In our Science lessons this half term we will be learning all about plants. We began by recapping everything that we could remember about plants from our Year 1 learning. We knew some of the names of the main parts including: stem, petals, leaves and roots.
After thinking about the different plants that we know, we enjoyed taking our learning outside. We noticed lots of plants around us which we drew pictures of. We looked carefully at the shape and size of the petals and the colours of the petals. We noticed that there are lots of different types of plants and they look very different to each other.
Despite having to do all of our learning at home this week, 2S have continued to be just like Tough Tortoise and have shown a hardworking attitude towards their work.
One of our challenges was to make a snack or meal to enjoy. After we made this and had tucked into it, we wrote a set of instructions so that Miss Stewart would be able to have a go at making it too. We tried hard to use time openers including:first, second, third, then, next, after that, finally. Some of us even challenged ourselves to add some adverbs to our sentences such as:carefully, gently, slowly and quickly.
After reading the poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat‘, Year 2 were very excited to find out what happens to them both after they got married. We have all loved reading the beginning of the story ‘The Further Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat’ by Julia Donaldson.
In the story, the owl and pussycat wake up to discover that their wedding ring has been taken.
Although we, as the reader, know that it was the crow who took the ring, the owl and pussycat haven’t yet solved the mystery. They set off on their adventure to locate the thief.
The children enjoyed making their own relief collage of the two characters using several cutting techniques and using paper in different ways to make it stand off the page. Here is a sample of some of our amazing artwork…
“The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.”
We were intrigued to begin our new topic this week ‘In the Light of the Moon’. Before reading the poem, we began our work on owls. Lots of us remembered from our work on habitats in the Autumn term that most owls are nocturnal which means that they sleep during the day and come out to hunt at night time. Our challenge was to write an informative fact file all about owls. Knowing that fact files are non-fiction (they are full of facts and accurate information unlike a story that is made up), we had to do some research. We were resourceful, just like Helpful Hen, and used the internet, videos, books on EPIC and an owl information sheet to find out lots of interesting facts. How fascinating these animals are!
After this, many of us had quickly become owl experts and were ready to create our fact file. We tried hard to use the conjunctions ‘but‘, ‘so‘ and ‘because‘ to extend our sentences and add extra information. Did you know a baby owl is called an owlet or a fledgling? We were also surprised to find out that owls live on all of continents except Antarctica because it is too cold there.
We always love to express our creativity in Year 2 so had lots of fun producing a piece of owl art work. Some of used coloured pencils, pastels or paint whereas some of us decided to make a 3D model of an owl. How amazing our creations are!
Some of the children working in school thoroughly enjoyed using plasticine to create a model of the owl and the pussycat in their pea-green boat. In fact, some of us were so excited, we even thought about where they traveled to to get married. Of course, including the pig who provided the ring and the turkey who married them.
The children working in school used newspaper and magazines to create a collage of an owl or used chalk to draw a very detailed picture, remembering the different parts: large eyes, beak, sharp talons, feathers.
Year 2 have worked incredibly hard this half term and have been fascinated to learn about some wonderful explorers.
After finding out that Captain James Cook was a sailor and explored the world on his three voyages, we started our work on oceans. How amazing they are! We now know that there are five in the world and learnt some very interesting facts about them. We were fascinated to find out that oceans have 5 layers and enjoyed learning about the creatures that live there.
We enjoyed making a model of the ship Captain Cook used for his first voyage The ‘Endeavour’ and of Tahiti, the island he visited to observe the Transit of Venus.
After learning all about the adventures of Captain Cook and Neil Armstrong, we were very keen to find out about other explorers including Mae Jemison and Amelia Earhart. To conclude our ‘Explorers’ topic, we were set the challenge of completing a project of our own about an explorer of our choice.
To do this, we were very resourceful just like Helpful Hen and carried out lots of research so that we could create a fact file.
Thinking like a geographer, we plotted the explorer’s journey on a map of the world. Those of us who researched Neil Armstrong or Mae Jemison drew our own map showing their journey into space.
We had lots of fun making models, drawing/painting pictures and portraits of our chosen explorer. How creative we are in Year 2!
We were all very excited to check on our mini-beast hotel this morning. We were fascinated to find that some of them did in fact have some visitors. Some of the mini-beasts we found included: woodlice, worms, ants and a slug. How exciting!
We used our observations to make some simple conclusions and decided that these mini-beasts were there because it was dark and damp.
In geography this week, we found out about the weather in India and compared it to the UK. We also found out about the monsoon season and how much it rains during this time (June to September). In our music lesson this morning, we had lots of fun working in groups to create the sounds of a monsoon using body percussion. How fantastic we were!
We incorporated: clicking, leg patting, stamping, jumping and clapping into our performances and changed the pace and volume to represent the rain getting heavily.
We worked collaboratively in our Science lesson today just like Team Ant and thoroughly enjoyed creating a mini-beast hotel. To do this, we used: soil, sticks, logs, stones and cardboard. We are looking forward to checking these next week to see if we have had any visitors!
We all enjoyed our ‘No Pens Wednesday’ today which involved doing lots of talking and practical activities without picking up our pencil/pen.
After finding out about some of the traditional Indian foods, we were inspired to make our own vegetable curry from scratch. We worked collaboratively just like Team Ant to prepare the vegetables. We used the ‘claw’ and the ‘bridge’ cutting techniques to safely slice the onion and chop the potatoes and carrots. Even though some of us found this quite tricky, we didn’t give up or complain, just like Tough Tortoise.
The best bit, I’m sure most of us would agree, was sampling it. How delicious it was!
