Welcome to Owl Class!

Teacher: Mrs Faye Cooper

HLTA: Mrs Lisa Clarke

On behalf of the team, a huge welcome to Owl Class!  We are really looking forward to working with you and your child this year, and helping them to grow and learn.

We will try and ensure that these class pages are updated regularly with photos and information about the children's learning journey.  However, if you need any more information about the learning we are doing or have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!   

Week Commencing: 15th May 2018

What a super week we have had in Owls class!  It has busy but what a lot we have learnt...

First of all we released our beautiful butterflies.  We were sad to see them go but really enjoyed observing their metamorphosis from baby caterpilllar to butterfly.  We know all about this incredible life cycle now.

We also enjoyed a fantastic visit to Clitheroe Castle Museum.  We learnt such a lot from Ellie and Julie, our guides.  We visited the castle keep and used our imaginations to think about what it would have looked like in the past.  We pretended to attack enemies from the curtain wall and made our own motte and bailey castles from sand! We thoroughly enjoyed becoming members of S.W.O.R.D (Society for the Welfare of Rare Dragons) and enjoyed listening to the legend of the Clitheroe Dragon.  We developed our skills so that we could use a sword and shield safely and so can now protect dragons from becoming extinct!  Have a look at the school Twitter feed for photos and enjoy the slide show below:

Week Commencing: 23rd April 2018

Look at how big our caterpillars are now!  They have been eating lots this week and getting much fatter.  We have enjoyed watching them and can't wait to see how they change!

Also, we have been learning an information text about a special type of dragon this week, The Rainbow Dragon.  We used a text map to jog our memories when retelling the text to our friends.  In Owl Class we know that 'if we can hear it, we can say it' and 'if we can say it, we can write it!' If you want to practise retelling the text, these is a link to a website below where you can find the text and a text map.  Above you can see some our shared writing.  We know that information texts need a title, paragraphs, topic sentences, generalisers and must be written in the present tense.  Phew!  What a lot to remember...

Father Eddie came into school this week to help us with our learning in RE.  He shared lots of information about Pentecost with us and we enjoyed interviewing him with some deep and thoughtful questions.  Thank you for visiting us and for bringing in the special cloaks too, Father Eddie!  We enjoyed trying them on.

Week Commencing 16th April 2018

Meet our new caterpillar friends! Five little caterpillars joined Owl Class on Wednesday of this week. They are going to support our learning on life cycles this half term and we are looking forward to seeing how they grow and transform into butterflies.  

Another special delivery arrived this week.  Professor Edmund Drake sent us another letter and informed us that he has spotted a Rainbow Dragon in Adlington!  He supplied us with a great deal of information about this type of dragon so we have created a text map and learnt actions to help us become experts on this specie.   

We are becoming experts on the 4 different sentence types too, using them to create our own dragon riddles.  

Week Commencing 9th April 2018

This week has been very exciting for Owl Class.  A very special and mysterious delivery was made to school on Monday...a beautiful green and gold dragon egg!   Along with the egg,  we were sent a book called 'Dragonology' and a special letter asking us to look after the egg and to become apprentice dragonologists.  We cannot wait to become dragon experts this term!

On Friday, we got another lovely surprise.  Mrs Flanagan brought the family's two bearded dragons in for us to look at.  We loved holding Drogo and Daenerys and enjoyed gently touching their scales.  Thank you Abigail and Mrs Flanagan - we loved meeting your pets!  Here are some photos:

Week commencing: 12.3.18

We enjoyed a wonderful Science Week at Adlington last week!  In Owl class we carried out a number of investigations and made lots of observations and predictions about what would happen.  We watched raisins dancing in lemonade, tested the strength of eggs, decided if Oobleck was a solid or a liquid and even tried to stand on plastic cups without crushing them! We have continued to track the progress of our mustard and cress seeds as well, exploring how they have germinated.  We are hoping to see signs of growth with our broad bean seeds too.  Fingers crossed they germinate soon!

A huge well done to all of the children who earned their Numeracy Ninja keyrings too this week.  We are proud that they can accurately and quickly answer 10 x table questions (and the related division facts).  Our next challenge is to learn the 5x table by heart. You can do it, Owls!  

Week Commencing: 26.2.18

This week Owls have been practising dividing in maths and we have also thinking about fractions as 'equal parts'.  The games below will support the learning that we have been doing this week on halves so have a go if you get chance, Owls! 

Following on from our fantastic visit last week, we have been thinking about seeds in science lessons.  We have planted cress, mustard and broad bean seeds and are patiently waiting for them to germinate!  We hope to see roots and shoots emerging soon.    

We have written the story of Farmer Duck this week and have also started reading a new class novel too.  The first chapter of The Sheep Pig by Dick King Smith was great and we are looking forward to finding out more about this special piglet.  

Well done Owls on all of your wonderful World Book Day costumes.  They were so creative! I know that you had fun completing book related activities.  Keep reading!

Week Commencing: 21.2.18

What a wonderful first week back!  We enjoyed a school trip to 'Bring yer Wellies' in Hoghton on Wednesday.  What a lot of learning we did about plants, seeds and where food comes from. We also enjoyed racing cork boats on the stream and building dens too.  I hope you are all looking after your plants at home, Owls.  Remember to water them just enough!  Return to this page soon to see a slideshow of all of our photos from the visit.

We have also enjoyed trying to achieve our personal best with our times tables this week.  We have started our Numeracy Ninjas initiative and we are all trying to become black belts at multiplying by 10!  

Finally, we loved sharing the story of 'Farmer Duck' by Martin Waddell this week.  We have learnt actions to help us remember the story and the story maps can be found below.  Can you show your families the story, children?  Owls showed off their fantastic drama skills too, role playing and acting out the many  jobs that the poor duck did.  We will be using this story as a model for writing our own farmyard tale.

P.S. Congratulations to all of the Owls who achieved reading challenges this week!  I am very proud of how your reading is coming on.  Reading is a life skill and you are showing that you know just how important it is to read regularly.  Keep it up!

Week Commencing: 5.2.18

Owls have been working hard on their learning again!  This week we have been making arrays in maths to support us with multiplying.  We made an array 'city' of skyscrapers and added windows to form the columns and rows.  You may wish to have a go at the arrays activity below to practise multiplying.

In our geography lessons we have thought about the geographical features of the city of Christchurch in New Zealand.  We talked about the things that visitors could do on the Avon River, at Port Hills and on many beaches of the coast.  

The story of Digiduck also helped us to think about how we use the internet safely and respectfully.  

A number of children have met Bob's Challenge in our 'There are a Minion Reasons to Read' initiative.  WELL DONE!  Reading is a skill for life - we are very proud of you!

Week Commencing: 29.1.18

Bonjour! Guten Tag!  Hola! This week is 'Languages Week' at Adlington Primary School.  In Owl Class we have been learning some French words and greetings.  Mr Topping from St. Michael's came into school to help us to learn the different colours in French.  We have also looked at the work of Claude Monet and learnt the song 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'.  We have read some stories in French too.  We loved 'Maman!' by Mario Ramos and  also 'La Chenille qui fait des trous' by Eric Carle. Mrs Baah (from Albany Academy) has been in to help us develop our French too and she taught us how to spell our names in French.  We loved tasting food at the Languages Cafe!  

Week Commencing: 22.1.18

This week it is Owl Class assembly.  Have a practise of these songs and actions if you get chance, Owls!

Week Commencing: 15.1.18

Ahoy shipmates! We are really enjoying our pirate topic in Owl class at the moment and since we have come back to school we have read two Jonny Duddle books  - The Pirate Cruncher and The Pirates Next Door.  We can't wait to find out what happens to the Jolley Rogers in The Ghostly Galleon!

We are learning a story called 'Kassim and the Greedy Pirate's Treasure' for our class assembly and are using oral storytelling and actions.  We have been practising our writing this week too and have been describing pirates in special WANTED posters.  Here is some of our shared writing: 

Week Commencing: 4.12.17

This week has been yet another busy one.  We have spent some time practising for our Christmas production of 'Lights, Camel, Action!'.  We have been learning to deliver our lines, thinking about stage directions and dancing and singing!  Thank you for all of your support with this special learning.  

We are also currently trialling ClassDojo!  This is a positive reward system and the children are very excited about the prospect of earning points for demonstrating values, attitudes and skills such as hard work, perseverance, kindness and super spelling (to name but a few).

This week has been 'Assessment Week' across school and the children have been showing off what they can do! Well done everyone.  We demonstrated our reading and comprehension skills, completed arithmetic and reasoning papers  and were inspired to write own stories.  We watched a short video clip  called 'Bubbles' about a special journey that one little girl embarked on.  What a lot of creative and imaginative children we have in Owl Class!

We have been also been thinking about how our bodies change after exercise in our science lesson and we have also been using wooden mannequins to develop our sketching skills in art.

2D and 3D Shapes

This week we have been thinking about the properties of 2D and 3D shapes, and also symmetry.

Perhaps you might like to try playing games from these websites?  They will help you to revise and remember key information.

As part of our special 'Friendship Week' this week, Owl Class has been thinking about how we are all different but all equal.  

We decorated our own individual 'All about Me' jigsaw pieces.  We added important names of our family, friends and pets and jotted down our favourite foods, hobbies and subjects. We thought carefully about the things that we have in common with our classmates and the things that make us unique.  We then managed to put all the pieces together - they fitted perfectly!  We considered how one person is like a single piece of the jigsaw but when we join together we become a very special community.

We have also read the book, 'You Be You', by Linda Kranz.  We learnt all about Adri who swam through the ocean meeting fish of different colours, sizes and shapes.  It taught us that, "we all have something special that only we can share." It's important for everyone to be themselves! 

Just Keep Reading!

We have started a new reading incentive in Owl Class this week and the children have responded so enthusiastically!  Well done on reading at home with an adult everyone!   By practising reading at home, you will become more confident, improve your fluency and develop your understanding too.  Plus there are some amazing prizes up for grabs!   Just keeping reading!

Remembrance

As well as making a beautiful poppy wreath this week, pupils in Owl Class thought about all of the people who have fought and died in war.  We listened to the story 'Poppy's Day' and watched a BBC animation called 'Poppies'.  We wrote an acrostic poem together called 'Remember' too (below).  The children were very thoughtful and came up with some beautiful poems of their own. 

Clap, Clap Game

We have been revising our number bonds (addition pairs) to 10 and 20 this week e.g. 7+3 = 10,

16 +4 = 20.  We are getting much quicker! The children have enjoyed the 'clap, clap' game to practise their mental maths skills and might want to play this at home too.  For bonds to 20, it might look like this:

Adult: Clap, Clap, 11

Pupil :Clap, Clap, 9

Adult: Clap, Clap, 5

Pupil: Clap, Clap, 15

Adult: Clap, Clap,17

Pupil: Clap, Clap, 3 etc

This week we are learning the 5 Times Table (multiplication facts) in class.  We have thought about how the multiples of 5 end, in a 0 or a 5, and that the 5 times table is half of the 10 times table.   Children might want to play the game below at home to help them to practise: