Welcome to Chestnut Tree Class!

A warm welcome to parents and children from

Chestnut Tree Class!

Thank you for visiting our class page.

Here you will find lots of information about the fun and exciting things we are learning about. And as we are always very busy, please do visit our page often to see all of our wonderful and exciting adventures.

Our Lenten Journey

We began our Lenten Journey by making our Lenten Promises . We then received our ashes to help us carry out our promises and remind us of Jesus; time in the desert. We learned that sometimes we make mistakes and break our promises but God will always forgive us so we can start again.

Off to the library...

We had an unusual story telling experience at the library where we were the ones that created the story! Through art activities, exploration and detective skills we were able to construct a story together to explain the Captain's adventure! 

PE

In PE we have been putting out balancing and climbing skills to the test as we began using the apparatus to work on our gymnastic skills. Coach has helped us to balance and climb correctly in order to take on a number of obstacles! We found somethings a little bit scary but as we are all team players we encouraged each other to keep on going and to conquer our fears.

GO TEAM CHESTNUT!

WORLD BOOK DAY!

Our class was full of the most wonderful characters from the stories we all love and cherish. We loved the parade and had lots of fun story related activities in the classroom! We love reading and it was so lovely to talk about our favourite books!

Falconry UK

We had an amazing experience when Falconry UK came to show as some fantastic birds! We learned about birds from all over the world and how the adapt to live in their habitats! We were also very lucky to get to hold the birds! 

Judaism Workshop

Today we had a special visit from Ruth who taught us about Judaism. We learned about the similarities and differences between our religions and enjoyed hearing Ruth read from the Torah. We then had a fantastic workshop all about Passover. We learned about why Passover is celebrated with a fantastic retell of the first Passover, exploring how Moses led the Israelites to freedom and the Ten Plagues. We then discovered how Passover is celebrated now by exploring the different foods eaten at the Seder Meal. Back in class, we write a recount of our experience and also made a Seder plate explaining what foods are eaten and what they symbolise. It was a fantastic day of learning!

Numbers Day

Miss Kermani led a fantastic assembly to introduce us to NSPCs Number Day. We spent some time playing number games and had lots of fun solving Buddy's Challenge. 

Child Mental Health Week

This week we learned about taking care of our mental wellbeing. We learned about how we can understand who we our as a person to enable us to 'Know ourself and grow ourself!'

No Pens Day!

This Wednesday we had a whole day where we couldn't use pens. We really enjoyed doing our lessons on laptops and making fantastic dreamcatchers in our Adventure Learning lesson. 

RE

We have been learning all about forgiveness and sin during our RE lessons. This week we had fantastic discussions while learning about TEMPTATION! We learned about how Jesus was tempted in the desert and then we were given different situations and decided whether or not we would be tempted!

Pyjama Day!

It was so lovely to stay cosy all day in our pyjamas! We enjoyed stories and a little sleep!!

Science

In Science we are learning all about MATERIALS. We had lots of fun experimenting to decide which material is the best for the bounciest ball. We then discussed why some materials are better to use than others for a particular sport!

Art

In our Art Lessons, we have been learning all about sculptures. We researched the artist Rachel Whiteread and used our learning from history to create our own castle tiles.

The Sound Collector

We had a lot of fun performing a fantastic poem called The Sound Collector by Roger McGough. We used gestures and instruments to perform the poem expressively and then wrote our own versions of he poem.

In Maths we are learning about Place Value. This week we were partitioning numbers. First we built it, then we drew it, then we wrote and finally we said it. We loved learning about representing numbers in different ways using tens and ones!

In computing this week, we talked about how we need to stay safe online. We then learned how to log on to our laptops and as we had been following the golden rules we earned golden time to explore some fun educational games!

As the seasons change, we had lots of fun looking for seeds ready to plant in the spring. Mrs Saiz taught us about the different types of seeds and what they all produce. We then went on a hunt around our school garden to find seeds that produce different types of fruits , flowers and vegetables.

In Geography we are learning all about Continents and Oceans so we were so excited to make our own map to show where all the worlds continents and oceans are in relation to one another during a fun lesson in Adventure learning. Mr Dames was very impressed that we knew so much about the Northern and Southern Hemispheres!

Our First Week!

English

We read a fantastic book by our author of the term called 'Hide and Seek'. Then we went to the playground to play the game ourselves. Back in the classroom we learned all about the past tense and how to use our senses to describe so that we could write a recount of our amazing experience! What a fun way to learn in our English lessons!

*Chestnut Tree Class

2023-2024*

It was so lovely to celebrate the end of our time together with our Leavers Party. The children (and teachers!) had an amazing time showing off all our dance moves! 

This week we celebrated ONE WORLD WEEK! Our class country was France. We  learned to sing Frere Jaque and also heads , shoulders , knees and toes in French. We learned all about France and after dancing the CAN CAN we had an amazing time eating French food at Cafe de Chesnut!! 

Sports Day

We had an amazing time at Willesden Sports Centre showing off all the skills we have been learning over the year with Coach Taggart! Not only did we demonstrate our physical strengths but we also showed excellent sportsmanship and out great ability to work as a team! Welldone Chestnut Tree Class!

                             Chestnut Tree Class 2022- 2023

We were delighted to watch the eggs hatching at school and learn more about the life cycle of a duck .It has been a wonderful experience and it has inspired some great writing and a deep appreciation for the wonders of nature. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to the ducklings as they returned to the farm.

 CELEBRATING BEE DAY

World Bee Day is celebrated every year on the 20^th of May to acknowledge the crucial role bees play in our ecosystem. We enjoyed tasting different types of honey and learned about the importance of bees in pollinating the plants, from where we get our food from. Thank you for sharing your findings and projects that helped us understand the importance of protecting these vital insects and preserving our environment.

We are very proud of our felt pouches, which we have designed and

made using a running stitch. Children have been learning to sew fabrics together and follow their designs to complete their projects.

In RE we have been learning all about the

Our Father Prayer 

We visited our school library.

We love reading and sharing books with our friends

In Computing we are learning all about coding

English

We have been retelling the story of ‘The Gigantic Turnip’ through drama. We acted out the beginning, middle and end of the story and can you guess our favourite part?

 ‘They pulled and heaved and tugged and yanked until the turnip went POP!’

The story inspired us to write our own version. Luckily, there many vegetables in the school garden ready for Harvest…

 MATHS

AUTUMN I

This term in Maths we have been learning about Place Value. Place Value, as the name suggests, is all about recognising the value of numbers! 

For example, in the number 34 we can see that it is made up of 3 tens and 4 ones.

The children have spent time representing both two digit and three-digit numbers using a variety of different concrete resources including Numicon, blocks and dienes.

RE

SCIENCE

In Science we have been spending lots of time in our beautiful school garden learning about seeds, plants and habitats. We have explored different areas of the school garden and organised items we have found into groups of ‘living’, ‘once lived’ and ‘never lived’ groups.

ECO WORKSHOP

End of Chestnut Tree Class 2021-2022

SUMMER TERM

Leavers Mass Summer 2022

D&T - Making healthy wraps

For our final project of D&T we made our healthy wraps using the ingredient combination that we decided in previous lesson. We had so much fun being chefs - chopping the cucumber, ham and cheese and designing a yummy wrap. We all ate them and evaluated them, pointing out things that went right and things to improve for the next time.

SPORTS DAY!!!

Today we celebrated Sports Day! We had three areas in the playground and garden where we played football, basketball, French and English, and we also showed our speedy skills competing in races. In the playground after lunch we did our favourite game - Tug of War - where Mrs Medina participated and together we were one of the strongest class!

We had an amazing, sunny day outside showing our good sportsmanship;

helping, collaborating and working as a great Chestnut Tree team!

- A big thank you to all parents and carers that could come and cheer for us! -

D&T - Testing different food combinations

Today we had a super fun D&T lesson! We discussed the five main food groups: carbohydrates, vegetables and fruits, proteins, dairy, fat and sweets. We all agreed that the key for a healthy diet is to have the right quantity of each food group in a week.

We had the opportunity to test which combination of vegetables - protein - dairy was the healthiest for our healthy wrap. Next week we will be making our own healthy wrap!!

GARDENING LESSON - ROASTING MARSHMALLOWS!

Today we had the BEST LESSON EVER!

Mrs Kothiria explained us how to build a safe campfire. She explained what type of materials we need to prepare: dig a hole and put stones around it, or have a metallic wheelbarrow. We went to the garden and each of us had a skewer with two marshmallows. We took turn to come closer to the wheelbarrow and roast our marshmallows. 

THEY WERE DELICIOUS!!!!

FATHER'S DAY!

Today 17th June we celebrated Father's Day in our school. Many daddies could come to our class to pray and sing with us in our Father's Day Act of Worship. It was so lovely to see our fathers coming to our classroom, reading them our Father's Day cards and sharing such a special moment with them.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING!

Chestnut Tree class - Baking time!

We made some mathematical calculations to see how much of each ingredients we needed to bake our Chestnut Tree class sponge cake for Friday's Cake Sale.

ONE WORLD WEEK and ART WEEK

THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE CELEBRATION

YEAR 2 TRIP TO THE LONDON ZOO!

What an amazing day! We saw many different types of animals, from tiny ants to huge scary lions! Our favourite part was exploring the RAINFOREST where we saw many different species that we recognised from our Geography lessons! We also did a workshop about different types of animals depending on their skin and we had the opportunity to explore the skin types with tools such as magnifying glasses and tweezers. In the penguin show we had the chance to meet Charlie, the most playful penguin who loves to sing!

IT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!

DUCKLINGS HAVE HATCHED!!!!

We are so excited to announce that the six eggs have hatched and now we have six cute little ducklings to look after in our school. We need to teach them how to swim so they can be super good swimmers when they come back to their farm!

MAKING SCULPTURES

As part of our Art topic this summer half term inspired by Alexander Calder and Anthony Gormley, we were using parts of our bodies (hand) to make clay sculptures. It was SO much fun!

SPRING TERM

Mrs Medina wishes Chestnut Tree class a restful and enjoyable Easter time with your families and friends. You have all worked incredibly hard in your learning on this Spring term and I am very proud of you!

May the Easter break bring lots of happiness and joy!

See you in two weeks time!

EASTER BONNETS!

Thank you so much to all parents and carers that came to our school today to participate in our Easter bonnet parade! All children made a great effort with their Easter bonnets, they all looked amazing!

SCIENCE WEEK!

Children became scientists this week. They presented their experiments to the class, with lost of excitement and enthusiasm from everyone participating.

We also made a class project called "Shelf Life" where we grew plants from their corresponding packaging (for example, beans in a bean can!).

 Mother's Day 

Children celebrated this special time by making personalised fabric pouches which they hand stitched and wrote beautiful poems for their mums.

Mums were invited into our class and we all gathered together for a special Act of Worship, where we sang songs, prayed together and recited some poems to our mummies.

Thank you all for coming and joining us!

CHESTNUT TREE CLASS ASSEMBLY - 11th MARCH 2022

Today it was our class assembly. We did a presentation about CAFOD Family Fast day, that we celebrate on the 11th March.

Children in Chestnut Tree class used their big acting voice to say their lines and do the role-plays of the assembly. Mrs Medina and Miss Valera were SUPER IMPRESSED!!!

WELL DONE, CHESTNUT TREE CLASS!!!

D&T: Sewing!

On this week, we have learned how to sew a running stitch. We were extra-careful and sensible with the needles while sewing. We enjoyed it so much! We cannot wait for the next lessons!

World Book Day!

Thursday 3th March 2022

The 80's Day!

Children's Mental Health Week

In Chestnut tree class we have been focusing on this year's Children's Mental Health Week theme "GROWING TOGETHER". We had lots of class discussions throughout the week about how can we help people around us to grow: sharing, being kind, helping out, being patience...

We also did MINDFULNESS exercises to help ourselves calm down and relax our minds. Relaxing minds are healthy minds! "Belly Breathing" was our favourite one - we learned how to breath slowly with our belly so we try to keep our shoulders and chest still - that really helped calming our minds!

On Wednesday we became MENTAL HEALTH SCIENTISTS and we did a social experiment in class. We wanted to see how powerful KIND WORDS are and how much they affect our mood, therefore, our Mental Health. We sat in a circle and shared how were we feeling. After that, we took turns to tell each other kind words: "You are a lovely friend", "I love your hair", "Your handwriting is amazing", "Would you like to play with me?".

After sharing all these kind words, we asked ourselves the same question: How are we feeling?

We were so amazed to check that our mood improved significantly!! We all felt happier, more cheerful and excited. KIND WORDS ARE SO POWERFUL!

Number Day!

Birdwatch week

AUTUMN I

In the first half-term, we have been learning about an important artist: Vincent Van Gogh. Children have researched about his life and artistic movement. Inspired by Van Gogh's art, children sketched and painted their own version of one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings: The Sunflowers. Children used paints and oil pastels for their artistic creations.

ENGLISH

The Sound Collector - Poetry

On the first week back to school, we explored the fascinating world of POETRY. We read the poem "The Sound Collector", by Roger MacGough and identified the sounds that were so beautifully described in the poem: the HISSSSSSING of the kettle, the TURNING of the lock, the PURRRRRING of the kitten, the TICKING of the clock...

We discussed elements of the poem that we liked and disliked, spotted the rhyming words and performed the poem all together using some instruments and body percussion. 

AUTUMN TERM

ENGLISH

Letter to Father Christmas

We were very excited to write our letters to Father Christmas. We had lots of questions to ask him in our letter - How old are you? How many elves do you have? How do you travel around the world just in one night?

We also spent some time reflecting on the year, telling Father Christmas our achievements and things to improve... things that we promise to work on in the new year!

We wish all our friends, family and school teachers a very happy Christmas and the happiest New Year!

Poetry Assembly

We had our first Poetry Assembly where each class recited a poem. Our class performed the poem "Christmas" written by M.E. Miro.

The Polar Express - Letter

We had the best time this week! We read the story of The Polar Express and we also watched the film. It was such a magical day - we were on our cozy pyjamas drinking hot cocoa and watching such a Christmassy movie!

We wrote letters to our parents retelling them our magical experience in the Polar Express.

One Plastic Bag - Poster

We raised awareness of the importance of looking after our planet and recycling by reading this interesting book called "One Plastic Bag" set in Gambia, Africa. We made posters to inform people in our school community of the importance of reduce, reuse and recycle!

Giant African Snails: Writing a leaflet

By taking care of our school pets- The Giant African Land Snails, we learn more about them. We wrote an information text to teach others about these fascinating creatures.

Zoolab workshop: Recount writing on a postcard

We had a very special workshop to help us learn more about different animals, their habitats, diet and how they have adapted to their environments. We enjoyed our ZOOLAB experience and wrote some postcards telling our family and friends all about it.

The Gigantic Turnip: Writing our version of the story

We retold the story of ‘The Gigantic Turnip’ through drama. We acted out the beginning, middle and end of the story and can you guess our favourite part?

 ‘they pulled and heaved and tugged and yanked until the turnip went POP!’

The story inspired us to write our own version. Luckily, there many vegetables in the school garden ready for Harvest…

Acrostic poem: The Sunflowers

The sunflowers in the school garden inspired our acrostic poems and helped us with measurement in Maths. We also used our observation skills to create paintings in the style of Van Gogh.

MATHS

AUTUMN II

At the end of the half term we have been looking at money. We reviewed the names of the coins and notes that we learned in Year 1, and we learned how to add and subtract pounds and pennies. We also learned a key concept: change - when we pay more than what we need, we get the difference in return and we call that change!

In order to understand the importance of money, we played a bartering game pretending we were living in London hundreds years ago when people had to trade objects. The game that helped us understand how lucky we are to use money now for transactions.

We have also been working on addition and subtraction! We have used our place value skills to help us solve problems using both one digit and two digit numbers. As this term progresses will be developing a wide range of strategies including using number lines, partitioning, tens frames and as always concrete resources to support out learning and problem solving skills.

AUTUMN I

This term in Maths we have been learning about Place Value. Place Value, as the name suggests, is all about recognising the value of numbers! 

For example in the number 34 we can see that it is made up of 3 tens and 4 ones.

The children have spent time representing both two digit and three digit numbers using a variety of different concrete resources including Numicon, blocks and dienes.

RE

Beginning with God

We have been learning about the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. We made links between our own experience and metaphors for God in the Bible. By looking at our school garden and the world around us, we learned how to be grateful for God’s wonderful creation and God’s presence in our lives.

 We explained the Trinity using the sign of the Cross.

Travelling Crib

During the month of December, two children from each class were taking the Travelling Crib home. At home, they set up the Nativity scene, had did some prayers with their family and they had an activity book to fill out. It was a very special activity to share with our families in this time of the year.

Annunciation, Visitation and Nativity

As we were approaching to Christmas, we explored the story of the Annunciation, Visitation and Nativity. 

With the Annunciation story, we wrote a diary entry as we were Mary explaining what happened on that day and describing our feelings and emotions. 

When learning about the Visitation, we read the story according to Luke and we discussed what happened on that special day when Mary visited Elizabeth. Our favourite part was when Elizabeth told Mary that her baby leaped of joy in her womb when he heard her voice.

The Nativity story is a part of the Bible we were familiar with. We read the Birth of Jesus according to Luke, but we also compared Luke's and Matthew's Gospel and see what elements were the same and what characters or scenarios varied. 

Advent

We learned about Advent as a time for preparation and excitement. We discussed what preparation entails - preparing our minds, hearts and bodies for the birth of Jesus. 

We also looked at the Advent symbols and discussed their meaning in this important time of the year. We wrote individual Advent promises and prayers that we added to our class Advent wreath, choosing one a day to read and reflect on it.

On Thursday, we were so lucky to have a special mass in our school chapel with Monsignior Roger where he talked to us about Advent.

Month of the Rosary

Moses and the Burning Bush

Mary's Grotto