Monthly Archives: March 2017

Persevering Toucans

Uncategorized

Today in Circle Time we focused on the next behaviour for learning – perseverance. We had lots of sensible ideas about how we can persevere so Miss Williams put us to the test.

For our first challenge we had to stand in a circle holding hands. We then had to make a hoop travel all the way around the circle without letting go of our hands. It was very tricky to start with but once we shared lots of ideas we soon got the hang of it. Practise made perfect and we managed the challenge with no trouble. We then tried the same but with a smaller hoop!

Our next challenge was to draw a house. Easy peasy we thought… until Miss Williams told us to do it with our eyes closed! Again, with a bit of perseverance and a ‘can do’ attitude most of us managed to draw something that looked a bit like a house!

Our final challenge was to write our name on the lines with our eyes closed. By time we got to this challenge we knew exactly what to do. If you look at our pictures you can see we got better and better each time.

We have made a list of our ideas about how to persevere which we will be using when things get tricky.

Designing a fire engine

Class Work, DT

This week we are starting our next DT projects – to design and make a fire engine. The children are very excited and have been asked to bring in boxes from home for the project.

We began by researching different kinds of vehicles. We experimented with some cars at our tables to find out how the wheels worked. We learnt that every car has an axle that joins the wheels together and makes them go around. This will be important for when we make our fire engines.

We then practised labelling the different parts of a vehicle that we know. We learnt some new words too. Do you know what a chassis is? We do!

Finding out about history

Class Work, History

In our History lesson today we started to think about how we find out about History. We know the story of the Great Fire of London because we have been learning about it and had a wonderful workshop. We started to think about how that History has been passed from 1666 to us in 2017. We played a game to learn more about sources of History:

http://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/game/

It was very useful. We already knew about Samuel Pepys’ diary and how that explained how the fire happened. We also knew that people painted pictures of the fire because they didn’t have cameras to take photographs. However, we didn’t know that much about artefacts and eye witness accounts though so the game was very good at explaining that to us.

We then wrote some sentences explaining what we had learnt.

Number Clubs

Class Work, Maths

In Year 2 we have been working very hard on our Number Clubs. They are so important because they help us to be faster in our Maths lessons. This week we have really had some fantastic news worth blogging about! We normally have between 6 and 10 children moving up a number club every week. For the last few weeks it has been excellent with around 14/15 children moving up. This week it has been ASTOUNDING because 18 children have moved up a number club! Some of these children moved only last week. This is great news for our Maths lessons too as it means less time working out those facts! Well done to:

Sophia, Brooke Be, Chandler, Katie, Pheobe, Kennie, Sumeiya, Melissa, Naly, Amber, Niah, Katerina, Evie, Harry, Huey, Sophie, Kezi and Megan.

You are SUPERSTARS!

Thank you to all the parents who help their children to learn these facts also.

Units of measure

Class Work, Maths
IF
IF

In our Maths lessons over the last 2 weeks we have been learning about different units of measure. We started with measuring and comparing length. We learnt that we measure length in metres and centimetres but also millimetres and kilometres. We used the words shorter, shortest, longer and longest, as well as the signs > greater than, < less than and = equal to, to compare different lengths. We then practised measuring mass. This is another word for weight. We measure mass in grams and kilograms and we enjoyed carrying out an experiment to find out which things weighed more or less than a kilogram. We also estimated different weights and put them in order using the < > = signs and our balances.

Finally we learnt about capacity/volume. These words mean how much room is inside a container and we measure volume in litres and millilitres. We enjoyed sorting containers into <1l and >1l and using measuring jugs to see whether we were correct.

We have also focused on reading different scales, in particular working out what the measurement would be from the numbers we have been given. It has been a very practical two weeks and we have learnt a lot about different ways we measure things.

Discussing our value word – Honesty

Circle Time, Class Work, Values

This month we are focusing on the value word Honesty. We started by thinking about what honesty means. This is what we can up with:

Year Two had a very sensible discussion about honesty during Circle Time this week. We discussed times when we had been honest when we had done something wrong.

In Thursday’s class assembly we read the story of ‘The boy who cried Wolf’. It was about a boy who played a trick and lied so many times that when he was telling the truth and no longer playing a trick, nobody believed him. We discussed this story and decided that…

Honesty is always the best policy.

Mass and weight

Class Work, Maths

In Maths this week we are thinking about different units of measure. We started to think about mass/weight. We know that we measure mass in kilograms (kg) and grams (g). We had a look at different scales and practised reading them together. Some scales were easier than others! Some counted around in 10s but some were in 100s and even 200s! Miss Williams set us a challenge. We worked in pairs to use scales to find different objects that weighed 200g, 400g, 600g and 800g as these were marked clearly on our scales. Some of us were surprised at how many objects we had to use to make the weights.

Handling data

Class Work, Computing

In our Computing lessons over the last few weeks we have been learning all about data. We have learnt how to use different programs on Purple Mash to do different things with data.

2Count – we used this to collect data and make pictograms.

2Graph – we used this to make a bar chart from a tally chart we were given.

2Investigate – we used this to make a database. Databases are a way of sorting data in different ways. This week we added our own record to the alien database. We had some funny ideas!