Oak Tree Class
Oak Tree Class
A warm welcome to parents and children from Oak 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.
**Oak Tree Class 2023-2024**
One World Week- Celebrating culture and diversity
DT- Designing, making and eating healthy wraps. We tasted different combinations of ingredients and rated our designs. We then made our final design using fresh ingredients. We were mindful to include ingredients from different food groups.
Sports Day
RE- We have been learning about Islam and its prayer rituals. We were very lucky to have a visit from Miss Kermani who told us all about Islam. Some of our pupils also shared their experiences and expertise for which we are very grateful.
Father's Day- Celebration of the Word
Year 2's Trip to ZSL London Zoo- From curious meerkats, slow-moving sloths just above our heads, gorillas fighting, butterflies fluttering all around us (or if you were lucky- landing on your head!), to lion cubs taking an afternoon nap. We had fantastic day, filled with wonder and joy!
May Procession
World Bee Day- To celebrate World Bee Day we learned lots of facts about bees and how they make honey. We will use this information to write about worker bees in during our English lessons. We had a special treat of crackers and honey!
Gardening- Finding and recognising herbs that grow in our school garden. We then got to work weeding, watering and planting in our school garden.
Ducks- After the excitement of watching our ducklings hatch, Oak Tree Class go to watch them go for their first swim! Some of us held the ducks, while others stroked them. We all watched the ducklings preening, dabbling and up-ending!
Art- Sketching different leaves and flowers around our school garden to aid our art topic. We will be printing leaves onto fabric to create a piece of work inspired by Henri Rousseau.
Adventure Learning- Working as a team to create a marble run, using language of position and direction, to bring our maths learning outdoors.
Celebrating Easter- Everyone worked hard to create their Easter bonnets. We had a parade to show our creative designs.
DT- Showing off our beautifully made recycled paper bookmarks
Science Week- Investigating how long jelly takes to set!
Class Assembly- Our class assembly focused on the Catholic Social Teaching of Solidarity. This means not just doing things for others but acting with them to build a fairer world together. It means standing or walking along side others. Being willing to support them when they are sad and support them like a family member or good neighbour.
DT- We have explored making our own recycled paper using scrap paper from the school. We wrote our instructions and carefully followed them.
PE- Working on our core strength and agility
World Book Day- We had an fantastic World Book Day, with very creative and imaginative costumes. We celebrated by reading and sharing our favourite books and parading for our parents.
Mother's Day Celebration of the Word- We welcomed our mothers to celebrate Mother's Day! We prayed, sang and recited a poem for our mothers. We then shared what made our mummies special and presented them with flowers, a card and a felt pouch we lovingly made for them.
DT- We have been busy designing and making felt pouches, which will be presented to to our parents on Mother's Day. In preparation for this, Oak Tree Class have been busy learning how to sew, pattern cutting and assembling their final designs.
Science (Materials)- In Science we have been investigating, observing and testing various materials. From which material is best for shelter or tea bag, to which ball is the bounciest.
Art- We completed our clay castles, linking our History and Art learning together. We incorporated features of Norman castles into our designs and added final details.
Gardening- We have made bird feeders to help feed our birds through Winter. We want to make sure our birds are happy and well fed! We hung these in our school garden afterwards.
PE- This term we will be doing gymnastics in PE, to work on our balance and coordination.
Art- This term we are looking into the work of Turner Prize winning sculptor, Rachel Whiteread. We have researched and learned about some of her most famous sculptures and will use some of her techniques to create our own clay tiles. We will be linking our Art work with our prior learning in History and we will be creating castle-themed tiles. So far, we have practised manipulating clay with our hands (rolling, flattening, pinching) and with tools (cutting, shaping, scoring). .
Adventure Learning- Sound Collector. Together with Mr Dames, we explored sounds in our garden. It was very cold and Mr Dames had lit a fire for us, so we would be extra cosy outside. First, we explored what sounds we could hear in the garden, linking it back to the poem 'The Sound Collector', which we have been learning about in class. Mr Dames then encouraged us to look for things around the garden that could be used to create different sounds. We found sticks, stones and pebbles. We sang songs and used our new-found instruments to create music.
English- We performed the poem 'The Sound Collector' by Roger McGough using fluency and expression. We came up with actions and sounds to match the words.
Science- In Science we are exploring 'Materials. We carried out a fair test to identify which fabric would block out the most light.
DT- We have worked hard all term to design and make our very own Christmas cards. Our cards are inspired by Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'. We made them especially for our families. Every detail of the card was carefully created and assembled. We hope you love them! Oak Tree Class wish you a Merry Christmas!
A Very Special Visit- Santa came to visit us and gave each class a gift! What a special morning.
Movie Day- We took a vote to decide on what movie to watch. We relaxed watching our chosen movies or drew posters of our favourite movies. We later enjoyed popcorn and hot chocolate with our movie . Delicious!
Christmas Jumper Day- Getting into the Christmas spirit!
Christmas Decorations- We have been busy crafting our Christmas decorations ready to be sold at the Christmas Fair. We practised mixing, rolling and shaping our salt dough. Once baked, we carefully painted and decorated our pieces, then added some special final touches.
Some of our children took part in a very special sporting event. Here, they received their much anticipated trophies. Well Done!!
National Tree Week
Adventure Learning- Maths. We introduced our new Maths learning outside and practised our number bonds with Mr Dames. We used different objects to represent tens and ones.
Science- We went on a mini beast hunt around our School Garden and explored the different places where mini beasts might live. We identified different insects and habitats. We recorded our findings on a tally chart.
Maths- We follow the Build It, Draw It, Write It, Say It model when exploring number. We always practise building and drawing our numbers before performing calculations. Here, we are representing and partitioning numbers using concrete objects.
Science- Setting up an investigation to find out what are compostable and non- compostable materials. First we sorted items into different categories. We have buried different items and will dig them out later in the year to identify any changes.
World Mental Health Day- We discussed how to talk about things that worry us. We took regular breaks throughout the day to take part in mindful activities such as meditation, yoga and colouring.
Gardening- During our Gardening lesson we used our observation skills to identify and explore when fruit and vegetables are ready to be harvested. The marrows were ready to be harvested!
Music- Exploring different instruments.
Adventure Learning- We explored the topic 'Continents and Oceans' outdoors. Mr Dames laid out the different continents and oceans around our School Garden and we set out on a global 'expedition' to explore them. We had lots of fun navigating the globe.
Adventure Learning- We take our learning outside in our new 'Adventure Learning' lesson, with Mr Dames. Here we explored place value within 20.
Mounted Police- We had some very special visitors. We learned all about the work the Mounted Police do to keep us safe. We asked lots of questions. Afterwards, we were able to get really close and stroke the horses.
End of year slide show
Leavers party
Leavers mass
SATS PRESENTATION 2023
Sports day
We had an amazing time on our Sports Day. We showed great sportsmanship and skills.
One world week
In Oak Tree class we have been learning about Jamaica. Jamaica is an Island in the Caribbean. Its capital is Kingston. Jamaica has a population of approximately 2.7 million people. Jamaica is famous for ‘jerk’ seasoning, curried goat and lots and lots of tropical fruits. It has a tropical climate and is warm all year round! Jamaica has lots of sandy beaches which many travel to visit. Jamaica is also famous for the type of music called Reggae. We also learnt that the three colours of the flag have different meanings. The black represents strength and resilience, yellow symbolises wealth and sunshine and green represents the vegetation on the island. Some famous Jamaicans include Bob Marley, who was a musician and Usain Bolt the Olympic gold medallist. To learn about Jamaica in Oak Tree, we created their flag, did word searches, practised the national anthem, and even got to cook bread. This was the best bit because the classroom smelt delicious all day! It was a special type of bread called hard dough bread. Don’t worry it wasn’t hard! We loved learning about Jamaica!
History Workshop
We've had a busy week, it started with a history workshop. We participated in a dramatic reenactment of the Great Fire of London. We learnt a lot about what happened and why it began.
Trip to the Zoo
We started our new term with a trip to the zoo. We had a fantastic time seeing all the animals. We loved seeing the sloth, gorillas and butterflies.
DEAR:
Drop Everything And Read!
This week we started with our DEAR time. This has made us super excited about reading! It is amazing to see. DEAR can happen at any time... This week it happened during Maths and our English lessons.
As soon as our alarm goes off, we all read for 10 minutes without worrying about anything else.
Father's Day Worship:
Thank you to everyone who visited Oak tree today for us to show you how important each and every one of you are! This is the poem and the song we learnt to show each of you how important you are.
Bee Hunt:
In Gardening we've been learning about the bees! We got to go on a hunt for them. But while we were outside... we got soaked by the thunderstorm! We then became bees ourselves. We got to see what it is like to be pollinators! We used cheeseballs as the pollen, and we had to BUZZZ from flower to flower.
Zoo Trip:
We started our new term with a trip to the zoo. We had a fantastic time seeing all the animals. Some of our favourites were the sloth, gorillas and the butterflies.
Bollywood Workshop
We had a fantastic workshop. We learnt a whole dance routine to a popular Bollywood song!
May Procession
In the month of May we pray to Mary. We did a Procession and prayed to Mary as a year group.
Ducks
Over the past few weeks, we have greatly enjoyed having the ducks with us. We watched them hatch from their eggs and become ducklings. It was amazing to see them grow. In just one week they went from being in an egg to swimming. We also enjoyed watching Miss Ginesta have to chase a duckling who escaped from the pool.
We were very sad to see them go but we know they'll have a great life back on the farm enjoying a much bigger pond.
Coronation Celebration
To celebrate our new King, we dressed up as kings and queens or wore the flag's colours. It was beautiful to see so many different children dressed up. We had an assembly to celebrate the Coronation as a school. We sang our favourite Coronation song and the Anthem! Sadly, we didn’t get to enjoy our tea party outside because the weather had other plans. But we managed to have a great time inside!
Visit from the Circus
The circus came to visit us in school! We got to learn lots of different circus acts. We spun plates, juggled, tossed flower sticks and balanced a feather while we moved around. It was amazing to see everyone join in and join the circus for a day.
Art
In art, we are getting inspired by Henri Rousseau. We used our beautiful plants from the classroom to create still-life sketches to help us plan the background of our next masterpiece.
Ramadan
We have been learning about Islam and what is important to all Muslim people. We had someone come in and talk to us about prayer and they even showed us how to use a prayer mat! We got to ask lots of questions and it was an incredible opportunity which helped us create amazing books about Islam.
Gardening in the summer
We have been working hard in our school garden. We’ve been preparing the garden for the past few weeks by weeding and turning the soil. Now that it’s ready for planting, we planted peas, beans, courgettes and lots of different herbs as a class.
After all of our hard work, we enjoyed the beautiful garden and sunshine!
About a week later we came down with clipboards and measure the plants and used magnifying glasses to see how our plants were doing.
Easter
We have had a great last day of term celebrating Easter. We all looked fantastic in our handmade bonnets! We also had a visit from a special visitor who brought us a treat.
Thank you to all the parents and carers who supported us this term.
Mother's Day Worship
We had a wonderful Mother's Day Worship assembly. We worked really hard to prepare some songs, prayers and a poem. It was amazing seeing so many mothers and loved ones in the classroom. We gave them our gifts, the daffodils we planted in gardening, our handmade cards and paper bookmarks! We all absolutely loved it!
Science week
We had an incredible workshop where we got to create our own city in the hall. We used different building blocks to build towers, bridges, cars, and we even got to make an octopus! We also learnt about Maggie Aderin-Pocock, she was a scientist from London who loves learning about the stars and space.
We also got to become scientists and show our experiments to the class. We had volcano eruptions, colour mixing and lava lamps!
Paper Making
We have been cooking up a surprise for Mother's Day, shhhh! We made our own recycled paper. We collected unwanted and used paper around the school and ripped it into small pieces. Then we had to leave it soaking in warm water for days... it was a little gross. Once it was all nice and mushy we put all the paper in a blender! We used this paper pulp to make our own paper bookmarks! The best bit was getting to decorate them when they were done!
Shapes, Line of Symmetry and Fractions
We have been very busy in Maths this term. We have learnt all about 2D and 3D shapes. We became mathematicians by practising all our new shape vocabulary (edges, vertices, faces and sides). We then looked at symmetry. Our favourite activity was trying to see if we had symmetrical faces!
Now we are learning about factions!
