Welcome to Seahorse Class 2023

Meet the Teacher

It was lovely to see so many parents at the "Meet the teacher" meeting on Wednesday. For those that weren't able to make it or for those who want to look back at the PowerPoint please see the link below.

Week 1

Wow!!!! What a first week we have had. The children have blown us away with how well they have all settled into Year 2 and have been so courageous by completing all of the weeks tasks despite the heatwave!!!

PE - Gymnastics (high and low) and multi-skills (beanbags)

Both PE sessions happened outside in the shade this week. On Wednesday, the children showed their creativity when they explored different ways of making different parts of their bodies really high or really low. The children practised using their arms to help propel them into their jumps and the importance of landing with bent knees. The children then explored how they could move from a high position into a low position in one smooth movement.

On Friday the children showed their creativity again when they demonstrated the different ways of balancing and travelling with a bean bag using different parts of their bodies. They then developed their hand eye coordination by kicking the beanbag up in to the air and trying to catch it and then moving on to throwing it up in the air and seeing how many claps they could do before catching it.

Maths - Place Value

To start off our maths journey this year we focussed on numbers and place value. This week the children had a go at solving number riddles to work out the mystery numbers, recognise and order numbers from 0 - 100, and recognise different representations of numbers.

Geography - Catherington and beyond

The children boarded "Dickenson Airlines" this week to take an imaginative flight over and Catherington village. The children were amazing at being able to recall so many different physical and human features that made up Catherington village which they could see during the flight. We then used Google Earth to help us see beyond Catherington and begin to look at the geographical differences between Catheington (a village), Cowplain and Waterloovile (towns), and Portmouth (a city).

Design and Technology - Wheels and axles

For the start of their DT topic, the children were set the challenge of creating a list of as many different things they could think of that had a wheel and an axle. The children didn't disappoint, not only did they come up with different transportation and toys, they also started to think about how an axle is used to make other things move such as windmills and fans too. 

Phonics and spelling

This week the children have been recapping their phonic knowledge from Year 1 by looking at alternative pronunciations of different graphemes and alternative spellings for different phonemes.  

English - Dougal's deep sea diary

Our first book stimulus this year is Dougal's deep sea diary by Simon Bertram. The children showed great curiosity when they came up with lots of different questions they wanted to find out when the front cover of the book was slowly revealed. We explored the power of words using a zone of relevance by sorting words from good to amazing e.g the word "happy" is okay but the word "ecstatic" is so much more powerful. The children finished the week by searching a double page spread of Atlantis and creating noun phrases by post it noting as many different nouns that they could see and then creating powerful adjectives to go with them.

Week 2

English - Features of a postcard

This week in English the children have learnt to be able to recognise and identify the features that make up a postcard. The children looked at different postcards and labelled the different features and were also able to identify expanded noun phrases and questions. This then led to the children planning their own postcards in preparation for next week when we will be writing them and sending them off. 

Maths - Counting on and back in 10s

This week we have been continue to develop our knowledge of how numbers may be represented before moving on to counting on and back in jumps of 10 from 0 and other numbers. We learnt that when we count in 10s the "ones" number remains the same and the "tens" number changes.

PE - Gymnastics - High and low body parts

This week the children took what they had learnt from their floor work from last week and applied it to using different pieces of apparatus. The children then explored shifted body weight to aid balance to enable them to hold different high and low positions whilst on different apparatus.

DT - Wheels and axles

The children were told about a problem we have in class. what happens if you are at one end of the table but the pencil pots are at the other end? How are you going to be able to get a pencil without leaving your seat or disturbing the whole table? The solution - a pencil pot trolley!!! The children were then given a variety of wheels and possible axles and were set the challenge of exploring what makes a good axle, where to position the axle, and how best to join the wheel to the axle. It was discovered that shorter wooden axles were far better than longer straw ones.

Science - Our field and evidence of supporting life

As part of our science field study, we will be making different observations throughout the year and consider how it helps support life. Last week we investigated what all living things need to survive and this week we went out to find evidence to support our hypotheses. 

PE - Games - Throwing and catching with a ball

This week we focussed on developing our throwing and catching skills. We started off looking at the importance of when we release a ball to help send it in the direction  we want as well as being on the balls of our feet to help move ourselves into good positions to receive our returning balls. We also focussed on using the cupping position and motion to help us catch the ball before moving on to one handed catching. To finish the children created games using the techniques they had been developing.

Week 3

Geography - Catherington Lith field trip

This week as part of our geography topic on villages and cities, we ventured out in the blustery wind up on to Catherington Lith. From there the children were able to look across the village of Clanfield and identify all the physical features that make Clanfield a village - houses, lots of fields, trees, a windmill, and a few shops. When we turned around to look south out on to the Solent the children were able to identify the naval barracks on top of Portsdown Hill. With some assistance, and by really squinting through the on coming rain clouds, the children also identified the Spinnaker Tower and the many buildings that make up the city of Portsmouth around it.

PSHE - Good listening and problem solving

This week in PSHE we focussed on the importance of good listening skills to help solve problems. The children were given a range of real life school scenarios and in groups were given the task of acting out the problem and then thinking about how they would resolve the problem positively. Working in groups made the children understand the importance of good listening when listening to their friends ideas and adding their own thoughts on how to solve their different problems.

English - Planning, writing, editing and publishing

This week the children used their plans from last week to write their own postcards from Atlantis. They then edited their own work by looking for missing capital letters, finger spaces and full stops before looking at how to improve their postcards by adding adjectives. Finally, the children used their neatest handwriting to publish their postcards before giving them to their chosen recipient or taking them home.

Maths - Number bonds to 10 and 20

This week the children have continued to develop their place value knowledge by focussing on finding all the different number bonds to 10 and 20. The children looked at using a system and finding the pattern to work out all the different ways 10 and 20 could be made.   

Science - Where does our food come from?

This was the question the children answered this week. After initially suggesting shops, the children delved deeper and came to the conclusion that a lot of our food comes from plants. This then got them thinking about how plants are grown and where their seeds come from and then whether or not all seeds were the same. The children were shown a variety of fruits from commonly recognised apples and oranges, to less well known fruits such as pomegranate and aubergine. These were cut open to reveal their seeds which the children made observational drawings of labelling the different seeds.

Music - Storm Soundscapes

In this weeks music lesson the children were given the task of composing a piece of music that created the effect of a storm using vocals and body percussion. The children drew different symbols and pictures that related to a vocal sound or body percussion before nominating a conductor who conducted the others when performing their pieces to the rest of the class.