Year 5 Internet Safety Day

As part of our important work on keeping safe on the internet, year 5 enjoyed a drama session which depicted problems that might arise from using the web. They needed to create and act out a story based upon cards and they had to show how they should keep safe.

Year 5's Fantastic Gymnastic Display

Year 5 were given the opportunity to work with Greg a Southampton Gym Coach. They learned how to travel and balance and then performed an amazing gymnastic display.

3BK Enjoy Poetry in The Library!

As part of our Poetry English unit, 3BK spent a lesson in the Library reading poems in pairs then sharing their favorite poems in groups. We discussed what we enjoyed about the poems and what was our favorite poems and why.

We then came back to the class room and made a fantastic display about the poems we shared with each other.

Year 6 Mad Science Day

Some strange people arrived in the Year 6 classrooms yesterday. Donning coloured wigs, large glasses and white coats they came with a mission in mind - to explore the states of matter. Take a look at the evidence uncovered.

Sam's Half Term Fun!

Well, I'm certainly making the most of my holiday time!

This half term, I was lucky enough to join Bronte and Amelia and their family on a lovely skiing trip in not just one, but three countries in Europe!

Here you will see me enjoying time on the boat from Dover to Dunkirk followed by soaking up the view from St. Michael's Bridge in Ghent, which is in Belgium. I also fitted in time to have a lovely waffle!



Next, I made friends with a street seller who sells 'cuberdon' sweets (or 'little noses'), I am on a boat trip along the Leie river and then I am visiting friends who work as volunteers at a printing factory in Selters, Germany. You will see the biggest printer in Europe. It prints 110,000 magazines an hour!



In the next photos, I spend more time with friends in the printing factory and I even took the time to have my teeth checked to maintain good dental hygiene! The house that I am sat in is in a different country - this time, I'm in the Czech Republic!



Then things got really adventurous - I tried my hand at skiing! I also got to grips with the local currency - 1000 Czech koruna is worth £30. I finished off my week with a visit to Karlovy Vary which is famous for its thermal waters which shoot out from underground! Some people drink the waters out of special cups for health benefits!



Thank you for letting me share your holiday with you Bronte and Amelia!

Smile!

Year 3 have made their very own photo frames from balsar wood and dowel. The children measured their wood and cut it to the correct lengths and then carefully used hacksaws and craft knifes to cut their wood. The children had to make accurate measurements with their rulers. Prior to the making the children spent time designing their frames Picasso style as this was an artist we focussed on as part of our last unit of art.

Dental Week

For ‘Dental Week’ in Key Stage 1 we have been very busy learning how to keep teeth healthy and how our choices in food effect our teeth. We have all been challenged to help our adults plan and pack our lunches this week, swapping sugary treats for healthy ones and including at least one dairy product. Children who were having hot school dinners were challenged to also swap a sugary pudding for something healthier, such as a smoothies, a piece of fruit or a yogurt. Pupil Council have been checking lunches and hot dinners and awarding children who have been making healthy choices with stickers. Year R have been learning about why we need teeth and how to look after them. A dental nurse named Lisa came to visit Year R and showed us some interesting tools and equipment we will see when we visit the dentist. Year R children have also just begun to brush their teeth at school and will continue throughout the year! Year 1 have been creating information posters to teach people how to make healthy food choices. They have been looking at the different parts of the mouth and what they do. Year 1 have been brushing their teeth at school too this year. Well done Year 1! Year 2 have been reading a fictional newspaper article about a school called ‘Mount Miserable’ whose Head Teacher, Mr. Plaque, encourages the pupils to have as many fizzy drinks and sugary snacks as possible. Our Year 2 children have written Mr. Plaque a letter explaining why these choices are harmful to teeth and made some suggestions to change and become a healthy school, like Oakwood! A very big 'thank-you' to Sainsbury's Lordshill for donating toothpaste and helping us keep our teeth clean and healthy!

Oakstead Goes to Beaulieu

Having spent the week learning all about the animals and habitats of Britain, today was Year 4 and 5's chance to experience it for real! We had to tough it out in less than hospitable weather, but with our weather proofs on, we didn't mind a bit. We really got to understand the point of view of insects, deer and bats in the wild - using fancy dress and games. We also learnt to recognise the call of various native birds, and we explored under the rocks and logs to find and categorise all the different types of invertebrates we could find. When the weather took a turn for the worse, we headed home a little early to celebrate our week. Have a great half-term break!

FLOOD!

After many days of rain, the year 2 doors can no longer hold off the water!

It was all hands on deck on the last day of this half term to keep us dry!

Which car will travel the furthest?

In Year 1 we have been busy learning about Toys in our topic. As part of all the fun and exciting activities we planned an experiment in Science to see which car would travel the furthest - the heaviest or lightest? After lots of talking about a 'fair test', ensuring the ramp was in the same position and the same person pushed the cars we found out that....



The lightest car went the furthest - 94cm. We also discovered that if an object is smaller it does not mean it is the lightest! Y1 were very keen to ensure that each car started in the same place. Next time they want to know if the height of the ramp changes how far the car travels.

Oak-stead Art

The Oak-stead collective have been putting the cortical and sub cortical parts (creative bits) of their brains to good use and have come up with some inventive and interesting art installations.  Restricted to foraging for materials in the school grounds, I think they did a very good job.

Oak-stead Dental Hygiene

As part of Dental Hygiene Week, year 4 and 5 have been researching effective mouth maintenance and have put together a variety of freeze frames to show case what they have learnt. Can you tell what they are trying to show?

Oakstead

It has been a week of practical learning for Year 4 and 5! While some of us are away braving the elements at Minstead, the rest have also been mirroring their activities with encounters with real birds of prey, retiles and arachnids! A huge recycling challenge produced some incredibly life-like paper-mache animals. Throughout, the teams have learnt a huge amount about the human impact on the earth in a variety of fun games and activities. We might never look at our planet the same way again...

Bog Adventures!

The Minstead fun continues!

We started the day with a wholesome breakfast of cereals and beans on toast. We then tried to impress our room inspector with the tidiness of our dormitories (we are still on 6 and a half out of ten and need to get full marks for our gold teamwork bead on Friday!).

We had a special treat this morning as we were able to prepare our sandwiches for lunchtime. Some of us had ham, some cheese and a few even chose Marmite! All topped up with a healthy portion of salad...!

Our watery, eggy and mucky adventures continued, and this afternoon, after watching the wet, windy weather carefully, we ventured out for our bogland adventure.

We learned about this special, fragile habitat, and then walked on to experience the strange sensation of sphagnum moss! We (mostly) stayed dry, with only one or two wet wellies to show for it!

Dinner was local sausages, with roast potatoes and carrots and cabbage. We are really trying to eat our greens!

We finished the night with stories in the roundhouse, using our homemade lanterns for subtle lighting.

Acid Attack!

As part of Dental Health week, Year 6 have been looking at the science of cavities and the methods of prevention. They carried out 3 scientific experiments.

Acid Attack:
We simulated an acid attack on bones which are rich in calcium (just like our teeth). After soaking chicken bones in white vinegar overnight, we found that they were much softer the next day!

The Power Of Fluoride:  
We used two eggs for this experiment - one we soaked for a few minutes in fluoride rinse. We then put both eggs in containers of vinegar. The egg that hadn't been treated with fluoride began to bubble as the vinegar (acid) started to attack the minerals in the egg shell.

Floss is the boss: 
A great fun (messy) job. After putting on a rubber glove, we spread the fingers with jam. When thoroughly covered, we used toothpaste and a toothbrush to try and clean the jam away. The toothbrush could not remove the jam trapped between the fingers. This was a job for the floss.

Take a look at some of our pictures:-

The life of a PPA teacher

Wow! What a fantastic opportunity I have been given this year. Much as I miss having my own class and my fabulous team mate, Mrs. Mahoney, I am loving teaching across Oakwood Primary School. I am able to experience exciting topics in every year group and work with the entire fabulous team. I spent the first half of the Autumn term covering PPA in KS1 (Year R & Year 2) which was so much fun(a brand new experience for me having trained for ages 7-11) and I hope to help out again when they need me. Some of the pictures below show 4TA practising French phrases, waiting on each other in a 'French Restaurant'. We have been focusing enjoying the French language: singing songs, reading stories, learning simple phrases asking for food, and practising french numbers. 3BK even asked for their dinner requests using French today. 'Je voudrais un sandwich avec du jambon s'il vous plait?' The rest of the photos show sweet and sour chicken stir fry and home made tortillas with guacomole created in cookery club. This is my 14th year at Oakwood and every year is a new experience, creating new memories. I'm very proud to be a member of staff here. I can't wait for the next half term.

A Busy Time in Year 6!

Year 6 have been as busy as bees this half term. As well as working extremely hard in English and maths
 (just check out the AMAZING  river writing outside the Year 6 classrooms!) they have packed in lots of other exciting activities across the curriculum-from cooking fortune cookies to using different digital painting programs to produce some fabulous digital art. In P.E they have also been lucky enough to have had a gym coach from the Southampton Gymnastics Club. Here are a few pictures:-

More from Minstead

Hello again from Minstead! After a torrential start to the day, (which just added to the mud!), we ended with some sunshine once more.

After a good night, (and a very hearty breakfast!) we split into our groups to earn our first challenge bead. One group were 'Egg Layers', meeting the resident free range chickens (but not Henrietta who has her own notion of 'free range'!). Another group learned about the importance of recycling, by becoming 'Muck Movers', whilst the third embarked on an 'Aquatic Adventure', pond dipping for watery creatures.

Following lunch, we went for another woodland wander. We met the 'Ditch of Doom' yesterday, and today encountered an even deeper, even wetter, even muddier ditch today - which we nicknamed the Ditch of Death* (*death of dry boots and socks, that is!).

We created a 38 metre snake, played some games and returned to the centre tired but happy.

We tucked into a delicious home made cottage pie and then spent the evening molding clay, designing bandanas and creating beautiful lanterns ready for our campfire later in the week.

Minstead's Muddy Monday Madness!

Finally, a dry and sunny day! That certainly didn't stop us enjoying the VAST amounts of mud to be found around Minstead Study Centre.

After settling in to our dormitories, we ventured out into the 'wild wood'. We walked, we squelched, we jumped and... we got stuck! But most of all, we had great fun.

After jumping streams, building dens and meeting cows, we made it back in time for a tasty tea of homemade pizza, chips and salad, followed by apple and blackberry crumble with custard.

The fun didn't stop there though! We have all transformed into mysterious creatures today, so we learned all about our new name tonight. Then, we wrapped up warmly again for our visit to the roundhouse, where we warmed out toes by the fire and listened to old stories. The clear night skies even allowed us a view of Orion's Belt and even Jupiter!

Tired but happy, we have now settled into our beds to dream of today's adventures and anticipate what tomorrow might bring!

Measuring Fun in Year 3!!!

To finish our measuring unit, in 3BK we had fun measuring parts of our body and comparing the lengths to other body parts.

While measuring we found out the best ways to measure accurately and what measuring equipment is best for measuring different body parts.




Our conclusions include:

Height = Length of arm Span
Length of hand = Length of face
Length of hand = 3 Length of thumbs
Length of foot = Length of lower arm

What a Croc of a Collage!

Year 3 had a very creative afternoon today making a life sized crocodile. This was inspired by a short story we read called 'Monsters' by Quentin Blake. Also our class novel 'Krindlekrax'. The children used many mediums from felt and crepe paper to paint and wax crayons thinking about how texture can be created. Have a look at our photos below!

RNLI Visit

Year 5 and 6 classes were very fortunate to have the opportunity to have the RNLI visit today. Not only did the volunteers present the awards during celebration assembly, they also popped into the classes to speak to them about keeping SAFE when they are near water. So remember everyone...

S = Spot the dangers
A = Always go with a friend or adult
F = Find and follow the safety signs and flags
E = Emergency, put up your hand and shout, phone 999 or 112

Year 3 make finger roll Crocodiles

Last week Year 3 had lots of fun last week making their very own Krindlekrax Crocodiles! Krindlekrax is our current class novel, of which our topic work for this half term is based upon. The recipe was found amongst a Roald Dahl book, so we thought we would give it a go. Look how they turned out!