Learning  »  Class Pages  »  Archive 2016/17  »  Year 2

Welcome to the Year Two class page.

We are a kind, caring and helpful class. We enjoy coming to school and all aim to be like the spider in the Eric Carle book, ‘Busy Spider’ ignoring distractions and trying our best. We enjoy keeping fit and healthy by doing PE, eating our fruit and drinking our milk. We try to be good class mates by being kind and looking after each other. We follow the school rules and love going on the well done board as often as possible so that we can go in the class treasure box! We hope you enjoy looking at some of the exciting things we have been up to this year.  
This Week In Year Two 
Making our own healthy snacks

This week we have been making healthy snacks with Mrs Jude

Glitter Bugs Investigation
This week as part of our ‘Keeping Healthy Topic’ we have been investigating how germs spread from person to person. We covered our hands in hand cream and then rubbed them in glitter. Next we touched our partners hands and were shocked at how easily the glitter spread. After that we washed our hands with just water and found that to get the glitter off properly you needed to wash your hands well with soap and water. We then wrote instructions for how to wash your hands properly.
Year One and Twos Harewood House Visit

On Wednesday Key Stage One visited Harewood House. As the day approached all the teachers were studying the weather with some trepidation and anxiety, refreshing the BBC Weather page in the hope that they had it wrong, they didn’t. The trip was certainly wet, however all the children came to school well prepared and we knew that we were in for a soggy but fun day. As we drove down the drive all the children cheered and clapped with excitement. During the day we each had a session in the walled garden about where our food comes from and we also had lots of time to explore the bird garden and the house. Although many of the children have visited Harewood with their families they were all very excited to be there with their classmates and it was lovely to hear them making links with our curriculum as they walked around. The highlights were seeing the snowy owls and penguins from our Frozen Planet Topic (Year Two) and our Animals Topic (Year One) as well as reading lots of signs about the different habitats that the birds and animals come from. It was a great opportunity to recap the children’s learning about classifying animals and learning about the things they eat. The children also looked at historical artefacts that tied in with our History topics. We were so proud with how the children conducted themselves and behaved throughout the visit. Well done!

“I liked the secret door because it was really interesting to see it hidden on the wall with fake books.” Honour (Year 1)

“My favourite part was when I saw the owls sitting on a branch.” Harry C (Year 1)

“I liked it when we saw the ghost in the doll’s house!” Heidi (Year 1)

“I really enjoyed it because I got to see all the animals we have learnt about in our topics.” Kara M (Year 2)

“I enjoyed looking at the penguins and watching them float past the glass.” Amelia (Year 2)

“I liked looking round the house and seeing the haunted dolls house.” Hannah (Year 2)

Design Technology

We have been making a start on the cars we designed last week. We are learning to measure accurately and saw the axles for our cars carefully and safely. Watch this space for the finished products later this half term.

Exercise

This week we have been investigating the effects that exercise has on your body. We chose five exercises and did each one for a minute. Exercise has lots of different effects in your body including making your heart beat faster, making you out of breath and making parts of your body ache. We also learnt that exercising can make you feel happy because after exercising your release endorphins.

Leeds City Skipping Festival Final



On Tuesday the whole of Year Two went to the Leeds Beckett University Campus to take part in the first ever city wide skipping final. There were eleven schools there and over three hundred children. When we arrived you could feel the excitement and anticipation in the air. To begin all of the children skipped at once, a fantastic site to behold and then after that the real competition began. Each child or pair of children took part in their chosen skill against other schools. All the children showed fantastic skipping skills and determination to skip their best and I was very proud of them all. Jess F and Ellie both won gold certificates for their skips and we all cheered on the other winners during the presentation ceremony. Although on this occasion we did not win overall we had fun talking part and enjoying such a fantastic event. Well done Year Two!

Patterns

We have been continuing our learning about patterns by looking closely at patterns in nature around us. We went outside and did careful observational drawings of lots of different natural patterns. We tried really hard to add in extra detail and take our time.

Collecting Data

This week we have been collecting information in a tally chart to answer a question.
We then put the information into a bar chart and thought about what the data told us.

Bug Hotels

This week we have been making our own bug hotels. We thought about what an animal might need and included food, water and shelter. We also added extra things to entice the animals such as a bug escalator and a comfy place to sleep.

Exploring pattern

This week we have been exploring pattern in our Art lesson. We really enjoyed making different patterns in our sketch books and looking at what ideas our friends had and comparing them to our own.

Who would live in a house like this?

This week we have started our new topic all about habitats. We have been outside exploring our fabulous grounds, using the ‘Learnpads’ to take photos of the different microhabitats around our school.

Fractions

We have been learning about fractions of shapes and numbers. We were set a challenge of showing a fraction using some of our classroom resources. Here are some of the ways we did this.

Instructions

This week we have been learning about instructions. We made Easter Nests and then wrote our own instructions. We really enjoyed making them and enjoyed eating them even more!

Seed Sort

This week we have been looking at different seeds and sorting them based on what they look and feel like. We are now excited to see what some of them grow into.

Clay Arctic Animals

This week we have been using clay to make our own Arctic animals. We found it trickier than we thought but all had a really good try.

Contraction Surgery
This week we have been performing contraction surgery to help us to remember how to write a contracted word.

 
Well done George

George wrote a letter to Blue Peter and got a Blue Peter badge. We were all very excited to see one of the coveted badges.

Year Two Skipping Festival



On Wednesday morning Year Two took part in an inter school skipping competition with five other local school. Since our training session earlier this half term we have been busy practising lots of different skipping skills. All the children were excited to do their best and take part. There individual and team skipping challenges which the whole class took part in and cheered each other on. We won four bronze, two silver and four gold certificates which all the children were very excited about. But the biggest surprise was to come as we won overall event! We now get to take part in the final competition later this academic year. I was so proud of the whole class and their sportsmanship as well as their perseverance throughout this half term learning all the different skips. Well done Year Two.
Observational drawings 

This week we have been drawing our class hyacinth bulb. We tried to include lots of detail 

   
Leeds United Visited Year Two

On Thursday Year Two had the Leeds United Football Coaches in for their weekly session. This however was a coaching session with a difference as we had some special guests. We were visited by the Leeds United players Hadi Sacko and Tyler Denton. We were practising our agility and defending skills and they were trying to catch the ball and balloons off of us. After the session we had a chance to ask some questions and take some pictures. Tyler Denton spoke about how his ambition had always been to be a football player and we explained how ambition is one of our Primrose Lane Learner Values.
Here are some quotes from the children:
I found it interesting as I have never met an actual Leeds football player before – Kodee
It was good because they taught us how to do skills, they were throwing it in the air and we had to get the ball – Kara M
I really enjoyed it because when we were passing the balloons to each other and the football players were trying to catch it – Grace
It was quite nice to meet a Leeds United player because I support and my brothers have seen them before – Jess F
I liked how the told about themselves – Finley
I liked it when we were playing a game with the balloons because the players were running around with the balloon and we got to chase them.
Skipping

Last week Year Two had their skipping training session in preparation for the Skipping Festival at the end of February. We learnt lots of new skills including how to speed bounce, side swing and how to skip face to face with a partner. All the children did so well and persevered even when they found it hard. We will be continuing to practise our new skills over the coming weeks! 

I liked skipping because we got to learn more types of skipping- Jess F 

I found it ok although hop skip was a teeny bit hard. The rest of the skipping was fun- Grace 

I liked the side swing and face to face. – Amelia 

I enjoyed all the skipping and got better. – Lucas 

I think I got better at the side swing because at first I found it really hard. – Freya 

At the start I found it all so hard but enjoyed and could do jump in jump out. - Christian 
 
Algorithms

We have been learning about algorithms. We learnt that an algorithm is a set of specific instructions. We all gave each other algorithms to create patterns on a grid. We then wrote the instructions using arrows and symbols. After that we made our own algorithms to play the Angry Birds Game, which got progressively harder. We learnt that sometimes you have to persevere and debug your algorithm when it isn’t quite right. Here is the link to the website if you would like to try the game at home.

Plants

Year Two are continuing to think about the seasons and how things change and grow. This week we have been planting crocuses and anemones next to our classroom. We were interested to learn that before you plant a bulb it is dormant, then you plant it and the next time you see anything from the bulb will be when it is pre-bloom. We are also growing a hyacinth in a vase in the classroom so we can see what is happening under the soil too. We have estimated how long we think it will be until we can see some pre-bloom. We are excited to watch our bulbs grow!

The Great Fire of London
This term we have been learning about The Great Fire of London across our curriculum. We started by learning all about the Great Fire and how it started. We learnt that in the lead up to the fire it had been a long hot summer so the houses, which were made of wood and straw, would burn easily. We also learnt that back then the houses were very close together which meant the fire could spread easily. We found out that it started in a bakery on Pudding Lane because the baker, Thomas Farynor forget to fully extinguish the fire in his baking oven so sparks flew out! Although only six people died in the fire, a lot of London was destroyed and had to be rebuilt, including St Paul’s Cathedral. We researched how they changed the design of the buildings after the fire and found that this was when houses started to be built out of bricks. The people of London tried hard to fight the fire however they only had fire squirts, leather buckets and fire hooks. What hard work it was to fight the fire! After the fire, fire brigades were established so that firefighting was more organised and successful. We learnt that we know a lot about the fire from a range of historical sources including the diaries of Samuel Pepys, newspaper reports and eye witness accounts. 

Once we had all the knowledge about the Great Fire we wrote our own recounts, imagining what it must have been like to wake up and see that London was burning. We also made information posters which showcased lots of the children’s learning about the topic. The children created their own Great Fire of London pictures using a range of different media which they really enjoyed. 

Click here to play a game all about the fire 
http://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/game/

Click here to be shown the streets of London before the fire  
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/10404898/3D-animation-see-London-as-it-looked-before-the-Great-Fire.html
English

This half term we have been reading Paddington by Michael Bond. We have enjoyed listening to the stories and learning about all the different scrapes that Paddington gets himself into. We have written character descriptions and letters from Paddington to his Aunt Lucy in Deepest Darkest Peru. We finished this topic off by imagining that Paddington visited Primrose Lane and writing our own stories. 

Maths

We have been focusing on place value, addition and subtraction. We have been trying really hard to learn number facts for numbers to 20 and have got much better at our recall of these. Mrs Bailey has been helping us to develop our reasoning skills by encouraging us to explain how we have arrived at an answer and what number facts we have used. We can now add and subtract 10 and multiples of 10 from a number really confidently.

Year Two online safety

Year Two have been focusing on online safety this half term. We talked about where you can access the Internet and found that you can get the Internet on lots of different devices such as phones, tablets, ipods and laptops. We talked about how the Internet is great because you can get lots of information from it but that you also need to be careful as anyone can put information on the Internet so it might not be correct. Lots of the children knew about Facebook and Snapchat so we discussed that these were not appropriate for Year Two children to use. We looked at the SMART rules and discussed how these can help keep us safe when using the Internet. We used the Learnpads to look at safe websites for children to use such as Cbeebies. I was really impressed with how well the children worked together to navigate around different websites and do a range of activities.

Science

We have been learning all about materials. We have spent a lot of time learning about the difference between a material and an object. For example a key is an object, it is made from metal and metal is hard. We discussed the properties of materials and thought about how these properties make them suitable for the objects that they make. We have conducted an investigation to find out which is the best material to soak up a witchs potion and which material is best for Paddington to have his coat made out of.

Season Watch: 
This year we are going to be looking at the seasons as they happen. We will be keeping a class weather journal and each week two children will be responsible for recording the weather.
Season Watch

We have really enjoyed watching Autumn unfold outside our classroom window. This half term we have experienced the hottest day of the year and also a lot of rain. We loved looking at a rainbow and learnt that a rainbow is created when the sun is reflected in the raindrops. We took pictures of one tree each week to watch how the leaves changed over a month. We were really excited to look back through the photos and see how the tree had changed over time.

Autumn: 
Since starting back at school the weather has been hotter than usual. We have had the hottest day of the year as well as some big storms and floods in some parts of the UK.
Values
 
Responsibility: 
Our first value this year is responsibility. We have thought carefully about what responsibility means to us and had a class discussion. Responsibility means something that you have to do, we have responsibilities both at home and school. We then thought about some of the things that we are responsible for.
  • If you hurt someone you are responsible for saying sorry
  • Helping to keep the kitchen floor tidy
  • Helping to keep the house clean and tidy
  • Looking after your brother
  • Doing the washing - put them in the machine and hang them on the line
  • Washing up
  • Clean and tidy your bedroom
  • Making your bed
  • Making sure you follow instructions and do what you are asked by the teacher first time
  • You are responsible for your own learning and for trying your best 
Friendship 
We have enjoyed exploring the value of friendship. We have thought carefully about the qualities of a good friend these include; 
Being kind
Playing nicely 
Helping us when we are sad or hurt 
Being caring 
Listening to us 
Taking turns 
We have also thought about what we do when friendships are not going our way. We are trying hard to sort out problems ourselves by talking it through with the person we are sad with, however we also know that we can always talk to an adult if we need to.

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