Year 2: Blog items
Date: 21st Apr 2022 @ 9:27pm
Year 2 participated in the whole School celebration of Science today. We begun the day by drawing a Scientist before exploring the stereotypes within the subject looking at a Research Engineer called Charlotte Grinyer who had to overcome her mental health alongside her gender to get to the position she is in today. Shortly after, we got to virtually meet 3 people who have a career in a Scientific field; we asked lots of questions to try and guess there job and learnt you can use Science in lots of different jobs.
Then it was our turn to get Scientific as we made our own slime to use in the experiment we had planned to test the stretchiness of the slime. We decided to see how the temperature of slime may effect it's stretchiness so placed one in the sun, one in the classroom, one in the fridge and one in the freezer. In the afternoon, we tested how far each slime would stretch. We had a super day celebrating Science!
Date: 7th Apr 2022 @ 5:44pm
Today saw Year 5 take over various roles across School from Class Teachers to Site Supervisors. Year 2 were delighted to have been taught by Miss Norman, Miss McCrae Miss Gabby, Mr Ali and Miss Courtney for the morning. The children were taught about the four different sentence types (Statement, Command, Question and Exclamation) during Reading into Writing and participated in a sorting activity. In Maths, the children practised their 2's, 5's and 10's times tables and completed various questions which revealed a plant at the end if answered correctly. We finished our fun morning with a game of Bingo ran by the new Teachers. The children all did a wonderful job and should be incredibly proud of themselves!
Date: 1st Apr 2022 @ 4:21pm
Over the last few weeks, we have thoroughly enjoyed learning to sing the song 'The Music Man'. We took it in turns to be groups A and B as to who sang the main verse and who did the Echo of 'What can you play?' After we had practised singing and performing the song, we got the glokenspiels out and played notes A, C, D, E and F. This was a difficult skill to look at the board and try to play the glokenspiels but we persevered and we were getting better with each practise.
Date: 1st Apr 2022 @ 4:15pm
This week we began to make our moving vehicles. To make the bodies of our car we wrapped cardboard boxes in white paper. We then used PVA glue to stick the body of the car onto the chassis we made earlier in the journey. After we had glued the body onto the chassis we painted it to our chosen colours based upon our designs. The day after- when our paint had dried we used our marking out skills to mark out windows and used paper and cellophane to create windows and extra things that we wished to put on our car. Some of us even put headlights, brake lights and indicators onto our cars using foiled paper. Some of it was really tricky but we persevered and helped each other and everyone is proud of their finished products.
Year 2 Help... There's been a power cut!
Date: 24th Mar 2022 @ 4:23pm
Yesterday, we used the Now Press Play equipment to further explore our topic of Electricity. In the story there was a power cut in our town whilst our sister was in urgent need of her dialysis- usually they have this at home but due to the lack of power had to attend the hospital. The hospital was incredibly busy and was using the limited supply of generators. The children decided they had to do something to help and went on a trip to the power station to try and get the power back on to save the people in the hospital. The children used their knowledge of how to make a simple circuit using batteries, wires and bulbs to make their own torch and explored the differences between coal and wind energy. At the end we saved the day and got the towns Electricity back on and disucssed which source of energy is renewable and better for the environment. The children loved the story and it really supported the knowledge of Electricity they have learnt this half term.
Date: 24th Mar 2022 @ 4:14pm
Today, Year 2 participated in the whole School Art Day with the theme of Blackpool. Our task was to explore different shells and the patterns they have. We all cut out images of shells that we liked and also drew a variety of shells over a two page spread to generate a bank of ideas to inspire our own shell creation. In the afternoon, we practiced making a shell shape and pattern out of plasticine before creating our final design and then making our final product out of clay. We quickly realised it was much harder to mould and shape the clay in comparison to the plasticine as it is harder and was drying quickly in the warm classroom. Despite it being difficult the children were very resilient and showed great perseverance to finish their shells. Miss Duckworth and Miss Hooson were impressed with their creations!
Year 2 George's Marvelous Dancing
Date: 15th Mar 2022 @ 2:35pm
This half term in PE, Year 2 are focusing on Dance. We begun the half term by linking our dance to our Science topic Electricity and did lots of work moving our bodies as if it was full of Electricity. Now we have developed the confidence to move our bodies creatively we have begun to create a dance based on our class novel 'George's Marvellous Medicine.' First we created a bank of adjectives to describe George and Granny before acting these out and adding movement to it; then we got out some different resources and using their magical powers controlling us before we added them to our potions. We are impressed with the children's determination and team work skills and cannot wait to see the final performance.
Year 2 And I Present to you...
Date: 10th Mar 2022 @ 5:28pm
This half term, Year 2 are creating a Presentation based around our learning in Design Technology on Wheels and Axles. To make our presentation, we decided to use Google Slides as it saves the work as we go along. So far the children have learnt the basic skills to turn the Chromebooks on and sign in to their school Google account before moving on to some trickier skills. This week we focused on adding images to our slides to make it more interesting. The children are showing great perseverance and are becoming quite fast at this now! We cannot wait to see the finished presentation.
Date: 10th Mar 2022 @ 5:22pm
Today in Year 2, we began to make our moving vehicle that will transport our Fairytale character to their event linking to our current Reading into Writing journey. We began by exploring fixed and free axels and discussed the differences before evaluating which we thought would be the best to use for our own vehicle. We chose free axles and used dowels putting them through a card template to ensure our axle was steady before choosing some wheels to attach to our axle. We then decided blu tac would allow more movement for our wheels compared to glue so secured our wheels to our axles using this. It was really fun but it wasn't always easy and the children showed great perseverance and teamwork to support one another.
Date: 3rd Mar 2022 @ 5:00pm
This week we began our Design Technology journey and looked at a selection of moving toys. We enjoyed exploring how they worked and disucssing the similarities and differences between the different toys. We discovered the reason they all have round wheels and looked at the various ways in which the wheels and axels were attached to each other. We are looking forward to the rest of the journey and creating our own moving vehicles.
Date: 3rd Mar 2022 @ 4:02pm
As part of World Book Day, we all came to school dressed as our favourite book characters. We had so many different characters including Oliver, Willy Wonka, Alice in Wonderland, Oompas Loopmas and Hermione Granger. Everyone looked fantastic! We also took part in some special WBD activities. We imagined we worked for Mr Willy Wonka and designed our very own magical sweet to be made in his factory. We had to describe what it looked and tasted like using interesting adjectives. In Maths, we continued with the chocolate theme and used pictograms and tally charts to compare the colours of sweets in a Smarties tube. We found out they were all very different!
Date: 25th Feb 2022 @ 8:02pm
On Monday, Year Two began the half term exploring our new Science topic of Electricity! After our first Dance lesson where we will be creating a dance linked to the vocabulary in Science, we completed a carousel of exciting electricity based activities. Whilst some of the children tried to create simple circuits using the resources provided; the other children used static energy to complete a range of tasks. We tried to separate Salt and Pepper using a plastic spoon, stick balloons to the wall using the static energy generated from their hair as well as using balloons to make wings flap on our animal pictures. We all had lots of fun and are looking forward to learning more during our topic.
Date: 25th Feb 2022 @ 5:33pm
On Tuesday 22nd February it was a very important day as it was the 100th day we had been in school this academic year. In Year Two, we celebrated this special milestone with a range of activities. We took part in a whole school '100 quiz' where the questions were all linked in some way to the number 100. Birch were very proud to be the overall winners of this. In Maths, we played games that involved finding pairs of numbers that added to 100 and in the afternoon we had fun with predicting activities. We predicted then measured what 100 drops of water would look like and how tall a tower of 100 coins would be. We had a fantastic day!
Date: 9th Feb 2022 @ 9:27pm
Earlier in the week, Year Two had a very exciting set of visitors to our classes. Gemma from Little Zoo to You introduced us to some very interetsing animals; Michelle the African Land Snail, Clare the Madagscan Hissing Cockroach, Prince Charming the Australian White Tree Frog, Charlotte teh Mexican Red-Kneed Tarantula and Zeus the American Corn Snake. Gemma told us lots of interesting facts about each creature and how they survive in their natural habitats. We also got to handle some of the guests, which for some of us, took a lot of courage!
Date: 9th Feb 2022 @ 9:06pm
Year Two have been focusing on division this week. We have been using concrete resources to share into equal groups and we have been linking this concept to division calculations. We have been using stem sentences to help us to remember each element of the division calculation and this has helped us to record our mathematics accurately. We have also been grouping items and looking at how this differs to sharing, comparing the divison calculations that this creates.
Date: 27th Jan 2022 @ 2:55pm
This half term, Year Two are creating our own glove puppets based on an animal from some of the stories we have read to inspire our Writing journey. After some experimenting with which material is best to use to join two materials together we decided we would sew. Yesterday, we spent some time learning to thread a needle, tie a knot in the thread and begin to sew. We all enjoyed it despite it being very tricky! Miss Duckworth and Miss Hooson were proud of the determination the children demonstrated and how supportive they were of the peers. Keep this up for when we sew our final products!
Date: 25th Jan 2022 @ 8:59pm
This week, we begun our new Maths topic of Multiplication and Division. Our first lesson involved recognising whether groups were equal or unequal before we challenged the children to create their own arrays in as many ways as possible. It was no surprise that the children created lots of different ways of making arrays using a variety of resources around the room such as money, numicon, counters, counting bears, base 10 and ten frames.
We will now begin to look at representing the calculations of arrays as a repeated addition and as a multiplication sentence. Although this is a difficult concept, we are proud of the determination and perseverance the children are displaying, keep up the great work!
Date: 25th Jan 2022 @ 8:47pm
This half term, Year Two our Musical focus is exploring feelings through Music discussing how it makes us feel and how music makes the world a better place.
So far, we have studied a song called 'Rainbows' which is a song about Pride and Identity. We discussed what this meant to us as individuals and came to the conclusion it is important that we all respect each other and everyone's viewpoints. We then learnt the words to the song and practiced as a class to perform it as well as learning to play notes E, C and D in time to the song. Each week, alongside discussing the song, singing and playing the Glockenspiel we play games to find the beat and clap rhythmsOver the next few weeks, we will continue to look at more songs and further discuss how music makes the world a better place.
Date: 25th Jan 2022 @ 8:32pm
Last week, we had our favourite day- No Pen Day! Pupils and Teachers alike put out pens down for a full day and focused on using our communication skills. Throughout the day, we worked collaboratively to continue our Reading into Writing and Maths journey's.
We continued our Reading into Writing journey by learning about different tenses. We identified we can tell a sentences tense by finding the verb- to show matching past and present tense verbs we had to find the person with the verb of the opposite tense before sorting a variety of verbs and sentences into the tenses they were written.
In Maths, we consolidated our knowledge of giving change by playing a game of Mathopoly. For each square we landed on we had to calculate how much change a person would get depending on how much they spent and the coin they used to pay.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed continuing our learning of Hinduism with Mrs Bunday and PE with Mr Willetts.
Year 2 Lighting the Way in Science Club!
Date: 19th Jan 2022 @ 11:45am
This week in the Year 2 Science Club, we have been experimenting with light. The children changed the colour of the light using sellotape and felt tip pens. They then created shadows. They learnt how each colour has a different wave length of light and how the colour we see in the colour that is not absorbed from the white light that hits the object. This is then reflected back as the colur of the object.
Addison: “We have learnt that red light has a longer light wave and that violet has a shorter light wave.”
Alena: “A shadow is made from the light being blocked, by an object, from the light source.”
Kyril: “ I like Science Club because I learn new things. I found out that the closer the torch the bigger the shadow.”
Date: 13th Jan 2022 @ 4:14pm
Year Two have started their new Science learning about animals by finding out about animal offspring. We sorted adult animals with their offspring and we noticed that some offsrping look like their adults, whereas some offspring do not look like their adults. We then started to classify the animals and their offspring into mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and birds. Doing this made us notice that generally mammal offspring look like their adults and amphibian offspring do not look like their adults.
Date: 13th Jan 2022 @ 4:05pm
Year Two have enjoyed their new PE unit, Yoga. This is the first time it has been on our school curriculum and it is proving to be popular. The children have been working hard on stretching their body parts, breathing techniques and balancing. We were amazed that such a quiet and calming activity could be so could for our minds and bodies. So far we have learnt the butterfly pose, the tree pose, the mountain pose, the tiger pose, the cobra pose and the aeroplane pose. Over the next few weeks we will be perfecting these as well as learning some more poses.
Date: 5th Jan 2022 @ 5:23pm
As an introduction to our new topics in Science, Animals including Humans, and Design Technology Puppets today we created Sock Puppets. Although it was quite tricky to get some of the pieces to stick and figuring out the correct way to work a Sock Puppet the children did brilliantly and showed super perseverance and patience. We are all looking forward to continuing our learning in both Science and Design Technology and are excited to make puppets again later in the term. Well done everyone, they look fabulous!
Date: 13th Dec 2021 @ 7:50am
This half term, Year 2 have been exploring materials and their properties. Last week, we planned and conducted two experiments to test different materials properties to see which is the best material for different uses and how suitable it is. First, we tested different materials absorbency to see which material is the best to be used to clean up spillages in the dinner hall. We found that cotton balls are the most absorbent but paper towels are more practical as they are bigger. We then tested materials to see if we could change thier shape. We tried to bend, squash, twist and stretch a selection of materials and recorded our results in a table.
Date: 10th Dec 2021 @ 4:07pm
As part of our whole school learning around the Christmas story and advent, Year Two designed and painted some pebbles so they could retell the story of the first Christmas. Firstly, we drew our designs on paper and painted our pebbles white. Then we carefully sketched our designs in pencil before painting them onto the pebbles.
