What a busy week!

We have had a wonderful week in Whales class filled with lots of fun activities.

A group of children from Sharks and Whales had a very exciting day at Open in Norwich performing in the Dance Showcase event. We hope to add a video onto our blog very soon. We were all very proud of the children who took part. They were a credit to the school with their enthusiasm and excellent behaviour.

The children who stayed at school had a lovely afternoon learning about Aboriginal art and were extremely focussed when producing their own paintings using cotton buds to create the dots.

Here are some examples

International food tasting

We had great fun this morning tasting food from around the world. We tried lots of different things including Manchego cheese, olives, Jamaican spiced bun, croissants and salami.
We were all very adventurous trying lots of new things and thought of some great adjectives to describe them. We also gave our opinions on the foods we had eaten.

Thank you to the PTA who have kindly agreed to fund this food tasting activity for us.

Inspirational Maths

This week we have really enjoyed the work we have been doing on Inspirational Maths. We have carried out lots of different activities that have enabled us to think about strategies for learning maths such as experimenting, teamwork, drawing things out and using resources. We have also been thinking about keeping going even when challenges are tricky and not giving up as this is when our brain grows! 

Marbling

The children really enjoyed making pictures using marbling and bubble painting.

Muck, Mess and Mixtures!

Today we have had our messy morning to launch our new topic Muck, Mess and Mixtures. We had a wonderful time playing with lots of different messy play for example shaving foam, baked beans, jelly, clay, leaves, cornflakes and the extremely popular gloop!

The children had to think of different words to describe the things they were playing with and wrote these on large sheets of sugar paper. There was some wonderful vocabulary

Children worked really well collaboratively and really enjoyed the activities as did all the staff in the Year 2 base!

We hope you enjoy looking at the photographs!

An exciting challenge!

Today in Whales and Sharks we have been completing a very exciting challenge set for us by The Three Little Pigs.

We needed to build a strong, safe fortress to keep the pigs safe from the Big Bad Wolf. We worked collaboratively across both classes and thought about all the different ways to make a fortress strong and safe. 

We had great fun and produced some wonderful work which is on the table outside the Year 2 base if you want to come and have a look!

Weekly News

On Monday when the children arrived in the classroom there were lots of mysterious objects on the carpet. We completed a ‘free writing’ activity which involved choosing an object and writing in any style or genre such as; a story, a letter, a description or a poem. We made the focus handwriting and encouraged many children to start applying joins.

Later in the week we looked at the story of the Billy Goats Gruff and had a class debate / hot seating where we discussed reasons for and against crossing the bridge, for example ‘If you keep crossing the bridge you will give me a headache from all your trip-trapping.’

In Maths this week we have started to look at subtraction on a blank number line. The children find this more difficult than adding due to counting backwards in tens from any number so if you get a chance to practise this at home that would be great. We also solved subtraction word problems using our preferred method (mental, blank number line or 100sq).

In Science this week we have performed a simple experiment using newspaper. The children were challenged to create a bridge between two desks that would hold the weight of a goat figure. They worked in small groups and were only allowed to use 4 sheets of newspaper. The test showed some interesting ideas and the children thought carefully about how to make the newspaper stronger by folding, layering, rolling and twisting.

Whales class visited Mulbarton Church on Wednesday afternoon. Many thanks to Reverend Adrian for showing the children round and performing a pretend wedding. Shark class are looking forward to going next Wednesday. 

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Brooks and Mrs Wyer.