Friday 27th February

What an adventure we’ve been on this week! We have begun our new and exciting topic all about Africa. We started by exploring the fable The Lion and the Mouse, retold by Mairi Mackinnon, and discussed the lessons this traditional story teaches. In art, we travelled into the colourful world of Tingatinga paintings. These vibrant artworks originated in Tanzania and were created by the artist Edward Saidi Tingatinga in 1968. The children loved studying his unique style and enjoyed recreating some of their favourite pieces. In Maths, we revisited our work on money, using subtraction to help us calculate different amounts of change. The children have shown great enthusiasm and growing confidence. We are very much looking forward to continuing our African adventures next week!

 

 

Friday 13th February

This week we have been working on maths multiplication skills using arrays. We also used money to make £1 with coins and a number line as an aid to help count up. In English, we continued and published our final copy of our own diary of the Great Fire of London. We took the viewpoint of Samuel Pepe's. This helped us understand how to write in first person. We then completed our evaluations of our DT projects and created some wonderful double-page spreads, showing all we have learnt about the Great Fire of London. We also continued with our Racism unit of work, discussing what makes us the same or different from our friends and considering situations that are fair and unfair.  A busy and productive week.

Friday 6th February

This week in Maths, we have started to learn about multiplication. We looked at calculations such as '3 groups of 4', using counters to make an array. We made 3 rows of 4 to find out the answer, and turned this into a multiplication sentence of 3x4=12. We have also continued our learning about money. It would be brilliant if the children could practise using coins to pay for items in a shop and explore money further in a real-life scenario! In English, we enjoyed sequencing the events of the Great Fire of London, and were ambitious in our vocabulary when captioning each image. We challenged ourselves to use words such as: unstoppable, possessions, and unrecognisable. Again, in DT we have had another exciting lesson making our Tudor Houses! We used a variety of items, such as scraps of hessian, art straws and hay, to mimic a thatched roof. For the chimney, we were able to use the 'flange' joining technique that we learnt about previously. We even added tissue to look like smoke. Just windows and doors to go now!

Friday 30th January

In Maths this week, we have started our new unit on money. We recapped the value of coins and notes, and used this knowledge to calculate the amounts shown in the piggy banks. We used efficient strategies, such as counting the coins with the highest value first. In English, we have been editing our Big Write instruction text, and have also started to explore our new text about the Great Fire of London. We discussed Thomas Farriner and wrote down a list of questions that we would want to ask him. In DT, it was the moment we had all been waiting for... time to start building our Tudor Houses! We worked in pairs to cover a cardboard box in white paper, and then added features such as windows, doors, a roof with a chimney and extra sticking out floors. Next week we will decorate them to make them look more like a Tudor house.

Friday 23rd January

In Maths this week, we have developed our understanding of subtraction by looking at calculations involving exchange. We found this to be more challenging than last week, but we demonstrated fantastic resilience! In English, we recapped how we made our delicious bread in a bag and used this to plan our instruction text. Then, it was time for Big Write. We used our plan to write detailed instructions, trying our very best to include imperative verbs, adverbs and time conjunctions. In DT, we learnt about different joining techniques and practised these in preparation for making our Tudor Houses. We discussed which techniques were our favourite, and where we could use the joining techniques on our houses. Also, this week, we enjoyed our PE lesson. Despite the cold weather, we had lots of fun perfecting our skills!

 

Friday 16th January

Wow, what brilliant bakers we have in Year 2! We had the best time working together to make delicious bread in a bag, ensuring that we listened carefully and all took turns nicely. We noticed lots of imperative verbs when following the instructions, and even spoke about how the instructions could have used adverbs, such as carefully or gently. Hopefully the children let you try some of their tasty bread! Also, this week we enjoyed our History lesson discussing how the Great Fire of London started. We learnt that the fire started in a bakery in Pudding Lane and were shocked to learn that it took 5 days for the fire to go out. In Maths, we have been subtracting 2-digit numbers using place value grids. We used practical equipment to first understand how to subtract 2-digit numbers, before then moving onto drawing the tens and ones. By the end of the week, we felt really confident with this method.

Friday 9th January

Happy New Year! The children have had so much fun playing in the snow this week and have settled back into routines well. In English, we have been exploring instruction texts. We completed a carousel of activities where we were given different sets of instructions to follow. We found some of them tricky to follow, especially the one that had the method in the wrong order. We were then able to recognise what makes a good instruction text. In Science, we learnt about the 3 R's: reduce, reuse and recycle. We discussed how we could be environmentally friendly, and came up with creative ideas on how to reuse different objects. This included: turning a water bottle into a bird feeder; socks into leg warmers and a tin can into a pencil pot. In History, we started our Great Fire of London topic. We looked at how transport, jobs and houses were different in the 17th century.

Friday 19th December

We have had a fun week full of festive activities! We embraced the Christmas spirit when eating our Christmas dinner using the festive place mats we decorated! Also, this week we finished our DT moving picture books. We showed off our books to a partner and then evaluated our final product considering the design brief we created. Lots of the books were rated 5 out of 5! As Scientists, we explored how different actions can change the shapes of some objects. We concluded that some objects change shape when you stretch, twist, bend or squash them, and these objects are either flexible or elastic. We also considered the suitability of materials by testing how far different materials could stretch. We then used cubes to measure how far each material stretched, and drew a bar graph to represent the data. In RE, we finished our unit about what the Nativity story teaches Christians about Jesus. We hope you all have a lovely festive break! 

 

 

Friday 12th December

Wow, what a performance! We are so proud of how well all the Year 2 children did in their Christmas play. They demonstrated fantastic determination to ensure that it all went smoothly. We have also been enjoying the start of our DT unit. We have been given the design brief: 'to make a moving picture book', and have started to explore the different mechanisms that we can use. We created sliders to make Santa move horizontally and vertically across the page. We then looked at lever mechanisms so that the reindeer could move in an arc, as if it were flying through the sky. We found this method a little bit trickier because we had to use a split pin. In English, we have been ambitious writers. We have written our own reports about Florence Nightingale and can confidently explain why she is one of our VIP Victorian Nurses.

 

Friday 5th December

In English, we have continued to learn about Florence Nightingale. We first learnt about her earlier this term in History, as she is one of our famous nurses from the Victorian times, along with Mary Seacole and Edith Cavell. We had lots of fun role-playing in groups, pretending to either be Florence, a nurse or an injured soldier. This helped us to recall what Florence needed to do to improve the hospital conditions. We also reminded ourselves of key features of a non-fiction report, including: heading, subheading, technical language and pictures. In Maths, we compared mass using balance scales, and also used scales to measure different objects in grams. We have also been busy again this week practising for our Christmas play! We are so excited to perform for Year 1 on Monday during our dress rehearsal and our adults on Tuesday. We hope you can make it!

 

Friday 28th November

In Year 2, we started our Art Week by examining the painting, 'A Regatta on the Grand Canal' by Canaletto. We worked in groups to imagine what we would see, touch, hear, taste, smell and feel if we were there.

For our final piece, we created a mixed media piece, with lots of excellent cross-curricular links. This included a moving part that we will explore further in DT this term; pointillism (created by George Seurat) we learnt about this last half-term in our art lessons; the shapes and buildings for the background were inspired by the work of Bridget Riley; we also studied the fashion of Gondolier’s in the 17^th century. The children are so excited to show off their artwork in the exhibition!

 

 

Friday 21st November

This week we have been looking at the maths skill of measuring using centimetres and meters. We measured the height and length of different animals on the playground using meter sticks and chalk. We worked as teams to find out how long a whale was and how tall an elephant was. We had a lot of fun on a cold day.

Friday 14th November

This week the children have been getting used to our Accelerated Reader reading quizzes. When the children have read their books, they then quiz their knowledge on the Chromebook. The children read a book and have to respond to questions about the book. They have enjoyed using the computer to type, search for books and achieve points which will eventually give them rewards. We look forward to seeing the rewards from their marvellous efforts. 

 

Friday 7th November

Wow, what an exciting first week back! The children thoroughly enjoyed Victorian day, and we were so impressed with how they fully immersed themselves in Victorian life. We spent the day following Victorian rules, including: children must stand when an adult enters the room; children must not ask questions; and children must not put up their hands unless they are told to do so. We started the day warming up our voices by singing All Things Bright and Beautiful, and then sang the National Anthem to Queen Victoria. We moved onto reading and reciting a poem, before using slate boards and chalk to practise handwriting. After break, we moved onto arithmetic, where we had to chant our timestables. We had to be careful to get the answer correct to avoid having to wear the dunce cap! We took part in PE drills, and during our afternoon break, we had lots of fun playing with the hoops, skipping ropes and chalk. At the end of the day, we reflected on the differences between our normal school day, compared to a Victorian school day. Lots of the children agreed that they didn't like not being able to ask questions! Well done Year 2, what a brilliant day!

 

 

Friday 17th October

This week our English focus is performance poetry. The children have been learning the poem "The End", a poem by A.A Milne (The creator of Winnie-the-Pooh). We used different techniques to help us learn the poem; popcorn reading, rainbow writing, missing letters reading, rhyming patterns and drawing images that go with the stanzas. 

    

 

Friday 10th October

In our recent lesson on 2D shapes, we designed a carousel of activities to cater to diverse learning styles and engage every child in recognising and understanding the properties of various shapes. The approach allowed for hands-on learning and collaboration, contributing to an enjoyable and educational experience for all students.

       

Tuesday 30th September

Today, the children have been working on understanding paragraphs. In these pictures they are sorting facts about meerkats into the correct sections. For example, all facts about eating go into the eating section.

    

 

Thursday 25th September

The children thoroughly enjoy their special time with our sports coaches. Once a week, the sports coach chooses a child who has demonstrated exceptional work in the lessons. They receive a medal which they can wear with pride in school. 

 

Friday 19th September

In Art, we have begun our topic of Pointillism, considering the artist Georges Seurat. We began by looking closely at one of the pieces of artwork called,” Sunday at le Grande Jatte.” We were asked to find certain characters in the painting. We then began experimenting with making marks using different brushes, cotton buds and our little fingers. The children created some wonderfully colourful umbrellas.

Friday 12th September

Today the children were using place value grids to identify the values of 2-digit numbers.

 

Friday 18th July

We are loving our week of minibeast poetry and have written some brilliant shape poems to make into a poetry page.  In maths, we have been recapping things we found tricky and on Wednesday we enjoyed applying direction and position language with the Bee bots. Our best bit was drawing a Treasure Island and instructing Beebot to reach the treasure. 

As we wind down for the year, we have been reflecting on all we have achieved. We are now looking forward to a few fun activities before we say goodbye to Key Stage 1. 

Friday 11th July

This week we have made a very tasty fresh fruit kebab. We spent a morning tasting different fruits and then designing our own kebabs. On Wednesday, we put our cutting skills to use by preparing our fruit and sliding them on our kebab stick according to our design.  We got to eat our fruit snack and then evaluated it, making suggestions for improvements.  We have also been learning to memorise and recite poems about minibeasts.  

Friday 4th July

This week we have made great progress in writing our innovated stories. They are sounding really exciting. We are making them into books like a real author, and hopefully you can have a look at open evening on 10^th July.  We have enjoyed practising our cutting skills in DT using playdough to learn different techniques: the claw, the bridge and the fork.  We will be using these skills when we make our fruit kebab next week. 

On Wednesday we learnt about researching information on the internet and how we know facts are true and reliable. The children had lots of ideas about how images could be faked. 

Friday 27th June 

We are really enjoying our new text - Tadpole's Promise. In English and have been planning a new version of the story and describing new settings  by expanding our sentences with exciting adjectives.  

In Computing we had a lesson on internet safety and enjoyed working with a partner to look at scenarios where we might give or deny permission to share content online; there was lots of discussion and opinions shared. 

Friday 20th June

This week we have embraced 'Sports week' with lots of different sports activities.  Every day this week we have learnt about different sports stars, including Chris Hoy, Serena Williams and Ellie Challis. On Monday we had a go at kick rounders, it was great fun to play as a team and learn a new game.  On Tuesday we learnt how to skip with a skipping rope. It was harder than we thought, but we kept on going and after a fun afternoon, some of us were actually quite good.  We have also enjoyed a Joe Wickes workout and several yoga sessions.  Wednesday was an epic sports day with a fun-filled carousel of team activities in the morning and class races in the afternoon. All the children were amazing and tried so hard in all the races, even in the scorching sun. Thank you to the parents that came to cheer us on. We hope you are proud of us.

Friday 13th June

This week we have been looking at position and direction in Maths. We enjoyed lots of different activities to practise using and understanding directions and position. Why not see if we know our left and right? We have spent a couple of afternoons practising for sports day next week; the hurdles were great fun. On Wednesday we talked about staying safe when posting online and what personal information means. In Science, we have been looking at microhabitats and investigating the type of conditions in them.

Friday 6th May

This week the children have worked hard completing their SATS reading tests during their English lessons. In Maths, they have been recapping telling the time and working out how much time has passed. The children have also started their new DT topic: their design brief for the term is to design a fruit kebab. In the first lesson, the children matched up pictures of fruit and found out where it came from in the world. During their RE lesson, the children learnt what different religions believe about the idea of God. They worked in groups to match up the religion to the belief.

Friday 23rd May

This week we have been comparing lengths of time and plotting out how long we spend doing daily activities in our 24-hour day.  In English, we have become experts at talking about the chicken life cycle and enjoyed using the Chromebooks to create a diagram of the life cycle.  In History we were fascinated to find out about the first moon landing. We wrote news reports using the facts we had learnt.  On Wednesday, we enjoyed using our coding skills to make a mini-movie. They were so good and funny when we discovered we could record our own sound. We are very proud of our final art pieces, which look colourful and bright. In Science, we made eco-friendly plant pots from newspaper and planted sunflower seeds.   Finally, we needed some much-needed quiet time, so we relaxed at the end of the day by reading our reading books and completing reading quizzes.

 

Friday 16th May

 This week we have been looking at explanation texts in English and have started to find out information about the life cycle of a chicken. We learnt lots of new scientific words. We completed our final piece in art and really enjoyed creating our own colourful composition in the African art style. Maths has focused more on telling the time - please seek any opportunity to look at an analogue clock and talk about the minutes and hours; it's been tricky to grasp but we have been working very hard. 

Friday 9th May

This week we have been learning to tell the time. On Tuesday, we played a sorting game to help us recognise quarter past and quarter to. We enjoyed creating geometric patterns inspired by the artist Esther Mahlangu during our Art lesson. We used bright bold contrasting colours and symmetrical patterns. In English, we were authors of our own version of 'Jim and the Beanstalk.' We have used lots of new vocabulary and exciting story language. 

 

Friday 2nd May

This week we have recapped adding 2-digit number by exchanging; we practised using Base Ten as a practical tool during our maths lessons. In English lessons, we have continued to look at the story Jim and the Beanstalk including sequencing the story. We have begun learning about an artist, Esther Mahlangu who paints bright bold shapes and symmetrical patterns. In our lesson we learnt to mix primary colours to make secondary colours and how to make them darker and lighter. On Wednesday we loved tinkering on Scratch Jr to explore creating algorithms to make our character move. The highlight of the week was burning our model houses to see just how quickly the fire spread in 1666 during the Great Fire of London.