​​​​From Mrs Ross

The week began with the first whole class trip of the term to Marwell Zoo, with Reception Class, and yesterday Pilgrims' was delighted to host a collaborative learning afternoon with St Swithun's Year 2 girls and our Year 2 boys, in a wonderful Forest School afternoon.  

It was a pleasure to spend time with the children in both of these rich environments, whilst watching and listening to them.  They demonstrated such enthusiasm, using rich and ambitious language to talk about their knowledge and understanding.  I was extremely proud of all the Pilgrims' boys for their excellent behaviour and exemplary manners. 

Thank you to all of the staff, who were involved the planning and undertaking of these very special events.

 

 

Save the Dates

• Monday 1 May - Bank Holiday - School is Open for normal lessons
• Friday 5 May - Coronation Tea Party 1600-1645
• Monday 8 May - Bank Holiday - School is closed
• Tuesday 9 May - Year 2 Trip to Blue Reef Aquarium
• Saturday 13 May - whole school Open Morning
• Friday 15 May - Year 1 trip to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
• Friday 19 May - Pilgrims' Play 1000-1200 (for pre-school children)
• Friday 26 May Celebration Assembly for Parents 1115-1145, Octagon
• Friday 26 May - Half-Term begins 1200

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Pilgrims' Shell Awards

• Year 2 – to Alexander L for the incredible ocean knowledge he has already captivated the class with and shown in his work. Well done, Alex! 
• Year 1 - William M for making excellent progress with his reading and really 'taking off' in Read Write Inc.
• Reception - a Shell Award goes to each boy this week for their outstanding behaviour and super company at Marwell Zoo. 

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Notices

Menus for next week are available 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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Pre-Prep Cartoon Commoner
The boys worked hard personalising their sketch books, ready for a term of cartoon fun! They designed their own ‘Alphabet Characters’ and choose a sticker or two to make each book unique, showing off their artistic flair and interests. I cannot wait until Monday; who knows we might even get to watch a minute or two of Tom and Jerry!

Watch this space for more cartoon capers coming your way very soon!

 

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From the PPA

 

Year 2

This week has seen our topic of Oceans really take off as we have explored the five layers of the ocean. The boys were SO excited to explore the various sea creatures that live in the sunlight, twilight and midnight zones of the ocean. The discussions between the boys were so rich in vocabulary and understanding. Their diagrams detailing their knowledge of the difference between the layers are wonderfully produced and display fantastic understanding.  

We shared the first part of the book that we started last week, Clem and Crab: a little girl Clem meets a crab when cleaning the plastic off her local beach. She is able to prise his pincers free from a plastic bag. The boys really enjoyed taking on the role of the crab to start to think about how it might have been feeling meeting the little girl and being caught into some human rubbish. I was very impressed with the boys’ writing so far and their creativity in role as the crab. The boys were most affronted when they realised we would not hear any more of the story until our whole-class English lesson next week!  

Another highlight of the week was their two cricket lessons with Mr Greenwood on Monday and Mr Buck on Wednesday with real bowlers, batters and fielders. Both Mr Buck and Mr Greenwood were very impressed with the boys’ professional approach and their careful listening to instructions. What a great start to the cricketing term! 

* Please can all Year 2 boys have a pair of gardening gloves for Forest School. * 

Mrs Ford 

 

Year 1

This week in Year 1, the boys have been busy learning more about the life of pirates and starting to think about how they are going to make their own collage pirate face using a paper plate.

We looked closely at what collage is and what materials could be used to create a collage picture. On the Internet we looked at some beautiful collage pictures using felt, patterned materials, buttons, tissue paper, newspaper and many other materials.  The boys are now considering which materials they will use next week to create their own pirate faces.  They are not allowed to use any pens, pencils or crayons!  If you have anything at home that would help create your son's ideas, they are welcome to bring these into school ready for next Wednesday.

The boys learnt about different pirate words and had a go at talking like a pirate, which was great fun.  Ask them to tell you what a 'landlubber' is or what 'doubloons' are!  Can they remember any other pirate phrases?  "Ahoy, matey!"  Maybe you would like to chat about languages around the world and different dialects, it is an interesting topic to discuss further.

During computing this week, the boys explored pirate pictures and how to create their own using 'Purple Mash' on the surface go devices.  They developed their keyboard and mouse pad skills further and can now remember how to save their own work with minimal support.  

Lots of "arrrring" this week!  Well done, boys!

I hope you all have a good weekend.

Mrs Huntley

 

Year R

The Reception class started the week with an amazing trip to Marwell Zoo. Nothing could dampen the boys' enthusiasm, not even the downpour, the thunder or the hailstorm that we encountered in the afternoon.

As we toured around the Zoo, we attended four informative and well-pitched Animal Classification Workshops. As the day progressed the boys became experts at spotting animals from the five main classification groups.

The first stop was the giraffe house where we were treated to a near shower while we watched one of the giraffes having a drink. 

At the Wild Explorers exhibit we met the amazing rhinos with their amazing horns, and learnt that the longer the horn the older the age of the rhino. Much discussion took place over the classification grouping of a rhino, as they do not have fur or hair covering the whole of their body, just on the tip of their tail, which looks just like a small paintbrush.

After lunch, not one but two tigers provided close encounters, with eye contact, for our boys!

The Tropical House provided an opportunity to warm up, and is a space that all five animal groups inhabit, although the sloth did not make an appearance. The tiny frogs made up for it with their amazing call, echoing throughout the house.

Last stop was the Education Centre, which allowed the boys a chance to touch some of the animal pelts, and to see some of the amazing markings which help with their camouflaging ability when out in the wild.

Finally, the beautiful snow leopard was a welcome sight, sitting in full view of us all, as we made our way to the minibus to return to school.

What a lot of learning and what a very special day it was!

Forest School

This week Year R became sound detectives and collected a range of natural and unnatural sounds on their journey to the arboretum. The boys listened carefully and as a group decided that their favourite sound was the birds.

 

 

Year 1 had a wonderful session this week learning about trees and exploring our tree giants. The boys measured the circumference of trees using a non-standard method, as well as working out which was the tallest tree in the arboretum. The boys were amused by the rather unusual method for determining this.

We were very excited to invite pupils from St Swithun’s School to join us for our Forest School session this week. It was lovely to see both schools working together and hearing the buzz of excitement as everyone created their own clay ‘Boggart’. In English Folklore a ‘Boggart’ is a household spirit responsible for something happening. In their small groups, the children decided what their ‘Boggart’ was responsible for in our natural environment, and we all enjoyed listening to some imaginative responses from the groups.

Mrs Walker