Spring 1 Earth, Wind and Fire

This week, Year 2 have had a fantastic time with their DT and Computing. In DT we were lucky enough to have a carpenter, Mr O'Connor, come in to school to share his expertise. He showed us some different types of joint in wood and demonstrated how to saw safely and how to build a cube from wood. The children worked really hard to produce their own wooden structure which they they added card sides to and a roof to make their own Tudor style house like those found during the Great Fire of London.

In computing, we learnt about how to keep safe when we are on the internet and played a game where we had to ask for help. We thought about who we could ask for help and what we might say to get the right kind of help.

We then used a program called Padlet, to create a multimedia presentation about the Great Fire of London. We searched for pictures on the internet, added our own text, drew some free hand diagrams and added audio files to describe what happened during and after the fire. We used these to create a multimedia Timeline.

Have a look at our learning this week

Year 2 have continued to look at time this week, looking at quarter to and quarter past the hour and 5 minute intervals on an analogue and a digital clock.

In Topic, we thought about what would happen after the Great Fire of London, and how London could be redesigned so that another fire could not do the same damage again. The children enjoyed being architects and made the streets of London nice and wide, the houses of brick, tiled rooves and made sure that the houses did not lean into the streets. We had some fabulous designs!

In Science, we found out about the first woman botanist in America, Jane Colden. We used magnifying glasses to look closely at plants and made careful observations of the flowers, leaves and stem.

In English, we learnt the poem 'London's Burning' and wrote our own verse adding actions and sounds that they may have heard or seen during the fire.

Look what year 2 have been doing this week!

Look at what Year 2 have been learning this week!

Year 2 have been identifying 3D shapes this week. We investigated which ones roll and those that don't and also identified how many faces, vertices and edges they have. We had lots of fun building cuboids, cubes and triangular based prisms from nets! We also looked at telling the time to the quarter hour, half past the hour and quarter past the hour on an analogue and digital clock.

In English we have been writing a newspaper report about 'The Great Fire of Prestwood', we remembered to include all the features needed for a report. We also wrote a letter to the local fire brigade to persuade them to come into school and tell us all about being a firefighter.

In Science, we found out about Louis Pasteur and Professor Sarah Gilbert and that they both studied germs and vaccines. We then carried out an experiment to find out the best way to wash our hands and get rid of all the germs (glitter!) We found out that using warm water and soap was best and that we really needed to rub our hands carefully in order to get rid of the germs.

In Topic, we found out about firefighting methods in 1666. We learnt that along with leather buckets, they used fire squirts which were a bit like giant water pistols and had a fire engine which was a big barrel with a pump and handles that had to be pumped up and down in order to squirt out water. We acted out the different methods and found out that fire fighting in 1666 would be quite hard work!

Have a look at what we have been learning!

This week, Year 2 have been finding out about the features of a newspaper report and creating our own oral news report in the style of Newsround. We had to report on the devastating news that there had been a fire in Prestwood which had destroyed the village hall and many houses. A witness spotted the flames and called the fire brigade. The reporters explained what had happened and interviewed the eyewitness.

In Maths, we have been finding change from pounds and pence. We have used coins to pay for an item and count out the change accurately. We have been consolidating our understanding of addition using 2-digit numbers by adding the tens first and then the ones.

In Topic, we used paintings from the time to work out the reasons for the fire spreading so quickly and burning such a large part of London. We decided that one of the most important reasons was the weather, in particular the strong wind!

In Science, we have found out about two more scientists, Maggie Aderon-Pocock and James Blyth. They both use the wind in different ways as James Blyth invented the first wind turbine to generate electricity and Maggie uses satellites to measure the wind and the way it influences climate. We made our own pinwheel and an anemometer that we used to measure the wind.

Have a look at our learning this week!

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Have a look at our learning this week!

Year 2 have been retelling the story of Toby and the Great Fire of London in their own words this week. They began by gathering ideas and adjectives to describe the fire and then used these to create expanded noun phrases to use within their sentences. They also orally retold the story to a talk partner. In Maths this week they have been using their number bonds to solve problems to 20, to find the next complement to 10 and round up and down to the nearest 10.

In Science they have been finding out about the inventor and scientist Charles Macintosh and investigating why his invention was important. We then tested a variety of materials to see which would be the most suitable for a firefighter's jacket. We planned and carried out our own fair test. In Topic we have continued to look at the Great Fire of London and have created a timeline to explain the events of how and why it happened. They also used lots of different historical sources as clues to find out more detail about the fire.

We hope everyone enjoyed their holidays, the children seemed well rested and excited to start our new topics. In English we have read the story of Toby and the Great Fire of London and have created a story map which we used to retell the story orally. We carried on finding out more about the Great Fire of London in our topic lessons where the children became detectives and used historical clues to find out when, where and how the fire started.

In Science we are learning about scientists and inventors and we started off by finding out what Charles Macintosh had invented and why his invention is still important today. We used wax crayons and watercolour to experiment and found out that wax is waterproof.

In Art the children mixed colours to make reds and oranges to paint some flames as a background in order to create a scene from the Great Fire of London.