Today Year 2 children took part in a ‘Big Emotions’ workshop. They learnt about what it feels like to have a worry and what to do about it. They also practised some breathing and relaxation techniques. Finally they created a hand picture full of people who can help them and things that make them happy.
Exploring rationing during the war, Year 6 learned about the “Make do” attitude that everyone had to adopt when resources were limited. We look at the books that everyone, even babies, were issued with the amount of food they were allowed each week. Because some items were unable to be imported into the country, due to the Axis targeting vessels and airplanes, people started experimenting and making their own versions of their favourite foods. One of these was “Sweet Potato Mash” which replaced chocolate spread.
We had a fun afternoon recreating this interesting topping; only a few in each class enjoyed it!
Reception have been settling in to starting school and looking at the topic “All about me”. We have been sharing facts about ourselves and drawing self-portraits- noticing lots of our facial features. This week we have been learning about the story “And Tango Makes 3”. In the story, Tango lives in the zoo with two daddies. We have been talking about all of our families and who we live in a house with. We have discussed that every family is special and unique, but the thing that they all have in common is that there is lots of love! Children made marks as to who lives in their house and if they have any pets.
A warm welcome to all- children and parents 😊 We have had an excellent start to the year, starting with nominating and democratically voting for our class representatives for School Council. The children were creative when writing their speeches and showed excellent teamwork when preparing.
It has been great to see everyone engaging in the process!
Last Friday, the whole school took part in the Schools of Sanctuary: Day of Welcome. During the day, they learnt about the lives of refugees and how we can make our community in Queen’s Hill welcoming. This years theme was ‘Community is our Superpower’.
Children in Year 1 learnt about different playground games that children play from around the world. They played ‘Chinlone’ and ‘Oon’ from Myanmar and ‘Cossak’ from Ukraine. They shared these games with their buddies in Year 4 too.
Children in Year 3 & 4 took part in a live lesson with schools across the country to hear stories from Dina Nayeri about her own personal experiences of being a refugee as a child and fleeing to the United States of America. As part of the lesson, children had the opportunity to try some Taekwondo moves, as taking up this sport was something that helped Dina feel part of her new community when she moved to America.
In Year 5, children designed and wrote postcards to refugee children, welcoming them to Queen’s Hill. They explained how they would be welcomed into the community. Collaboratively, Year 5, along with their buddies in Year 2, designed houses for Moomins after reading about the displacement of the Moomins in ‘The Moomins and the Great Flood’ by Tove Jansson.
The weather is hotting up (hopefully!) and we have been learning about sun safety. As part of our science learning, we found out about how sunscreens are made and how they are tested. We made predictions about the SPF in sunscreens and used UV beads to test out our predictions with a few surprising results! It was clear that no protection at all is very dangerous and that factor 15 offers less protection. Factor 30 and 50 are definitely the best. We also learnt that the amount of sunscreen applied affects the effectiveness. One thing that did surprise us is that even on a cloudy day, UV rays could be damaging. Remember to always wear your sunscreen and take other precautions like covering up, staying out of the sun at the hottest times of the day, drinking plenty of water and wearing a sunhat.
To continue our topic of “People who help us” we had a dentist come in this week to talk with Reception about the importance of looking after our teeth. We learnt about why we brush our teeth, how many times to brush our teeth a day, how long to brush our teeth each time and the techniques to use. Nikki even brought Barry the dinosaur to help and we got to dress up as a dentist!
Year 4 were delighted to welcome the NHS Cambridgeshire Community Service Trust today to run a 1 hour big worries and anxiety workshop with each of our classes. It was pleasing to see the children coming away with so many new strategies to help them manage their emotions and feelings.
Today, classes visited polling stations 🗳️ to elect their new school council members. we have been learning all about democracy and fairness.
Well done to our new school council members for 24/25! 🎉
Year 6 participated in some great workshops in support of their upcoming move to high school. Our visitors were very impressed by their contributions and maturity.
