French Food Fun!

While some of our classmates have been having fun at Fairthorne Manor, Oakthorne children have been having a lot of (messy!) fun at school!

We had a special French themed day today, and some of us even dressed up for the occasion!



We started with some music, followed by a special French breakfast of hot chocolate and croissants.



Then, we read a story called "Je m'habille et... je te croque!". See if you can work out from our painted picture what the story is about...



We finished our day with a busy time in the kitchen, making crêpes We learned how to weigh ingredients, how to crack an egg, how to sieve flour and best of all for practising at home....how to wash up!!



We then ate our pancakes with the toppings of our choice! Quelle journée!

Year 4 Home Learning Project Exhibition - The Iron Man

Year 4 had an amazing afternoon displaying their home learning projects to parents and family yesterday. The standard of work was overall outstanding with alot of effort put in!

A huge thank you to all parents and family who attended yesterday. Again another excellent exhibition year 4, keep it up!

Y3 Brutal Beasts and Beastly Battles Exhibition

This afternoon, visitors were invited to an exhibition of the Year 3 Home Learning Projects. The children worked very hard to produce high quality projects based on a mythical creature of their choice. We had some amazing models of the creatures, some storyboards, factfiles and stories.

Year 6 Victorians support Barnados!

On the last day of half term year 6 celebrated and shared all the work we had produced throughout our Victorian topic!



Whilst reading our class novel 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty, we learnt about 'ragged schools' and how a very kind man, called Dr. Barnados, donated money to enable children to attend school. We decided that our end of topic exhibition would also provide a fantastic opportunity to raise money for Barnados.

Dedicated Victorian maids, chimney sweeps, street sweepers, shoe-makers and factory workers all worked together to make Victorian bookmarks, greeting cards, designer mirrors, gift boxes and portraits to sell at the exhibition.

Some cheeky street urchins ran Victorian games to raise an extra shilling, whilst other servants slaved in the kitchen to produce scones and Victorian gingerbread to sell at 'Ye Olde Oakwood' tea rooms. The cakes and biscuits were sold out within the hour and anybody who visited the tea room will tell you how popular it was!

To kickstart this fantastic afternoon, year 6 demonstrated their storytelling talents by performing 'The Chimney Sweep' by Wes Magee. Parents and friends were then able to see examples of our cross-curricular English and History work, such as; persuasive writing, balanced arguments, playscripts and our 'innovated' chimney sweep poems. Visitors could also witness our travels back in time at Milestones.

Our cross-curricular art links displayed the difference between rich and poor living standards and showed what Victorian families actually looked like. We also made some super Victorian cameoes!

Some pupils enjoyed telling parents how we need to look after our money carefully! This is a result of our financial capability lessons, in which we looked at ways we spend money, what is necessary and unnecessary spending, as well as how we might need to control our money in the future!

We had a very successful afternoon and raised £175 for Barnardos. We are looking forward to presenting them with this cheque soon in assembly! A huge thank you to everyone who helped support us!

There we are Thursday!

Yet another fun packed day here at Minstead. Its been a day of amazing discoveries, flickering flames, more fabulous Oakwood story telling and a case of 'scary chicken love'!

The group pond dipping this morning unearthed some incredibly rare freshwater creatures which included a Diving Beetle larva, Water Scorpion and a Greater Water Boatman. We learnt this from Nicky, a visitor to the centre. She informed us that we were incredibly lucky to have discovered these creatures, as they would only live in places where the water and air quality were extremely clean. She told us they were indicators of just how unpolluted the local area at Minstead was.

After dinner we all got together to re-tell their very own special Minstead story called 'Once Upon a Minstead'. We rehearsed many times ready for our performance tomorrow. Don't worry the Minstead group will also perform their story in assembly after half term. Excellent work!

We ended the day with a deep, dark walk to the blazing bonfire. We thoroughly enjoyed singing songs from school around the campfire and listening to creepy stories. Let's hope visitors to your door in the night have feet!!!

Just before we go - ask Miss Hutchinson if chickens like 'lime green wellies'?

Look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

Hooray for Oakwood High 5 Netball Team!

The netball team have had a successful season playing in the Southampton league.
12 teams from schools across Southampton took part.

We won all of our games (except one!) and did very well to come second in the league overall.

We have now been chosen to represent Southampton, along with Highfield, to play in the mid-round of the Hampshire League on 27 April.

Good luck to Oakwood's team!

OAKSTEAD

Year 4 and 5 have had a fabulous fun-filled day!

We began the day with some tricky teambuilding events, from the Blindfold Trust and Square, to Straw Towers and the Spider's Web!

In the afternoon, we had some interesting visitors arrive from Liberty's Reptile and Raptor Centre! We were introduced to a hawk, vulture and Tawny Owl. All of which enjoyed flying around the school hall. They often flew very close to our heads!

We then met some of the reptiles from the centre and learnt a lot about them:

• Custard, the albino Burmese Python;
• Con Carne, the Chile Rose Tarantula;
• Sydney, the Australian Bearded Dragon Lizard;
• Garibaldi, the Leopard Gecko;
• corn snakes
• baby scorpions

Archie, the Tawny Owl:

Garibaldi, the Leopard Gecko:

Wonderous Wednesday!!

What a fantastic day Year 4 and 5 have had on our third fun filled day at Minstead!

After a fabulously hearty breakfast, the round robin activities of pond dipping, muck raking and looking after the chickens began in earnest. There were some amazing pond creatures discovered in the local stream; lots of home grown leeks pulled out and eaten up on the fields and 'eggs-citing' experiments carried out in the classroom. If you don't know just how strong an ordinary chicken's egg is just ask one of our newly qualified 'eggs-perts'-you'll be amazed!!

The latter part of the day was just as marvellous!! After a robust march into the forest, where we listened to Beethoven's 5th Symphony through the medium of the trees (really!), we went for a knee trembling walk across the boglands!! Luckily, we all managed to survive-some only just!!



The evening was spent creating a magnificent shadow puppet performance. The children were shown how to create different movement and shadow effects by Sue, a local expert. The results were SPECTACULAR-as you can see from some of the photos. We have been so inspired we can not wait to share our new skill with everyone back home.

Roll on 'Terrific Thursday'!

Half Term Activities

The YMCA is visiting the area again with holiday activities, this time on a big Red Bus!

They will be at Oakwood on the Friday of half term, but you can book for any of the sessions!

(Click on the bus for a big version which you can read properly!)

Going back in time!

Year 6 took a step back in time on Friday when we visited Milestones to experience a day in the life of the Victorians.



Mr Tasker was busy setting up a school for poor children, the 'fruit and veg' man tried to persuade us to buy his new variety of potatoes - the King Edward, whilst Miss Fidget taught us reading, writing and 'rithmetic! It was a jam packed day and fun was had by all.

Ben really enjoyed using the slate and chalk in the schoolroom, "I felt like I had gone back in time," he said.

"Going into house number 11 showed us what it was like to live in Victorian times - I wouldn't use the outside toilet though!" said Ethan.

Caitlin enjoyed dressing up in Victorian clothes, "I would've liked to be a maid in Victorian times," she explained.


How much do you know about the Victorians? Can YOU answer these questions?

What colour is Vermillion?
What might be showing at the Odeon in the Victorian times?
What does a Milliner sell?
What is a mangle used for?
What are Pontefract cakes?

Miss Denton has a prize for anyone (not in year 6!) who can come and tell her the answers!

We think everybody should visit Milestones - it was a fantastic trip!

By Alex and Sam

Yr4/5 Minstead Day 1 and 2

Well! What a past few days we have had! Our first day kicked off with a brisk walk into the New Forest to have lunch, make cocoons and show team skills in den building. Today we also completed many more activites including clay, lantern making and pond dipping.

We're all having a fantastic time and really looking forward to the rest of the week!

Victorian Magpie-ing

In Year 6 we have been learning about Victorians and studying some poetry about that period of history.

We read a short poem called The Chimney Sweep's Story by Wes Magee and we have written our own poem based on it called The Scullery Boy's Story.



by Callum and Fred

Fantastic Pneumatics!

Year 3 have been working hard on their topic of Brutal Beasts and Beastly Battles. This coming week, they are going to be making some moving monsters!

However, before we got busy with the glue and glitter, it was important to start investigating ways to make our monster move.

We looked at a range of toys that use pneumatic pressure to create movement. Then, we investigated how this pressure works by using 2 syringes, some plastic tubing and some coloured water.

We learned that the plastic tubing has to be tight around the end of the syringe, otherwise the water escapes (the same would happen with the air in a pneumatic system). We also learned that the pressure of the water (or air) moving down the tube from one syringe, makes the second syringe move.



We now have lots of ideas about how we can make our monsters move!

The Midnight Fox

5LD have been reading The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars and we have been writing our own poems based on the book.

In our poems we had to show the wild side of a Black Fox, but also how caring it could be towards its cubs.

We hope you like reading them and looking at the pictures.



You can click the icon on the toolbar above to make the slide show full screen - it's easier to read the poems like that!

(We have also learned how to use the embed code to put our powerpoint on the blog...!)

Amie and Conor

4GH and 6SB find shelter

Last week 4GH and 6SB spent the afternoon investigating the charity Shelterbox. Shelterbox are helping the victims of the Haiti earthquake get back on their feet. The children fisrt thought about what would be an appropriate shelter to live in and why. In their groups the children had to order their shelters according to the given question e.g. Which is most waterproof?. Then the groups drew out their own tent (4.5m by 4.5m) and then experienced trying to sleep, eat and play inside their shelter with 10 children per tent.

Miss Beavill and Miss Hutchinson were very proud of both classes, excellent team work!