Design & Technology - Mechanisms: Wheels & Axles

We have been learning the function of mechanisms and how wheels and axels work. The children then had to experiment with a variety of materials to create their wheels and axels for their fire engines.

Nativity 

Our Key Stage 1 Nativity of Lights, Camel, Action! was a huge success! The children were all absolutely amazing and put on a fabulous performance! 

Computing - keyboard skills

The children produced a word document about our fabulous nativity. They had to open their document, save their work, type and edit their text, even adding in an image and data about our audiences!

Zones of Regulation

We have been looking at understanding our feelings and what strategies we can use in order to help regulate our emotions. Each day, we identify how we are feeling, how we can prepare ourselves and others to connect with our emotions and return to our green zone.

HeartSmart - Don't forget to let love in

In our PSHE lessons this term we have been looking at:

• Love – What does it mean? How can we show love to each other?
• Special people - Who do we love? Who loves us?
• Positive and kind words
• We are all unique
• What are we thankful for?
• Taking care of ourselves and each other

PE - Shape and balance

Building on the key shapes learned in Year 1, the children have been building sequences of these shapes on equipment. They have been considering different ways to travel and transition between poses. Working in small groups, the children have choreographed their sequences as a group, considering their strengths and working as a team.

Games - Rounders

This term in Games, we are focusing on rounders. The children started off by practising the correct technique to hit the ball with the rounders bat. By placing the ball on top of a large cone enabled them to focus on the correct stance and body position and where on the bat is the best place to make contact with the ball. Other skills the children have been practising are throwing and catching the ball, doing keepy uppies with a ball on a tennis racket and also balancing a ball on a racket whilst moving around the playground. All these skills develop the children’s balance and co-ordination as well as their resilience and determination to succeed!  

Welcome to Year 2! We have been busy settling into our new classes and new routines and ensuring we are helping each other if anyone needs a good friend during this transition.

The Great Fire of London - History and English

We began the academic year with the wonderful Open Box Theatre Company launching our Great Fire of London topic. The children enjoyed learning about London in the 1600s and also re-enacting different aspects of the event in a fun and engaging way. They came away full of excitement for their brand-new topic and learnt many facts alongside key historical figures such as Samuel Pepys, Thomas Farriner and King Charles II. As you can see by the pictures, the children loved the day. 

Games - Catching and Throwing

During Games lessons this half-term, the children have been practising their throwing and catching skills. The correct techniques for both these skills are vital for success. When throwing, the children used the phrase, ‘step, tick, tock,’ to remind them of the correct method. They also ensured that their opposite foot to the hand they threw with, was in front. They also practised the over-arm throw using both these techniques. The children were also taught when it is best for an under-arm throw and when is it best for over-arm.

For catching, skills of cupping hands, eyes on the ball/beanbag and the correct balanced stance were practised. 

All these skills were taught and practised through a variety of activities such as Bean Bag Rush, Bob Ball, Piggy-in-the middle to name but a few.  

Dance – The Great Fire of London

The children started off practising the key events of the GFOL as a whole class. We discussed how the actions needed to match the mood or feeling at that specific time. They then worked together in small groups to choreograph their own Great Fire of London dance routine. They had to link sections together to make a sequence by thinking about the rhythm and speed of their actions and movements.  

Cross-curricular Orienteering

We have also been refreshing our orienteering skills and how to hold the map correctly. This means that we will not get confused when trying to find all the control points. Our lesson was linked with English and once we had found a control, we had to try and spell the word correctly before moving on to the next. It was great fun and we loved running around for an English lesson!  

HeartSmart - Get HeartSmart

We started this year's HeartSmart with the topic Get Heart Smart which includes considering:

Powering our hearts with HeartSmart choices, understanding our emotions, showing kindness and being grateful. We have been learning from Boris the Robot and thinking about what HeartSmart choices might look like to us. 

Games - Hockey

In PE, we have been playing hockey. We have been learning the correct technique for holding the hockey stick by ensuring our hands are in the correct place. Another key skill we have been learning is how to dribble with the ball. It is important to just ‘push’ the ball rather than hit it so the ball stays close to use. 

Music - African Drumming

In music we had been learning about African music. We have learnt about different types of African instruments and the different styles of music from different areas of Africa. We learnt the importance of rhythm and use of music to communicate. We had the opportunity to play on several different types of African drums and create our own rhythms and songs.

Art - Weaving

In Art, we have been learning about weaving. At the beginning of the topic, we learnt about Anni Albers a German textile artist born in 1899. We looked at some of her artwork and the story behind why she made these and the colours she used. We then had a go ourselves by first trying paper weaving. To get the chequer effect, we had to make sure we started each piece of paper differently than the previous. We have also tied our Art into our reciprocal reading text of One Plastic Bag which explores recycling through the art of weaving.  We have experimented with weaving using different materials such as paper, plastic bags and wool. Some were definitely easier than others!

Computing – Making Games

This term we became computer programmers and made our own games using Scratch! We created our characters and backgrounds and learnt how to create algorithms to make our sprites move, make noise and react. We also had to debug our programmes if we came across an issue. We had great fun and created some fantastic programmes!

R.E - Specialness

Our focus for RE this half has been Specialness. We started off by looking at what the word ‘special’ means. We then discussed if anyone had a special book at home, why it was special to them and where they kept it. There were many different reasons why a book was special to someone such as: they had it since they were born, someone they cared about gave it to them or just that it was their favourite story. Next, we made our own special class book with everyone contributing by designing their own page. We then looked at special books within Christianity and Judaism.

Science - Living things and their habitats

 To launch our minibeast topic, we went for an exploration around the school grounds to see what we could find. We had fun looking under fallen branches, rocks and in the grass. Some of the minibeasts we found were woodlice, crickets, ladybirds, ants, earthworms and snails to name but a few. We used an identification key to name each minibeast and we recorded them by using a tally chart.

Art - watercolour

This half-term we have been learning about the artist Van Gogh.We particularly focused on one of his most famous paintings; Starry Night.

We explored Van Gogh's techniques and experimented with both pencil patterns and watercolour paint, creating colour wheels and mixing colours.  We then created our own versions of Starry Night using the techniques we had learnt.

Manor Farm - Victorian Life

We took a trip to Manor Farm to learn all about Victorian life. We had a fantastic day learning all about Victorian households, washing, farming, games, rug making and even had a lesson in the Victorian schoolroom!

Science - Materials

We arrived in our classrooms to discover we had been left a letter by the Easter Bunny himself, asking if we could find the best way to stop Easter eggs melting! We set to work learning all about the properties of different materials and planning our investigations into what we were going to try to help protect the eggs!

Once we had planned our investigation, we carried out our experiments and recorded our findings. Some materials worked very well, and others definitely didn't! We evaluated our findings and thought about what we found worked best and what changes we would make if we were to do it again.

History - Victorian Schools

In History this term we have been looking at Victorian life, with a focus on Victorian Schools. We had a Victorian-themed school day where we quickly discovered that a school day for Victorian children was very different to our school day today. We decided we much prefer schools today!

Cross - curricular Orienteering

To support and recap our Geography learning about Continents and Oceans last term, we used our map and orienteering skills to navigate our way to different map points where we had to solve questions around our continents and oceans learning. Not only did we have lots of fun, we also got to use all our learning in a different context.