Whitehouse Common Primary -

Newsletter 30th April 2021

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Lo que aprendimos - Spanish in Spring 2

As we are enjoying a well earned rest from learning - online and in person - it's good to spend a moment reflecting on what we've been learning in Spanish this half term.

Year 4 have been talkiing about food and can now tell you that they are hungry or thirsty, and that they would like to eat or drink a selection of food and drink, as well as asking you if you're hungry, and reporting on someone else's needs! They favourite game at the moment is Secret Sentence where they have to predict whether Sra Stevens is hungry or thirsty and what she wants to eat/drink.  

Year 3 have been getting to grips with nouns in Spanish, learning that they are split into two groups in Spanish called masculine and feminine, and that there is a differnet word for the indefinite article 'a' depending on which group the noun belongs to. Year 3 can identify the gender of nouns (which group they belong to) using un/una and also know that the last letter of the noun can be a clue. They used this new knowledge to write some minibooks of things that they could see. 

Year 5 have come to the end of a unit on descriptions and have well and truly grappled with Spanish nouns and adjectives which behave very differently to the way they do in English. The lesson series concluded with the design and description of some very odd hybrid animals! You can have a go yourself by going to the website https://switchzoo.com/

Year 6 have started their final unit of KS2 which will ultimately bring together all their previous learning but starts out thinking about languages. Year 6 can tell you what languages they can and can't speak, and also which countries speak certain languages. 

Señora Stevens has also been teaching Year 2 for the last few weeks and they've been learning the names of fruit. They have been listening to a song that Rida shared with us (at the bottom of the post) and also responding to a story La Sorpresa de Handa [Y1 looked at this story before half term too!] Here's Avi's amazing picture of Handa and her fruit.

Next term we're hoping to all in school learning together and looking forward to learning about our families, sports we like and more food!

In the meantime, ¡disfrutéis de las vacaciones!

Our Greek partners go on a Bear Hunt!

Our Greek partners in Elefsina have sent us a message and a video!

"On 2nd April we celebrated the Children's book day in the Greek school with a book suggested by our British partner Señora Lisa Stevens at Whitehouse Common Primary.

We worked online on this activity due to COVID-19 restrictions. Our 2nd grade students got really engaged in the plot and were attracted by its echomimetic language. Here is a video where they "retell" the story through their drawings!"

They also thought about how THEY would like the story to end. Some lovely ideas - they thought that the bear probably just wanted to play with them!

A dance challenge from our Austrian partners!

Our Austrian partners have been joining in with a worldwide dance craze. 

They sent us this message: 

“Dear  partners! 

Our school has taken part in the Jerusalema Dance Challenge! We would like to share the result of our project with you! Have fun!! 

Please share our video so we can send the massage of "being strong together" into the world!

Stay healthy and happy!

Yours VS WILDBACH”

The Jerusalema dance has been recorded by people all over the world and, with the help of a drone, the staff and children at VS Wildbach have recorded a video of their version. You can see it below.  

It’s amazing - they’ve even got a dancing dog!

Has anyone in our school community had a go at the dance?

I’m sure our partners would love to know if you have so let Señora Stevens know.  

Newsletter 1st April 2021

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The Apple of Discord - a Greek myth

During the Erasmus+ project meeting at Whitehouse Common last March, the Greek teachers were going to share a Greek myth with Reception. Not to be defeated by Covid19, they shared the lesson and materials with us and, almost a year to the week, Reception completed one of the planned activities. 

The apple of discord/ goddess Eris «ΤομήλοτηςΈριδας» tells the story of a wedding on Mount Olympus between Pileas and Thetis. Eris wasn't invited and was angry. She decided to scause trouble, leaving a golden apple onto a wedding table with a note: “To the prettiest goddess.” Three of the goddesses, Aphrodite, Athene and Ira started to fight as they all thought that they were the prettiest.Zeus asked paris to decide, and Aphrodite offered to help him marry Helen of Troy if she was given the apple. He gave it to her, and they kidnapped Helen. Unfortuanyely she was already married to King Menelaos who was very angry. And that, as the myth says, is how the Trojan war began.

Having read and listened to the story, Reception responded by drawing in an apple. Some of them drew their favourite parts from the myth whilst others summarised the whole myth with an drawing. 

Here's a video that showcases their work. 

Take [Greek] Art - Let's Go Cultural!

As we shared a few weeks ago, several year groups have been exploring the life and work of some artists from our Erasmus+ partner countries.

To showcase their work and share it with a wider audience than their peers, we've made some videos. We hope you enjoy them. 

The children in the other schools in the project have been doing the same thing, and we hope to be able to share some of their work too in the near future. 

First up is Y4 and Alexis Akrithakis

Play Leaders

A report written by Grace M:

Firstly, we matched words to find out the qualities needed to be a successful Play Leader. These were things like: teamwork and communication. 

After that, we played a range of games that we could use in the future to help our younger pupils have fun and be more active. Games like: Traffic Lights and Pirate Ship. We added our own instructions to make them even more exciting to play!

There are 14 Play Leaders who all received the training - we are all in Year 6 and have a special pin badge and lanyard to show our school role. We can't wait to help our younger children be more active.