Week Ending 25th September 2015
News from Class 1
We have had a really fantastic time celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Diptford School in Class One this
week. Thank you for the brilliant Victorian costumes that made Monday lots of fun. Pretending to be the first
children of Diptford involved painting pictures of Queen Victoria, making hobby horses and developing our
cross stitching skills (turned out to be a real challenge!)
On Tuesday we played with a selection of toys from the Victorian era and the 1940s. Our favourites were
table skittles, spinning tops and the space hopper!
On Wednesday we enjoyed making vintage chocolate chip cookies, iced buns and homemade bread. We
applied our maths skills and teamwork problem solving to complete our baking. At the time of writing all
these goodies are in storage awaiting our celebration tea party this afternoon.
Thursday was a spectacular 'day out ' with our 'horses'. The hobby horses faired well despite being put
through their paces in several highly competitive Polo games. After parading around the school horses and
riders were put to the test in an obstacle course involving great skill and stamina (especially for Mrs Wilson).
.
Today we have enjoyed a fun fashion show taking us through the decades from Victorian times
to now and even into the future. The children in Class One are convinced that Mrs McMullan and I presented
the fashion show but we have assured them that we were very busy marking books in the staff room and that
in fact, it was Rudy Quin (a fashion expert from America ) and Vivienne de Bouton who presented the show.
You are welcome to visit our classroom to see the results of some of our learning this week.
News from Class 2
Class two have been busy innovating the ‘How to be a pirate’ poem and have created their very own ‘How to
be a Viking’ poem this week. They have developed their proof reading and editing skills and spotted lots of
mistakes in some of the verses which we as teachers created including capital letters, commas, spelling
mistakes and full stops. The children will produce their own individual poems about ‘How to be a...(character
of their choice)’, so if you haven’t already, please could you talk to your child/ren about what character they
might like write about dressing up as given the choice e.g. an astronaut, a Princess from a fairytale etc. It
would be great if to end this unit of English, the children could dress up as their chosen characters next
Thursday 1st October if they would like to.
In maths we have been learning about fact families based upon the principle that if you have one addition or
subtraction fact, you get three facts for free! For example, 23 + 4 = 27, 4 + 23 = 27, 27 – 3 = 4 and 27 – 4 =
3. We have been developing our problem solving skills using the inverse of addition and subtraction
problems and will continue to do so in the week ahead. Knowing how to use the inverse has helped us to
solve missing number problems, year 4 even began to solve algebraic problems e.g. 56 – n = 65.
Classroom jobs have been allocated and the children have made a great start in carrying out their
responsibilities e.g. distributing resources, being computer technicians, watering the class plant (more
houseplants welcome if you have any that need re-homing please).
Yet another productive and fun filled week in Class 2 with our Super learners, we look forward to seeing as
many of you as possible at the school fete this Saturday!
Thank you for your continuing support and cooperation.
Mr Nute and Mrs Neil
News from Class 3
We had a great start to the week with our Victorian Day. The children were met with a candlelit classroom,
slate and chalk to write with and two stern Victorian teachers. The children had lessons on the 4 R’s reading,
writing, arithmetic and religion and traditional punishments were carried out. Lots of pictures can be viewed
on our class page. The children also had the opportunity to try out and play with lots of authentic Victorian
toys and games which they loved.
In Maths this week the children finished their Number sequence with a Lunar Holiday challenge where they
had to help Aliens from Saturn plan their family holiday. They had to use their understanding of place value,
ordering numbers and converting units of measure to choose which moon would be best for their visit.
In Literacy, on Thursday we had a shock! Our Dragon egg hatched, burning his way out of his box and is
now nowhere to be seen. Class 3 came up with lots of exciting ideas of what might have happened to him
but so far no sightings have been made. However we were able to use lots of these ideas in our stories that
we are inventing this week and hopefully we may hear some news of what he is getting up to over the
coming days. Luckily our chicken eggs are still in tact and are being lovingly cared for and nurtured by the
children in Class 3.
The latter part of the week saw preparations get underway for the Diptford fete. The children came up with
lots of wonderful ideas of what Diptford might look like in another 150 years and have presented their
thoughts and ideas in lots of different styles of writing. These lovely pieces of work will be on display in the
classroom during the fete.
Mrs Monks and Mrs French
School News and Dates
Saturday 26th Sept - Diptford 150th Anniversary Fete 2pm
Tuesday 26th Sept – Basketball Festival, Kevicc, 4-5.30pm
Wednesday & Thursday 30th & 1st Oct – Parents Evenings
Friday 2nd Oct – Harvest Assembly 9.30am
Monday 5th Oct – Spelling Workshop for parents 3.30pm
Correspondence out this week
Basketball letter, Years ,5 and 6, for those interested
This weeks Achievers
Achiever for Class 1
this week is
is Molly Moorman for a
fantastic picture of
Queen Victoria
Finley
Middleton
Bhattachary
Finley Middleton
Bhattachary is Achiever
in Class 3 this week for
his amazing dragon
story
Class 2 Achiever for this
week is Naomi Goshawk
for her resilience and
enthusiasm for learning
in all areas of the
curriculum this week.