The first week, a short week, but an action-packed week! This is the only way I can describe learning in Class 2 this past week.

In Literacy, we started by completing our neat copies of the information texts. We have some seriously brilliant pieces of work and can't wait to show them to you all. Then, we started our new unit of work. This half term, we are learning all about persuasive language. We will be using this to write persuasive letters later in the term.

In Maths, Year 1s continued learning more about multiplication and division by exploring arrays and dividing by sharing. In the meantime, Year 2s have continued exploring fractions.  

This half term, in Science, we continue our investigation into habitats. This week, we have started our journey into the mini world of microhabitats. We spend most of Monday afternoon in our forest school area, exploring the different microhabitats we could find there. It was quite an exciting afternoon of turning over logs and stones, and exploring hidden corners of the area to find some amazing hidden worlds. We also found a variety of minibeasts in these miniworlds. 

In DT, we started our new unit on cooking and nutrition. This week, we explored the difference between fruits and vegetables with Mrs Lane. We will continue learning more about how they are grown and learn how to prep them. We are really looking forward to using some of these fruits to make our own smoothies later in the term!

In Geography, we have started a new unit by the end of which we hope to answer the question: What is it like to live by the coast? We will be exploring the seas and oceans surrounding the UK, exploring the coastal landscape and diving deeper into the physical features of the Jurassic Coast.

On the left is a small snapshot of what we have been learning in Music this term. Last half term, we began exploring Pitch and Melody with Mrs Lane. We have all had fantastic fun learning about octobass and piccolo, and using a variety of instruments. We also learned to describe pitch and timbre.

This week, we put our skills to the test by writing graphic notations and creating voice to match them. Needless to say, Mrs Lane is super proud of what they have achieved so far.

Mrs Lane wrote, "The children have been using graphic notation and their voices to explore pitch and create a piece of vocal music - they all worked so well yesterday and very proudly shared their compositions - they have really grown in confidence which is lovely!"

And just like that we are done with the penultimate week of the half term...
Class 2, as usual have been busy learning and having tons of fun... and making the most of the glorious sunshine. 

In Literacy, we have completed writing our draft Information text. next week, we will be editing them and writing out the next copies. In Maths, Year 1s have been counting in 2s, 10s and 5s, while Year 2s have been using fractions to find the whole.

In ICT, we continued our enquiry into algorithms by planning our own set of algorithms.

History this week has been all about Amelia Earhart and her amazing solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. After recapping what we already knew about her and her adventures, we roleplayed at being one of the many people in that field in Ireland years ago when her plane landed after her grueling journey across the Atlantic Ocean and relating our own eyewitness account. Then, we had a go at writing down our account accounts. On the left are extracts from the eyewitness account written by Sophie (top) and Maddie (bottom). We also had a lot of fun recording our eyewitness accounts and watching them together.
 

What an amazing first week back!

We have got off on a running start this first week of the term. In Literacy, we have begun a new unit on writing an information text. This week, we first looked at a variety of non-fiction books and discussed some of the common features they all shared. Then, we looked at an piece of information text to see what key elements we could pick out to include in our Writing Toolkit.

In Maths, Year 1s continue to explore Place Values to 50 while Year 2s have begun an exciting unit on Fractions.

In History, this term we are exploring the History of Aviation. This week, we explored the story of the Wright Brothers with Miss Walker and discussed their contribution to flight.

In the meantime, in Science, we explored the difference between things that are living, non-living and those that were once alive to start off our new unit on Living Things and their Habitats. And of course with the weather playing ball, we took the rest of the lesson outside to go on a "Things Hunt." We had some really interesting debates on the carpet about the difference between non-living things and things that were once alive. If paper is something that was once alive because it is made of trees, then is a basket ball the same because because rubber comes from trees?

This term, in Music, Class 2 are exploring Pitch and Melody and on Wednesday, we had a fun session with Mr Hunt, followed by a creative exploration of Jyll Bradley's installation at the Box to kick start our Art unit on Playful Making.

Key Dates and Information

MONDAY: PE
THURSDAY: Swimming 

Please find attached below, the KIRFs for this half term.

Highlights of learning in Class 2 this week

In Literacy, we have finally written up the neat copies of our instruction texts and we cannot wait to move on to the next unit of work. In Maths, we ended our unit on Mass and Volume with a splishy-splashy-gooey potions masterclass. We all got rather wet as we measures, poured and mixed some awesome ingredients to make our potions.

In ICT, we have been discussing the multitude of technology that is around us and have been exploring how we control them. To round up our understanding, we spent time this week designing our own robots. We have had robots that alerts adults when a child is hurt to one that makes pizzas on demand. We have had robots controlled with a colour-coded remote controller to one controlled using a smartphone. We even had one that was voice-controlled using a special build-in Alexa!

Geography lesson with Mr Hunt was a very practical and active lesson where we explored how we can measure different daily weather patterns. We now have a thermometer and rain gauge set up outside to help us monitor daily weather at school.

In Science, we looked at how different objects sink or float depending on the materials they were made of. We worked in groups as we made predictions (just like a scientist) and set up our controlled experiment (just like a scientist) and tested our predictions (just like a SCIENTIST!). We had some very interesting results - Finley was completely flummoxed by the fact that a big heavy wooden Jenga block floated no matter what he did to it! 

In DT, we have finally designed our finger puppets and we are ready to transfer our designs on to felt and begin assembling them next week.

Another exciting week of learning and fun was had in Class 2. 
In Literacy, we have explored the original story of Paddington Bear and identified a variety of exciting vocabulary we can use in our writing. We have also explored Time Adverbials which we have all had a go at using in our letter to Aunt Lucy. 

In Maths, both Year 1 and year 2 have completed their Cold Tasks this week on Mass, Volume and Capacity. We can't wait for next week where we will have very practical, hands-on (albeit very noisy) lessons on measuring.

In Science, we continued our exploration into the world of Materials by looking at some objects around us that are made of more than one material. In DT, we have started an exciting unit on making hand puppets. We thought it might be a good idea to design and make our own Paddington Bear puppets! This week, we explored some different methods we can use to join fabrics. In Computing, we looked at computers and explored its different parts and have begun looking at what makes them Input and Output devices.