Musician of the Term- Sir Elton John

6th June 2022Miss A Samuels

This term’s Musician is Sir Elton John. With over 300 million records sold, Elton John is one of the best-selling music artists in the world. Elton John is an English singer, pianist and composer who is famously nicknamed ‘The Rocket Man’ after his 1972 hit single.

Elton John’s Music:

Elton John’s music stands out from many other artists of the time because he was a classically trained pianist who loved rock’n’roll. His piano parts are very difficult to play. Often they run counter to the vocal melodies, which go over the top, to allow for Elton’s famous flourishes, and this means that his melodies are very rarely doubled in the piano part.

Billy Elliot-

The musical “Billy Elliot” opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre. Elton John composed the music for this show. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2008 and continues to run on Broadway

The Lion King-

Elton John wrote the score to this famous Disney film which is now also one of London’s most famous musicals. The film was remade in 2019 with a brand-new song from Elton.

Elton John’s Famous Songs:

Your Song- 1970 (he wrote this song at 17)

Crocodile Rock- 1972

Rocket Man- 1972 (Not long after man landed on the moon, the song captured the excitement of the time)

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me- 1974 (Was a major hit twice as he sang a live duet with George Michael which also topped the charts in 1991)

I’m Still Standing- 1983 (A song about resilience about surviving a tough private life and surviving a changing music scene)

The Circle of Life- 1994 (Elton’s soundtrack to The Lion King became the bestselling film score of all time)

Football Fact!

Having supported Watford since growing up locally, Elton John became the club’s chairman and director in 1976.

Listen to some of Elton John’s music!

A busy term in Y2M!

31st May 2022P Mullea

The children in Y2M have been working extremely hard this half term and the staff are all so impressed with their excellent effort, especially when completing the KS1 SATS. To celebrate the end of the SATS we had a little extra ‘golden’ morning of fun, we got to enjoy the sunshine and play outside, the children were even treated to an ice pop!

 

 

We had lots of fun after SATS preparing for our Jubilee celebrations. We loved welcoming our parents into class to help us decorate our Jubilee T-shirts. A huge thank you to everyone for attending and for all your hard work, we have some very talented parents and children of course! We were so excited to share our special song for The Queen with you as well. We hope you enjoyed it.

Egyptian inspired art

26th May 2022R Errington

Check out the amazing artwork year 4 produced after learning about the Ancient Egyptians. They used paper straws and paint to create their own death masks inspired by that of Tutankhamun. They also used clay and metallic paint to create scarab beetles. The Ancient Egyptians believed they were symbols of wisdom and could be used as amulets for good luck.

Year 3’s Jubilee T-Shirt Decorating

24th May 2022Miss A Samuels

Year 3 enjoyed decorating their t-shirts with their adults to celebrate the upcoming Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We had so much fun creating our own designs- our t-shirts included lots of crowns, jewels, Union Jack flags, stamps and even the Queen’s Corgi! We gave our adults a special treat by singing a song we have been learning in school called ‘Here’s to the Queen’- it sounded fantastic! Take a look at our creative jubilee designs…

Volcanoes!

20th May 2022Miss A Samuels

Year 3 have been enjoying their Geography topic ‘Extreme Earth’. We have been learning lots about volcanoes and how they erupt, how they are formed and which countries they are located in. We then decided to create our own volcano sculpture using clay. As a class, we discussed the different colours and textures we would need to represent the lava, magma and volcanic ash. Take a look at our fantastic sculptures!

 

The Marvellous Maya!

17th May 2022S Lovatt

We were lucky in Year 5 to have a drama workshop all about the Maya, which is our current History topic. We started with some true or false questions, then created freeze frames of different parts of Maya life.

Here we are acting out Pok-A-Tok (a Maya ball game where the players could not hit the ball with their hands, and the objective was to get the ball through a stone hoop at the end of the playing field.)

The Maya built many temples and painted them red, although we can’t see the red colour any more.

The Maya had a hierarchy in their society: slaves were at the bottom, followed by farmers, warriors, astronomers, priests and finally the king (known as the ajaw).

To finish off our workshop, we acted out the Maya creation story.

The two creator gods were able to think of anything they wanted, and it would appear. So they thought up trees and mountains. Then they realised they needed something that would praise them, so they thought of animals.

However, they realised the animals couldn’t speak to praise them, so they made people out of clay. But the clay people just crumbled to the ground.

The gods then decided they needed the people to be stronger and harder, so they made men from wood.

These men could not speak to praise the gods, so they destroyed them. Finally they made men from corn paste. These men could speak and praise the gods, but they could see too much so the gods removed some of their vision. They didn’t want the humans to be as powerful as them.

We had so much fun and tried so hard with our acting!

 

 

 

Year 3 Drumming

13th May 2022Miss A Samuels

Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed their music session with Mr Winter this week. The children used the djembe drums to practise both the base tone and slap tone. We all worked extremely hard to keep in time to the rhythm- it sounded fantastic! Well done Year 3- we are looking forward to our upcoming music session next week!

Sunflowers

8th May 2022Miss A Samuels

Reception have been thoroughly enjoying their new topic of ‘How living things grow’. After planting their own sunflower seeds, they decided to create their own sunflower paintings. The children began exploring the work of Vincent Van Gogh and focused on one of his most famous pieces of artwork known as ‘Sunflowers’. They then create their own sunflower painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh. Reception used a range of colours and shapes within their paintings to create their beautiful masterpieces. Take a look at their fantastic artwork!

Year 3 Beamish Trip!

3rd May 2022Miss A Samuels

Year 3 had so much fun at Beamish! We enjoyed visiting the new 1950’s Front Street where we explored Norman Cornish’s house. Inside of Norman Cornish’s house, we did some observational sketching of what we could see. We also explored the history of the 1900’s village and pit village- some of us even got the chance to go down the coalmine and experience how it would have been for children to work in the cold, dark and damp conditions. To finish the day, we visited the Victorian school and discussed the differences in school life compared to ours today. We even had a try at using the metal hoops and sticks in the school playground- it was super tricky!

Minibeasts!

3rd May 2022Miss A Samuels

Nursery have been working so hard on their artwork! Their topic for this half term is Minibeasts and they been learning about which animals are classified as Minibeasts. The children have then created their own Minibeast artwork including ladybirds, tadpoles, caterpillars, spiders and butterflies! The children have enjoyed exploring with a range of colours and using different shapes to create these fantastic Minibeasts masterpieces. Take a look at Nursery’s beautiful artwork!