Welcome to this week's edition of The Brunel Bulletin. This is your weekly update of all the latest news and events from our wonderful school. We hope you enjoy browsing through the 54th edition of our newsletter.

Hello Everyone!

We've been getting creative this week, by studying some of the paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. We looked in detail, at the painting 'Starry Night' and used oil pastels to recreate the painting. We tried to imitate the type of brush strokes that he used, and then practiced our skills of blending the colours with our fingers. We hope you like the results.

We completed our English learning journey, based on Amelia Earhart this week. Year 1and 2 children have showcased all of their knowledge about biographies, by writing their own biography, all about Amelia Earhart. Reception have also been using their skills to write labels, captions and sentences, and have shown us how independent they are becoming when writing. Well done everyone!

Our history lesson this week also linked with Amelia Earhart. We were able to spot similarities and differences between modern planes and Amelia's plane called the yellow Canary. We drew and labelled pictures which illustrated these differences.

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

From The Penhallow Team

This week we have started our Science topic looking at Earth, space and the planets.  Today we were working out the order of the planets from the sun and finding out some key facts about each one.  This week in class, we've been diving into some exciting topics! In English, we explored the magical setting of Pandora, using expanded noun phrases to bring its lush forests and glowing landscapes to life in our writing. In Maths, we've been comparing fractions, sharpening our skills to understand which numbers are bigger or smaller and why. Our history lessons took us back to Ancient Greece, where we learned fascinating facts about gods and goddesses and their incredible myths. A big well done to the Bikeability group, who have been out on the roads learning new cycling skills and showing great confidence and determination!


The week's spellings are: direction, explanation, competition, cautious, especially, appreciate, ancient, delicious, spacious, subtraction.  The QR codes for White Rose Infinity can be found on the parent chat on Showbie.  

We have had another week full of amazing fun learning and exploring new things.

In Literacy, we have been analyzing our WAGOLL to figure out how we use the past tense to tell stories. We have also learned how the use of exciting action verbs changes the picture we paint in the minds of the reader. In Maths, we have continued our enquiry into multiplication by looking at arrays. This term, we are learning all about plants in Science. This week, we decided to set up our own experiments to prove what we think plants need the most to grow big and healthy. While some of us are testing how plants grow without any sunlight, some of us are testing if they can grow without water or soil. You can see how we have set up our experiments in the photo below.

In RE we are continuing our enquiry into Islam this term. This week, we worked with Miss Walker to understand the importance of the Qur'an for Muslims and how that influences how they treat their holy book. We then created helpful posters to tell people about how to look after the Qur'an. In History, we learned all about the first flight in an engine powered airplane. We looked at the historical significance of this even of 1903 and discussed its impact on our lives today. In Music, we explored the connections between emotion and music. We listened to a wide range of music ranging from Bach to Joplin to understand how music evokes a variety of reactions and emotions in different people. Finally, in Art, we explored primary colours by playing with primary coloured paint and a variety of unusual tools for mark making. We are looking forward to using the finished paintings to create collages in our sketchbooks next week.

Finally, a very well done to:
> Isabella for getting the Ready Award for her amazing work in Literacy.
> Jane for getting the Respectful Award for always waiting for her turn to talk.
> Roma for being nominated by the Positive Potato Police to get the Safe Award for being a good friend and letting others join her games.

Exploring the cold

This week in Tregantle Class we have been busy exploring our topic 'Ice and Snow' across lots of different areas of learning.

In art, we investigated cold colours and took inspiration from Kandinsky, creating our own beautiful circles using different shades of blue. The children loved experimenting with colour and seeing how different tones worked together.

In PE, we practised throwing a ball at a target. This was a fun and energetic session that really helped to develop our gross motor skills, coordination and aim.

In maths, we have been learning all about capacity. One exciting activity challenged us to see how many different items we could fit into a tiny matchbox - there were lots of clever ideas and surprises!

During our Forest School session, we became artists and scientists by making our own ice sculptures. We filled cups with interesting natural materials, added water and placed them in the freezer. We can't wait to see how they turn out when they are frozen and revealed.

Another fantastic week of learning, creativity and fun in Tregantle Class!

This week at  nursery we have continued exploring winter.
The children have been busy exploring ice both indoors and out and have used tools to break it to investigate what was frozen inside. They have been using words such as frozen, melting and cold.
We have been busy creating winter craft including cotton wool snowmen, penguins and lovely paper plate snowy clouds to hang.

At story time this week we have enjoyed books such as "Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear?", "Foxes in the snow" and "The Smiley Snowman".

In phonics the children have been working hard to identify the number of syllables in words and clapped them out. We have used mirrors to watch how our mouths move when creating different sounds such as "oohh and ahh" and have been trying to describe soiunds that we have heard.

In maths we have been exploring groups of objects and identifying how many and forming numbers to go with these groups.

Enjoy your weekend

Julie and Sarah
 

Year 2 have had a very busy and exciting November and December as we explored our topic, 'Festivals Around the World'.

In geography, the children learned about the oceans and continents of the world. They enjoyed exploring atlases, locating different countries and finding out where festivals are celebrated around the globe. We also learned about weather around the world and compared it to our own. The children kept a daily weather record, observing changes and using weather vocabulary to describe what they noticed.

In science, we learned about animal habitats around the world. The children explored how animals are suited to their environments and linked this learning to different continents and climates.

As part of our learning about festivals, we discovered Diwali, the Festival of Light. The children learned about how Diwali is celebrated and why it is important. In Design and Technology, we made mango lassi, carefully following a recipe and talking about hygiene and safety in the kitchen. Everyone enjoyed tasting their delicious drink!

We also learned about Bonfire Night and the Gunpowder Plot. The children found out why fireworks are used to celebrate and created their own firework pictures using printing techniques, experimenting with colour and pattern.

In December, our focus turned to Christmas. We talked about how Christmas is celebrated in different parts of the world and what makes it special. In DT, the children made Christmas cupcakes, practising measuring, mixing and decorating skills.

In art, the children learned about watercolour techniques, practising careful brush control. They used these new skills to create beautiful Christmas cards, showing fantastic creativity and attention to detail.

We also put on an amazing Christmas play, "Shine, Star, Shine". The children worked incredibly hard to learn their lines, songs and dances, and performed with confidence and enthusiasm. It was a wonderful celebration of teamwork and creativity, and we are so proud of everyone's efforts.

Finally we finished with our annual trip to the theatre to watch a very festive performance of Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas. It has been a fantastic two months of learning, creativity and celebration.

Well done Year 2 for your enthusiasm and hard work across all subjects!

Welcome back to all our pre-school children and families, and a very warm welcome to those children and families who have joined us in the new year.

We hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas break, we have enjoyed catching up with the children and hearing all their wonderful festive stories. 

We can't quite believe we are already Spring Term 1, especially with the recent very wintery weather! Our new enquiry question this half term will be 'How can we show kindness?'

 We will be discussing what we think kindness is, and how we can show kindness.  We will also explore friendships and our emotions.

The first week back seen a very unsettled routine with late starts and early closures due to the weather, but the children all came back happy and ready to start.  The older children have already shown great kindness towards our few new younger starters, with helping them around pre-school, and playing alongside them.

We wish all our families a happy new year.

The Pre-School Team. 

Welcome Back Landaviddy! 

It has been lovely to see the children back in school, ready for an exciting Spring Term. Already we have had a crazy week -  weather wise! But even with all the disruption, we have enjoyed being back together. 

We concluded our previous enquiry 'What was new about the Stone Age?' by completing a Kahoot quiz and launched our enquiry focus for this half term, 'How far can you travel?'. We came up with lots of questions and ideas about what this could mean. In Computing, we have started a new unit on Data Handling, where we will be exploring the International Space Station (ISS). Our first lesson this week, had us using interactive digital maps to discover their home on the ISS. 

During English, we have been rounding off our work on poetry, where we produced our own shape poetry inspired by a snowflake. We used alliteration and similes, as well as some amazing vocabulary to capture the attention of our reader. We are all really proud of the poems we created. Well done everyone. In Maths, we have been rounding off our unit on Addition and Subtraction by making estimations, using inverse operations and making decisions on the best strategies to use when problem-solving. 

Congratulations to Ella and Finn for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week! 

We hope you have a super weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday.

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Lister and Miss Colton

It's lovely to see the class back after Christmas and ready for a new term! In Maths, Year 5 have been learning about equivalent fractions, while Year 6 have been working on adding fractions. In English, we've started exploring example texts to help us write a setting story based on Pandora, focusing on using descriptive language to bring this incredible world to life.  Here we have been spotting for different features to understand what makes a good text.  It has helped us to understand how writers use devices such as noun phrases or figurative language.  We're excited to see all the amazing work you'll create this term!

Next week is bikeability on Thursday for any Year 6 pupils that have signed up.  

TALLAND'S BLOG 9.1.26

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! We hope you had a magical Christmas and had a fantastic welcome to the New Year! It's great seeing everybody and hearing about some lovely Christmas stories. Really excitingly, it's also brilliant to welcome our new children: Renley, Taran and Max. They're a great addition to our class and we can't wait to become part of their story.

Here's a breakdown of our week:

Maths:
Year 5 have been solving problems involving CUBED numbers and multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000. 
Year 4 have been multiplying by the 7 and 9 times tables... why not quiz your child on those times tables... 

English: 
Talland have written their Myth/Legend story up in best this week and have illustrated their Hero/Heroin's and Villain's. I'm so impressed with their stories; they're so creative!

PSHE: 
This term we're focusing on hopes and dreams so Talland have been thinking about what their hopes and dreams might be for the future and whether or not having money would help them accomplish their dream. 

PE: 
Dance is on a Tuesday with Mrs. Hillman and Tennis is on a Wednesday with Mr. Langley.
Talland have had lots of fun dancing with Mrs. Hillman and I've been playing tennis with them. We learnt about the forehand and how accurate we can be when striking the ball.

SCIENCE: 
Our enquiry question is: ' Who's got the Power?' this term so we are investigating electricity. Today we were thinking about which appliances would require power from electricity and whether they were powered by batteries, mains or both. Question: If you could only have five appliances in your house, what would they be?

CONGRATULATIONS to Riley, Taran and Max for settling in so well this week. We celebrated them in assembly for bringing such great energy, curiosity and kindness to the class. The rest of Talland have been so warm and welcoming - it's been lovely to witness. 

That's all from us in Talland this week. We hope you have a great weekend and can't wait to see everyone next week.

Signing off from Mr. Langley and Mr. Bishop.