Category: Pre-Prep News
This week the children at Queen’s House have taken part in a maths investigation morning. Children in Reception read the story ‘The Doorbell Rang’ and then worked together to find out how to share biscuits out fairly. In Year 1 the children worked in groups to help Pirate Pete organise his four piles of gold bars so that each pile was the same height – but in only two moves! In Year 2 one group read ‘One hundred hungry ants’ and used the story as a stimulus to find the quickest way for 100 ants to reach food by dividing them into lines of equal length. The other Year 2 group used trundle wheels to work out how far we walk to lunch every day. They found out that it was 240m, and worked out that from starting in Reception to leaving at the end of Year 2 the children will have walked 246km. That is the same distance as walking from Queen’s House to Buckingham Palace and back again! The children showed great determination and fun was had by all.
WORM
I’m a little wiggler
I’m a little worm.
Watch me as I wriggle.
See me as I squirm.
Find me in the garden
Sliding through the earth.
Go and ask the gardeners.
They know what I’m worth.
Tony Mitton
Anything
Anything that’s broken
I will mend.
Anything that needs to go
I will send.
Any time you call me
I will attend.
You can ask me anything.
I am your friend.
Bernard Young
Happy Poem
Happy as a rainbow
happy as a bee
happy as a dolphin
splashing in the sea
Happy as bare feet
running on the beach
happy as a sunflower
happy as a peach
Happy as a poppy
happy as a spoon
dripping with honey
happy as June
Happy as a banjo
plucking on a tune
happy as a Sunday
lazy afternoon
Happy as a memory
shared by two
happy as me…
when I’m with you
James Carter
The Reception topic this term is “All Creatures Great and Small”. The children have been invited to bring their pets to school. This week Sukie and her Mummy brought their puppy, Bonnie, for Show and Tell. Sukie was able to tell the class how she looks after Bonnie. The children were very excited and learnt a lot about how to care for a dog.
RHYME OF THE WEEK 24. 04. 15
(Follow up to extract from RUBY by Maggie Glen)
Extract from a poem by Gerald Haigh
Fat, thin, high, low
Short, tall, fast, slow
Sorry, scatty, silly, soppy
Merry, happy, jolly, spotty
Black, yellow, brown, white
Sleepy, lively, dim, bright
Look around us and you’ll see
We’re all different – you and me
Him from her, girl from boy
John from Sandeep, Jane from Roy……
Book and Arts Week ended on Friday, 20 March with all of Queen’s House dressing up as our favourite animal characters from books. A fantastic variety of creatures turned up including: Fantastic Mr Fox, The Enormous Crocodile, plenty of Dalmatians, Paddington, Muggle-Wump, The Little Red Hen, Puss-in-Boots and Rasta Mouse! A fantastic effort was made with the costumes and the children enjoyed the fancy dress parade in the morning. Mrs King judged the best costumes and the winners were: Suki for her fabulous snail, Rowan who was Winnie the Pooh, Sam for his waddling penguin, Jackson who was Mr Fox and Betty who was Mrs Fox. The overall winner was Arthur who was Paddington, complete with marmalade sandwiches in his old suitcase. What a wonderful end to a terrific week.
On Monday the finals of The Abbey Verse Speaking Competition took place. All the Year 2’s went to listen and support the Year 2 finalists Jon Stanley, James, Sasha and Rose. We were so proud of James who kicked off the event with a lovely clear recital of his poem Gulls by Jean Kenwood. Everyone was impressed with Rose’s poem; The Sea by James Reeves. She used wonderful expression and intonation. Jon Stanley really gave his best when he delivered his version of Gulls – it was so well articulated. But, it was Sasha who won with her excellent performance of A Day at the Beach written by none other than her brother Oliver! A fabulous morning of poetry really inspired the Year 2’s who had already caught the poetry bug from our visiting Author Tony Mitton during Book and Arts Week.
On 24th March 2015, Mrs Copestake, the Food Technology teacher, took the Year 2 to visit Sainsbury’s in Ipswich. Mr Na Nakhorn, the store manager and parent of Year 2 pupil, Arthur, planned a brilliantly organised morning of activities learning many interesting things and skills. The overall favourite activity was, unsurprisingly, injecting jam into the doughnuts and coating them in sugar. The trickiest task of the day was, without question, completing this without licking fingers!
Another favourite was when the children tested their speed skills at scanning products at the checkouts. You will be pleased to hear, we have a few potential tillers for the future as several managed 20/20 in 1 minute.
Other activities such as cheese tasting, calculating the cost of a meal deal, finding the origin of the bananas, or locating the dragon fruit kept the children busy and very excited.
Many thanks to Mr Na Nakhorn and his team for a hugely entertaining and informative day. The children were so grateful for their goodie bag of doughnuts and cupcake fun!
The children in Reception have been learning about Easter. After listening to the Easter story they went outside into the Queen’s House garden and collected natural materials to create an Easter Garden. They enjoyed working together and were very pleased with the end result. Inside the classroom they drew pictures and did some writing about the story and then they made a display of their work.
