice and how this might impact the water level. The photos show our predictions. Ask your child to explain what happened to the water and the ice.

27/01/2025

This week we have started learning about climate change, at an age-appropriate level, so we can be courageous global citizens and take action. We have been finding out about some tricky vocabulary and concepts – Can you explain the difference between weather and climate? What do we mean by greenhouse gases and atmosphere? We carried out an investigation using jars of air, thermometers and some tin-foil. Ask your child to explain what happened.

20.01.2025

Our computing this half-term is to animate a sprite (an image on the screen that can be moved by giving it commands). Last week, some of the children learnt how to select blocks of code and move them into the programming area of Scratch Jr. Other children learnt how to select commands and program a floor robot (EaRL). This week, those children passed on their learning by peer teaching.

13.01.2025

In maths this week, we have been learning about shapes. We have learnt the names of 2D and 3D shapes as well as finding out what that D stands for. We have learnt some lovely new vocabulary such as face, vertex (and its plural, vertices), side, edge, curved and straight.

On Tuesday, we played Catch 1 Partner, practising naming and describing 2D shapes.

On Wednesday, we rotated around four activities: shape dominoes, shape feely bag, shape riddles and shape spotlight on the iPads.

Spring 2025 – Eco Warriors

What a super start to the new year we have had in Kingfishers! The children have come back excited, refreshed and ready to learn. Our new topic this term is Eco Warriors so we spent a bit of time unpicking what those words actually mean to us. The children were amazing at suggesting that a warrior is someone who stands up for things, fights for good and needs to be brave and courageous. They also knew that eco suggests something to do with our planet, looking after the environment and taking care of the world around us. I think we know what we have to do…

We have started our learning in science by finding out about different habitats and the animals that live there. We then focussed in to learn about microhabitats – in particular we have been thinking about leaf litter and fallen logs. Mrs Eland brought her Christmas present into school – a biOrb terrarium – so we decided to make a microhabitat for some isopods, or woodlice. We did some research to discover the sorts of things isopods like and went out onto the field to collect dead leaves, twigs with lichen on and some moss.

Check back to see how our microhabitat works out with some new inhabitants arriving this week.

2.12.24

This week began with decorating our school Christmas tree. We had lots of fun coming across all the baubles from past and present pupils.

In maths this week, we have been learning about number lines. We came up with 3 number line facts:

Numbers on a number line get bigger as you move to the right and smaller as you move to the left.
Number lines don’t always start at zero.
Number lines don’t always count as ones.

18.11.24

In art this week, we started learning about Jackson Pollock and have enjoyed looking at some of his flamboyant artwork. In contrast, our computing learning has been about Piet Mondrian and we have used shape, line and fill tools to create our own versions.

Week 10 – 4.11.24

In RE this term, our BIG QUESTION is ‘Why is light an important symbol for Christians, Jews and Hindus?’ This week, we learnt the story of Rama and Sita and how the triumph of good over evil is celebrated by Hindus with the festival of Diwali. We can talk about how people lit diwa lamps to help Rama and Sita find their way home. As part of our learning, we decorated Rangoli patterns, made our own diwa lamps with salt dough and made gajar burfi (carrot fudge).

Our computing this term is about digital painting. We have been exploring the tools in the Paint app on the laptops. This week, we used them to draw our faces.

Week 8 – 21.10.24

In RSHE, we have been talking about bullying – what it is, what it isn’t and what to do about it. We have made some anti-bullying posters to remind others to Spot It, Say It, Stop It.

This week, we have been thinking about Autumn in science and art. We collected some leaves and have used pastels and paints to mix and blend colours to represent the beauty of nature.

Week 5 – 30.9.24

This week in maths, we have been comparing numbers and objects. We have learnt how to use the symbols < > and =.

In our RE learning, we have continued to learn about what views people have about God. This week, we acted out the parable from the Bible about the son who took his inheritance early, spent it all and then came back to his father. We decided that this helps Christians to understand that God is loving, kind, caring and forgiving.

On Thursday, the Universe came to Alpington in the form of The Wonder Dome. We had an amazing time seeing parts of the Milky Way Galaxy, and many other wonders of the universe. We also found out more about the moon landings from 1969 to 1972. Did you know that NASA is planning new adventures to the moon in the near future?

Week 4 – 23.9.24

In computing this week, we have been finding out about what makes a good photograph. We used all sorts of classroom resources to make a picture or a pattern and then take photographs.

In maths, we have been learning about one more and one less and using number lines.

Tiny, the tortoise, has asked the class to write some one more and one less statements for him. Lots of children chose to do this in their spare time and read them out to help Tiny with his maths.

Week 3 – 16.9.24

In science, we are investigating what plants need to survive. The children re-potted plants and selected a variable to remove.

We are learning how to be cooperative learners – learning from each other and practising our social skills at the same time. In order to help each other learn about the parts of a plant, we played Catch 1 Partner. We had to talk politely to each other, asking for help to label a picture of a plant before swapping pictures and moving on to talk to a new partner.