This week Year 2 have enjoyed making their own African mask using collage and paint.  We were very pleased with the results!  

We also enjoyed our Computer day where we used the Scratch program to write an algorithm.  We learnt to make our sprite draw a shape and move from one place to another.  We then learnt to create our own sprite and background!

In English we have looked at different types of poetry about cats: rhyming poems, Haiku's and shape poems.  We then created a word bank and wrote our own poem about tigers, lions and cheetahs.

This week in Maths, we have shown how we can represent 2-digit numbers in different ways.  We used coins, Diennes blocks, pictures and real-life objects to show the tens and units.  We have also been reviewing how to tell the time on an analogue clock to half past and o'clock and played a game to match the time.  It would be wonderful if you could try to tell he time at various times of the day - what time did you get up?  What time did you have your dinner?

In English we have created our own mini-information leaflet about a big cat.  We thought of interesting questions that we would like to know the answer to, researched them using books and the iPads and recorded our information as a leaflet.  The children worked very hard to make the leaflet exciting to read!

In Science, we have been finding out more about how we can keep healthy.  We sorted food into healthy and unhealthy groups and into the difference food groups.  We learnt that we need to eat a lot of fruit and vegetables and carbohydrates but less protein, dairy and fats.  The children were then given pictures of a variety of pizzas and had to decide which was the healthiest and why.  This sparked an interesting debate!

This week Year 2 have had a fantastic lesson investigating how our body responds to exercise.  We predicted which activities would make our heart beat faster and which we thought would not.  Some of the children thought that star jumps would make our heart beat the fastest because we would be using lots of our muscles and it is hard to do so must use a lot of energy.  We thought that touching our nose would not make our heart beat fast because this is easy and we only moved our arms and fingers.  We took our pulses when we were resting and then took them again after 1 minute of an exercise.  We recorded how we felt - there were lots of hot, sweaty, red faced, out of breath children!  We found out that our pulse was faster after exercise.

In Topic, we compared the weather in Kenya to the weather in Prestwood.  We found out that Kenya is close to the Equator, so the climate is hot all year round - unlike Prestwood!  We used iPads to search on the internet and record the weather for Wednesday in Prestwood and Nairobi.

Year 2 had a fantastic trip on Thursday to Woburn Safari Park and were very excited to see all of the animals walking around their enclosures.  Our favourites were: the Tigers which were pacing in front of us, the lions relaxing on the hill and the cheeky monkeys that even jumped onto the top of the coach.  We loved the sealion experience where we found out about the sealion adaptations that help them to survive in the wild. 

Dear Parents, we started off this week reviewing 2D shapes and exploring lines of symmetry in mathematics. The children used right angle devices in the form of very hungry Pacmen to discover and devour a variety of right angles around the classroom. 

We learned how to write a postcard and looked at the different components of a letter and how to structure one. The children paid extra attention when I said Santa loved receiving well written letters!

In RE, we reviewed what characteristics make a good leader and how Moses’ actions in the Old Testament demonstrated his leadership skills. For humanities we looked at the Kenyan flag and learned what the different colours symbolise for Kenya’s past, people and future. We also learned some more Swahili and sang and danced along to the very merry tune of Jambo Bwana.

This week in Year 2 we have had fun writing our own new settings for Augustus the tiger to explore.  He has been to the beach, the Antarctic, our school and even Tesco!  We have learnt to add powerful verbs to our sentences and add adverbs to tell us how he was completing each action.  As we have been lining up we have walked in different ways using the adverbs we have learnt - some of us went slowly, happily, excitedly and even angrily.

In Science we have been researching the life cycles of different animals to find out how they change as they grow from a baby or egg to an adult.  We have made careful observations of our caterpillars and are now eagerly waiting for them to emerge from the chrysalis.

We had lots of fun in Art learning to create new colours by mixing 2 primary colours together and in Topic, we found out about the human and physical features of Kenya and even learnt some Swahili!

Year 2 have had a fantastic start to the year!  We have really enjoyed listening to the story of Augustus and his Smile and writing our own version of the story.  In Maths we have been using our number bonds to 10, 20 and 100 and we know that we can do an addition in any order but that a subtraction needs to start with the biggest number.

In Humanities we used maps to locate the 7 continents and countries in Africa.  We found out some interesting facts about the continent of Africa.  Did you know that it is the hottest continent in the world?

A HUGE thank you to you all for the baby and toddler photos - we really enjoyed looking at them to see how we have changed as we have grown up!

Take a look at our learning this week!

Welcome to Year 2!  Here is the Topic Grid that will show you what we are learning this term.