Autumn

Happy Christmas Year Two! Have a wonderful holiday and see you all in 2025! 

Thank you for a brilliant party today Year Two you're all fabulous. 

Our Northern Lights art work and writing. 

What is human and physical Geography? 

We have been learning about human and physical features of polar regions, we have sorted places and explored what the human and physical features of each place are. 

3D Shapes 

In maths, we have been busy this week exploring lines of symmetry and drawing them. We loved linking our maths to Christmas shapes and pictures and today we explored sorting 3D shapes. We have been counting edges, faces and vertices. 

Writing - We watched the National Geographical clip, 'The Leap of the Penguins,' as part of our learning in Geography about polar regions and were inspired to write poetry based on the journey of the penguins in English. We also linked our writing to our class book, 'Poles Apart', about a family of penguins who go on a picnic and get lost... We used personification, similes, metaphors, adverbs and expanded noun phrases, kennings and alliteration and more! We edited our writing using our editing glasses and decorated the classroom door for Christmas with our writing and penguins we had made of us jumping from the ice shelf. 

Today was Christmas Jumper day and we have had lots of fun taking part in art activities this afternoon.  

In English we read, 'How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth,' and we wrote our own instructions about how to wash a polar animal that we had also researched and created a non-chronological report about. We are writing in lots of different genres and are beginning to use some fantastic subordination. We used our learning about Polar Regions in Geography to help us to identify where the animals lived. In Science, we have found out how they are adapted for their environment and we have loved our polar topic  and all the stories, poetry and non-fiction we have read as part of it. Ask us about which Countries are part of the Arctic Circle and what it is like to live there as this week we have been making brochures to visit Greenland, persuading and informing others. 

Snow Dragon!

We took part in a zoom call with the author and illustrator Vivien French and Kate Leiper. They read the story and talked about their inspiration. We found out that the idea to create a Snow Dragon came when Vivien French was cold on Newcastle train station! We were shown how to draw a dragon and make a card and we enjoyed creating  our own. 

We revisited what the 7 Continents and 5 Oceans are and all remembered! Now we can talk about the Equator and climate, comparing climate charts and graphs and locate lots more countries using our atlases and globes. Ask us what polar regions are like and the human and physical features of the North and South Pole. 

Well done for today Year 2! Here are the angel photos. 

Enterprise! 

Come along and see what Year Two have made... snowmen baubles and Christmas earrings. 

We had our first dress rehearsal today and are looking very angelic. We are looking forward to seeing you on Monday and are hoping that our tinsel stays intact until then...

We've fallen into a fairytale...

Year Two have been reading so much they've fallen into a fairytale! Will Briar Rose ever be rescued? Will we ever get out of this forest? We love our reading journal time and have been doing some excellent writing - describing forests, creating portals into different stories (ask us about our perilous pic 'n' mix' and those pesky timetables of Rumpelstiltskin...) writing news articles, trying to persuade Lana's parents that it IS true and much more. 

Shapes all around us!

We recognised 2D and 3D shapes in our environment and have been counting sides and vertices this week and learning about their properties. We investigated how many triangles, squares and pentagons we could make with 15 lolly sticks and why. Then we explored how many hexagons and octagons we could make with 18 lolly sticks and what other shapes we could make. 

Playing as part of a team in PE, we had lots of fun developing our defending and dodging skills. 

We took part in lots of Children in Need activities. 

PE

We were challenged today to work as a team to catch an opponents tail and to develop our strategies to defend and dodge. We are getting much better at blocking and had lots of fun. 

Where are hot and cold places? 

As part of our Geography topic about Polar regions, we have been measuring and monitoring temperatures around the school, finding the shadiest, coolest and warmest places and reading thermometers at different times of the day. We have been learning about climate and weather (ask us what the difference is) and have compared climate charts in the Arctic and Antarctica. It has helped us to learn about negative numbers and reading scales and charts in maths!

Odd Socks! 

We wore odd socks and took part in lots of different activities as part of anti-bullying week. 

'Where The Poppies Now Grow'

We shared the book, 'Where the Poppies Now Grow',  and described the poppies. We talked about the vocabulary in the poem and emotions. 

Remembrance

We took part in Remembrance activities this week and shared the poem, 'In Flanders Fields,' and the book, 'Flo of the Somme'. We created our own poppies and descriptions. 

Meeting Farmer Helen. 

We took part in a zoom with Farmer Helen from a farm in South Yorkshire. We learned about seeds, crops, how they develop and how long they take to grow. We found out about how and why crops are rotated and how fields are cultivated. We compared grains and seeds and the development of seed through to crop before it is harvested. Farmer Helen shared with us all her jobs on the farm and we asked lots of questions. Ask us why are worms so important? 

Today we had lots of fun in PE with coach Adam learning how to avoid being tagged. We made quick changes of direction and kept our bodies between the tagger and our tails. We have improved our dodging skills! 

In Science, we planted pea seeds and investigated conditions for growth and how a seed germinates. After half term our seeds had started to germinate! We are taking part in 'farm in a box' activities, exploring plant growth and how food is made. Look out for our wildflowers around school. 

We have been learning how to subtract across a 10. 

In music we have been learning the song, 'Hands, Feet, Heart,' by Joanna Mangona and songs about The Great Fire of London. We have learned how to play them on the glockenspiel and today performed as a round. We have started to find out about stave notation and the duration of notes. 

We have loved learning all about The Great Fire of London in history and comparing events with The Great Fire of Gateshead and Newcastle. Ask us about both, we know lots of facts! We painted our own scenes and added silhouettes. 

During IT, we went back in time to 1666 and witnessed The Great Fire of London taking place...

We have had lots of Halloween fun!

Meeting Farmer Andrew

We took part in a zoom call with Farmer Andrew as part of Warburton's Farm in a Box activities and asked lots of questions about life on his farm. We found out about how grain is harvested and how wheat turns into bread. What farming life is like and some of the processes and tractors used. How technology is used in farming and making flour. We also learned about food miles and sustainability, how the weather impacts farming and different crops. Farmer Andrew uses solar panels to produce energy and to make his fields more productive, we found out about renewable energy and are looking forward to meeting Farmer Helen soon. 

Art Week!

This week we have been finding out about Georgia O'Keeffe and modernism. We have explored her paintings and how we could create art like her. In addition, we have developed our sketching techniques using shading, hatching, stippling, blending and erasing and learned about visual elements in art. 

Farm in a box

There has been great excitement in Year 2 this week as we have received our 'farm in a box' kit. So far we have investigated what is germination, what seeds need to germinate and what plants need to grow. We have planted our own pea seeds and explored what is inside a seed. We handled wheat ears and tried crushing our own grains. Finally we explored textures through touch and how the items in the feely bags connected to farms. We had feathers, hay, straw, wool and wheat grains. 

100% Attendance!

Well done Year Two I am very proud of you. Today you celebrated completing your 100% attendance award with popcorn, crisps, sweets and juice very kindly organised by Mrs Longstaff. A film and time outside on the climbing frame and you're half way through the next one already! Keep it going. 

The Great Fire of Gateshead and Newcastle 

Did you know that on Friday the 6th October 1854 a fire broke out in Gateshead? It spread to a warehouse containing explosives and lots of buildings were destroyed. It spread across into Newcastle and this week has marked the 170th anniversary of the events. We visited the Discovery Museum and took part in a series of workshops finding out all about this fire and explored artefacts, dressed up as Victorians, retold events through creating the sounds, made puppets and re-enacted what happened as characters from the time. We had a fabulous day. Ask us all about it! 

"I'll be driving tractors, underneath the hot sun..."  We loved taking part in our Harvest Festival celebrations this week and thank you to everyone for all of your contributions. 

We had lots of fun carrying out our own materials investigations and exploring which variable we changed. Some of us changed the amount of time we allowed for the water before measuring, some of us changed the amount of water we used and some of us  repeated our experiment changing the type of material we were investigating to check the validity and reliability of our results. We made a hypothesis and discussed how our investigation was fair. 

Money and Measures Area 

We are enjoying using our practical area to explore measures and real money in our pic 'n' mix shop. In our class reading journal novel, the main character falls through some lemon sherbets, down a chute into a fairytale so we created our own fairytale forest and chute through some pic 'n' mix into a fairytale. 

Which materials are best for an umbrella? 

We investigated which materials would be the best for an umbrella and why. Ask us how we carried out our experiment and how we ensured that it was fair. Afterwards, we shared our results and drew conclusions then considered the reliability and validity of our results. Independently, we designed our own further investigation and made a hypothesis. We are really enjoying learning about materials and discovering and applying lots of new vocabulary!

TTRS Launch! 

We launched TTRS and are ready to start playing games, collecting coins and having tournaments. Don't forget to go on at home your log ons are in your homework books. 

What materials are different objects made from and why? 

In Science, we have been exploring what materials different things are made from and which materials are suited to different objects for different reasons. We explored natural and man made materials, sorted them and compared. We also looked at how an object, for example a cup or a spoon, might be made of various materials and why. 

Have you filled a Bucket Today? 

We read the book, 'Have you Filled a Bucket?' and talked about ways in which we could fill our own buckets and those of others. We write kind things to each other and thank each other often and we put our messages into each other's buckets then, once a week, we read all of our messages. Ask us how we help each other and show friendship to one another. 

Finding tens and ones and making numbers.

We have been learning how to partition numbers and have used < > and equals to compare. 

We created a class charter for Year Two and talked about what we felt was important in our class and how we could be a team together. Ask us what things we agreed should be on our charter. We signed our charter and made promises to try our best to fulfil it. 

Which materials change their shape? Can we bend, twist, stretch or squash them? 

In Science we have been learning about different materials and their properties. We planned, carried out and evaluated an investigation into which materials changed their shape. Ask us what our results were and if our hypothesis was correct.