Let's Dance!

Year 3 had a wonderful day yesterday! First they all arrived dressed as evacuees ready for inspection, then onto learning all about rationing in war time. Next the children made sandwiches (using ration quantities) ready for their tea party.

In the afternoon parents and friends joined us to share wartime recipes and have a dance with the children - waltzing and jitterbugging.

Thank you to all that came and joined us in a fantastic day!

An ICT Club Puzzle...

ICT Club have been doing many things over the past few weeks:

• Photo Stories with narration
• Sumo Paint patterns
• Emailing securely
• Learning about sharing security settings on Google Apps Presentations
• Using Comic Life for Scrapbook Covers
• Using Pivot Stick Animator

Today, most people also had a go at creating online jigsaws - have a go yourself!

This Week's Quiz...

There's not been a quiz for a couple of weeks, so this one is particularly hard!

The answer isn't on the blog, but somewhere inside the school building!!

How many silver cars has Ursus Wehrli tidied up?

You will have to be really eagle-eyed  to spot the answer to this...

Don't leave your answer as a comment - fill in this form instead.

Your change changes lives...

Not a lot to read in this blog, because the House Captains have explained what we did - just have a listen...

Buenas tardes! Como estas?

It has been a few weeks since we last posted so I thought I'd fill you in on what's been happening here in Mexico.

You heard about my journey to school on the buses in our last blog - well, this has all changed. I am now lucky enough to be picked up and brought home again by private taxi! Two other families from my school, who live quite near to me, were already doing this and so we managed to join in. We have the same driver everyday - his name is Miguel, and we having to learn Spanish very quickly to speak to him! It doesn't make my day any shorter because I am collected first and dropped off last but it is good to be travelling with other children.

The students at school are very friendly and, most of the time, I enjoy it. However, I get a LOT of homework - about 3 hours every night, sometimes more!

The school, although international, runs on an American curriculum and so we have to sing the American anthem every Thursday and pledge allegiance to the flag!! Do you even know the words to the British National anthem?

In October, we had a school campout. Well, it's called a campout, but it was actually overnight at a water park. This was in an area called Oaxtepec - another opportunity for you to go onto Google maps! It was good fun and, because there are only 28 pupils in my school, we all went, including our families. We played silly games, enjoyed the swimming pool and diving boards, ate good food and generally enjoyed two days away!



My school didn't get a half term holiday in October, but I will get a week off for Thanksgiving. I don't have to go into school for the week, but I will have two days' of home assignments. Thanksgiving is actually on November 25th and, because two Americans live in our house too, we will be having a Thanksgiving dinner! What can you find out about Thanksgiving? Rachel, one of the Americans that lives here, is a great cook and we have had some fun baking already so I'm looking forward to helping with the cooking.

The charity we have come out here to work with has had two mini brigadas on Saturdays. This has been great for me because I've been able to join in! This involves taking medical aid to poor areas on the outskirts of the city. We take large tents with us to set up on the road, to give us some shade, and are based at a church that has applied for a team to come. The people can come and register for medical, optical or hair care. We also have a children's area, so that they don't get bored while they are waiting, and a jewellery area. If we have a dentist with us then there is also a dental area. One of the churches we visited are involved with a charity called Compassion and, although their building is very basic and only about 50 people attend the church, they feed up to 300 children three times a week!! It is a very poor area and there is a lot of crime and so the children are very grateful for a decent meal.

It is difficult to remember that it is November because the weather here at the moment is hot and sunny. We are still just in t-shirts and only occasionally put a long sleeved top on in the evening.

Art Attack!

Art Club have had a very busy and creative few weeks.

We have made recycled robots, used radial drawing techniques to create some pastel firework pictures, made pasta and lentil pictures and...

...this week we upscaled our work and made 'Art Attack' style pictures on the floor!

We used some yellow/white discs (which had kindly been donated by a parent) and items of clothing to create some school characters. We then joined some of these together to show friendship as part of our Anti-bullying Week.

Can you spot the message in one of our photos?

Part of something special...

We were very privileged to be invited to unveil the new Memorial Walls next to the Cenotaph in Southampton city centre this morning.

Our House Captains represented the school after we took part in the fund-raising by the Youth Parliament.

The new glass panels replace the roll of honour on the existing Portland stone Cenotaph in Watts Park which has been eroded.



House Captains, along with representatives from several other schools in the city, stayed for the Remembrance Service at 11am and took part in the two minutes' silence.

Children back in school also observed the two minutes' silence, and talked about the significance of the poppy.

You can catch a glimpse of our House Captains on BBC South Today...



...and they are also on the main photo on the Southampton City Council website Memorial Walls page.

Year 3 Remember

Today was a very special day for Year 3. Traditionally, every Year 3 child at Oakwood visits Hollybrook Cemetery on Remembrance Day, and today was even more special as the date was 11/11/11.

After walking really sensibly from school to the Cemetery, we arrived at the World War One graves and Cenotaph. There we met Robert, our local vicar, who is also a member of Lordshill Historical Society. A few members of his group had gathered to commemorate Remembrance Day along with a member of the Royal British Legion.

The children listened carefully to some information about Remembrance Day, before respecting two minutes' silence. We then laid a wreath that the children had made, which carried a thoughtful message from every child on a poppy. The Royal British Legion provided small wooden crosses, adorned with poppies, which the children then laid at each grave.

Soon after, we moved to visit the Second World War graves, which also included some German soldiers. It was very interesting to hear how the people of Germany lay white chrysanthemums on war graves, rather than poppies.

Year 3 had a lovely morning, learning lots and showing respect at all times. We are very proud of them!

Hook Day: A Long Way From Home

On the first day back this half-term, year 3 immersed themselves in the experiences of the evacuees during WW2.

We began by reading replica war-time newspapers. Then we dived into our class book "The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips" and prepared questions for the "special guest" arriving in the afternoon. We also shared what we already knew about evacuees, and what we'd like to find out.

Before lunch Mrs. Whitmarsh taught the class about war-time dancehalls, before the class went 'strictly' and Waltzed with finesse. In the afternoon our special guest John, who was 10 when war was declared, answered all our questions. He explained about rationing, black-out, meeting evacuees from Southampton and the sorts of games he played as a boy. Finally, we became museum curators and carefully examined an evacuees case - crammed with interesting objects from that time.

Enjoy the photos!

Competition time!

Judy Short, one of our governors, loves collecting words and has her own magpie book. Her latest word is dragée. She will give a prize to the first person who tells her the meaning of the word and uses it correctly in a sentence. There will be another prize for the first person who can guess correctly where she read the word. Submit your answers here. Good Luck!

Year 5 Home Learning Project Exhibition

Year 5 showed off their super homework skills during their recent Home Learning Project exhibition.

Please see the photo gallery below to see how well they did!

Tremendous Titanic Day!

To end our recent topic, Year 5 had a fantastic day as passengers on the Titanic. During this half term we have been researching survivors of the Titanic have written some super diaries in role as these passengers. On Friday we arrived dressed-up as these real passengers and recreated the departing day of the famous ship.


We began by having passport photos taken. Then we made our passports and tickets - making sure to remember which class of passenger we were.

Later on, tickets and passports were checked and we were finally able to embark on the journey of a lifetime! Once we were inside the ship of dreams, the elegant first class passengers performed a graceful waltz. After that, the third class passengers treated guests to an Irish jig (we were pleased that all third class passengers passed their health checks).


Finally, all passengers enjoyed delicious scones prepared earlier and all were confident that nothing would go wrong on Titanic's maiden voyage...