Marvellous M.A.D.D Week

This week is M.A.D.D Week! This means we have a really fun week focusing on Music, Art, Dance and Drama. At the start of the week we had an assembly from Mrs Gray about our special week. We went through the letters and saw something exciting for each letter. 'M' for Music -we sang our school song. 'A' for Art-  children from each class showed some of their artwork, in our class Emilija showed a piece of chalk work. 'D' for Dance- Class 5 showed us their Scottish dance. Finally 'D' for Drama- Mrs Gray talked about our School Pantomime and we practised shouting "Come In" when we hear a knock at the door. 

After assembly we started our week with some art. We used watercolour paints to create colourful, eye-catching Chameleons. We had to use lots of water to make sure the different colours blended together. After we practised on our small Chameleon, we then made a larger Chameleon for the hall to show one of our school values - Considering Chameleon. 

On Tuesday our day started with an exciting and energetic assembly from Ashley from West End In School. He showed us lots of different types of dance like Ballet, Tap and Hip-Hop dancing. When we heard we were first to work with Ashley we were over the moon! In our workshop we did dancing through the ages, starting with the Charleston, which was interesting because it was something we hadn't heard of before. We also did Rock n' Roll and disco dancing, which was really fun because we got to learn lots of different types of dance. Ashley was a brilliant dancer and we all had a big smile on our faces throughout!

On Tuesday afternoon we created our own play to show to the rest of Year 2 on Thursday. Our performance is about a Chameleon that is a little bit down in the dumps because he was disappointed that he was grey and didn't have a special talent. He went on a journey and discovered a rainbow, but did he get his colours? The children worked in 3 groups to add different things to our play. One group tried really hard to create an exciting super rainbow dance to dazzle our audience. Another group created realistic rain sounds using instruments like maracas, drums and tambourines! Our final group were amazing animal actors and they were fantastic at remembering their lines. 

On Thursday we got to perform our Chameleon play, we were a little bit nervous before but we managed to put on a great performance. Class 9 went first and we even added a bonus song at the end! Next went Class 8 and they did an incredible performance about the Discussion Dolphin (we liked the songs best!). Finally Class 7 performed and they did a marvellous guessing game to get the audience guessing which school value they had focused on, we discovered it was the Active Ant. 

We are really happy that we have got to learn lots of new things during M.A.D.D week and we loved every minute of it!

By Class 9

Discovering Islam

This half term we have been thinking about the question 'Who is a Muslim?'. In our first lesson Class 9 thought about questions we would like to ask a Muslim child. Miss Bailey then asked those children who are Muslim to come up to the front to be our 'experts'. Children asked us questions like 'What do you eat?', 'What do you wear?' and 'How do you celebrate a wedding?'.


Ibrahim and Malaika showed us how to pray in a Mosque. You take your shoes off and kneel down on a prayer mat. Boys' backs have to raise up and girls' backs must be flat. We also looked at a Qu'ran and the special stand they can sit on. Did you know that Arabic is read from the right to left - the opposite way to how we read English? Lots of children told us all about their own families, where their relatives were born and how they practice their religion. We could remember lots of things from our R.E. Faith Trail back in November too.

In another lesson we looked at Allah's 99 names, it must be very hard to remember them all! M.Ayaan very kindly bought in some prayer beads from home to show us. Muslims use prayer breads to help them remember the 99 names, moving one bead along each time a name is said.

We have all really enjoyed learning more about Islam this half term and are excited to learn more about 'How and why do we celebrate special occasions?'.

By M.Ayaan and Malaika

Visiting the Council Chambers

Last Tuesday, the school council went to visit the Council Chambers in Derby. Right before we went I felt so excited because I've never seen the Council Chambers before!

To get there we had to go on a small blue coach, it felt like the journey whizzed by but actually the Council Chambers are quite far from our school. When we got off the bus we stood on the stairs outside the Council Chambers but we nearly blew away because the wind was so fierce. We got to look at the doors that used to be the entrance but Mrs Gray realised these were the old doors and they aren't used any more!

Miss Doyle and Mrs Gray had to sign us into the Chambers to keep us safe and in case there was a fire. Then a lady that worked there called us into the hallway and told us there was 150 stairs to the Mayors office. That sounds like a lot of stairs! 

After that she called Mr Mayor to come and meet us all and he took us into the meeting room. The meeting room was gigantic and it was filled with chairs, even a special chair that the Mayor sits on (it's the biggest one!). 



We all had to find our chair that said 'Councillor' and our surname, which made us feel very proud and important that we were allowed to visit such a special place. Mr Mayor showed us how to use the microphones, which you have to turn on every time you want to speak during a meeting. When you use the microphone your face appears on the television screens around the room so everyone can see who is talking.

We were lucky enough to hold a School Council meeting in the real Council chambers. In our meeting we discussed the outdoor classroom vs a canopy over the Sensory Square. We decided the outdoor classroom was a good idea because you can rest there if you get tired and  because its a nice big space. 12/12 people voted for the outdoor classroom instead of the canopy. Miss Coburn took lots of photos of us with Mr Mayor around the Council Chambers. 

By Humayd 

Websites to help at home!

It is always helpful to have a list of 'go to' websites on hand to continue to make learning progress at home. Here is a list of websites we find particularly useful!

Literacy websites

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/grammar

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/punctuation

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar

http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/reading

Read the Oxford Reading Tree books and lots of others for free on this brilliant website.


Maths websites

http://www.mathletics.co.uk/

Tell your child to ask if they have lost their Mathletics log-in details and we can send them home again.

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/maths/


Computing websites

https://studio.code.org/hoc/1
Continue to play the coding games we have been using in class.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3c6tfr
Practice typing skills with this fun game! 

If you ever have any questions about how you can help your child at home, please ask me after school or send a note in with your child and I will get back to you as soon as possible. 

Miss Bailey