14.3.24

This week has been STEM week and we were lucky enough to have two visitors come and talk to us about their jobs in Science. On Monday, Melissa came to talk to us about bones and gave us some fun activities to do, including constructing a human skull! On Tuesday, Charlotte told us about being a vet and we got the opportunity to practise our nursing skills by bandaging Steve the unicorn! We also had to look at x-rays of various objects and see if we could work out what they were.

In Maths, we have been measuring capacity and volume in millilitres and litres. In Science, we have been investigating living things and their habitats. We have learned that all living things (plants as well as animals) have to live in a habitat to which they are suited. We were amazed to learn that sunflowers move throughout the course of the day in order to face the sun and soak up as much sunlight as possible. They need sunlight to make their own food. This is called photosynthesis. A sunflower's habitat is an open field where it can get access to lots of sunlight!

In RE, we have enjoyed continuing our learning about Muslims. This week we have learned about the importance of the Qur'an. We know that Muslims believe the the words in the Qur'an were told to Prophet Muhammad by Allah and that these words teach Muslims how to lead a good life.

In English, we have enjoyed writing about the book The Pea and the Princess. We used adjectives and similes to describe the pile of mattresses which we thought looked like a yummy burger! We have also been describing the appearance and the personalities of the key characters. 

Our current Dojo total is 2572!

29.2.24

This week, we have really enjoyed our History lessons. We are learning about explorers, including Christopher Columbus, Matthew Henson and Neil Armstrong. We learned that although Columbus' achievement in discovering the Americas was significant, he wasn't as heroic as we first thought! We were interested to learn that Matthew Henson was one of the first people (perhaps even the first person) to reach the North Pole but he wasn't recognised for his achievements until many years later as he was black and in those days black people and white people were not treated equally. We were taught how to have a debate and we used all our knowledge and skills to have a civilised debate about which explorer was the most significant.

In English, we have been reading the Pea and the Princess (an alternative version of the well-known Princess and the Pea) and have been writing letters and diary entries in role. We are also reading different alternative versions of well-known fairly tales in Reading Practice using our VIPERS skills to analyse them. In our dance lesson, the fairy tale theme continued as we danced with our library books!

In Maths we have been measuring in centimetres and metres and found out that the classroom is 9m long!

Our current Dojo total is 2257!

1.2.24

This week in Reading Practice, we have really loved reading the book Journey which actually has no words in it at all! We have been using our VIPERS skills such as Inference, Prediction and Sequencing to really understand the story.

In English, we have started writing our Fox Babies story which is based on the Owl Babies book by Martin Wadell. Some elements of our new story are the same as the original but we have made some clever changes. We can't wait to show you our finished stories.

A highlight of the week for some of us has been OPAL play, particularly using the scooters. Other of us like to go to Cosy Club at lunchtime where we do quieter activities such as marble run, Hama beads and jewellery making.

We are feeling proud of the artwork we have created this week. We were inspired by Orla Kiely and we made owl and fox prints out of foam Safeprint. They look awesome and we will show you them in our class assembly next week! Aspey, Leo and George S are feeling very proud of how hard they have worked on their handwriting.

In our Rights assembly yesterday, we learned about climate change and the impact this can have on children's rights to clean water and nutritious food.

Our current Dojo is: 1947!

25.1.24

Yesterday, was the International Day of Education and we discussed what role schools could play in encouraging world peace. Here are some of our ideas: make posters encouraging people to live peacefully and not fight, having lessons about world peace, talk about the consequences of war and fighting in order to prevent it happening and children writing letters to governments around the world asking them to support peace and stop war.

We have had another great week of learning. We are really enjoying printing in Art. Yesterday we printed with leaves. In English, we have finished writing our version of Owl Babies and are really proud of our work.  In Maths we have started a new topic - Multiplication and Division - and have been practising making equal groups.

Our current Dojo total is: 1852!

11.1.24

This week we have really enjoyed our English lessons. We have read Owl Babies and have written our own setting descriptions of the forest at night time. We have used impressive adjectives and similes to create vivid images in the readers' minds. See below for a couple of examples of our work.

Our owl theme carried on in our dance lessons when we thought about how the baby owls felt when their mummy was gone and we expressed this through movement to music.

Some of us are excited to be learning about Muslim beliefs in RE and some of us were able to share our own knowledge of this from personal experience.

We are looking forward to getting stuck into our new Science topic - Animals including Humans and have kicked it off already by sharing what we already know about this from Year 1.

We are very proud that our current Dojo total is 1684!

4.1.24

It is term 3 already and we have lots to look forward to. We are really excited to be learning about printing in Art (we will be looking particularly at the work of Orla Kiely) and we can't wait to have a go at making monsters using levers and pivots in DT. This week in English, we will be looking at some wintry poetry and having a go at writing our own acrostic poems next week. Then we will be moving on to studying Owl Babies. We are really looking forward to acting out the story, rewriting a new and improved version and later on, writing our own stories about other woodland animals. Some of us are looking forward to learning about money in Maths, but some of us think it might be a bit tricky. In RE, we will be learning about what Muslims believe and we are looking forward to hearing from our very own experts in the class - Zara, Rameen and Naveed!

Our current Dojo total is 1616!

16.11.23

This term has been really fun so far. In Music, we have started practising songs for the Nativity and we are getting really excited about starting to rehearse for that soon. We have absolutely loved learning about the Great Fire of London and have become proper historians by examining evidence and looking for clues, understanding the chronology of events, the causes and the consequences of The Fire and explaining how it changed London. We have been putting all this knowledge to good use in our English work as we have been writing our very own non-fiction book about The Fire.

Maths has been a bit tricky this week as we have been learning to subtract two-digit numbers. Some of us have gone onto exchanging which is very hard! We will continue to practise this throughout the year. PE has also been a bit tricky for some of us as we have been moving in zigzags.

We are proud of our RE learning this week which has been about what items are special to Jewish people and we have been getting creative in Computing as we have been learning about digital photography.

Our current Dojo total is 1232!

19.10.23

The highlight of our week was, of course, our trip to Perry Court Farm. When we were there, the owner, Heidi, talked to us about the many different varieties of apples that there are, including some of the 240 varieties that they sell at the farm. She also talked to us about pollination and how the apples are produced. We got to pick our own apples (Bramley and Golden Smoothies) to take back to school to make apple crumble. We learned not to pick apples that were on the ground because insects often go inside them and the birds feed on these apples during the winter. We really enjoyed the walk to and from the farm and loved seeing the donkeys, Elvis and Murphy, as well as the geese and the pigs. We also got excited by the tractor!

This week has been International Week at school. We were fortunate to have Hannah's mum come and give us a workshop on The Netherlands. We got to try on clogs and plant tulip bulbs. Last night, some of us performed a French song, Vole, vole, vole papillon at the Cultural Evening which was excellent!

Our current Dojo total is 926!

12.10.23

This week in English, we have really enjoyed learning off by heart the poem, There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. We are looking forward to performing this to another class tomorrow. We also really enjoyed playing a game of Defend Your Friend in PE. It was tricky having to kick balls into a goal though.

In Science, we designed boats using our knowledge of materials that can float. We are excited about making the boats next week and testing them. On Tuesday, we put our geographical skills to the test by observing the weather conditions, recording the temperature using thermometers and finding our location using a compass. We learned that the UK has a temperate climate which means it never gets extremely hot or extremely cold and that there is rainfall throughout the year. 

Our current Dojo total is 821!

5.10.23

A highlight of our week was our Art lesson. We studied our soft toys, paying close attention to the shapes and lines that made our toys. We then tried to draw our toys using these shapes and lines. We also started shading them using curved lines to make them look more 3D.

We are continuing to enjoy learning how to write using cursive handwriting and are getting really quite good at it now. In English this week, we have been putting our new handwriting skills into practice by writing our stories. We loved playing stuck in the mud as part of our PE lesson and our Science lesson was lots of fun too as we tested which objects sink and which ones float.

In PSHE, we learned about the importance of drinking water to keep our bodies healthy. We also learned that sadly, some children around the world, do not have access to clean water and are forced to drink dirty water that can make them very poorly. We learned about a charity called Wateraid who are doing lots of work to help poorer countries in this situation.

Our current Dojo total is 663!

28.9.23

This week, we have been very excited to start learning how to write using cursive handwriting and Mrs Kwouk has been overjoyed with how beautiful our writing is beginning to look. We are going to keep practising this to get even better. In Art, we learned how to portray different emotions by drawing facial expressions. We really enjoyed this.

On Monday, we became real scientists by conducting a real experiment, testing different types of paper for strength and absorbency. We used our scientific skills such as making predictions, setting up and performing tests and recording our results.  

On Tuesday, we enjoyed learning about the North Pole, the South Pole and the Equator. We have come up with a really tricky question related to our Geography lesson to test adult brains at the quiz on Friday!

Maths has been quite tricky this week as we have been learning to count in threes. In English, we have begun planning our own versions of the Gigantic Turnip by making new story maps with different characters and different fruits or vegetables. It was quite difficult to think of new characters and alliterative adjectives to go with them. However, our story maps are beginning to look good and we are looking forward to using them next week to write our own stories.

Our current Dojo total is: 594!

21.9.23

This week in Rabbits class, we have all enjoyed playing with our friends at playtime. We have played tag and other games. In English, we have begun rewriting the story of the Gigantic Turnip. We think our versions are better than the original because we have added in alliteration to describe the different animals and we have included extra details such as where the animals were.  We loved our Art lesson with Mrs Ward. We learned to use charcoal to create different textures.

Some of us found PE tricky. We had to walk backwards whilst touching cones. We are excited to be learning cursive handwriting but we aren't all finding it very easy at the moment. We are going to be resilient and keep trying.

Our current Dojo total is 437!

14.9.23

This week in English, we have begun our text The Gigantic Turnip. We have really enjoyed retelling the story using actions and small world and we have begun to make our own story map which we will use next week to rewrite our own versions of the story. We also really enjoyed our Music lesson with Mr Connelly. We learned some Harvest songs in readiness for our Harvest Festival assembly. This tied in nicely with our PSHE lessons about healthy eating and the importance of eating at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables each day. It also made us think about how we should be thankful for everything we have. Our other favourite subjects this week  have been Art and PE.

Maths has been super tricky this week as we have been learning to partition two-digit numbers in different ways. However, we are all being resilient and not giving up! We found RE interesting as we learned how some Christians and Jewish people believe the world was created. Today we are continuing to learn about that and we are going to think about how and why we should care for the world.

Our current Dojo total is 322!

7.9.23

We are all so excited to be in Year 2 in Rabbits class and have enjoyed the first week so far.  We had a great Art lesson where we learned to draw different textures using special drawing pencils. In Maths, we have been learning Place Value and now we really understand tens and ones.  In English, we have been writing about what we all got up to in the summer holidays and we having been making sure we use lots of interesting adjectives and verbs.

We have enjoyed making new friends in our new class but it hasn't always been easy and we are still getting to know each other properly. PE was fun but hopping was quite tricky. We also had to stand like flamingoes on one leg which was very hard!

We are really proud of how well we have settled into Year 2 and the work that we have produced already. Some of us are super proud of our artwork, some of us are proud of how well we can write numbers now and some of us are proud of our writing.

Our current Dojo total is 245 already!