Meeting Christ

Happy Easter! - And welcome back to the Summer Term.  We continue to celebrate the season of Easter this week as we look ahead to the Third Sunday of Easter (Year A) and the encounter on the Road to Emmaus.  In their grief and confusion, two disciples fail to notice Christ in their midst as he walks alongside them on the road.  Finally, after sitting down to share a meal - taking, blessing, breaking and sharing bread do they finally "see" him.

It is an important reminder to us all that spending time with others is a powerful way to recognise Christ at work in our world.   Getting involved in conversation, sharing meals and actively taking part in community events can help us to  recognise the work of Christ in others as we build the Kingdom of God here at St Joseph's.  So, let's get stuck in this Summer Term!   

Under the sea

On the first day back, Year 1 dove under the sea with an exploration day of our new text, 'The Rainbow Fish'. Coming into school to 'under the sea' themed classrooms got a buzz going across the year group. Many children were excited to share interesting facts about creatures that live under the sea, too. Throughout the day, children were immersed in a range of different activities around this theme, whilst also recapping many skills that have previously been taught throughout the year including writing skills, data collection and texture in Art. Writing sentences about under the sea pictures got our brains thinking of exciting adjectives that could be used, helping us with creative writing as we move through our topic in English. 

Digesting the facts

Year 4 had an exciting introduction to the digestive system in science this week. In groups, they reenacted different parts of the body, to visualise what happens after eating a banana and Weetabix! The first group (the mouth) enjoyed mashing up the food, adding water to symbolise the enzymes in the saliva and then pouring it into a piping bag to demonstrate the squeezing movement of the oesophagus. The second group squeezed the contents into a bag for the stomach where they added bile from the liver and stomach juices to help further mash up the food and turn it into nutrients. The next group (small intestine) were fascinated to pour the stomach contents into a pair of tights, symbolising the small intestine and watch the nutrients seep out the tights just as they would into the blood. They were fascinated to learn about the fibre and water traveling through the large intestine (tights) and into the toilet! 

The children are looking forward to writing up explanation texts in English linked to the digestive system.

Celebrating Eid

Circle time routines in Nursery encourage children to share their thoughts, feelings and beliefs with others. 

One of the children in Ladybird Class told us that his mother was fasting and that they are preparing for Eid, the Muslim celebration that marks the end of Ramadan fasting.

We watched a short video together of other children getting ready for Eid; they talked about celebrating with their families and getting dressed up. During the video, they discussed the Qur'an and showed families visiting a mosque.

It is fascinating to hear and learn about the children's lives and religions. It was a fantastic firsthand experience that contributed to our understanding of the world while also teaching us about people and different communities. 

Completely Dotty!

Year 3 were very excited to start the term with a couple of Art Days, focusing on the french artist Georges Seurat.  We began by learning a little bit about his life and how he painted with very tiny dots which the eye then blends together - Pointillism.  We then experimented with different mediums (charcoal, watercolours, felt tip pens, oil pastels and coloured pencils) to see which one was most effective for this technique. After learning about colour mixing (primary, secondary and tertiary colours). the children created their own pointillism painting, exploring tone and shades of the same colour. We had a wonderful 'gallery' time looking at each other's work. 

3, 2, 1.... BLAST OFF!

The children in Reception have been fascinated by space this week. We read 'Whatever Next!' by Jill Murphy and began thinking all about space, and what is above the clouds. The children loved making their own rockets, just like Baby Bear. Look at our creativity with some cardboard boxes! To ensure our rockets were a success we first drew a design then wrote a list of all the items we would need. Then we experimented with mixing paints, and joining materials together. We think the children are going to love DT as they journey throughout St Joseph's! 

Habitats

In Science, Year 2 are about to start their learning about habitats. The children will be learning what a habitat is and what it provides to animals. We are very excited as this gives us lots of opportunities for some fun practical lessons and some exploring up at the Common! As an introduction to this unit, the children were learning that different animals live in different habitats according to their needs and they made some habitat collages to represent this.

Town Planning

Year 5 have been using their Google Sheets skills to create graphs and charts in their Geography lessons to compare the human Geography of Guildford to  Reykjavík, Iceland. Over the past 6 lessons, they have been studying and comparing the areas and even suggesting improvements. Watch out GBC planning department (and  Reykjavík) Year 5 have some wonderful ideas! 

Nattering in Nursery

We encourage children to practice their social skills while eating at lunch and snack times in Nursery. Offering food and drink to children provides plenty of opportunities for them to use their manners, participate in conversation, and express their thoughts and feelings.

This week at lunch, the Butterfly Class talked about the activities they did over the Easter holidays. The children mentioned the zoo, the farm and the aquarium, where they saw a massive stingray!