Science
This week in science we continued our work with materials. We were set another task by Professor Pole! He wanted us to choose the most suitable material he could use for his umbrella. He told us it must be waterproof and not absorbent. 
 
We discussed the idea of a fair test – a test where’s only one variable is changed while all the other variables are kept the same. We established the thing that would change in our experiments would be our materials.
 
We tested fabric (felt), tissue paper, paper towels, cardboard and a plastic bag. We made our predictions first just by feeling the materials that might be the most suitable for an umbrella. 
 
We worked in our table groups and tested all the materials using water. At the end of the experiment we came back together to discuss what we found out. We found out that the best material Professor Pole could use would be the plastic bag because it is waterproof and all the other materials were absorbent… pointless for an umbrella! 

 

Materials

Science

This week the Toucans have been learning about different types of materials. They have been identifying and comparing  glass, plastic, metal, brick, rock, paper and cardboard. To start with, they were given a range of different everyday objects to explore as a table group. They were encouraged to discuss the uses of the different objects and to see if they could sort them into different groups. Each group then shared their findings with the rest of the class. 

Toucans were then encouraged to re-sort the materials to see how many different groups they could make.  Miss Hookes asked the children why certain objects were made with certain materials, for example why wouldn’t table legs be made of cardboard? Why are our classroom chairs made of plastic and metal? Why are windows made of glass? The children were then asked to share their thoughts. Toucans then went around the classroom to spot different objects made with each of the various materials and recorded these independently.

Miss Hookes also introduced the Rocket Words: flexible, rigid, smooth and rough.

 

Special Events

PSHE

Today in PSHE we were learning about why we celebrate special events with different foods. As a class we created a list of different special events where we might eat food. We came up with Christmas, Easter, Birthdays and Eid.

We made a mind map together about different foods we eat to celebrate these special events. We discussed why these foods are only eaten at certain times and the children said ‘Well, if you had an Easter egg all the time it wouldn’t be special when you get one at Easter!’ This is exactly right, if we eat all the foods we celebrate special events with then they won’t be as special anymore and we won’t appreciate them. We need to enjoy them when the time to celebrate our special event comes.

Great Fire of London Workshop

History

On Thursday Year Two had a visit from a lady called Nicky who works for The Freshwater Theatre Company. Nicky introduced the children to our new History Topic – The Great Fire of London. Nicky taught Toucans a rhyme to start with: In 1666 London burned like little sticks, In 1666 London burned like little sticks! Year Two learnt actions to go with the rhyme to help them to remember.

Nicky then changed into character dressing as a maid at the time of the fire, she encouraged the children to use their imaginations throughout the workshop. Toucans learnt about where and when the fire started, how the fire spread and how the fire was eventually stopped! The children had lots of acting opportunities. Khayri was pretending to be Samuel Pepys and Evie and Shenyar were chamber maids! Both children and adults learnt lots of interesting facts and we’re looking forward to starting our Topic next week!

Designing Fire Engines

DT

Our new Design and Technology Topic has started. Toucans have been challenged to construct a Fire Engine! They have have already researched existing products thinking about the following questions:
What do the Fire Engines that they have seen look like? Year Two drew a picture of a fire engine that they had seen.
What do they think they are made out of? Year Two thought that they could be made from glass, metal and rubber. Some Toucans decided that these materials could be welded together.

The children were asked if our ‘product’ had got any special features? We made a very long list including hoses, ladders, they were painted bright colours, sirens to alert other road users they needed to get through, water tanks and writing at the front. Toucans did some market research amongst their classmates including what people liked about existed Fire Engines, what could be improved and what their product would definitely have to keep!

They have now designed their very own fire engine on graph paper trying to include all of the important features. They look amazing!

Book Week

English

Last week at school it was World Book Week. On Tuesday we were able to bring in our favourite books from home to share with our class or we could choose our favourite book from the class library. Our choices ranged from the Wonkey Donkey all the way to Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone! We had so much fun sharing our most loved books with everyone in our class.

On Thursday, on the official world book day, we were visited by amazing author T.M Jorden. We began the day with an assembly where Tim introduced us to the process of writing a book. He introduced us to Lord Ted, one of the main characters in his book. We were given a challenge for the morning to create a new character for Tim’s next book!

Friday was dress up day – have a look at some of the words we decided to dress up as. Miss Hookes was puzzled with all her jigsaw pieces attached to her and Miss Williams was dressed up as imagination! We had a variety of different words and characters from Year 2, they included strong, stealthy, colourful and magic! We also had some wonderful costumes of book characters such as Harry and Hermione and Mad Hatter!

We all had such a wonderful week celebrating all things books!

Sea Animals

Science

Today in our science lesson we were looking at what animals live in the ocean and where about in the ocean they live. We started off the lesson by listing as many sea animals as we could. We came up with shark, whale, octopus, seal, eel, sea otter, plankton, jelly fish and star fish!

We found out that the oceans can be as deep as the mountains on Earth are tall! Our task was then to look at the different sea animals we had been given and read the information carefully as to where we place them on the sea bed. We learnt that eels live on the sea floor and feed on the dead animals found there. However, an animal that floats on the surface of the ocean is a sea otter. We were given a big seabed and we had to organise our animals in the correct place.

Think of a World Without Any Flowers

PSHE, RE

In RE today we listened to the song Think of a World Without Any Flowers. Miss Hookes asked the children what would the world be like without any flowers? Lots of us said it would be boring and not very colourful. We read some of the lyrics aloud too: think of a world without any animals, think of an ocean without any fish, think of a sky without any breeze. We said how boring our world would be without any of these things and how it is really important for us to look after the things in our world so we don’t experience this.

We read the book The Journey Home in our lesson too. In this story the polar bear, panda, orangutan and the elephant didn’t have a home. This was down to our planet being destroyed – the polar bear hasn’t got any snow, the panda hasn’t got any bamboo and the elephant is being hunted for its tusks. This led to a conversation about their habitats being destroyed- just like rainforests are for the trees and wood.

The children imagined how they would feel if this happened to them. They shared words such as sad, upset and worried because they wouldn’t have shelter or be warm. We decided as a class we are going to make more of an effort to look after our planet and the habitats of others around us!

What a Wonderful World

PSHE, RE
March is the month of spring and this week to mark the start of a new season we looked at all the things that make our world wonderful. 
 
First of all we listened to the classic What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong, which Toucans surprisingly knew very well! 
 
This gave us lots of ideas of what things in our world are wonderful, these included trees, flowers, plants, birds, clouds and rainbows.
 
We then used these ideas to choose our own wonderful thing about our world and draw a small picture of them, we then put all of our pictures together to create a class collage of all the wonderful things in our world!