Thursday 13 December 2018

Weekly News



At the start of the week, we watched the Year 3 and 4 Christmas show ‘Bah Humbug’ that was enjoyed by all.

In English this week, we have been working hard to edit and improve our Storm Animal stories. The children are SO proud of their writing, as are we! They have made their stories into little books and wrapped them in an envelope to give to you as a Christmas gift. We hope you enjoy reading these over the holidays.

In Maths this week, we have been looking at drawing arrays to solve multiplication problems. For example, 4 x 6 means we can draw four crosses, six times. Please reinforce this method with your children at home whenever possible.

In Art this week we looked at the illustrations from our class book ‘The Storm Whale’ and watched a video of the author/illustrator Benji Davies draw one his characters. The children then copied and sketched a page from the book and added watercolour paint to finish.

In Spanish, we have been learning about Christmas in Spain and made Spanish Christmas cards. The children love learning a new language and we are very impressed with their enthusiasm.

Just a reminder that the first Friday back is our trip to the castle and your child will need a packed lunch.

Have a very merry Christmas and Happy New Year
The Year Two Team

Friday 30 November 2018

Multiskills



Here are some photos of our fun-filled sporty morning at Easton and Otley College where we took part in a multiskills festival with Year 2 children from other schools.


Thursday 29 November 2018

Weekly News


We had a lovely. Energetic start to our week with our visit to Easton & Ottley College to take part in the Norwich SSP’s Multskills Festival. The students at the college put on lots of exciting activities that allowed children to practise many PE and Sport skills. We took part alongside 4 other schools and had lots of fun. On Tuesday we also enjoyed a Karate workshop which was enjoyed by all.

In English this week the children wrote a story for their pet pebble that they made on Monday afternoon. This was a completely ‘cold’ task which meant there was no teacher input. The only element they had to include was it had to be set on an island. The children had lots of interesting ideas and worked really hard. It was also a very good assessment tool. As a result, we will be working with the children on proof reading their work to check for full stops and capital letters.
Later in the week we continued looking at our book ‘The Storm Whale’. We created a ‘conscience alley’ where the children made an arch and one person was chosen to be ‘Noi’. As Noi walked through the archway the rest of the class were whispering in his ear reasons for and against telling his dad there was a whale in the bath! Everyone then wrote a letter of advice to Noi using a range of conjunctions.

In Maths we have been practising 10 more and 10 less. The children completed a carousel of activities which involved fluency, reasoning and problem solving. They all worked really hard and showed good resilience. Later in the week we completed subtraction word problems and consolidated the ‘chips and peas’ method for taking away.

In RE this week we discussed why different religions have festivals. We linked this to our understanding of Diwali, Christmas, Birthdays and Easter. We then read the story of Elmer and made a range of resources to help the elephants celebrate ‘Elmer’s Day’. The children made cards, flags, designed cakes, banners and wrote songs.

We have also been practising our Christmas Carol for the fayre next week. We look forward to seeing you there. If any parents are able to help out with manning our game ‘Knock Santa down the chimney’ for a 15min slot please let one of the Year 2 team know. Alternatively we will put a sign-up sheet in the cloakroom. It would involve taking money and giving out prizes. Many thanks.

Thursday 22 November 2018

Weekly News



We have been very excited this week because we have finally read the whole of our ‘Power of Reading’ book ‘The Storm Whale’. The main character Noi found a baby whale washed up on the beach and didn’t know what to do with him. The children wrote down all the things that they already knew about whales and then wrote a list of questions of things that they wanted to find out. Later in the week they used the laptops and ipads to research the answers to their questions.

In Maths this week we have been learning to add using a blank number line. The children found this method a little bit trickier than the chips and peas method. However, they are starting to understand that they add the tens first by doing jumps of ten and then add the ones by doing jumps of one.
At the end of the week we completed some addition word problems linked to our topic and the children chose their preferred method to work out the answer. Some children completed two-step problems.

Thank you for coming to our Year 2 Assembly, we hope you enjoyed it – the children certainly did! 

Please remember to send your child to school in their PE Kit on Monday with a water bottle ready for Multiskills at Easton College.

Tuesday 6 November 2018

Drama and Freeze-Framing




















Today we looked at the next page of our story (we still don't know what it's called but we'd like to keep it this way!).

The sentence was 'Every day Noi's Dad left early for a long day's work on his fishing boat.'
We also looked at the illustration of Noi looking out the window watching his Dad go.


The children worked in pairs in role as Noi and his Dad. They thought about the facial expressions and thoughts that these characters might have been feeling (making inferences). We then wrote a thought bubble showing our ideas.

Power of Reading

 In Year 2 we have started a project called the 'Power of Reading' which involves focussing all our work on one book and gaining a deep understanding through drama, role investigation, writing tasks, sketching etc.
 Today we read only the first sentence of the book without looking at the front cover or any illustrations. The sentence was 'Noi and his dad lived with their six cats by the sea.'
From this the children sketched their own representation of what this looked like to them.

They then added any interesting vocabulary which gave their picture meaning.
We compared our pictures and asked each other questions about our choices.

Thursday 20 September 2018

Measuring Sharks!


This week we went outside and measured the length of different sharks on the playground.

We used metre sticks and chalk to measure whale sharks (12m), great white sharks (5m) and angel sharks (3m) among others!

Some children challenged themselves to measure in metres and centimetres. Some even converted measurements.




New Shark Class


Welcome, new Sharks and parents, to our class blog. 


Here you will find posts and photos showing the exciting learning taking place at school.


Remember to check it regularly, especially after an exciting event!

😊

Tuesday 26 June 2018

Science Cafe























Thank you to everyone who came to our Reading Cafe with a science theme.


We enjoyed the story of Jack and the Beanstalk (with a modern twist) before planting our own magical bean.

Watch the beanstalk grow up to the castle....


Friday 22 June 2018

Butterflies!




We have been nursing caterpillars for the last few weeks and today we released them as fully-grown butterflies. We were very proud of how well we looked after them and it was fascinating to watch their life cycle in real life!




Tuesday 19 June 2018

Chembakolli


This week we have been learning about the village of Chembakolli in India.
We began by comparing our daily life with the daily life of a child in Chembakolli.
We then made our own Chembakolli houses using clay and natural materials.






Friday 8 June 2018

Piet Mondrian



Today we studied the artist Piet Mondrian.
We learnt about how he began painting trees,
started to focus on lines and shapes,
and eventually became more abstract.


We recreated his work using sugar paper and paint.

Some children were inspired to create their own similar artwork.


Tuesday 5 June 2018

Maths of the Day








Maths of the Day (MotD) today involved some music!


These were the rules of the game:

  1. Have a number between 0-10.
  2. Dance around the playground to Disney songs.
  3. When the music stops pair up and multiply your two numbers together.

We had lots of fun and learnt many facts.





Wednesday 23 May 2018

Go Run for Fun


We had an amazing time taking part in a fun run at Eaton park. There were nearly 2,000 children running from lots of schools across the city. It was a lovely afternoon.

Thursday 17 May 2018

Do minibeasts have a favourite colour?




This afternoon we have been enjoying the sunshine whilst carrying out a science investigation.




We were observing to find out if insects have a favourite colour.




Working in groups of four, observing a colour each, we watched closely and tallied everytime an insect landed on or near to the colours.




We sat very patiently whilst the insects got comfortable with their new surroundings. Although they did not appear in masses, we managed to get some results.




Their favourite colour seemed to be the colour green! Meghan thinks this is because it is a 'nature' colour and Dexter thinks it's because 'they see a lot of green outside anyway'.









Friday 11 May 2018

Forest School Group 3





















We had some very excited children this morning as the next group of forest school started.





















It is so lovely to see the children enjoying themselves outside, taking supported risks, developing confidence and trying new things.






















Today they made fruit kebabs for the birds, went bug hunting, read insect ID books, climbed trees, went on the swing and made a den.

They were all very collaborative!


Cricket Festival






Some of our lovely year 2 children went to Hethersett and Tee Valley Cricket Club in Flordon to take part in a cricket festival.






They had a fantastic time completing lots of activities including batting, catching and bowling.










 They all received a certificate to say well done for being respectful and for showing good sportsmanship. 




Tuesday 8 May 2018

Maths of the Day





As a school we have bought into a scheme called 'Maths of the Day' which is a take on 'Match of the Day' - the idea is to learn and practise maths skills in a practical way.

Today, we played a relay game where the class were split into 3 teams with one quizmaster each. The quizmaster asked questions about time such as "How many seconds are in 3 minutes" or "There are 24 hours in a day, true or false?"

The quizmaster asked a question to the first person in their team. If they knew the answer they ran the relay, if they didn't they asked their teammates to help them before running the course.

Lots of fun and learning was had!