From Mrs Hall

The boys have been extremely thoughtful in their responses, showing great awareness of how we can work together to care for our environment. Year 2 has produced some wonderful posters after our lessons on coral bleaching and how we can help protect the coral. The Reception STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Art-Maths) club also embarked on an imaginative and educational journey by transforming into bees. This hands-on activity took place in the Pre-Prep garden and was designed to teach the boys about the critical role bees play in pollination and the ecosystem. The boys ‘flew’ around the garden, buzzing from flower to flower carrying their pollen (Wotsits in disguise) simulating the pollination process that bees perform! Well done, STEAMERS!

We are looking forward to next week's event, Father’s Day in the Woods. The boys will bring home your invitations this afternoon.

Additionally, we are delighted to confirm the class teachers for the next academic year. In September, the class teachers will be as follows:

• Reception: Mrs Sarah Huntley and Ms Helen Whitmore
• Year 1: Mrs Victoria Ford and Mrs Claire Beverton
• Year 2: Mrs Maxine Kent, Mrs Sarah Hall, and Mrs Margie Pleming

The boys have already begun some of their transition sessions, and over the next few weeks, we will continue to move across the department in preparation for September.

Here’s to a brilliant last half-term of the year.

 

Pilgrims' Shell Awards

Year 2 - to Attilio -for his growing awareness and care of the environment.
Year 1 - to Guy for his careful and studied approach to using watercolour paints and for listening to instructions so well.
Year R - to Maximilian for settling into our Reception class so smoothly and enjoying his new adventures at Pilgrims'!

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Save the Dates for June!

Wednesday 12 June	Year 1: Father's Day in the Woods
Thursday 13 June	Reception and Year 2: Father's Day in the Woods
Saturday 8 June	LAMDA Exams (Pre-Prep)
Friday 14 June	15:45-18:00 PPA Book Sale (see poster below)
Monday 17 June	LAMDA exams
Thursday 20 June	09:00-10:00 Whole School Photo Year 2 trip to the Cathedral (Hampshire Ornithological Society)
Friday 21 June	PPA School of Rock event, details and booking form to follow
Saturday 22 June	PPA Charity Walk
Wednesday 26 June	17:00-17:30 Midas: Year 2 and Year 4 production
Thursday 27 June	17:00-17:30 Midas: Year 2 and Year 4 production

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Notices

Menus for the first week back are available here on My School Portal. 
^{Reminder: no food is to be brought into the school and/or given to boys at any time, especially at sign-out.}

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From the PPA

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Year 2

The boys have had a great week back after the half-term break. They began by writing each other a postcard to tell them about an adventure they had, writing in the past tense and signing off with, "Wish you were here".

Linking to World Ocean Day, we have been looking at the story Clem and Crab written by Fiona Lumbers. 'Clem is an explorer, a collector, a protector of the seas! Treasure hunting on her beloved beach, she stumbles across Crab, his claw stuck in a plastic bag.'  

The boys were asked to make inferences from the illustrations and make predictions as to what they thought would happen in the story. They also completed this sentence: When I see this beach, I feel……because…….

(see illustrations below)

 

Well done, boys!  And it looks like it's going to be a busy few weeks ahead: King Midas, Sports Day and Final Assembly to name just a few! Look out for more details.

Mrs Kent 
Year 2 Teacher
 

Year 1

Before half-term, the class was reading “How to Find Gold” about Anna and her friend Crocodile who plan to go on an adventure to find treasure. The author and illustrator, Viviane Schwarz, used watercolour paints to draw the characters in the book. We discussed the effect watercolour paints can have when illustrating and how useful a black fine-liner pen can be when adding detail.

We had lots of fun experimenting with watercolour paints and how the colour changes with the amount of water used. We also added salt to our paper to see the effect this had on the watercolour. Many boys found it helped them create the effect of crocodile skin. After observing many different pictures of Crocodile from the story, we had a go at drawing our own version, painting him and then adding detail. The boys experimented with how expressive the Crocodile’s face can be with a few changes to the strokes of a black fine-liner pen. I think their final pictures are just wonderful and would rather fancy them all in my own personal art gallery at home. You will be pleased to hear the boys will bring them home to you at the end of the term for your art gallery instead!

Mrs Ford
Year 1 Teacher
 

Reception

Welcome back for the last half term of Reception Class! I hope that you have all had an enjoyable break and were able to spend some quality family time together. I cannot quite believe that it was this time last year, that Miss Whitmore and I were meeting you and your sons for transition events! Now a whole year later, we are preparing your sons to move into Year 1 on the next step of their Pilgrims' journey.

This term our topic is all about 'Journeys'.  Journeys for different book characters and journeys we take ourselves; this will include our journey into Year 1. We are going to be exploring books by Julia Donaldson and have started this week with 'Zog'.  A keen favourite with the boys!  We discovered that Julia Donaldson has a particular style of writing.  We spotted her rhyming words in the text and the repeated phrases.  Zog's journey also went from thinking he could not achieve anything like his fellow Dragons to gaining a Golden star and realising that he didn't want to be a Dragon quite like the others, but that he wanted to do something that HE was good at. Everyone is good at something which could be something very different to someone else!  

The boys enjoyed painting and drawing pictures from the story and talking about the different characters.

We will be talking a lot about self-belief, everyone being good at something different and valuing each other's unique qualities. Maybe have a chat about this at home. What does your son feel he is good at? What would he like to be able to do better? How could he achieve this?

You may also be familiar with Julia Donaldson and have some of her books at home? It would be great if your son could bring these books into school to share during story time.

Mrs Huntley
Reception Teacher
 

Forest School

With the weather being more settled this week, Years R, 1 and 2 had a wonderful time around the fire pit.

At the start of each session, the boys are always reminded about our fire safety procedures and how to build a fire.

The boys are actively involved throughout the whole session; collecting the sticks, sorting the sticks, building the fire and helping cook over the fire.

Year R and 1 enjoyed cooking popcorn, which is always a firm favourite, as the boys can watch the pop-corn popping, as well as having the opportunity of toasting bread over the flames.

Year 2 learned how to make campfire bread twists; bread dough was twisted around a stick and then carefully held over the fire in order to cook it. Everyone agreed this was the best bread they had ever tasted!

Year 2 boys were very proud of the wonderful vegetables they delivered to the kitchen this week too. They have been caring for the plants over the past few weeks, and we delivered lettuce, radishes and parsley to the kitchen on Tuesday as part of our ‘Farm to Fork’ project.

Mrs Walker
Forest School