Reception: Room on the Broom

Children in Reception were asked to investigate the clues that had been discovered in the gazebo. They all went to have a careful look and make notes on their clipboards. In Literacy, the children read Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and decided that the witch must have crash landed her broomstick at Hacton!

Year 6 Creative Writing Club

Creative Writing Club consists of a small group of Year 6 pupils who meet up after school on a Tuesday to have fun with words. The club has been running for half a term in which the willing wordsmiths have designed dragons to inspire their creative writing. The children have used a technique called DADWAVERS! It is a mnemonic which stands for:

Description

Action

Dialogue

Where

Adverb

Verb

Estimation of time

Rhetorical Question

Simile or Metaphor

! Exclamation or onomatopoeia

Each of these are sentence starters and, when using the mnemonic, they force the writer to change the sentence opening. Writing in this way often alters the whole sentence structure. Here are Creative Writing Club's short DADWAVERS! about dragons:

Reception RE: Diwali

Reception children had a great time celebrating Diwali. They had lots of fun taking part in a range of exciting activities such as drawing large rangoli patterns from chalk, creating diva lamps from clay and making greeting cards.

The children enjoyed learning about the festival of light and were lucky to have a special visitor in to speak about how Diwali is celebrated.

Year 2: Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale paid a visit to Year 2. The children were taken back in time to experience what Florence's nursing school lessons were like, how she travelled to Scutari and how she transformed hospitals for injured soldiers. Florence approved of Year 2's amazing nursing and bandaging skills!

Multiplication Monday

Our pupils had a wonderful time on Hacton’s very first Multiplication Monday. To inspire the children to learn their times tables and get a real thirst for multiplication, each teacher designed a special activity to show that learning your times tables can be easy and, most importantly, fun! Children moved around classes in their phase groups and completed a series of challenges and tasks.

Times table tricks, multiplication treasure hunts, bowling, sticking arrays, card games and fitness challenges were just some of the activities that our pupils completed during the day. All of the children loved the opportunity to experience times tables in different ways and were surprised how much fun they could have learning their times tables. Equipped with their colourful times table pencils, the children are now ready to relish the challenge of their Times Table Journey as they travel confidently towards becoming multiplication masters.

Year 6: World War II Day

Evacuation tags - check! Gas masks - check! Authentic costumes - check!

Dressed as evacuees, army officers, land girls and other characters, our World War II Day saw our Year 6 pupils transported back in time to experience life during the war.

In the morning, the children were taken back to 1939 with a lively and engaging workshop from the Rainbow Theatre Company. With gas masks in hand, the children lined up outside the hall waiting for their headmistress to accompany them to the countryside. After a long, uncomfortable journey, they finally arrived and were greeted by their billeting officer. The children imagined how challenging life would have been for evacuees during the Second World War. Our Hacton historians performed alongside Rainbow Theatre actors in a range of wartime scenes about the Blitz, rationing, black outs and air raids. The children's acting and enthusiasm were extremely impressive.

Following the workshop, children went outside to play a variety of wartime playground games and were amazed by how much fun you could have with a piece of chalk and a playground!

In the afternoon, children returned to their classrooms to take part in a range of Second World War themed activities that included making carrot cookies (using only rationed ingredients of course) and singing wartime songs.

The day was a great success, helping our pupils to develop a greater understanding of life as a child during World War II. Thank you to parents for your support with costumes.

Reception: Maths Monday

Our Reception classrooms were extremely busy on Maths Monday with children and parents taking part in lots of fun maths activities. This was a great opportunity for parents to spend time with their children helping them develop their maths skills. We would like to thank all of the parents who attended; we hope you had a useful and enjoyable time with your child.

Reception RE: Harvest Festival

Reception children have been very busy learning about the harvest. The have discussed how and why some people celebrate the harvest festival. They have learnt that Christians believe that this is a time to thank God for the food that they eat and that this is the time of year that farmers harvest the crops from their fields before the winter.

The children have brought in tinned food to be distributed to members of the local community (thank you parents for your kind donations). They have really enjoyed learning about the harvest festival and  they have had great fun singing their harvest song.

Nursery: The Owl Babies

The children in Nursery have been enjoying listening to the story of The Owl Babies, and learnt that a baby owl is called an owlet.

We have also been learning about the season of autumn, so we took the children in their welly boots on a walk to our woods to experience the signs of autumn first hand.

The children found lots of interesting things: a spider's web, some colourful leaves, some crab apples and then most amazingly an owl in the tree! He was watching the children and sat looking at them from his perch. The awe and wonder was wonderful to witness on their faces. Where did it come from?

We then explored our woods and listened to the wind in the trees and the birds singing to each other before having running races up and down the field.

We then all settling down in the gazebo for a biscuit and a drink before enjoying the story of The Owl Babies.

Reception: An Autumn Walk for Giraffes

This week, the children in Giraffe class enjoyed turning into nature detectives during our Autumn walk. They had lots of fun looking for the signs of autumn and collecting leaves and acorns. They especially enjoyed playing with the large parachute.

The children then went on to making some beautiful leaf printing pictures with the pieces that they had collected.

New School Council

With their shiny green badges, our new school council met for the first time. After discussing how each year group had settled into the new school year, councillors shared ideas as to how they thought the timetable for playtime activities should be organised. We look forward to seeing the fantastic impact our enthusiastic new school council are going to have on life at Hacton.

Year 6 Music: Elements of Hip Hop

This half term, Year 6 have been studying elements of hip hop music. All of the children have learned how to read music on a stave, investigating different notes and the duration of each note. After some practise, they did a great job of reading a piece of music to play on the glockenspiel. The result was brilliant and the children were, rightly, extremely proud of themselves. They have built their confidence and they are now looking forward to their next piece: the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

E for Effort

Every week, teachers recognise pupils in their class who have made an extra effort. These pupils are presented with the E for Effort cup during our whole school assembly.

Congratulations to all the wonderful children who made an extra effort this week.

Year 3: Alice In Wonderland Tea Party

We have had an exciting week in Year 3. After looking at instructions and discussing the key features, we wrote a variety of instructions from brushing our teeth, to making a disgusting sandwich for our teachers. We used our skills to make decorations and followed instructions to make party food for the big finale: an Alice In Wonderland tea party. It was very exciting when we arrived in class to see our homemade sandwiches, jam tarts and fruit kebabs ready with all of our decorations displayed around the room.

The Great Nursery Bake Off

On Thursday, the children in Nursery took part in a ‘bake off’ for Macmillan Cancer Support. They made some delicious cupcakes, adding, mixing and stirring the ingredients before baking them in the oven. They decorated them with green icing and added 1, 2 or 3 sweets counting them out carefully. The children brought in 50p each to buy four cakes to share with their family, making £31 for the deserving charity. Well done everybody!

Macmillan Coffee Morning

Once again, a big THANK YOU for supporting this year’s Macmillan Coffee Morning, helping raise our biggest total so far: £609.30. Amazing!

Thank you very much to everyone who baked fantastic cakes, bought cakes, enjoyed a cup of tea whilst eating cake or kindly made cash donations. Thank you also to Hornchurch Electrical and its generous customers who topped up our total with a donation of over £90 (included in our final amount). Finally, thank you to everyone who helped on the day - it wouldn’t have been possible without you.

All the money raised has been paid directly to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Thanks again,
Mandy
(Hacton Parents' Association)

Year 1: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

In Literacy, Year 1 have been studying “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”. They have used the story to describe a setting and sequence events. Children chose to alter the story and go on a ‘Bug Hunt’, ‘Alien Hunt’ or a ‘Gem Hunt’. To complete their unit of work, the children went on their own bear hunt. They followed clues that took them around the school grounds to experience different stages of the story. As the children moved to the mud they chanted:

Uh-uh! Mud!

Thick oozy mud.

We can't go over it.

We can't go under it.

Oh no!

We’ve got to go through it!

Squelch squelch!

Squelch squelch!

Squelch squelch!

This took them through Miss Blunt’s classroom that had mud all over the tables. As the children discovered, it was in fact chocolate mousse and they enjoyed dipping their fingers in it. The bear hunt finished in the hall where the children discovered lots of teddies waiting for them to join a wonderful picnic.

Reception: Owl Babies

Reception children have been very busy reading Owl Babies by Martin Waddell in Literacy. They listened carefully and really enjoyed the story and were all very pleased when Sarah, Percy and Bill’s mummy came back at the end. Inspired by the book, the children completed some fantastic owl paintings using a new stippling technique which they have been taught. They worked hard and were all very proud of their pictures. Look at their amazing artwork!

 

E for Effort

Every week, teachers recognise pupils in their class who have made an extra effort. These pupils are presented with the E for Effort cup during our whole school assembly.

Congratulations to all the wonderful children who made an extra effort last week.

Reception: Maths

Reception classes have been busy counting, recognising and ordering numbers to 10 and beyond. The children have worked very hard to complete lots of different activities in small focus groups with an adult or independently during their self-initiated learning. Well done, Reception!