Welcome to Giraffes, Panthers & Zebras Blog
This area is where we share our class work and experiences with the wider community. We aim to publish a post on a regular basis showcasing our work and we welcome feedback. Please be aware that as our blog is accessed by people of all ages, comments left will need to be approved before being published so you may experience a slight delay before you see your comments on the blog.
KS1 Christmas Story December 2020....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kyuBrJ-9JU&feature=youtu.be&safe=active
Giraffes, Panthers & Zebras
Priest House Museum comes to Bransgore
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Today, KS1 were visited by the Priest House Museum who brought a big selection of old toys and games with them, dating back to the Victorian period. We had a wonderful time looking at how toys and games have changed over the years and had a chance to touch/play different games.
We saw spinning tops, Jacob's ladders, old money boxes, an old handmade bike without pedals or brakes and a doll made from china, wax, fabric, glass and human hair!
We learnt some new games to play too: Grandmother's footsteps, Queen Anne and a game where we throw cards into a hat.
We now know that toys in the past were made from natural materials such as wood, metal, leather, fabric, wax, glass and china. Thank you Priest House Museum :-)
Toy Topic Launch
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Wow! What a fun afternoon we've had playing our amazing toys and games! We have been very proud of the way they have explained their games to their friends...sometimes getting very competitive! After playing a range of games, the children had the chance to reflect and review the toys, choosing their favourite game and writing about it. What a busy afternoon!
Christmas celebration
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We've had great fun in KS1 today by having a Christmas celebration of all our hard work this term! We made reindeer hats, danced all to Christmas songs, played games and enjoyed a biscuit. Thank you for a great term KS1!
Great Fire of Bransgore
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Today, the children gathered on the front playground to recreate the 'Great Fire of London' using some Tudor houses we made in our topic learning. We retold the story, particularly discussing why the fire spread so quickly. As it was a windy day we explained we couldn't let the fire just burn out like it did in 1666 after they pulled the houses down.
The children were very sensible and enjoyed writing about their senses from their 'fire experience'.
Our trip to the New Forest Wildlife Park
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KS1 had a fabulous time at the New Forest Wildlife Park, despite the rain! We found out LOTS of interesting facts about animals native to our area, and animals that no longer live in the wild. We saw deer, owls, wild boar (and the 2.5 week old babies), wallabies, otters, wolves, lynx, wildcats, pine martens, harvest mice, butterflies, ferrets and many more! Thank you for supporting our school trip; the children had a brilliant time! :-)
Wax crayon skills
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The children have been making 'rainy day' pictures using wax crayons and watercolour paints. They spent a lot of time putting detail in their drawing and then colouring carefully with wax crayons to make a waterproof layer...all before we used a blue wash for the rain. Amazing artists and resilience!
Autumn Watch Launch
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We were lucky enough to have all the SCITT teachers join us to launch our new topic...Autumn Watch. The children all listened to a Percy the Park Keeper story and decided in small groups which woodland animal they'd like to collage. We saw some excellent teamwork! Thanks SCITT! Look at our amazing artwork:
Terrific Talents
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The Willows and Maples wowed us all with their amazing talents today! From gymnastics to singing, art to joke telling they all performed with impressive confidence and enthusiasm!
Creature Teachers
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We had a fabulous time today meeting lots of exciting creatures (scaly, furry, creepy and feathery creatures)!
Sports Day
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We had a fantastic Jungle Team sports day. Well done to all of the children for putting in their best effort on the activities and in the races, thank you to the BSA and to all the parents and families that supported us (and joined in with the parents races!).
You are what you eat!
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Our entry point for our new topic was fruit-tastic!
We thought about the importance of food hygiene, learned about germs, handwashing and how to carefully prepare healthy food. Then we applied this knowledge by making amazing fruit kebabs. We also made colourful fruit art, drawing still life pictures and printing with fruit.
We are all now really excited to learn more about food and food chains to add to our brilliant animal and life cycle knowledge from last half term.
Creative Colour Mixing
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Today we explored colour mixing, making secondary colours from primary colours and then applied this skill by creating impressionist paintings of flowers.
Spring Longitudinal Study
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This week we continued our longitudinal study, looking carefully at the micro habitats in our school environment to survey the insect life present.
Rwanda Day
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Today we found out all about Rwanda and our partner school in Kigali. We played and learned Rwandan style, drumming, singing, using old newspapers to write on and sharing just a few resources. We found out about life in Rwanda, we had a visit from Mr Hayes from the Amakuru Trust and heard direct from Mr Coffey in Kigali!
Life cycle learning
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This week we have been working together in teams to create posters describing the life cycles of some very interesting animals (we descovered that jellyfish, for instance have very complicated stages of growth). We are looking forward to presenting our findings to the class next week!
The Carnival of the Animals
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We had great fun today launching our life cycles topic with a Carnival of the Animals. We listened to Camille Saint-Saens’ beautiful music, we made our own animal headdresses and we then had a go at classifying our animals before dancing and parading around the school hall. We are now all very excited about our new topic and can’t wait to share more learning!
Year 1 Problem Solving
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This week the Year 1 children have been working together in maths. We have used our partner skills, reciprocity and applied our maths knowledge to solve tricky problems. For instance helping the Grand Old Duke of York organise his marching soldiers and Granny making a shape quilt.
World Book Day (the reprise)
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It was well worth waiting for our World Book Day! The children made a fantastic effort to dress up and had a fabulous day sharing stories, role playing, creating stories and illustrating.
3D Shape
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We had fun exploring 3D shapes in KS1 today.
Hero Day
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Congratulations to all of our KS1 heroes today and thank you for your kind donations to the Hampshire Air Ambulance. We found out about the heroic work that the air ambulance crew do and met Herocopter the helicopter!
Police Dog Visit
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Today we were lucky to have a visit from a retired Police dog. We enjoyed finding out about the important work they do.
Forest Schools
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We had great fun this week continuing our longitudinal study into the insect life at our Forest School site. We went on a winter bug hunt and looked carefully at the micro habitats we have been studying.
RNLI
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Today we had a visit from the RNLI and we learned all about the fantastic work they do to keep us safe around water and about how we can help keep ourselves safe.
Emergency!
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Well done to everyone for a fantastic entry point today. We were really impressed by the effort the children put into their costumes and the enthusiasm they had for sharing their knowledge of the emergency services.
Amazing Performers!
Louise Lawrence (admin) on: Giraffes, Panthers & Zebras
As we come to the end of term we are all feeling very proud. The children showed fantastic levels of confidence, effort and enthusiasm performing in their shows this week. The year ones worked so hard to learn and present the Nativity story, wowing us with their energetic singing. The year twos were strictly spectacular performing their all singing all dancing Nativity. We hope you all enjoy a well earned rest over Christmas!
Perfect Performers
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Not only have the children amazed us with their energy and enthusiasm when performing their Christmas plays, today they presented the dance they have been practising with Mrs Davis. Everyone worked together to tell the story of a fairy bringing life to the toys. Brilliant teamwork and beautiful dancing from everyone!
Three Little Pigs
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We had a fabulous time watching the Three Little Pigs at the Lighthouse in Poole yesterday. We really enjoyed the show and it gave us loads of brilliant ideas for our own story telling. A big thank you to all of the adults that helped on the trip and to the children for representing the school so well.
Super Story Telling
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The Oaks told the story of Goldilocks and the Three Brears today. First we had to draw a picture to show the setting. Then we had to use props for the bowls, chairs and beds. Finally we used toys for the characters. We had to use our reciprocity skills to work together to tell the story.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebw9W74Afds
Measuring and Comparing
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Fantastic Super Worm measuring in KS1 today. Oaks used rulers to find the length of worms and order them by size, Willows and Maples worked in teams to double the length of their worms.
Children in Need
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Well done to everyone in KS1 for a brilliant effort dressing up for Children in Need. We raised lots of money and created lots of smiles!
A Sneak Peek of the KS1 Nativities
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Today the children treated the each other to a preview of several songs from their Christmas shows. They then worked together to re-tell the Nativity story. We are all starting to get very excited about our performances!
Super Throwing and Catching Skills
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This week in PE we practiced our throwing and catching skills. The children worked in pairs to throw and catch a ball before it hit the ground. Oaks used tennis balls, Willows used rugby balls and Maples used footballs.
Brilliant Back in the Day Home Learning
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This week we have really enjoyed sharing our home learning. We found out about the history of transport, communication, technology, media, fashion and shared family histories. Well done to everyone for all of your hard work at home and confidence in presenting your learning!
Fraction Finding Fun!
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We have enjoyed learning about halves and quarters this week. In Oaks we found halves and quarters of play dough shapes and jam sandwiches. Willows explored fractions by using 'buckets' to feed 'animals at the zoo'. Maples independently found and recorded fractions of numbers. Together we discovered that fractions aren't scary!
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Super science afternoon
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Percy the park keeper needed our help today to build a new home for his animal friends. We explored the properties of materials and experimented to find the best material to build a strong and stable structure for the woodland animals.
Bug hunting at Forest Schools
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This year, in KS1 we are carrying out a longitudinal study of the insect life at our Forest School site. We searched for bugs under logs, at the base of trees, under leaves, on the bark of trees and in the canopy of the bushes. We are hoping to find out how the number of insects change throughout the year.
National Poetry Day
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We have had fantastic fun this week sharing poems in our tree groups. Oaks enjoyed listening to rhymes and spotting rhyming words. We then made our own story maps for Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen and used them to perform to the class. Willows shared their favorite poems from home and then created their own poems about the school gerbils. Maples have been sharing poems linked to their traditional tales learning.
All singing, all dancing history!
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We had great fun this week learning and then performing a song from the past. Oaks rocked around the clock, Willows did the agadoo and Maples held back the river! We were all very proud of our effort and the fact that everyone had the courage to perform in front of the whole key stage.
Dancing through History
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We had a wonderful day exploring cultural history through music, dance and art today. We rocked, we rolled, we boogied and we strutted form the 50s to the 00s. Well done to everyone for their effort, enthusiasm and fantastic dressing up !
A Fantastic First Week
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We have had a brilliant first week in our new classes: sharing our holiday learning; our holiday news; creating work for our displays and finding out about our new learning groups! Everyone has settled in really well and we are now really excited about the year of learning to come!
The Little Boat anthologies
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Year 2 have been exploring the story of the Little Boat from the Literacy Shed website in line with our topic of 'Voyagers'. In our English learning groups, we have been thinking about how we can put of all the wonderful writing skills that we have developed throughout the year into acrostic poems.
We have been resilient by sticking at the same piece of writing for a week while being reflective in consistently looking at how to improve our writing. We have been resourceful by using dictionaries and thesauruses to check spellings and choose more exciting words. We have been reciprocal by giving and responding to high quality peer feedback.
We are incredibly proud of the final product: two wonderful learning group anthologies, as a result of our hard work. I wonder if you can spot some wonderful writing features in the examples below, such as: noun phrases, similes, suffixes and neat, joined up handwriting.
The learning group anthologies can be found in full in the school office.
Coke and Mentos experiment
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Whilst the other year group were at the Forest School site, we decided to have some science fun!
Mrs Cobb laid out a big bottle of coke, a small bottle of water, an empty bottle and a bag of mentos. She gave the question: 'What could we do?'
The children had some brilliant ideas but we decided to pour coke into the empty bottle so we had the same amount of water and coke (to keep it fair). But as we opened the big bottle of coke, we noticed a loud fizzing noise; carbon dioxide!
After making predictions, we put two mentos in each bottle and watched to see what happened...ask your child what they saw! They now have some brilliant ideas to try at home:
- What would happen if you used more mentos?
- What would happen if you used other fizzy drinks?
- What would happen if you used a 'mintier' mint?
- What would happen if you used more liquid?
We did remind children to ask a grown ups permission first...and to make sure it's done outside!!
Space Dome Voyage
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Wow! What a great start to our new topic of 'Voyagers'.
Today, the Science Dome from Bournemouth came to hook us in to our learning. Professor T was able to take us to the moon, the space station and we explored all the planets. We finished off with a rollercoaster through space; amazing!
Thank you so much for your kind contributions that allows something like this to happen!
RNLI visit to KS1
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Yesterday, we had an exciting visitor from the RNLI who helped us to understand the different colour flags that we might see on the beach and explained the jobs of the lifeboats.
A big 'thanks' to Judy from the Lymington Lifeboat station.
Watercolour Natural Art
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On Wednesday, KS1 children learnt how to use watercolour paints. First, they looked at the difference in colours between man made and natural objects. They then used the paints to colour match!
The children chose a natural object from the seaside to sketch and then paint, mixing colours to match the exact shades used. Brilliant art!
Trip to the Forest in Spring
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Today, KS1 went to the Forest School site to continue with their Science longitudinal study of 'How do trees change over time?'.
Children made observational drawings of their chosen tree and discussed how it now had green leaves.
Also in the forest, children collected items from the forest floor to create springtime pictures - some chose to create pictures of lambs, flowers, deer and trees. Well done everyone!
Floating and sinking challenge!
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Today, KS1 were visited by a rather distressed Davey. Davey has been shipwrecked for months and can't get off his island! The children were very keen to help Davey by building a prototype using all the rubbish that has washed ashore.
The children worked in groups of three and had to consider the materials they used. There was lots of brilliant discussion about floating, sinking, balance, strength and the volume of air that a container would hold; wow!
Davey came round to see how we had got on and was very impressed. We will be testing and evaluating our boats tomorrow! Great learning everyone!
Seaside Experience
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This afternoon, the children had a seaside experience on the school's field!
Our challenge was to use our five senses to describe what we could see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
We rotated around lots of different activities which included:
- Eating an ice lolly
- Beach disco (with a bubble machine)
- Beach games
- Sensory area - dipping our hands and feet into a paddling pool
- Exploration area - looking and feeling shells and seaside debris
We had a great time and the cold weather didn't put us off...we all wanted an ice lolly! :-)
Finding Treasure in the Forest
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Today, Years 1 and 2 have visited the Forest School site with some of the SCITT teachers to find the pirate's treasure. Children have been using positional and directional language to lead their partner to the treasure! They had to make a path using sticks and then direct their partner...we have been using words such as left, right, forwards, backwards, half turn and quarter turn. Well done everyone and a BIG 'Thank you' to our SCITT teachers! :-)
Spring is here!
Louise Lawrence (admin) on: Giraffes, Panthers & Zebras
As the weather was so lovely today, KS1 have been enjoying the sunshine whilst carrying out some science learning. We have been looking for signs of spring out on the back field and found lots by using our different senses. I wonder if they can spot any other signs of spring in the coming weeks...
Our trip to Bursledon Brickworks
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Over the last three days, Zebras, Giraffes and Panthers have visited Bursledon Brickworks as part of their 'Structures' topic.
We have had an amazing few days exploring how bricks were made in the past, using the power of steam and simple materials such as clay, water and sand. We took part in fun activities including building, archways, making our own bricks and finding the best mixture for a brick. We have learnt lots of facts and are ready to carry on our science investigations about the properties of materials and how they can be used.
Well done KS1; Bursledon Brickworks were overwhelmed by our impeccable behaviour (as usual) :-)
Super Structure Building in Key Stage 1
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Yesterday we worked together in brilliant teams to try and create the tallest, strongest structure using very limited resources. The children were only allowed to use newspaper, sellotape and 1 tube!
Take a look at how we got on!