Stroud Valley Comunity School

Welcome to Amber Class. We are a lively, kind and caring class, full of personalities. Learning is fun! This year our topics include: space, fairy tales, dinosaurs, the Great Fire of London, traditional stories and Percy the Park Keeper.

In Amber Class we feel safe enough to make mistakes (and learn from them) and we are considerate to other people's feelings. Our good manners and hard work are rewarded with a weekly raffle draw and certificates are awarded for trying our best in any aspect of school life.

We are always asking ourselves, 'what are we learning?', through class discussion we understand what helps move our learning forward and what blocks our learning. We are aiming to become more independent learners as we progress through the year.

As a class we LOVE reading and read daily, as we practise we get better and reading becomes easier and more enjoyable.

Last week Amber class visited Waitrose in Stroud as part of their Science topic 'eating a healthy, balanced diet'. They had also read 'Oliver's Fruit Salad' by Vivian French.

The lovely Wendy from Waitrose gave us a guided tour of the fruit aisle. The children looked at all the different types of fruit from around the world. They then choose which they would like to buy to make into a fruit salad. Each group of childen had to count out money for their purchases.

The following day Amber Class cut all the different fruits up and made a fruit salad. They choose pineapple, strawberries, blackberries, passion fruit, apples, oranges, mango and melon. The children then ate the fruit salad, they loved it and every last piece of fruit was eaten!


Yum yum, eating the fruit salad.	Concentrating to make sure our clay basket and fruit match our design!	Using tools to add texture to our clay baskets.

Adding the finishing touches.	The finished product, ready in time to show at Harvest.	Writing our thank you letters to Wendy at Waitrose.


During the Autumn we took our learning outside. We walked through the school grounds and looked at the leaves, thought about how they felt and listened to the sounds of Autumn.	Look at all the beautiful leaves we found.	While we were outside we wrote all about Autumn on whiteboards. Back in the classroom we wrote lots of super sentences on paper leaves and stuck them on the windows for everyone to read.


Fun in the snow.	Wrapping up warm, we're ready to play in the snow.	More fun in the snow.

The snowy view from our playground. We took this photograph and later that day used it as inspiration for our artwork.	Back in the warmth of our classroom we used charcoal on white paper and chalk on black paper to draw the snowy scene. Mrs Welch-Grey loves the way these trees have been smudged, lots of people have commented on how good this drawing is, well done.	Fantastic white chalk drawings on black paper. Some of these pictures are displayed on the boards outside the classroom.

Last term our topic was 'recycling'. Here the children have dressed up as recycling operatives and are sorting Mrs Welch-Grey's rubbish so it can be recycled instead of being thrown into landfill!

As well as recycling materials, we also learnt to

re-use items we might have otherwise thrown away.

Old socks were given a new lease of life and turned

into puppets.

We choose a 'previously loved' sock and thought carefully about what puppet we wanted to create. Dragons with forked tongues were a popular choice!

Last term in Literacy we focused on fairy tales. We read lots of tales and discovered that they all had similar characteristics: good and bad characters, a problem

and a solution, they began with 'once upon a time' and they usually ended with 'and they all lived happily ever after'. We wrote our own 'twisted' fairy tales where all

the settings and characters were mixed up. We used our sock puppets to retell our stories to the the class.

In PE we re-enacted Jack and the Beanstalk: climbing up the beanstalk, creeping around the giant's castle and escaping from the giant with the golden harp!

Poor Cinderella broke her mop! Amber Class came to the rescue and carried out an investigation to see which material she should use to make a new mop..	The children chose various materials and carried out tests to establish which absorbed the most water. They knew they had to put the same number of drops of water on each material, otherwise it wouldn't be a 'fair test'.	The results.....the cleaning cloth and paper towels absorbed the most water. We think Cinderalla should make a new mop from these materials.

The following week Amber Class investigated which materials were magnetic.	The materials were then sorted into two categories 'magnetic' and 'non-magnetic'.	The children loved this activity, it generated lots of discussion and they went on to discover which objects around the classroom were magnetic...not Mrs Welch-Grey's bracelet!

The baked bean can challenge! The children had to discuss in pairs whether they thought any of the magnets could pick up the can of beans. The two smaller magnets weren't strong enough (but the children discovered magnets could attract and repel).	Wow, this larger magnet can pick up a can! The children recalled seeing a big magnet being used in a recycling plant video from last term.


Our trip to Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetland Trust.	Flamingo spotting.	Learning all about the residents of Slimbridge.

Making new friends!	One of the highlights of the day was watching the otters feed and learning all about them.	In the afternoon we learnt how different birds feed. Here the children are trying to catch flies like swallows do.


Our topic this term is 'Dinosaurs'. Amber Class have been using non-fiction information texts to help them discover facts about these fascinating creatures. Ask your child how big a Stegosaurus brain was.	This week Amber Class went outside in the sun and measured the length of different dinosaurs on the playground. In this picture they are showing just how enormous a Brachiosaurus was - around 26 metres!!	We made a human block graph to represent the children's favourite dinosaurs. The T-Rex was the most popular!

In Literacy the children re-wrote the poem '5 Crazy Dinosaurs'. This performance really made Mrs Welch-Grey smile :). Not only did they use superb rhyming words they also made very convincing dinosaurs! It was a real pleasure to watch.	Sharing our work with the class.


Thursday 7th of March was 'World Book Day' and we came dressed as a character from our favourite book, how many can you spot?	Making jam tarts for our Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Amber Class LOVE cooking, they are very good at it.	They are also very good at eating what they have made!

The March Hare (don't call her a rabbit, she doesn't like it!) serving jam tarts at the tea party.	The PTFA organised a 'book swap'.	Browsing books.

Term 5 - Percy the Park Keeper.

This term Amber Class have been out and about learning all about parks and the local environment, it has been great fun.


Amber Class have spent a lot of time out in the school gardens. Here they are looking for signs of Spring.	We were lucky enough to be visited by Percy the park keeper. Percy told us all about his job and read us a story.	After reading the Percy story 'Rescue Party' by Nick Butterworth, Amber Class designed and made their own equipment to rescue a rabbit who has fallen down a hole.

The children used mecano, mobilo, geomags, straws, string and boxes (and lots of imagination). They created some super designs and it was lots of fun.	We were visited by Tamsin from Stroud Valley Project, she talked to us about their wheat growing project. Seeds were planted, bird scarers made and (despite the squirrels digging around) the wheat is growing well. In the Autumn it will be harvested into flour and bread baked, how exciting.	Amber Class regulary check the wheat, measure it and we report back to Tamsin.

Amber Class enjoy playing the game 'Crafty Cubes' - the children play in pairs, they start with 20 cubes and take it in turns to remove 1, 2 or 3 cubes, the person to take the last cube loses.	It can be a very frustrating game as this photo shows!	Counting the cubes carefully.

Our trip to Park Gardens to meet Jim the park keeper and his team. Jim told us all about his job and the parks they look after around Stroud.	The children had a 'spotting sheet' and had to tick off as many plants, animals etc as they could.	Taking a well earned break for a spot of lunch.

Rolling down the hill! When the children could stand up straight again they wrote down words to describe how they felt while rolling.	Whoops, covered in grass clippings, but what good fun!	It was a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for spotting wildlife. Mrs Welch-Grey loves this photograph.

The children were so inspired by the exihibition of Andy Goldsworthy art in September (see earlier post) that they always make their own art in nature installations wherever they go. Thank you to Freya's dad for helping.	Our very own SVS art in nature installation, great work chaps (and thank you to William's mum).	Felix and Nyle made their own 'bug hotel' for an ant they befriended on the trip! I am sure he will be very comfortable in it.


Busy in the garden, using some of our homemade compost. Careful, you're supposed to be putting it in the wheelbarrow, not on Harry's head!	Watering the runner beans before planting them out.	That's right girls, keep the soil in the pots, not in your shoes!

Another trip out to see what we can find on our local environment (the local cemetery this time). The children had a tick sheet of things to spot, including seeds from trees which is being held up in this photo.	This old, locked gate at the cemetery grabbed the children's attention. What was it? A jail perhaps?	A successful morning spotting.


Making our own picnic for our trip to Daisy Bank Park.	Preparing fruit and vegetables for the picnic. Try not to look so scared, it's only a peeler (but please look at what you're doing)!	Hanging out in Daisy Bank.

A Percy the park keeper treasure hunt in the cemetery. The children had to find 12 clues and memorise them to earn a chocolate coin. Can you spot the clue?	Well done boys!	All in the name of research! This may look like playing to you, BUT, the children had to design their own park, so this is actually work!

Here are some of the park designs and a piece of play equipment the children made in DT.	A football pitch, complete with goalposts and football.	A swing made out of paper straws.

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