Week 1 - Happy New Year

We hope that you all had an amazing and lovely Christmas break. It was lovely having the all the children back and they have been brilliant over the first 3 days back.

English - Crime scene

The week started with the children becoming detectives and looking at evidence to try and piece together what might have happened. After looking at the evidence, all together, the children quickly linked the crime scene with the story of The 3 little pigs. This led us to our first writing journey for 2023 - "The true story of the 3 little pigs." Who will the children believe and why?? 

Maths - What's the time?

This week we focussed on time and in particular looking at telling the time at quarter intervals. We initially found this really tricky. The children were able to use their fractions of a shape to clearly identify "a quarter", "half", and "3 quarters" and also knew that there were 60 minutes in an hour but combining the two was particularly challenging. We are continually reviewing the time throughout the day at quarterly intervals to help us remember.

PE - Gymnastics - pathways

This term in gymnastics we are building on what we learnt last term of high and low body parts by adding the concept of travelling using different pathways. The children showed great creativity and really good spatial awareness as they explored moving in and out of each other around the hall in a variety of ways using different pathways.

Music - Timbre - Alien chants

For this term in music our theme is about space. This week we focussed on "timbre" (identifying how sounds are made) by learning a simple chant about aliens saying hello. The children had great fun taking it in turns thinking of and exploring different ways they could change their voices to help the aliens say hello. The children used their previous knowledge of pitch and tempo to create different vocal effects. We then played a game where children had to choose how the aliens said hello by selecting 3 different timbres and then choosing one for the whole class to repeat in the chosen sound. 

Week 2

Maths - Mass

This week we have been developing our knowledge of mass by estimating and measuring different objects using the standard units of weight  - grams and kilograms. We then practised reading different scale to work out how much different items weighed.

DT - Healthy eating

This term we are focusing on healthy eating, food processing and preparation skills  and hygiene. We started off by discussing what food we liked and the importance of eating a healthy and balanced diet. We explored the 5 different food groups - fruit and vegetables, bread and potatoes (carbohydrates), meat (protein), dairy, and fats. We then had to order different foods into healthy and unhealthy which led to a good discussion about how much of each group we should eat.

Geography - Deserts

This we we explored the question "what makes a desert a desert?". The children were shown a slow reveal picture of the Sahara Desert which they related to as a desert very quickly - "very sandy", "hot and sunny" "very little water". The children were then shown a picture of the "largest desert in the world" and were very surprised when Antarctica was revealed. The children then had to find the similarities between the 2 pictures and worked out what makes a desert a desert.

English - features of a persuasive letter and contractions

This week we recapped Emily Gravett's book Tidy to see if we could remember features of a letter before learning about additional features that make a letter a persuasive letter. The children looked at examples of different persuasive letters and identified the features. We then looked at how apostrophes are used in contractions to turn two words into a contracted word. We used our story to then write sentences including contractions.

Week 3

Maths - Shapes and fractions

This week we developed our knowledge and understanding of shape by sorting and grouping shapes by our own criteria - looking at number of edges and faces. We also learnt about vertices and grouped shapes by these as well. This led us into focussing on the properties of 3d shapes and how shapes are used to create patterns. To finish the week we reviewed halves and quarter fractions of shapes and learnt about thirds which we used to identify and group shapes according to their fraction amounts. 

DT - Cutting skills

This week we looked at the importance of health and safety  and hygiene when working and preparing food. We learnt 3 different cutting skills that help us stay safe and cut food for different purposes. These were: the bridge - for chopping or cutting in half, the claw - for slicing, and the fork technique for dicing. The children practiced these and will be using them again later this term when creating meals for their healthy school picnic.

Science - Why do we stop growing?

This was the question we explored today. The children thought about what might happen to our bodies if we kept on growing and then thought about why we stop growing at a certain age. As a class we decided that we reach a certain size / age for our bodies to be able look after ourselves and do things independently. We then linked this with animals and agreed that this was the same. When they reach their required size they can look after themselves and be ready to reproduce to keep their species going. We measured ourselves as a class and thought about how old we may be when we will eventually stop growing.

Computing and music - creating different musical effects using ICT.

We started off this week by listening to Holst's Neptune and drawing pictures that were inspired by the music. We discussed how different parts of the song were represented by spirals, zig zags and stars. Using the program Chrome music lab - Kadinsky we reversed the process and looked at how carefully positions "scribbles" can be used to create pieces of music. If the shape was near the top of the screen it was of a higher pitch than a lower shape - if it was a long shape then naturally the duration of the note was longer. The children enjoyed exploring an composing their own pieces.

PE - Travelling pathways

This week we combined our floorwork from our last lesson and explored how we could use different parts of our body to move and travel a pathway through, under, and over different apparatus.

Week 4

English - Persuasive arguments

The children started this week by recording their persuasive letters and thinking about how best they could present their letter to persuade either the Piggy Guards or Alexander T Wolf. The children thought about which parts of their letter were the most persuasive and therefore tried to enforce their point when presenting their case.

Maths - Multiplication, division, and arrays

This week we have been developing our understanding of the 2, 5, and 10 times tables by "growing the tables" and physically showing the increase between numbers. We then reviewed our understanding of the use of arrays by showing different groupings (multiplication) and sharing (division) in their array format as well as writing multiplication and division sentences to match.

Computing and music - Creating music for a purpose.

This week in computing we continued to learn about how ICT can be used to create music. Using the Chrome Music lab programme again - we used the song maker app and set the challenge of creating a rhythm that would match an animal moving. The children selected the type of instruments to be involved, composed the texture and dynamics before agreeing the tempo the piece should be played. We had a vast range of animal compositions - from scurrying mice to lolloping elephants.

DT - Cooking - Tasty fruit and veg

This week, in preparation for their healthy picnic, the children taste tested different fruit and vegetables to help them decide on the best combination of ingredients to combine when they make their food. The children shared their likes and dislikes before deciding on what they wanted to make for the picnic.

Week 5

Science - Do bigger animals live longer?

This was the question we focussed on this week. It opened up some really good conversations about predators and prey and the differences between wild animals and domestic pets. The children were given a selection of photos of different animals and, working together, put them in an order they thought showed the animals with the shortest lifespan up to the animals with the longest lifespan. All of the children knew that a giant turtle had the longest but how does an elephant compare to a human? Once the children had ordered these the task was made trickier by introducing some additional animals linking with our Geography topic of deserts. Children then had to discuss who lived longer a wild rabbit or an artic hare and think about why.

Computing and music - Editing compositions

Following on from last weeks compositions using "Song maker" on Chrome music lab, the children learnt how to edit and recompose their melodies. The children were given the choice of using their animal movement compositions from last week or creating a completely new melody to edit.

PE - Travelling - Spins and rolls

This week we continued to develop our understanding of how we can use our bodies to travel using different pathways. This week we focussed on spinning and rolling and how we can use different parts of our bodies along with high and low levels to help us move over, under, through, and around apparatus whilst following our pre-planned pathways.

Christingle

On Thursday we had a lovely afternoon learning about the symbolic meanings of Christingle before going to All Saints Church to have our very own Christingle service. The children enjoyed making their Christingle candles and it was lovely to see all of Year 2 holding their lit Christingle candles at the end of the service.