Stretham Community Primary School
Welcome
Hedgehog Class 2021
Summer Term 2022
Week beginning 18th July 2022
What a fabulous day we had at Wicken Fen on Wednesday! First, we had a safety talk from Chris in the education room and then we went off to our first activity - pond dipping! We found so many interesting creatures - water beetles, water boatmen, water snails, and much more! After a snack we went on a minibeast hunt - looking under logs, sweeping the long grasses and shaking the trees. After lunch, we had a fun session getting 'connected with nature'. We looked through frames to find wonderful views, studied and matched the different colours in nature and listened to the different sounds in nature. What a wonderful day - enjoy looking at all the pictures!
This week has been a time for reflecting on all we have achieved together this year. We had a wonderful time looking at our drawing of ourselves - one drawing we did in September and one we did this week! Look how we have improved in our drawing of people!
We ended our time together on Friday having a lovely picnic party! We enjoyed milkshake and biscuits (the request of Iris) and had a special time saying good bye to Mrs Strong and to Iris. We will miss them both.
Mrs Oakman and I would like to thank you for your support this year and wish you all a wonderful summer holiday!
Week beginning 11th July 2022
With the hot weather this week, we have all enjoyed our swimming lessons. We have all been practising swimming on our fronts, getting much more confident, as well as floating and swimming on our backs!
We had two lovely highlights on Friday; the first was time with Teddy our Therapy dog and his owner Carly. We asked lots of questions about how he needed to be looked after and all enjoyed a stroke!
We then had a lovely time at Forest School! We did wonderful bug hunts finding different insects, looked to see if the frogs have grown in the pond and had a cool time in the trees!
Week beginning 4th July 2022
We have been waiting patiently for the swimming pool to open...and this week it has! We had a fantastic time swimming this week and can't wait for our next lesson.
In Music, we have been using the instruments to create different sounds.
We had great fun in Maths on Thursday, learning about units of time. We had lots of 1 minute challenges to complete and now know that 60 seconds is the same as one minute.
Week beginning 27th June 2022
What a wonderful start to the week - our 'Step and Stride' sponsored walk on Tuesday morning! We had a lovely walk to Little Thetford (or very nearly!), enjoying a drink and a biscuit half way and a refreshing ice pop on our return. Well done Hedgehogs - you were all amazing!
We have been learning about adding the suffix 's' or 'es' to nouns, to make plurals!
In Maths, we have been working with numbers up to 100! Today we tested our knowledge by seeing how many different facts and visual representations we knew about different two-digit numbers!
We ended the week with a lovely time at Forest School, making popcorn! Yum!
Week beginning 20th June 2022
In Maths, this week Hedgehog Class have been consolidating their understanding of place value, extending to numbers up to 100. We have partitioned tens and ones, ordered and calculated one more / ten more.
In Art, we have been looking at pattern and lines; we all used clay to make lovely patterned snail shells.
Our text this week has Elmer - a wonderful patchwork elephant who realises it's brilliant to be different! We thought about ways in which we are all amazingly different, made colourful elephant masks and on Friday we celebrated 'Elmer Day'! We took our elephants to the watering hole (our refurbished swimming pool!) so we could have a look at the sparkly water! We then enjoyed a refreshing ice-pop, sitting in the shade! Happy Elmer Day everyone!
Week beginning 13th June 2022
This week in Music, we have continued to listen to different pieces of music, responding with musical instruments and moving our bodies in different ways.
We had a great time at Forest School on Friday! The trees meant it was very shady in the heat, which was very welcome! We made wonderful 'twiggy owls' (thank you Mrs Chalk) and enjoyed all the usual outdoor exploring and learning. We even had time for an ice-cream! Yum!
Week beginning 6th June 2022
This half term we are learning all about animals! We have started finding out about birds this week. We learned that birds cover their feathers with oil to make them waterproof; this got us thinking...what other materials are waterproof? We have been working scientifically to investigate waterproof and absorbent materials - we even recorded our findings by ourselves.
In Art, we had a great time designing and making our own animals out of junk modelling.
In Maths, we have been learning all about position and direction. We have been using the vocabulary forwards, backwards, left and right, as well as quarter, half and three quarter turns. We have had great fun giving our learning partners instructions to move around a grid and create the same shape pattern...of course we had to use the right vocabulary!
Week beginning 23rd May 2022
What a busy last before the half term holiday!
On Monday afternoon we had a super time at Forest School. We enjoyed looking at the wildlife in the pond and we saw a few frogs and sooooo many tadpoles! We also identified different trees, linking into our Science work this half term.
In Maths, we have been learning about fractions - halves and quarters. We are getting very good at dividing objects and numbers into two or four parts and making sure they are EQUAL!
What a fantastic afternoon we had at our garden party on Wednesday afternoon, to celebrate the Queen's platinum jubilee. We enjoyed a fun carousel of games on the field, ate our platinum pudding and had a drink; we then watched maypole dancing, sang the national anthem and were presented with a jubilee coin by Stretham Parish Council. Lots of memories to cherish!
Week beginning 16th May 2022
At last in DT, it was time to make our fruit smoothies! We had a choice of three different smoothie recipes, using a wide variety of different fruits. We chopped, blended, poured and then tasted! They were all delicious!
We had LOTS of fun at our Sports Day on Thursday morning! We all enjoyed running, doing our hoop race and cheering on others! The ice pops afterwards were a real treat too! Thank you to everyone for coming to watch and cheer us on!
On Friday afternoon it was our very first Class Assembly! We enjoyed sharing our learning with the other classes and our parents.
Week beginning 9th May 2022
We have been brilliant this week, at using our phonic knowledge to segment to spell new words.
We are continuing with our DT project and this week we designed our packaging for our smoothies!
Look at our wonderful pastel flower drawings! We really enjoyed learning how to use pastels and quickly realised you could get very messy! Don't our finished pieces of art look amazing!
Week beginning 2nd May 2022
Although this week has only been 4 days, Hedgehog Class have packed so much into our week.
We have been learning all about fruit and vegetables - thinking carefully about whether they have seeds, in which case they are fruits! We studied different seeds and bulbs noticing the variety of shapes and sizes, planted bean seeds (which we hope will grow into tall beanstalks that we can climb up, through the clouds!) and explored printing using potatoes.
In DT, ready for making our fruit smoothies, we looked at lots of different fruit, practised our cutting skills and then tasted them! Some fruits were new for us to taste - some we liked and some we didn't!
We ended our week with a wonderful morning at Cromwell Primary School, participating in the 'Get Active Festival'. It was so much fun doing a carousel of 5 activities, lead by Sports Leaders from the Secondary School.
Week beginning 25th April 2022
This week we have enjoyed reading the fairy tale 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. We made stick puppets and retold the story orally before writing it. Our writing is fantastic, using full stops and capital letters, conjunctions and adjectives!
In Maths, we have been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and we have been making equal and unequal groups.
Week beginning 20th April 2022
We've had a lovely few days back, beginning our new topic 'Living and Growing'.
We went on a walk around our local area seeing what plants, trees and flowers we could name.
In Art, we enjoyed learning how to do careful observational drawing.
In Computing, we started our new unit on programming. We had a go at predicting the outcome of different programs and enjoyed programming a floor robot.
Spring Term 2022
Week beginning 28th March 2022
This week in Maths, we have been revising place value! We have also been practising counting in 5s. Our challenge is to keep practising over the Easter holidays - can you help us?
Continuing our instruction writing, we really enjoyed making chocolate Easter nests this week! We read and followed the recipe well and the Easter nests were delicious!
This week we have been learning about being a Christian and the Easter story. So on Thursday we walked to St James' church and had a look around. We found lots of the features we have been learning about, for example the altar, font, pulpit... and we now know that a church is a special place for Christians.
We had so much fun in Music learning to play Hot Cross Buns on the glockenspiels too!
Week beginning 21st March 2022
What a busy week we have had! We have enjoyed having two visitors this week. On Thursday, Mr & Mrs Sheldrick came to visit, bringing two vintage vehicles - a wonderful 93 year old butchers van and a fantastic Austin 7. This really enhanced our learning and understanding about the history of cars, bringing the past to life!
On Friday, Zeynep and her Mum gave a wonderful presentation on life as a Muslim. We learned so much about Islam and all the different things Muslims do.
Week beginning 14th March 2022
This week we have been celebrating Science Week! We have investigated, observed, questioned and explored, like true scientists! The theme has been 'growing' so we explored the school grounds for signs of new growth with Spring around the corner. We also investigated whether taller people could jump further. It was great fun! Linked to our 'aeroplane' theme this week, we also investigated which paper aeroplane flew the furthest! So much amazing Science!
Inspired by our text last week, Gregory Cool, set in Tobago, we had a look at a coconut! It was spiky, rough, and hard on the outside and smooth and white inside. We then made coconut biscuits, giving us the opportunity to taste coconut. Most of us thought it was very yummy!
Having made our biscuits, we all wrote some amazing instructional writing!
Week beginning 7th March 2022
In Maths this week, Hedgehog Class having been learning all about mass. We have been measuring and comparing the mass of lots of different objects.
In Music we have been having great fun learning about pulse and rhythm, playing the musical instruments!
This week, we read the book 'Gregory Cool' which has helped us explore what life is like in a contrasting non-European country - Tobago. We then wrote postcards home, as if we were Gregory telling, our families what it was like there. We also used the computers to paint a picture of a beach in Tobago!
Week beginning 28th February 2022
What a busy week we've had! We started the week learning the 7 continents of the world. We then learned all about Christopher Columbus, the famous explorer, who sailed from one continent and found another! We have written our own non-fiction books all about his adventures.
On Friday, it was World Book Day! We had a wonderful day snuggling up with a book and wearing our pyjamas! We enjoyed looking at the 'story in a box' competition entries - they were wonderful! We also had fun making book marks, doing a book scavenger hunt and having time in our new library. As it is the 25th birthday of World Book Day, we challenged ourselves to read 25 books this week...and WE DID IT!! It was lots of fun!
We ended the week with a wonderfully muddy time in Forest School! So much fun swinging, making seesaws, cooking 'soup' and making yummy pancakes on the fire!
Week beginning 21st February 2022
In Maths this week, we have had lots of fun measuring length and height using non-standard units. We ended the week investigating whether our feet were the same length as our forearms! What do you think we found out?
In Music we learned about pulse and rhythm; we enjoyed playing the glockenspiels.
We started our new DT unit this week, designing and making our own model vehicles. This week, we looked carefully at axles and wheels and had a go at making our own. It was lots of fun and we learned many new skills!
Week beginning 7th February 2022
This week has been Children's Mental Health Week. On Monday, we watched the assembly which was all about 'growing together'; we then thought about we have grown, looked in the mirror to see ourselves and thought about how AMAZING we all are!
In PE this week, we completed our gymnastic unit, creating short sequences of balances, travelling and rolls on the apparatus.
We have also finished out DT unit on Windmills this week. We learned all about the different parts of a windmill and then designed and made our own model windmills. They were all fabulous and met the design criteria, with turning turbines!
Week beginning 31st January 2022
In Maths this week, we have been representing numbers to 50 in different ways. We have been comparing numbers working out which is greater than and less than. We finished the week playing a great game called 'Make the biggest number'; we played with a partner and needed two dice - each time we rolled it we had to decide whether to put our number in the tens or ones place. Who would make the biggest number? Perhaps you can play it at home too!
In English, we have really enjoyed reading 'The Hundred Decker Bus' this week; it inspired us to create our own adventures on a bus! We went outside and created our stories through role play, we then drew our story plan as a map which helped us to write our amazing stories! We have been working really hard on remembering our capital letters and full stops!
We ended the week having lots of Forest School fun, with delicious baked apples (thank you Mrs Chalk & Mrs McGregor)!
Week beginning 24th January 2022
We have been very busy in Hedgehog Class this week. In Geography, we learned about human and physical features, cutting and sticking features into the same sets.
We had a lovely time exploring the new library on Tuesday afternoon. We were so good at using our library markers to mark which shelf we chose our book from, so we could put the book back in the correct place when we had finished reading it. We have all chosen our first book to take home and enjoy.
Week beginning 17th January 2022
We have had a great week in Hedgehog Class, with a selection of super guest teachers! Thanks to Mrs Oakman, Mrs Strong, Mrs Twitchett, Mrs Johnson and Mr Robertson for all stepping in - the children enjoyed it and the adults were very impressed by the children's attitude and resilience.
We had a super afternoon on Friday in the Explorers Area but we forgot to take our camera with us - sorry!
Earlier in the week we were inspired by the art of Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes. Her abstract work features lots of circles and so we had a go at our own. We were very pleased with the results.
Our art inspired by Beatriz Milhazes
Week beginning 10th January 2022
In Science, we have been working scientifically to investigate how to rescue the toy person from the ice. We decided to put one in hot water, one on the radiator and wrap one in fabric, as if it were a coat. What great ideas! We measured how quickly the ice melted in each one and predicted the results. Which do you think would have melted the quickest?
We have carried on learning about the season of winter this week, and on Thursday we went for a walk around the village looking for signs of winter. We saw lots of frost, bare trees, winter shadows and crunchy frozen leaves on the ground that we enjoyed jumping on!
Whilst on our walk, we also looked for different features in Stretham. We saw the church, shop, pub, windmill, as well as lots of fields growing sugar beet, the rec and two play parks! When we got back to school we drew a map of our walk. We all tried to remember to put on all the features that we saw.
Week beginning 3rd January 2022
Happy New Year everyone!
We have had a busy two days back at school, learning all about winter! It was a very frosty morning on Thursday, perfect for us to explore the season! We wrapped up warm in coats, scarves and gloves and went to hunt for the sparkly, glittery frost! In English, we enjoyed reading the book 'Here comes Jack Frost' and wrote some wonderful letters to Jack Frost. In Art, we started to paint some wintery pictures, inspired by Monet. These will be used for a whole school art project. We will show you more in the next few week!
Autumn Term 2021
Week beginning 13th December 2021
We have had a really lovely week focussing our learning around Raymond Briggs book 'The Snowman'. We listened to the story, used puppets to retell the story, sequenced pictures and wrote about the events; we even printed our own snowmen! We finished the week watching the recording of the live stage show! We were mesmorised!
We had fun making our own Christmas hats to wear for our Christmas dinner on Friday! Don't we look great!
Happy Christmas everyone!
Week beginning 6th December 2021
This week has been very busy and very Christmassy in Hedgehog Class! We have learned all about the very first Christmas, when baby Jesus was born and thought about how Christians celebrate. We have written the story and made our own little nativity booklets.
We enjoyed making Christmas angels too this week, using lots of cutting and folding skills and of course, lots of glitter!
Friday was Christmas Jumper day, raising money for Save the Children. Don't we all look very festive in our jumpers!
Week beginning 29th November 2021
We have been very busy in Maths this week; we have been comparing numbers, reading & writing numbers in words and working out tens and ones.
We have had so much fun getting ready for Christmas, as advent has begun!
Week beginning 22nd November 2021
This week we have been learning all about verbs in Hedgehog Class and we have learned that when we write some of them in the past tense, we add 'ed'. We went on a playground trail; we walked along the path, jumped in leaves, climbed along the train, listened to the cars, looked at the leaves fluttering from the trees and shouted to Ladybird Class! It was a fun trail but then we had to write about it, making sure we added 'ed' to all our verbs!
On Friday afternoon, we had a wonderful Christmas craft afternoon. We all made a Christmas wreath; it was tricky but our wreaths look lovely and are ready to decorate the school for Christmas!
Week beginning 15th November 2021
What a busy week we have had this week!
It has been Anti-Bullying Week in school, so Hedgehog Class have been thinking all about how special and different we all are; we designed our own odd socks (as well as wearing them!). We also thought about how we can be kind to others and created our own kind superheroes!
On Friday, it was Children In Need and we enjoyed raising money by wearing spots and stripes and decorating a big Pudsey Bear with pennies.
On Friday afternoon, we had a great time at Forest School. We toasted marshmallows on the fire - the s'mores were delicious! We created some wonderful autumn leaf artwork too!
Week beginning 8th November 2021
This week Hedgehogs had a wonderful dance session on Tuesday, with Miss Baker! We have some fabulous hip hop dancers!
On Thursday 11th November, we walked to find the two war memorials in the village. We counted and read the names of the men who died from Stretham in World War 1 and 2. We then had a minute silence back in school at 11 O'Clock. That afternoon, we created some wonderful poppy artwork, printing using corks.
What a wonderful end to our week, celebrating our 'Castle Day' on Friday! More to follow in our Class Assembly next week, but here is a photo of us all looking very splendid and royal! We had a great day!
Week beginning 1st November 2021
This week in Computing, we have been learning that a computer can be used to model an environment where choices can be made, but that a computer model is not always an exact replica of real life!
We have been learning all about the story of Guy Fawkes this week too! We had some wonderful discussions, wondering whether Guy Fawkes was a bad man and whether King James was bad too! We had some fabulous ideas and arguments for both. In Art, we created some beautiful firework pictures exploring different objects to print with.
We had another lovely afternoon at Forest School on Friday. We made toast on the fire and with hot chocolate and made autumn hangings too, as well as all the usual fun exploring!
Week beginning 18th October 2021
What a wonderfully busy week we have had in Hedgehogs, learning all about the season of autumn! We have printed autumn trees, made delicious hedgehog bread and practised our cutting skills to make an autumn wreath.
In English, we read a story about Hattie the Hedgehog who was preparing to hibernate with her friends. We had great fun acting out the story using puppets. We then wrote the story and our writing is AMAZING! Mrs Woodman is very proud of us!
Week beginning 11th October 2021
In Maths this week, we have used our part part whole images to help us with our addition. We practised our adding, finding how many counters we had altogether.
We enjoyed printing letters to create posters of the tricky words we are learning! Our new word wall will really help us with our spelling!
We had a fabulous time at Forest School on Friday afternoon! The sun shone and we were so busy creating autumn art, making conker necklaces, finding fairy homes, building dens, making music and so much more! I think we'll all sleep well tonight!
Week beginning 4th October 2021
In Maths this week, we have been learning about number bonds. We have been investigating the number bonds of different numbers; today we learned how to be systematic to find all the number bonds for a given number.
We have enjoyed celebrating harvest this week. We painted pictures of tractors which we showed at out harvest festival assembly today; we also sang a harvest song! We hope you enjoy watching it too!
Today, we created a fabulous harvest display of all the produce we brought in, and this afternoon we finished the week by printing using fruit and vegetables!
Week beginning 27th September 2021
What a busy week we have had in English this week! Everyone has worked so hard on their reading and writing - Mrs Woodman is so proud of everyone! Here we are doing lots of fabulous reading and writing activities...
In Science, we experimented to see which material would make the best armour - fabric, paper, foil or card. We made our predictions and then quickly dressed 4 children up with their armour. We tested each one to see whether they could get on a horse (chair), run well, survive an arrow attack and see if the armour survived the rain! It was great fun and lots of us predicted correctly!
Week beginning 20th September 2021
In Maths this week, we have been using the < > and = symbols to compare different numbers.
In English, we enjoyed reading The Paper Bag Princess, by Robert Munsch. We then made our own paper bag princess and wrote sentences about the story on the front. Don't they look fantastic hanging in our classroom!
In Art this week, we had great fun learning how to draw a dragon! Our finished dragon pictures look amazing!
Week beginning 13th September 2021
Another busy week for us Hedgehogs!
In Science, we have been think about the different materials objects are made of. We have been sorting objects according to what they are made of and also been describing how they feel - smooth, bumpy, shiny.... In our Art, we have collaged a castle using materials of different textures.
We had a lovely afternoon on Thursday, exploring different musical instruments. We learned their names and then enjoyed finding different ways to play them, describing the sounds they made.
Week Beginning: 6th September 2021
What a busy week we have had in Hedgehog Class!
We start each day looking at our timetable and using the little clocks to tell the time of each different activity through the day. We are very good at o'clock and half past times.
In Maths this week, we have been revising our sorting, ordering and counting skills. We have been sorting objects using lots of different criteria.
We had lots if fun in PE on Tuesday, practising our throwing and catching skills in the sunshine on the field.
Wed 2nd & Thurs 3rd September 2021
Welcome to Hedgehog Class!
We have had a wonderful two days back at school and everyone has settled so well. We have really enjoyed launching into our new topic 'Castles', having so much fun dressing up and playing in our castle, painting princes, princesses and dragons and collaging and building castles, amongst lots of other fun activities!
I think we are going to have a great term!
