Skateboarding

We ended our first week back in school after the Easter holidays with a skateboarding workshop.  Some of us were nervous about trying something new but we all had a go and did a great job at helping each other.  

Term 4

World Book Day

We had a great day on Thursday celebrating World Book Day.  We spent some time sharing our favourite books with each other and then illustrated a story written all about all of us in Damson Class.  We really enjoyed imagining what our characters would look like.  

Space and Nature

This week we have been lucky enough to have a Space Engineering morning.  We took on the role of Space engineers and designed, made and tested our own rockets.  

On Friday, it was Nature Day.  We thought about the impact of nature on our surroundings and our wellbeing and then created our own design boards showing how nature on our school site could be enhanced and improved.  We might get to build some of our designs so watch this space for further information!

Term 3

A busy end to the term..

We have had a busy end to the term carrying on with our learning about multiplication and division.  We have also been busy in Art creating and painting our clay dragons.  We have really enjoyed seeing and hearing about everyone's Vikings projects - everyone worked so hard on them!  This week has also seen Safer Internet Day and a special assembly with some Premier League footballers for Children's Mental Health Week.

A busy start to the term...

We have had a busy start to the term in Damson class.  In Science we have started to learn about food chains and in Art we have been experimenting with different drawing and painting techniques. In Maths we have been continuing with multiplication and have been writing on the tables to practise (we were allowed!).    We were lucky enough to have a computing workshop last week where we used iMovie to make our own news reports about the cold weather.  We have some budding newsreaders in the making!  

In RE we have started to learn about pilgrimages.  We have been thinking thought about Hindu pilgrimages and what Hindus might bring home from their pilgrimage to the river Ganges as a souvenir.  

Term 2

Christmas

Over the last week we have enjoyed our Christmas lunch and have been making Christmas cookies.  We have also been learning about Christmas traditions around the world and shared our learning in the end of term church service.  We very much enjoyed our games afternoon and our Christmas party!

Lots of learning

Over the last few weeks we have been very busy in Damson class.  In Science, we have been learning about the different parts of the digestive system and had a go at making models out of play dough.  We even had a go at making our own digestive systems with bread, orange juice and old tights!  In French, we tasted some different foods and practised telling each other whether or not we liked them.  In Maths, we have been writing on the tables (we were allowed!) to show patterns in the timestables.  We have also had a visit from some police officers who talked to us about keeping safe.

Science

This week in science we have been learning about human teeth, what they are called and the job of each of the different types of teeth we have.  We have set up an investigation using eggshells to represent teeth and seeing what happens when they are placed in different liquids.  We thought about our science skills and how we could make it a fair test and also made predictions about what we think will happen.

Term 1

Homework Projects

We have enjoyed sharing our homework projects with the rest of the class this week and our new-found knowledge about Ancient Civilisations.   Thank you to everyone at home for supporting the children with their work, whether it was research, artistic skills or lego building.  It is very much appreciated!

Space Day

Today was Space Day.  We created our own planet art, which we all really enjoyed.  We then learned about craters on the moon and carried out our own investigation about how they are created.  We also listened to The Planets and thought about how the composer had created different moods using the same instruments.

We have also been busy this week learning about Murtis in RE and designed our own.  In maths we continued with addition and in PE we thought about teamwork and how we can be an effective team member.  We also continued learning about Ancient Civilisations and buildings and had a go at making our own with dough.

A visit to the Damson Class Zoo

As ever, we have had a busy week in Damson class.  We have been practising our French and learning vocabulary for different places in town.  Maths has seen us using our Place Value skills and in literacy we have been researching different animals to write our own fact files.  We even went to the Damson class zoo to share our new-found animal knowledge!  In history, we have been learning about maths in ancient civilisations and had a go at making our own rulers without using a ruler!

Welcome back! 

It has been lovely to see how well Damson class has settled back into school over the last couple of weeks.  We have been very busy with all our learning starting the term with our topic day on ancient civilisations.  In Maths we have been looking at place value and in English we have been exploring nature poems.  We have started reading about Harry the Poisonous Centipede in Guided Reading, in PSHCE we used our teamwork skills to make human machines and in PE we started practicing some of the skills we will need for Tag Rugby.   One of the highlights of the term so far was the skipping workshop - we all really enjoyed learning some new skills.

A very busy final week of term 

We have had such a busy last week of term!  We started our week with a workshop with the Creation Theatre, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. On Tuesday it was our long-awaited trip to the Cotswold Wildlife Park.  We had a fantastic day and saw animals from all over the world.  Everyone had their favourites, although penguins and meerkats seemed very popular in Damson class!

On Wednesday we enjoyed our whole school Sports assembly and celebrated all our sporting achievements across the year, including tournaments, the Oxford Marathon, Race for Life and our recent Sports Day.  We then enjoyed our games afternoon sharing our games from home with each other.  Everyone played really well together which was lovely to see.  Finally, on Wednesday we had our farewell assembly for Mrs Crolla and shared our version of Mamma Mia with her which we had been practising all week (the children will be happy to share the chorus with you if you want to hear it!).

On Thursday we had our YES day, which we chose as a reward for all our hard work this term - Mrs Gravett was only allowed to say YES all day!  We had a great day decorating cookies, drawing pandas, a team quiz, watching a film, enjoying a party with games and pass the parcel and ending the day with throwing water all over Mrs Gravett!

Tomorrow is our last day of term where we will have a service at church before saying our final farewell to Mrs Crolla in the afternoon. 

We hope everyone has a relaxing summer holiday and we look forward to seeing everyone in September.

Y2/3 becomes Y3/4

This week in Damson class we really enjoyed our music lesson where we worked on short animal compositions.  We used pitch, tempo and dynamics to give clues about our animals - can you guess which animal this piece was about?

Thursday was transition morning - we had some fun practising our teamwork skills and seeing who could make the tallest spaghetti and marshmallow tower!  We also thought about what we would like Damson class to be like in year 3/4 and what we individually would like to improve.  We also enjoyed looking back over the last year and thinking about everything we have achieved in year 2/3.

A warm week

This week in Science we have been learning about animals and habitats and spent some time looking for woodlice in the sunshine!  We have been learning about position and direction in Maths and have enjoyed using compasses to direct us around the playroom and the classroom.    We have learned about how different instruments can create different moods in music and Geography we have been learning about the Equator.  In PE we have been working in teams and enjoyed our rock, paper, scissors game.  

Term 5

Our learning this week

This week in maths year 3 have been learning about perimeter whilst year 2 have been learning about time.  We were also lucky enough to have year 6 come and help us with some maths reasoning questions.   We have continued with our learning about the Romans and made our own edible Roman roads and also tested our aqueducts to see how they did with transporting water.  We have also listened to some interesting homework presentations and look forward to hearing the rest next week.

Picnic

This week in Damson class we have been writing our own Roman myths as well as learning about what the Romans liked to do in their free time.  In maths we have been practising arithmetic skills and in RE have continued with our learning about authority.  We also managed to squeeze in some hurdles practice in PE after the picnic today.   If  you were able to join us at lunchtime, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Testudo Formation

We have continued with our learning about the Romans and this week focused on how the Roman army became so successful.  We really enjoyed trying out the testudo formation.

In PSHCE we learned about the major organs in our bodies and worked out where they are in our own bodies.

Farewell Mrs B

This week we have been continuing with our learning about measure and have been practising adding millilitres by making mocktails.  We even got to taste them - they were delicious!  In literacy we have started to learn about Roman God and Goddesses and created our own factfiles using our computing skills to research some interesting facts.  In science we have been learning about friction and carried out an investigation to see how friction affects the way objects move.

Of course this was Mrs B's last week in school - thank you Mrs B for all your hard work with us in Damson class.  We are all going to miss you.

Busy first week back

We have had a busy first week back in school.  In maths we have been measuring and using scales to see how heavy classroom items are and if we could correctly estimate their mass.  In literacy we have been working on a Big Write and retelling the story of the Lighthouse based on a short film.  In RE we have started to learn about authority and as we move through the term will be thinking about whether Jesus has authority for everyone.  We have also started to learn about the Romans looking at how the Roman Empire grew.  We also thought about what we would like to know about the Romans and will be trying to find the answers over the next few weeks.

Term 4

Lots of learning!

This week we have enjoyed some exciting learning.  We have written some incredible explanations about how bees make honey, explored money in maths, investigated how plants use water in science and continued to practise our tennis skills in PE.   We have also thought about neurodiversity and how we can support others who may work and think differently from us.

A busy bee week

This week we have been busy planning and writing our explanation texts about how bees make honey.  We have learned some interesting facts about honey and vomit (hopefully Damson class will be able to tell you!).

In science we have continued our learning about plants.  This week we have been thinking about how we can identify and classify the different plants we eat from cauliflower to carrots and potatoes and tomatoes.

World Book Day

As you know, we celebrated World Book Day this week.  We shared our favourite books with each other as well as listened to each other read.   Mrs Skeels even came and read her own book to us which inspired some of us to write our own stories.  

We also enjoyed the book Stickman and thought about how our own sticks could be used as wands, orchestra batons, drills and paintbrushes (to name a few).  We then wrote postcards to our stick families to tell them about our adventures!

New Topic

This week in science we have been learning about what plants need to grow well and have been setting up our own investigations to test our knowledge and understanding.  Some of the plants are in the cupboard and others are in the freezer so it will be interesting to see which ones grow!

Term 3

Stone Age Homework

Thank you to everyone for your support with the homework projects this term.  We have really enjoyed looking at each other's fantastic creations and hearing all about them during the presentations.  

Baking bread

As you may know, on Thursday we were busy baking bread!  We thought about how the ingredients would have been produced and then we created our own bread designs.  We then worked in groups to measure our ingredients and to knead and prepare the dough.  Later in the day, we were able to sample our bread - most of us thought it was delicious!

As we have been thinking about communion in RE this term, we also thought about what bread symbolises and then used our bread to re-enact a communion service to help us understand why communion is important to Christians.

A busy week 

This week we have made clay beakers, in science we have been looking at soil and in maths we have been looking at the properties of shape.  We have continued our learning about the Stone Age and looked at how life changed when bronze was discovered.  We even recreated the smelting process to learn how bronze is made!

Stone Age Workshop 

As you know, on Tuesday we had an exciting visit from Stone Age expert Martin Newman. We’d like to say thank you to those of you who helped your child to make a costume, they all looked fabulous! The children all really enjoyed the day which was filled with lots of exciting activities including learning about Neanderthals, Homo Sapiens and looking at some artefacts.  Just a few photos showing what we got up to!

Stonehenge 

We have been learning about Stonehenge and had a go at building our own model versions out of chocolate biscuits and marshmallows.  Some of us continued with the Stonehenge theme and built more models in the playground at breaktime.

Another busy week 

We've had a busy week in Damson - above are some photos of our charcoal art, us following instructions to make our own mammoths, our drama performances to show how to wash a woolly mammoth and of us continuing with our learning about the different types of rocks and how they are formed.   

Welcome Back 

We have had a busy first week back in school in Damson class.  We have been reading 'How to wash a woolly mammoth' and thinking about how we can write our own set of instructions.  We had a go at washing our own mammoths (and other toys!) to inspire our writing over the next couple of weeks.

In Science we have started to learn about rocks and looked at the similarities and differences of different rock types.  We really enjoyed using the magnifiers to study the rocks in detail. 

We have also been recapping our French learning and enjoyed practising our conversation skills.  We also recapped our counting to 10 in French and then even had a go at doing it in German!

Term 2

Christmas 

We have had a busy few weeks in Damson class!  Below are some photos from our Nativity performances as well as some of us in our Christmas hats before our Christmas lunch.  There are also some of us enjoying our party.

Science

Over the last couple of weeks we have been continuing to think about scientific skills.  We made different spinners and thought about how we could test them in a fair way.  

We also took on the Penny Boat Challenge by making our own boats from foil and predicting how many coins our boats could hold before sinking. We then thought about how we could record our findings and whether we could spot any patterns to help improve our boat designs.

Christmas Tree Festival 

We really enjoyed visiting the Christmas Tree Festival in the church on Friday afternoon.  Some of us even managed to spot our decorations on the tree we had decorated as a school!

Space Day 

We've had a great Space Day in Damson class learning about rocket fuel (warm water and vitamin tablets!) and sharing our opinions about whether we would prefer to take a trip to space in a rocket or a balloon.  

Another Busy Week

We have had another busy week in Damson class.  Not only have we created some lovely poppy artwork for Remembrance, in science we have used our observation skills looking at how candles change when lit, in literacy we have enjoyed performing our football poems to each other and in maths we have been continuing to practise our subtraction skills.

As well as Friday being Children in Need day, it was also Friendship Friday as part of anti-bullying week.  We spent some time talking about how little acts of kindness can have a big impact on people we know and the children came up with some great ideas for acts of kindness they wanted to try out at the weekend. 

This weekend marks the start of the World Cup and as part of our topic learning about the tournament everyone has been allocated a team (at random) as part of our Damson class sweepstake. It’s just for fun and will hopefully help us keep track of our teams as they play their matches over the next few weeks.

Finally, our Nativity practice is well underway and we are looking forward to sharing our performances with you later in the term.

Footballer Visit

As you know, professional footballer Callum O'Dowda visited school this week.  The children really enjoyed practising some drills with Callum and were very keen to find out about his football career. They asked some interesting questions.....fortunately the answer to 'Have you ever had a red card?' was no!!  Thank you to Callum for giving up his time and sharing his expertise with us.

Term 1

India Project Homework

Thank you to everyone for your time and effort in supporting the children with their India project homework.  All the children have been very enthusiastic in presenting their work this week and tasting some of the food brought into school.