Santa’s Hat

The backdrop was in place, the songs and lines had been learnt and our very excited infant children were wearing their beautiful costumes. Now, after lots of rehearsals, the show could finally begin!

Poor old Santa had lost his hat! The elves set out to find Santa’s hat for him with the help of the reindeer, fairies, hedgehogs and snowpeople. The elves searched everywhere and at last had to admit defeat when they returned to Santa. He decided that he would have to fly around the world without his hat and when he got up to leave it turned out that Santa had been sitting on his hat the whole time! The children in Foundation and Reception created a beautiful nativity whilst Elsie the Elf learnt the true meaning of Christmas.

The parents, family and friends of the children were all very impressed. ‘The best show yet!’, ‘I can’t believe children so young could perform so beautifully’ and ‘That was fantastic’, were just some of the comments made by our audience.

We are very proud of our youngest children for delivering such a fabulous show with such enthusiasm! Well done.

Christmas Cooking

With aprons on, and all of the ingredients ready (provided by the PTA),  the children of WhitehallSchoolwere ready to take part in their traditional Christmas cooking event.

On Thursday, every child at school made and cooked a miniature Christmas cake. The smell through the house was tantalising and Year 5 were feeling particularly hungry as their classroom is right next to the kitchen!

On Friday, every child had the opportunity to ice and decorate their cake. The youngest children chose a Christmassy shape to cut out. The youngest juniors made faces of snowmen, reindeer and penguins. The oldest children in the school made 3D penguins and snowmen.

All of the cakes were then wrapped and presented to the children at the end of the day. Many thanks to all of the parents who gave up their time to make this event so special for everyone involved.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

 

Christmas is finally upon us! To get us all in the Christmas spirit, the Christmas tree was put up in the hall and decorated with beautiful decorations, all of which were made by the children.

Foundation and Reception had made beautiful red and gold baubles, which sparkle in the light. Years 1 and 2 created glittering, silver stars. Finally, the Juniors made colourful, shimmering ribbon decorations, which completed the look of the tree perfectly.

All the children had a lot of fun and put a lot of hard work and effort into creating these wonderful decorations.

During the assembly, each child walked up to the front of the hall holding their decorations, which they then hung them on the tree. We all sang Christmas songs, and by the time the last decoration was placed on the tree, the hall was filled with Christmas spirit and a beautifully decorated Christmas tree!

Years 5 and 6 were honoured to be invited for a second year to represent Whitehall School at the local act of remembrance in the centre of Somersham on Friday 11th November. Wearing our poppies with pride, we made our way to the “Somersham Cross” – or war memorial which stands proudly in the heart of the community. Along with pupils from our neighbouring Primary School, Mr. Bruce, Reverend Barter and local representatives from the community and British Legion, we stood respectfully for the 2 minutes’ silence as the church bells chimed 11 o’clock. The local traffic came to a standstill as the Last Post rang out from a lone cornet and we joined people all over the country in remembering those who had lost their lives in two World Wars and other conflicts since.

It was just a short service – but a sombering and moving one and we all returned to school (where the 2 minutes’ silence had been observed in classrooms) deep in thought and thankful for our peaceful lives here at Whitehall.

Operation Christmas Child

After an assembly at school about Operation Christmas Child, the children of Whitehall School, along with their parents, have been very busy wrapping and filling shoeboxes with fantastic gifts for children less fortunate than themselves. Each shoebox contains something to play with, some sweets, something educational, e.g. paper and pens, something sporty along with many other goodies.

This year the children have made 45 shoeboxes, all of which look super! Many thanks to everyone who took part. There will be many smiling faces on Christmas day!

Year 4 Class Assembly

Following a wonderful Tudor Trip to Burghley House, the Year 4 children did not have to think for very long at all before coming up with their assembly theme!

They shared their favourite – and worst – parts of the Tudor banquet along with wonderfully descriptive pieces about the memorable rooms at this amazing Elizabethan house. This even included a description of the bread oven in the kitchen – big enough to put a teacher in – let’s hope they don’t get any ideas!!  All of the children were thrilled, if a little dubious, to be able to re-enact their visits to the Tudor doctor – albeit our Year 4 Tudor doctor was somewhat smaller than the one we saw at Burghley. Everyone who saw our assembly agreed that they were thankful for modern medicine – no dead mice cut in half to cure a wart for us!!

We all enjoyed our Tudor Trip assembly and would like to thank the parents who kindly provided refreshments for us all afterwards.

 

Terrific Tudors!

Earlier this week our Year 3 and 4 children visited Burghley House near Stamford for a day being ‘Terrific Tudors’. On arrival the children were given Tudor costumes to wear which really helped them to take on their role as Tudors for the day. We were then treated to a delicious Tudor style banquet which included roast swan, head of a boar, potage (soup), and sweet syrupy pears all washed down with a goblet of wine. One or two of the children were very pleased that the food was only imitation!

After a wonderful guided tour of Burghley House itself, it was time to visit the Tudor doctor where we learned about cures for ear ache – hold an onion to the ear, a fever – bandage leeches to your arm, a tickly cough – swallow a spider dipped in butter, and warts – chop a mouse in half, put it on the wart for a moment then bury the mouse in the garden for two weeks!!

We all had a wonderful day and we would like to thank the staff at Burghley House for such a memorable visit.

Year 1 and 2 class assembly

What a busy week it has been for Year 1 and Year 2. Following on from our trip to the Cambridge Folk Museum, the children then had their class assembly to look forward to.

The children started their assembly by entertaining their audience with a song sung in French! After this they told everyone all about the Great Fire of London and how Samuel Pepys thought it was important to save his wine and cheese! The children showed the audience their beautiful art work representing the Great Fire.

The children told everyone about Florence Nightingale and how she had helped nurses gain the recognition that they deserve. They were especially keen for everyone to see the photographs taken on their school trip and to see how they had all become wounded soldiers for a short while.

After sharing their puppets and a favourite song, the children all enjoyed refreshments in the library, kindly provided by the PTA.

Year 1 and 2 trip

Year 1 and 2 excitedly set off on Tuesday morning, ready for their trip into Cambridgeto the Folk Museum. They were all eager to learn even more about the Great Fire of London and Florence Nightingale as part of their topic this term.

The children enjoyed a very exciting bus ride and then we met Tamsin at the museum. The children spent the morning learning all about Florence Nightingale and how she changed nursing. They learnt to grate the soap, wash the sheets, make the beds, iron the clothes and even how to bandage each other up!

After an enjoyable look around the museum, finding out different types of information, the children returned for their second session where they learnt about the Fire of London. The children thought about what they might have done if they had been alive in 1666 and even decided what they would save from their house.

The children had a fantastic day and really learnt a lot about our topic. Thank you to the museum staff for a lovely, informative day.

Maths Day.

On Wednesday 19^th October usual lessons were put on hold for our first whole school Maths Day! And it really was that – Maths all day. Mathematical Cooking, Musical Maths, Maths games and investigations replaced our usual timetable and what fun we had!!

Jam tarts with different shapes on their tops and pizzas designed using fractions were just two of the many cooking activities all our children took part in. We practised our times tables and division with a favourite song of ours ’Chocoholics’ and learned new Mathematical songs too. Everyone enjoyed taking part in our Dice Challenges including the ever popular game of ‘Fifty’ and creating 2D shape pictures and 3D shapes and nets.

In the afternoon the Junior children were given the challenge of designing and making Maths games for our Infant children to play. They were given just over and hour to complete the challenge before meeting up with their younger counterparts. A great time was had by all! The Juniors were extremely inventive with their ideas and every single game produced was played by our Infant children with great delight. The games are now a firm favourite in all our Infant classrooms.

Well done to all the children who embraced Maths Day with such enthusiasm and who, at the end of it, were asking if we could do it all again tomorrow!!