Today, Year 2 Toucans have been using atlases to find the country of origin on certain foods. The children had to find where mangoes, cucumbers, plums and sweet potatoes came from on maps of the world. They used the index of the atlas to find the page where the country could be located. We also discussed where different foods came from around the world.
In Geography today we learnt some more interesting facts about life in polar regions. We were focusing on Inuit people who live in some parts of Russia, Alaska and other countries in the Artctic Circle. We are getting very knowledgeable about the polar regions now!
In Geography today we started to learn about maps, atlases and globes. We soon discovered we have lots of them on display in our classroom! We looked at Google Earth on the computer and found our school. We were very excited to look down on it from above!
We then explored maps inside atlases for ourselves. We looked at lots of different atlases to start with and then chose one to use for our challenge. Miss Williams put a list of places on the whiteboard and challenged us to find them. It was great fun but a lot trickier than we first thought.
Today we combined our Geography and Computing lessons to learn more facts about the rainforest. We started by watching some clips about the temperature and weather patterns. Today in Birmingham it is 8 degrees Celsius and in Brazil where the Amazon rainforest is it is 31 degrees celcius! We learnt that this is because the sun’s rays are always directly overheard.
We then had a quick refresher on how to search safely using Swiggle and researched in pairs. We learnt lots of interesting facts about the animals that live in the different layers of the rainforest.
We started our new year with a very exciting discovery because outside our classroom this morning there was a tent! We shared some ideas about who it might belong to and what sort of tent it might be:
We decided the only way to find out was to explore it for ourselves. Inside we found a backpack and a bag. Naly very cleverly spotted there was a note sticking out of the backpack and everyone was very excited to read it. We took our findings inside and read the letter. It said:
We were then super-excited to try and find out who PP was and what film he was talking about. We continued looking through the bag and the more things we found the more we were convinced PP was definitely an explorer of some sort. He had some warm gloves, a hat, a woolly scarf, a compass, a clock, a torch, some matches and lots of other things that suggested he explored in cold places. We then found a memory stick which had the film he spoke about in his letter. We watched it and discovered that PP was actually Professor Pole who is a nature explorer.
He told us he explores all over the North Pole and is particularly interested in polar bears. He asked for our help with 3 things which we are interested to find out more about. We will keep you informed about how we get on with our research.
Welcome back and Happy New Year.
During our topic lessons we have been learning all about the rainforests of the world. We have started to learn more about the tribes of people who live in the rainforests. Today we learnt that they find everything they need from the forests around them. They make their own houses and tools. They find their food from the rainforest and make medicines from the forest too. We also learnt that they use special leaves from the trees to make their own baskets. So in Art this afternoon we learnt how to weave our own baskets.
We learnt that weaving is a bit like sewing but with your hands. We had to weave in and out of our basket loom by going under, over, under, over. We soon discovered it wasn’t as easy as it looked!
Pyper said ‘Art it supposed to be fun… this is hard!’ so Ishmael told her ‘Just keep trying, remember you need to persevere and you will get a nice basket by the end’.
Sophie said ‘I’m no good at this, my basket doesn’t even look like a basket’ and Reuben told her ‘Yes it does, it looks great. Just keep going I think it looks really good’.
Toucans have been thinking hard about our value word of friendship. Miss Williams was so proud to hear these conversations. Well done Toucans for encouraging your friends.
In Geography we are learning about the rainforests of the world. Today we focused on weather patterns around the world and in the rainforests. We used our atlases to help us find places in the equator and then used the internet to find the temperature and weather in that location.
Fantastic learning Toucans!
In Geography today we learnt about the world. This is what we learnt:
We have been learning about how to use a compass in our Geography lesson. Did you know a compass is used with a map? It tells you which direction to go in.
We learnt:
– If it points to N you are travelling North.
– If it points to E you are travelling East.
– If it points to S you are travelling South.
– If it points to W you are travelling West.
To help us remember this we could remember:
– Naughty Elephants Squirt Water
– Never Eat Slimy Worms
– Never Eat Shredded Wheat
– We used our compass to solve some problems following directions on a card. We had to hold the compass still and flat so that it showed us the correct direction. Can you find out which direction your house faces?
This week we have been learning all about the World. We have focused on finding places using maps, atlases and globes. We have learnt lots of information about different places. We even learnt the names of some of the continents and oceans of the world.
We are working towards making our own non-chronological reports about the world. We have started to think and plan for our writing. Researching different places has been very interesting and we have learnt a lot.
