Chinese New Year in Year 2

We have had fun learning about the festival of Chinese New Year. Having our own obstacle races, an extra snack of noodles which we ate using chop sticks and we made our own tangram pictures.

Chinese New Year in Year R

We have been learning about how people celebrate Chinese New Year. We have read a story called, "Ling-Ling's Adventure to China" and have learned some facts about China. We have been trying on traditional Chinese clothing, learning how to use chopsticks, looking at globes and maps to see how far China is from where we live, painting things that 'Ling-Ling' saw while in China and even doing dragon dancing! For our homework this week the children have been challenged to find out what year they were born in. Happy Chinese New Year from Year R!

January Club of the Month - Sama Karate

Our January Club of the month seems like it happened so long ago now, but it has only been a week.

On Monday we were visited for the day by Sensei Rachael from Sama Karate who showed each of our classes some basic moves and gave a little insight into some of the things they get up to in Karate club, and some of the really cool equipment you can earn (as well as all the belts).

Rachael runs Karate club here at Oakwood after school on a Tuesday in the KS2 hall - so if your child enjoyed it and would like to do more then come in and speak to her, or contact the school office for more details.

Here are Y3 taking part in their sessions.

Willow class assembly.

Willow class brought the house down with our fantastic class assembly. We have been learning all about fruit in our topic, A Fruity Twist. We showed off our fantastic work and acted out the story of Handa's surprise. We finished off the show with a fruity song accompanied by the Willow class band!

Y4 Information Text Story Telling

Y4 started their next English unit on Information texts by learning one. Through story telling they put actions and symbols to the text to help remember it.

They learnt the whole piece in two lessons.

Do you think you could recite the text from their pictures?

Year 2 Freeze Frames!

Our topic for the last 3 weeks has been 'Who is Behind the Tree' which focuses on learning about all sorts of traditional tales.

We have written character profiles, our own twists on the traditional tales, filmed our own tale of Little Red Riding Hood and danced as the different characters.

When we filmed our tale we also took some freeze frame shots! Can you spot what is going on in each part of the story?

A place to investigate and relax!

In one of our quads, an old pond has leaked quietly behind locked doors for many years, getting clogged by leaves and fruit from an overgrown fig tree...

Lots of people have worked hard to look after the area and keep it tidy, but it's never really been used as much as we would like. 

Now, thanks to the hard work of Mrs Sweetingham, workers from the city council, some money from Sainsbury's and good advice from Ian at the Hawthorn's Centre on the common, it's getting a new lease of life!

A smaller, non-leaky pond has been installed and we're also going to create some sunken bog gardens. We'll be piling up old logs to make a mini-beast habitat, planting colourful, pollen-heavy flowers to attract insects and also making it a great place to visit for garden birds, with nest boxes and feeders.

It will take some years for the garden to mature, but we'll use it for science and geography study, as well as for relaxing. We hope a small team of pupils will work together on its upkeep. 

Bigger staff, bigger staffroom!

Oakwood Primary School now has 60 staff and neither of the former staffrooms is big enough for that many people!

Over the last few days, the KS2 staffroom has been turned into a building site as we've had walls knocked down, doors blocked up, carpets torn away, paintwork freshened, cupboards created and lots of builder's tea drunk...

It's fun trying to watch children and staff go into the old Friendship Room through a door which isn't there any more! 

We'll keep you up to date with progress! 

The Adventures of the Gingerbread Man!!

We have been learning about the adventures of the Gingerbread Man.

We used the Gingerbread Man's buttons to help us with taking-away in Maths, we practised using the main letter sounds to label a Gingerbread Man.

We designed our own Gingerbread Man using art and craft resources and we even baked a Gingerbread Man to eat at home. They were delicious!!!

We read the story and then used the puppets to retell the story using the traditional story language.

Digital Art!

Our KS2 Studio Committee had great fun today creating digital art which we're going to use to display in the Art Studio!

We used a Fractal Generator program which uses complex mathematical equations to make designs and create colour.

We hope you like the results!

Y5 Prayer Day

Do you recognise this famous prayer?

Our Dad from above,
you're epic!
Stop the wars and bring world peace.
Do what you want on Earth,
to make it like Heaven.
Sort out our daily brunch today.
Forgive us for our naughtiness,
as we forgive other people for their mistakes.
Lead us not into mischief,
and keep us out of trouble.
You're awesome!

Peace out.

(Words by Flo, Naomi and Gabe)

As well as modernising the Lord's Prayer. Year 5 have been learning about why Christians pray, and different types of prayer through crazy games and challenges with Chris and his wacky team from Southampton City Mission!

Team Ride or Team Stride?

Thank you very much to all the families which made our January Walk to School Event a great success!

It was delightful to see the playground crammed with scooters, and hear the children talk about the things they saw on their way to school. Hopefully this will inspire children to walk or ride to school every 'Walk to School' event, every week or every day - and develop life-long healthy habits in the process.

Team Stride wore something GREEN and Team Ride wore something ORANGE. See if you can work out who was on which team!



A few facts:

• Walking to school can keep you healthy and happy.
• Children should do 60 minutes physical activity, five times a week.
• Walking helps reduce traffic on the roads and around school, making the community safer and more attractive.
• The average car journey to school creates enough carbon dioxide to fill 30 balloons!
• The average annual spend on petrol for the school run is £200. Walking can save a lot of money.

Fruit Kebabs

In year one we have been learning about different types of fruit. We had a tasting session to decide which fruits we liked the best. Then we designed and made some yummy fruit kebabs.

Year 1 Freeze Frames

In Cedar class this morning we have been learning to show emotions using the freeze frame technique. We explored feeling excited, worried, scared and cross. Can you guess what our feelings are from these photos?



We even had a guest Governor take part in one of the freeze frames! The children (and Governor) enjoyed their drama lesson based on The Gingerbread Man.

Y3/4 Badminton Skills Festival

On Monday evening twelve Y4 sporting volunteers made the short journey to Cantell Secondary School for a Badminton skills festival run by Sport Solent and as part of the Sainsburys School Games.

Oakwood had three teams, each consisting of four players, competing in the festival. Each team of four practised and then scored points in seven different badminton events. Here's how they got on...

	Activity 1 – Drop Shot	Activity 2 – Overhead Clear	Activity 3 – Shuttle Runs	Activity 4 – Shuttle Keep Ups	Activity 5 – Long Serve	Activity 6 – Short Serve	Activity 7 – Rally!
Team	5 points per shuttle	5 points per shuttle	5 points per shuttle	Highest totals per player	10 points per shuttle in hoop	10 points per cone hit	Accumulative Rally Score	Total	Ranking out of 13
Oakwood A	75	25	95	73	20	40	20	358	2
Oakwood B	75	40	80	75	30	30	5	345	3
Oakwood C	55	40	85	62	15	15	10	282	6

Year 3 instruct their planes to fly!

Today, year 3 discussed what made a set of good and bad instructions.

They were given the task to make a paper airplane by only being given some simple instructions (not even knowing what they were making.)

The children then tested their finished products! Have as look to see how it went.

Award winners

It's only week one of Oakwood Primary school but both pupils and staff have been busy.
Oakwood has just been awarded the Silver Quality Mark for PE by the Youth Sport Trust. This shows our commitment to delivering excellent PE and physical activity opportunities for all our children.

But we won't stop there! We are building on this by having a greater number of children take part in a wider range of competitive sports with the aim of earning a Sainsburys School Games medal too.

Keep a look out for our badminton team who are in action in the next few weeks.

Oh no they didn't!

Oh yes they did!

Oakwood Primary pupils had a super time today, watching the M&M Productions version of 'Dick Whittington'.



Can you spot his mischievous cat?

Year 4 get in a Mud-dle

The hardy souls of year 4 braved the January elements and went for a walk in Lordswood woods to investigate different animal habitats. The wannabe Bear Grylls also built their own shelters. Fortunately, Mr Ackland did not live up to the threat of pouring water over the top (with children inside) to see which ones were water tight.  

Oakwood Primary School - Official Opening!

Today was our Official Opening Day!

Even though we became Oakwood Primary School at midnight on 1 January, and our first day with children was 7 January, it's been the first sunny day for our special event!

Everyone, children and adults, released an Oakwood Primary School balloon to celebrate the new school. (Every balloon has a tag, so we'll wait to see which one travels the furthest! Look at a map of finds!)



We also got our youngest and oldest pupils and staff members to cut a commemorative ribbon on our new sign.



A big thank you to everyone who helped decorate and blow up balloons, and to Sainsbury's Lordshill, who donated some new books for our library!

Some of the pictures will be in the Daily Echo on Friday 10 January.

Give us a Sign!

Did you pass the school today?

Did you notice anything new...?