English

In English this half term, we have been learning all about traditional tales. We looked at the book 'Into the Forest ' by Anthony Browne. We used acting, story maps and Colourful Semantics to help us retell the story. We then wrote a character description to describe the wolf from the story 'Little Red Riding Hood.' After this, we looked at the book 'The Jolly Postman.' We developed our inference skills by inferring which traditional tale character the letters were addressed to and gave ideas as to what the post might say. We pretended to be Goldilocks and wrote our own apology letters to Baby Bear. Finally, we followed the Three Bears' instructions they sent us to make some delicious porridge. We then wrote our own instructions for porridge making that we posted to Goldilocks for her to use at home. 

Maths

In Maths this half term, we have been learning all about number and place value. We have used different equipment to help us with our learning. We have also been using our number knowledge to help us add and subtract. We have used different strategies to help us, such as tens frames, part whole models, number lines and working calculations out in our heads. Here is some of the work we have done! 

        Part whole model

Science

In Science this half term, we have been learning all about 'Plants.' We reminded ourselves about parts of a plant and what plants need to grow. We looked at the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and grew our own beans like Jack. We enjoyed keeping a bean diary, watching our beans change over time and recording our observations using pictures and sentences. We also used our observations to help us sequence the different stages of the life-cycle of a bean. We also carried out an investigation into what plants need to grow. We placed one bean plant on the windowsill where it had light and water, one plant in the cupboard with water but no light and the other plant in the cupboard was given no water or light. We made predictions as to what we thought would happen to the plants, wrote up our findings and discussed whether our predictions were correct. As an end to the half term, we enjoyed planting daffodil bulbs in the Nursery garden. We are looking forward to seeing them bloom in Spring!

Creative Curriculum (Art, Design and Technology, Geography and History)

In Creative Curriculum this half term, we have been learning all about traditional tales. In Art, enjoyed using colour and pattern as well as a range of media to create our own magic beans like Jack's from Jack and the Beanstalk. In Design and Technology, we evaluated different gingerbread men designs and discussed which designs we liked and why. We then designed and created our own gingerbread men designs using a design criteria. We enjoyed making our designs come to life and decorating and eating them as part of one of our Golden Times. In Geography and as part of our learning on the story Hansel and Gretel, we located different countries on a world map and looked at homes from around the world. We enjoyed comparing these homes and learning facts about them. 

Harvest

On Monday 11th October, Year 2 performed their 'Harvest Festival' assembly to Victoria Road site. We had lots of fun sharing readings about harvest, singing harvest songs and performing our harvest poem. We even showcased our fabulous harvest artwork too. Well done everyone-what a great assembly! Thank you to everyone who brought in donations for harvest. These donations will be going to Burton Soup Kitchen and the charity HOPE.

Here are some videos of us singing our harvest songs 

Commando Joes

We had lots of fun carrying out our Commando Joes' missions the last week of half term. For our first mission, we pretended to be Little Red Riding Hood and had to navigate around the assault course to get through the forest and away from the Big Bad Wolf in time. For our second mission, we had to create a shelter for the Three Little Pigs that would fit all three pigs inside and stay standing when the wolf tried to blow it down. We were brilliant Creative Cobras and Team Tigers during our missions and had great fun using our imagination!

Culture and Diversity Week

The week beginning 18th October, we celebrated 'Culture and Diversity Week.' We looked at the story 'The Smeds and the Smoos' by Julia Donaldson and discussed the ways in which the characters were different and ways in which they were the same. We then used this to compare how we are similar and different. As a way of celebrating our differences and what makes us unique, we created our own alien characters to be friends with Janet, Bill and the other smeds and smoos. 

We also learnt about the different cultures, backgrounds and heritages of the people in our classes. We located countries us and our families were born in using Google Earth.  We learnt to say 'hello' in the different languages we speak and answered the register using a different language each day. We enjoyed creating flags  from our countries of heritage and carried out a parade on the playground, celebrating our different cultures and our diversity. Thank you Reception and Year 3 for letting us share our parade with you!

Decorating Pumpkins

We enjoyed working in teams to design and decorate our own pumpkins for our Halloween Party. We thought really carefully about how we wanted them to look and making sure they matched our designs. Well done everyone-fabulous work!