Eeeeeeeww! Disgusting Sandwiches!
We have been reading The Disgusting Sandwich by Gareth Edwards in our literacy lessons and today we made our own yukky snacks. The pupils did a great job of making some truly revolting looking sandwiches and were relieved when they were told they didn't actually have to eat them! We are now going to write some great instructions about making disgusting sandwiches. Don't take a look if you are feeling a bit queasy - they might make you sick!
We are film stars!
At the beginning of this half-term Mr Pepper spent a day with Year 2 teaching us about life boats and Grace Darling. As part of this day, we made a film telling the Grace Darling story and explaining what we had learnt. We had great fun acting in front of the green screen and saw the completed epic today. We are all stars!
Watch our movie below:
Pre-Learning Task: Flying & Floating!
For our new Big Question about Grace Darling and Amelia Earhart, pupils were asked to make something that flies and something that floats. We had a hot-air balloon, planes, kites, boats, rafts, catapults and rockets. We even saw some clips showing how well they flew and floated. Well done to all pupils and parents who completed the task. It was a super start to our History question!
Milkshakes!
We have been investigating how to write a set of instructions in our English lessons this week. We began by making milkshakes and we then used our knowledge of instructions features to write up the recipe. Next week we will be making disgusting sandwiches (eeewww!) - we much prefer milkshakes!
World Book Day 2023!
Our meerkat mob looked fantastic today in their World Book Day costumes. Thank you to parents for making such a fantastic effort. It was super hard to choose a costume winner in Year 2!
Throughout the morning, pupils moved round in mixed age groups completing book based activities. It was great to see the Year 2 Meerkats working with and helping the Elephants and Sheep. Not only did the Year 2 pupils look great today but they behaved brilliantly too. You should be very proud of your book-loving offspring!
Grace Darling Day with Mr Pepper
This week we had a whole day of learning through film with Mr Pepper. We looked at clips of different lifeboats and discovered all of the clever things they have on board to help save lives. We then learnt the Grace Darling and discovered what a brave rescue she did! In the afternoon, we saw a real-life lifeboat rescue and then made our own film in front of the green screen. Some of our meerkats did some super acting and all spoke clearly for our lifeboat film. We can't wait to see how it looks with a bit of movie magic! Coming soon to our webpage...
Reading Buddy Treat!
Pupils worked hard on their reading buddy homework this half-term, completing activities from Year 2 reading tests. Their comprehension skills are getting better and better! As a treat for their progress in reading, our meerkat mob watched 'My Neighbour Toturo', a Japanese animated film, and had popcorn, hot chocolate, biscuits and sweets. It was a fun end to our wonderful Big Question work on Japan. Well done meerkats!
Japan Collage!
We have been learning about the artform of collage this half-term and investigated the work of some famous collage artists. We then used our assembling skills to cut and stick lots of things Japanese to make these wonderful Big Question collages. There were lots of happy accidents as we cut, ripped, painted and stuck things down. We could open our own collage gallery!
Japanese Numbers
We have been learning to count to 10 in Japanese. Check out the video clips of our super counting with actions to help us remember each number.
Sumo Suit!
Ever wondered what our meerkats would look like if they trained hard to be sumo wrestlers? Wonder no more! You can see exactly what they would look like as sumo stars!
Infant Agility
Pupils who took part in last week's 'infant agility' event at Alfreton Leisure Centre received their medals today. The whole group did a fantastic job and came joint first. Not only that, they were a credit to the school and our meerkat mob. Well done!
David Nieper Enterprise Morning
Our meerkat mob had a fantastic morning when they visited David Nieper Academy for enterprise activities. We played Top Trumps, designed our own monsters, worked as a team to make a Monster Top Trump card, fashioned a monster from salt dough and created a monster fact file. It was a busy morning! Pupils showed great teamwork in working together to achieve their goals and we almost won the final Top Trumps game against other schools. Behaviour was excellent and the meerkat mob made us very proud!
Thank you to David Nieper for organising the morning and, once again, thank you to Year 2 for being a credit to the school and yourselves.
Japan Day!
Pupils came into school in some great Japanese themed dress-up. They were raring to learn more about Japan as soon as they entered the class. A big thank you to parents for their super efforts in making the day a success. The Japanese Meerkats looked amazing!
The first aspect of Japanese life we looked at was the ancient sport of sumo wrestling. We learnt about the rules and discovered the serious ceremony around each bout that usually lasts only a minute! We went into the hall and had our own sumo tournament. We also had another fun competition based on crazy Japanese game shows.
Since Japan is comprised of over 6000 islands it was not a surprise to discover that they eat a lot of fish. In fact, they have a super healthy diet which enables many Japanese people to live past 100! We tried sushi, wasabi seaweed crisps (they taste as bad as they sound!), rice cakes, chicken noodles, mochi cakes and Hello Panda biscuits. We enjoyed our Japanese feast - well, most of it!
We had some super helpful visitors from David Nieper Academy in the afternoon. Miss Curwen led an origami session and showed us how to fold a lotus flower. It was tricky but we managed it! We then exercised our paper folding skills further and had a go at making making different origami creatures.
When we investigated Japanese life in a bit more detail, we found out that they love all things kawaii (cute). In fact, they even make the lunch in their Bento lunchboxes look super cute. We decorated some kawaii cookies as cute bunnies, kittens and bears. See our yummy kawaii skills below!
We had a great day learning more about a very different country. We are looking forward to the rest of our Big Question lessons this term. It is a shame we cannot go on a school trip to Japan! A BIG thank you to Miss Curwen and the lovely Year 8's from David Nieper who helped with some of our activities - we would still be folding lotus flowers now without your guidance!
Working Together!
In our Jigsaw PSHE lesson this week we were tasked with creating a dream bird. We had to work in random groups and show that we could work collaboratively to achieve our end goal. All groups kept a positive attitude and did some great learning together. The finished birds showed what great teamwork our Year 2s can do. Nobody fell out at all! We can work collaboratively like a real meerkat mob!
Texture Painting
This afternoon we recreated the textures we found on our forest hunt using paint and a selection of different tools to apply it. Pupils are getting very good at mixing colours and hues from the 3 primary colours. There were some impressive textures in our sketch books. We have some very arty meerkats this year!
Texture Hunt!
Today we went over to Forest School for our art lesson and hunted for different textures. We discussed what 'texture' means and brainstormed different vocabulary. Our eagle eyed meerkats found lots of great examples and some pupils took texture rubbings too. We will use the textures we found in class tomorrow when we mix colours and use different tools to recreate them. Thank you to Miss Thompson for joining us for a spot of forest art!
Colour Mixing!
In our art lesson this week we considered primary and secondary colours and how we can make a whole rainbow of colours by mixing only the three primary colours. Our first task was to experiment making secondary colours by moving very runny paint around a paper filled tray. We were then challenged to create a colour wheel using only red, yellow and blue. There were some super colourful results!
Sorting Animals
In our Science lesson this week we thought about animals and their young. We classified animals into mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. We also thought about which animals we know that give birth to live young and how some young animals look just like their adults and others not so much! One of our activities was to sort and match animals with their young. We did a great job!
Christmas Stockings!
Our D & T project this half-term was to sew and make a pouch. We designed and made Christmas stockings. We showed some super sewing skills and decorated our stockings with felt shapes cut from templates and Christmas fabric cuttings. We ran out time to complete our plan by adding a button, bell and hanging ribbon but these are inside so we can complete the project at home, if we wish. Our projects look amazing and are a wonderful Christmassy decoration. We hope Santa puts a present inside!
Continents Mobiles
We completed our Big Question 'Which continent would make the best home for Sunny the meerkat?' by making our continents mobiles. We researched facts about 3 different continents and wrote them neatly onto fact cards. We then made our paper plate map of the world which took some careful cutting! Our finished mobiles look amazing! Test us on our continents knowledge - we have learnt lots this term!
Reading Buddy Treat!
Well done to our whole meerkat mob who earnt their second Reading Buddy treat afternoon. Fantastic reading from everyone!
We had a a Christmas themed P.E. session with Santa / Reindeer team games followed by a snack back in class to keep our energy levels up. We then went back into the hall for 'Floor Is Lava' using the apparatus. All of the pupils were very sensible on the equipment and worked together (like a real meerkat mob!) to have a fun afternoon.
All of their reading tasks are really paying off too - they are a fantastic cohort of bookworms! A special thumbs up to all the meerkats who completed their Christmas Reading Advent Calendar. I have really enjoyed seeing you tackle each task on Seesaw and am impressed with how hard you work. You deserve a school holiday very soon! Ho! Ho! Ho!
Christmas Party Day!
We had a great Christmas Party Day today! We watched an entertainer and even saw some magic. We then did some different Christmas crafts and created some super decorations. After lunch, we played party games, had party food and then had a visit from Mr Christmas himself: Santa! What a fun day!
Snowball the Elf!
We have had a visitor in class since December 1st - our class elf 'Snowball'! He has been having lots of cheeky fun in Meerkats class.
Meerkats know Meerkats!
Our meerkat mob wrote non-chronological reports about meerkats! They wrote some super sentences and finished off their non-fiction booklets with a great cover too. They know lots of meerkat facts to share with you!
Repeat Pattern Printing!
Pupils used a variety of objects to print a repeat pattern. Some of our results would make great wrapping paper!
Spotty Maths!
Our meerkat mob looked fantastic dressed in their Pudsey gear today and we did some spotty maths for Children In Need. We used smarties and straws for base ten and practiced adding and subtracting tens and ones. There were some tricky subtractions with exchanges but the incentive of eating smarties at the end of the lesson worked wonders and we got lots of answers correct!
Giant Map Work!
As part of our current Big Question about continents and oceans, we went into the hall and unrolled the huge world map. First, we identified the continents and oceans and then we tried to place different animals where we thought they would live. Lots of our meerkat mob were very good at recognising whether an animal would live in a cold or warm place. We also placed ourselves where we would like to visit and next to an animal we would love to see in the wild. We have some budding travellers and zoologists in Year 2!
Science: Re-using and Recycling!
Our recent science homework was to reuse something we were going to throw away and make it into something useful or fun. Lots of pupils had a go at this task and made some super things. We made bird feeders, butterflies, a watering can, pom poms, robots, Halloween decorations, a clever Christmas lights reel, money boxes and some great pencil pots! We have shown what great 'Garbage Gurus' we are with our work on materials this year. Check out our fantastic re-using below...
Black History Week.
We learnt about the Black History Hero - Rosa Parks during our learning this week. We thought about whether good people can be arrested and what standing up for what you believe in might actually involve. We also made a Rosa Parks comic strip, telling her story and unscrambled a famous image of her. We now know a great deal about Rosa Parks - ask us!
Printing The Great Fire
We completed our Big Question work today by printing a scene from the Great Fire of London. We had made our backgrounds using warm colours and collage and created a printing block of a Tudor house ready for printing. Using rollers and ink we printed our design and created some super artwork. It was a little bit messy but good fun and the results were amazing. What arty meerkats!
Reading Buddy Treat!
We had our first treat for completing our Reading Buddy homework. Every meerkat has been practicing their reading comprehension this term - well done! We had a Halloween party which was frighteningly fun! Lots of us dressed up in spooky costumes - thank you to parents for making this possible!
We made bats and spiders. It took a while so Halloween crafts will be one of our Golden Time activities this week for pupils who missed out.
We had some spooky snacks. Yum! Yum!
We also played some games, such as making the best mummy during a Halloween song!
Meerkat Maths!!
We have been learning our 2 times table and will soon be practicing on TT Rock Stars to improve our multiplication facts. To help with our 2's we made times table spinners and are aiming to know these facts off by heart to achieve our first maths target.
Great Fire of London: The Animated Movie!
Our first ICT group used their i-pad animation skills this week to recreate the fire breaking out in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane. Watch our finished clip below. Further episodes will be uploaded as we complete them. What will happen? Can Thomas put the fire out quickly? Will it be forever known as the 'Small Bakery Fire of London?'
We are animators!
This half-term we have been learning about animation in our computing lessons. We began by making a flipbook and investigating how objects in pictures can appear to move if you view them quickly. We then found out about stop-motion animation and we had a go at making our own space themed clips. You can see a few of our creations below. Each pupil has uploaded their clip onto SeeSaw too. It takes a long time to make just a short clip but we enjoyed creating our own mini-movies!
Hayley & Eva's clip:
Reed & Oscar:
Georgia & Sienna:
Lizzie & Max:
Burning Houses on the Playground!
When we made our little Tudor houses in class and pupils couldn't wait to burn them!
One of our Big Question learning challenges was to find out if fire spreads easier when things are close together. We made cardboard houses and did a little investigation on the playground. We arranged half of our houses tightly packed together, just like London houses were in 1666. We then arranged the other half more spread out. We set fire to one house in each arrangement and observed what happened. We quickly saw the reason the Great Fire spread so quickly back in 1666! Check out our investigation below:
Forest School Science!
It was a bit wet and soggy when we went to Forest School this week but it didn't prevent us from having lots of forest fun! We spent a few minutes with the animals before heading to the log circle in the forest.
Despite the rain, Laura managed to light the campfire and we tested different materials to answer our investigation question 'Which material is best for rebuilding London after the Great Fire of 1666?' The pupils showed what clever scientists they are and discussed the properties of different materials. Miss Thompson was very impressed and handed out many dojos.
After our super science, we had time to explore and play. We were nature detectives and hunted for examples of different colours in the Autumn woods. Pupils also went mini-best hunting, played in the mud kitchen and had a great time swinging!
To finish off our afternoon, we had stewed fruit with homemade biscuits and flapjack around the campfire. It was delicious! Thank you Miss Thompson! A bit of rain doesn't stop our meerkat mob doing super science! We had a great time in the forest.
Comparing Crocodiles!
We made snapping crocodiles in maths this week to help us compare different representations of numbers. Pupils showed some great place value knowledge and are fantastic at working with tens and ones.
Arty Meerkats!
We have been creating lots of fantastic art in Year 2 this week. We had an art morning led by Miss Walton which we all enjoyed a lot. She taught us about Vincent Van Gogh and his amazing paintings. Did you know he painted over 2000 pictures in just 10 years?! Inspired by his Sunflowers painting, we had a go ourselves after watching Miss Walton create some brilliant sunflowers. Have a look at our wonderful sunflower art!
Great Fire of London Pre-learning Task!
Our pre-learning task for our very first Big Question was to create a poster, leaflet or video telling the rest of the class some fire safety tips. The posters and videos we created could be used by Derbyshire Fire Service because they are eye-catching and contain lots of useful information. Our Meerkat Class are fantastic at fire safety! Check out our wonderful work. We did have some brilliant video clips too, they were super clear and contained lots of great information and even some demonstrations of Stop! Drop! And Roll!
Materials Detectives!
Our new meerkat mob had a fantastic first week in Year 2 and I am very excited to be teaching such a clever bunch of pupils! In our first science lessons all of the meerkats showed what a great deal they know about materials and their properties already! After discussing different objects and what they are made from, we put on super specs and hunted around the classroom for evidence of different materials. We found lots of things and sorted and categorised them really well. We even discussed objects made from multiple materials. What super scientists!
Reading Buddies!
We have had a fantastic start to the new school year in Meerkats class! As well as showing our wonderful number knowledge, writing super sentences and thinking about our first Big Question, we have been busy making our reading buddies to help us with our reading homework. They look great and we can't wait for our first homework task next week!
Meet this year's Marvellous Meerkat mob!!
We had a fantastic transition morning and, as you can see, the whole mob are marvellous at drawing meerkats. A great start to Year 2!
