April 2021 – Summer Term 2

Welcome to Kingfishers’ class page!

A Message to Kingfishers from Mrs Darter:

Dear Kingfishers

I just wanted to say a huge thank you for your generosity and kindness. I've wanted the tree of life solar light for a long time. Will send a picture when it's up. And the garden centre voucher, wow, I will certainly be able to buy something amazing with that. Thank you once again and hope to see you all soon xxx

Since returning from online schooling during Term 4, Kingfishers have continued to impress with their hard-working attitude and enthusiasm for learning. They have maintained this with whichever adult has taught them, and they should be proud of the excellent comments received from different members of school staff!

Working hard and showing enthusiasm for learning brings us to our class mascot – Rio! He was kindly handcrafted by one of the schools’ parents, and has a certain role to play in class each day.

Rio will sit on the desk of a pupil who has passed their secret mission the day before…..

What is this secret mission? Each day, we  secretly choose, at random, a child to demonstrate the focus of the day (e.g. participating, working hard, listening well etc). The class will be unaware of who has been chosen and so will all focus on achieving this target. If they pass their mission, the mystery student will be revealed! However, if they do not pass, their identity will remain anonymous, and as a class we will reflect on improvements we can make for the next day.

Eagles class have a similar mascot, and have made various items for him – this may be something Kingfishers may also like to do!

Our topic for this half-term is World War 2.

We will be researching why the war began, how it affected ordinary people in the UK, and how it changed working life for women. We'll also study the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the Allies and the Axis, and the holocaust. We have a trip planned to the Milestones Museum in Basingstoke on the 15th June, where we will look at the life of an ARP Warden during the Blitz and how rationing affected how we shopped. We will post photos of the day as as possible after the event.

We also have a 'World War 2 Day' during this term, where the class will get the chance to dress up in topic-related costumes, and we will have a day of WW2 based activities. 

Our latest writing topic will be 'Biographies', and as a class we will work together to create a biography of Winston Churchill, followed by everyone writing a biography of a person of their choice. The class will be studying the features of a biography and will be using these as they write about their chosen person, also including the SPaG devices they have learned so far this year.

In reading, we have begun our new book 'Malamander' by Thomas Taylor. This is set in the coastal town on Eerie-on-Sea, which changes from ice-cream and deckchairs in the summer, to stormy, misty and creepy in the winter months. There is also the small matter of the legendary Malamander, a half-man half-fish creature, who may or may not have been seen lurking by the pier. The class will continue to develop their skills in answering ‘VIPERS’ comprehension questions.

Natural Sculptures

Kingfishers enjoyed creating their own natural sculptures in the Forest School area, after researching the work of Andy Goldsworthy, who works with nature to create art in natural and urban settings.

Spellings: Each week, the class is given a set of spellings to learn for a Friday afternoon test. Kingfishers are very enthusiastic about their spellings as a whole, and can practice during certain times at school and also take a set of spellings home for further revision. Occasionally, these copies can go missing, so a list of this term’s spellings has been attached below (Spellings Summer 2). 

Here are our topics for other areas of the curriculum:

Science – Properties and Changes of Materials

Computing - Online safety

RE - Sikhism

Art - WW2 Posters, Blitz art

French - Getting to know you 

PSHE - Changing Me

PE – Cricket

Music - Brass

Kingfishers class have made a fantastic and hard-working start to the term. We are very proud of their efforts and are looking forward to this continuing in the terms ahead.

Mr Wooster and Mrs Saqib

Topmarks is a useful website for practicing times tables and other areas of maths as part of home-learning.  A link to Topmarks can be found below: