Weekly News - 14.12.18

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

Weekly news - 7.12.18

We have had a busy and exciting week in Year 2 and have all been working very hard. 

We were amazed to arrive in the classroom on Monday morning and find it decorated for Christmas. We also found some snowy footprints and a letter to the class from Father Christmas himself. We all worked incredibly hard to write some fantastic responses to him with some of our Christmas wishes. 

In the rest of our English work this week we have been continuing our work on the ‘Power of Reading’ project and planning our own versions of ‘The Storm Whale’. On Tuesday we spent the morning thinking about the four main elements of our story which were the characters, the setting, the problem and the resolution. On Wednesday we worked really hard to turn these into a story map, a plan using pictures and short notes, to help us write our story. We were all really focussed on Friday morning when writing these trying really hard to think about the beginning, middle and end of our story as well as things such as capital letters, full stops and exciting vocabulary.  

In Maths this week we have been learning about sharing and making equal groups both practically and using our times tables knowledge. Children have been aspirational when working on this new area concept. 

In Science we talked about recyclable materials and sorted them into recyclable or not. We also reviewed our ‘Salt water jars’ experiment from a few weeks ago and looked at which things had dissolved in salt water. Children really enjoyed concluding this activity. 

In Spanish we have begun to learn the numbers to 10 and the children would love to have a go a practising these at home if you have any spare time. 

We have been really impressed with the children’s home learning this term and thank you all for your support with this. The books will return home again after the Christmas holidays with tasks related to our new topic. This week will be the last week we send home spellings for the children to learn and then they will have a test next Friday (14th December). Spellings, like home learning, will come home again after the holidays. 

An important message for children in Sharks doing Dance Showcase in January - The tickets are now on sale and you should have received an email from the office telling you how to buy tickets. 

We look forward to seeing lots of you at the Christmas fayre this evening. 

Have a lovely weekend, 

The Year 2 team.

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.

Weekly news - Week beginning 19.11.18

                                                         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.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Brooks and Mrs Jennings.

Spanish in Whales

We have had lots of fun over the last couple of weeks learning some Spanish in Year 2. We have learnt some greetings and how to ask and answer the question 'How are you?'

Today we made some paper plate faces and used the new language we have learnt 'Me llamo' which means 'My name is...' to write a speech bubble.

We are sure the children would like to practise with you at home.

Which material is best for Noi's Dad's coat?

In Whales class we have been really enjoying the work we have been doing on the 'Power of Reading' project. We have been using this for lots of areas of learning. We have carried out a science investigation to find the best material for Noi's Dad to use for his coat when he is out on his boat. It needed to be waterproof to keep him dry.

We made predictions and then we tested lots of different materials for example cloth, kitchen roll, tin foil, cotton wool and plastic bags and newspaper. We used a pipette to drip the water onto the material to see whether it was waterproof or absorbent. We recorded our results and drew a diagram.

We found out that the best materials were the plastic bags and the tin foil as these were the most waterproof.

Here are some photos of us doing the experiment

We have really enjoyed working on our investigation skills.

Beach Combers

As part of our Beach Combers topic we have been on a school trip to West Runton. 

We had a brilliant day with North Norfolk Wildlife Trust who ran two amazing activities for us. One of them included a scavenger hunt to collecting lots of natural materials from the beach in buckets. They had to find things that were shiny, rough, smooth, plastic, beautiful, slimy, colourful and soft. Then they made some sculptures on the beach using these items.

The next activity was rock pooling. The children learnt about the creatures they might find and then went on a hunt with a bucket and net. They found crabs, fish, fossils, snails, barnacles, limpets, shrimps and one group even spotted a sea anemone! 

We also spent some time sketching the beach and enjoyed our lunch in the sun.

World Cup Launch

Today, we kicked off our world cup week with a morning recreating famous moments and practising our football skills.  The children had lots of fun and enjoyed the competitive element.
It was a very hot morning so we made sure we had lots of half-time breaks to keep us cool.

Chembakolli houses

We have been learning about India for the past few weeks.  We have been looking at a village called Chembakolli and children have spent this afternoon making their own Chembakolli house using clay and sticks.

Piet Mondrian

We have been learning about the artist Piet Mondrian and have looked at lots of examples of his work. We looked at the techniques he uses in his work and learnt about how he started using lines and shapes then became more abstract. We created our own pieces using his techniques. We really loved learning about his work and having a whole morning to create our own careful masterpieces.

Creepy Crawly Calypso

We have been making some amazing music in Whales today.
We listened to a story and a song called Creepy Crawly Calypso all about different minibeasts. We sang along and clapped to the beat. We then divided into groups and made our own little piece of music for each minibeast to fit in with the song.

We had great fun exploring the different instruments and performed as a class at the end of the session.

Investigating minibeasts!

We have been very busy in Whales this week being scientists. We have been investigating the question 'Do insects have a favourite colour?'.

To do this we chose four different colours of card and we went and placed the card down outside on the ground. We watched for 15 minutes and we made a tally of the number of mini beasts who came to each colour of card.

When we went back into the classroom we wrote up our investigation. We wrote down what we did, drew a diagram, wrote down our results and what we found out. Some of us also began to think about how to keep it a fair test.

We really enjoyed our afternoon of investigating and were really focussed and inquisitive!

Well done Whales!

We finished the afternoon on Friday by singing some of our favourite songs from assembly which was really lovely. What a great way to end the week!

Have a fantastic weekend.

This week in Whales

We have had a lovely week in Whales with the children working really hard to finish their 'special work.' We were really proud of all of them.

Some children were lucky enough to be selected out of the hat to go to a cricket tournament at Flordon Cricket Club and they had a fantastic time and were exceptionally well behaved.

Thank you to Mrs Dresser and Mrs Jones who went with the children.

The children who stayed behind did some work on how bees make honey and learnt about how this happens. They began working on some amazing posters to share their knowledge and tried try some honey too. We tried runny honey, set honey, acacia honey and local Mulbarton honey. Runny honey was the most popular in our vote!

What a brilliant afternoon we had! We hope you enjoy looking at our pictures.

Film Review Writing

Yesterday in Whales class we watched 'The Bee Movie' so that we could write some film reviews of it. We worked really hard on our writing this morning and tried our best to include some of the key features of film reviews such as a summary of the plot without giving away the ending, our opinions and who we would recommend the film for. We loved doing this writing and worked really hard.

We were also really lucky to have the girls from Whales class who are in the choir perform their songs for us at the end of the day. They also performed in the Upper School Assembly this morning. They sang beautifully and we were really proud of them.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! We are looking forward to some more fantastic learning next week.

Cricket Session

Whales Class have been really lucky today as we have had a cricket session with Lewis, a cricket coach from Swardeston Cricket Club. We practised our catching and bowling and we all really enjoyed it!

Thank you Lewis!