It has been another busy, fun filled time in Year 2!

We all love reading and we have really enjoyed the book Flat Stanley!  We wrote a character description about him and then we all brought in our favourite book characters and wrote a character description about them.

In maths we continued to learn about multiplication and division.  We also enjoyed learning about fractions of a shape and of a number,  and all about 2D and 3D shapes.

We have enjoyed our history topic this half term.  We have been learning about a nurse called Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp. Florence Nightingale lived in the Victorian era when the Queen was Queen Victoria. In our first lesson we looked at Victorian objects and compared them to modern day objects. Some of the objects were the chamber pot, iron, washboard, carbolic soap and kettle.  In 1853, when the Crimean War broke out, Sir Sidney Herbert asked Florence Nightingale to lead a team of 38 nurses in Scutari to care for the soldiers who were injured.  We found out that Florence wanted to go but she had to persuade her mum and dad first.  We also learnt about another famous nurse.  Her name is Mary Seacole. Mary Seacole also worked as a nurse during the Crimean War.  She nursed sick soldiers so kindly that they called her 'Mother Seacole'.  Using our science knowledge and what the nurses had taught us, we completed our learning by opening our own teddy bear hospital!

Our art has been linked to Computing this half term.  We have learnt about Georges Seurat who is famous for Pointillism which is a type of painting that makes a picture using lots of colourful dots. We have learnt about Piet Mondrian who became famous for creating art on a white background with straight lines and blocks of primary colours (blue, red and yellow).   We have also learnt about Pablo Picasso who is famous for using a style of art called Cubism, which uses lots of shapes to create pictures and we have learnt about Claude Monet who is famous for his style of art called Impressionism.   Finally, we learnt about Andy Warhol who is famous for Pop Art where he created screen-prints using photo quality images and changed them using bright colours.

Miss Holmes and Mrs Wiliamson taught us about Internet Safety Day. In music we learnt the song, ‘Be Safe‘. At our school we have a Staying Safe Online agreement.  It is in all of our classrooms. We must ask if we are allowed to go on the internet, we must keep our personal details safe, we must be kind and if we see anything that makes us have the ‘uh oh’ feeling, we must tell an adult.

We have had lots of special events this half term.  We had a very egg-citing Science Day.  Mr Williams discovered a dinosaur egg in the Rainbow Garden!  Blood samples were taken from the egg and we had to keep them frozen by wrapping them in different materials.  We made predictions about the best material to keep the blood frozen. We used cotton wool, tin foil, bubble wrap, card and felt.  We practised drawing science diagrams to record our learning.  Afterwards we recorded our results and then ranked the materials from best to worst.  We found out that bubble wrap was the best material. The lab tested the dinosaur blood and discovered that the egg belonged to triceratops!

We took part in an online Oral Health Workshop and learnt about the importance of looking after our teeth and we also took part in a workshop with Earthsong to learn about Chinese New Year. 

The Y2 choir and dance groups performed at The Rose Theatre.  Saturn Class shared their learning with their parents at the end of the half term during their class assembly.  We were very proud of how confidently they performed.

Finally, thank you to everyone who attended the SATS Information Meeting and Parents Consultations.  It was great to be able to carry out both of these face-to-face.

We are excited about next half term which begins with our annual Book Week!  Please encourage your child to take part in the Sponsored Book Bingo and the Extreme Reading Competition.  We are also looking forward to cosying up for a bedtime story and Dress Up Day at the end of the week.

We hope you all have a lovely week off!