Living and Learning: relationships
For the last few weeks, our Living and Learning lessons and circle times have been all about happy and healthy relationships between our friends, peers and families.
Here we thought about different words that we associate with families and we read some texts about how not all families are the same and that is ok. The children enjoyed sharing special members of their family.
The Great big book of families by Mary Hoffman
We have already learnt about consent in terms of permission seeking when online but here we thought about it when we are with others. We practised showing how we give and don’t give consent and how we can also change our mind if we want to.
Finally, you will have seen the children have brought home the NSPCC Pants Underwear rule. We revisit this important learning every year.
Help at home: read the NSPCC pants underwear rule with your child/children and think about how this keeps you safe. This parent guide is available too.
Super skippers
Today, the day had finally come. It was the event we had been building up to after all our skipping practising – the Year 2 Skipping Festival!
Jodi, Chris and Katie welcomed us and the other four schools to the event at Leeds Trinity University. First of all, there was a skipping warm up for everyone before the individual skippers did their events. The children were so encouraging and supportive to their class mates and every child tried their best and performed amazingly well.
Next, it was time for the group events. The children worked so well together in their teams and once again, we were so proud of what they have achieved. Even in the last few days, we have seen some of the children mastering these new skills.
Finally, it was time for the results. The tension was mounting.
We were so pleased to have received so many awards and to hear that we were the winning school made all the hard work and preparation worth while. What an achievement!
The children have been so resilient, determined and have definitely believed in themselves (even when it has been hard learning new skills) and we are very proud of them all.
Magnificent Maths!
We have started this half term learning about statistics and measures. Last week, Year 2 learned how to recognise, create and interpret tally charts, block diagrams and pictograms.
For the next two weeks, we are learning how to measure mass and capacity. We will also be looking carefully at reading scales in grams (g) , kilograms (kg) , millilitres (ml) and litres (l).
Help at home by looking at different scales. Can you weigh items and say how much the mass is in g or kg?
Living and Learning:physical activity
Our latest Living and Learning sessions have been all about the importance of exercise and how we need to keep active to keep our bodies and our minds healthy.
We thought about all the things we had done since waking up. Then, we checked which ones were active.
Practised gymnastics
Wake up Shake up
Walking to school
Playing tig with friends at playtime
Classroom skipping brain break
Pull ups
The NHS guidance states that children and young people should ‘aim for an average of at least 60 minutes (30 minutes in school and 30 minutes out of school) of moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity a day across the week’. We know that the exercise we need to do to achieve this, should increase our heart rate.
We thought about how we manage to achieve our 30 minutes during the school day.
- Daily WUSU
- 2 weekly PE sessions
- Playtimes
- Lunchtime play
- Go Noodle, Supermovers and active counting in class
- Jogging around the playground for brain breaks
- After school clubs
Help at home – try a new physical activity out of school – maybe a local Junior park run, local cricket lessons or tennis lessons. Practice some skipping ready for our skipping festival.
We are biologists
This half-term, we’re biologists, learning specifically about plants.
Here’s a list of key words that we’ve been learning as part of our topic.
seed: the part of a plant which can grow into a new plant
bulbs: the round underground part of a plant that contains food for the plant (eg onion bulb, daffodil bulb, tulip bulb)
basic needs: the things that a plant needs to live
temperature: a measurement of how hot or cold something is
growth: an increase in size
healthy: feeling well and happy
germinate: when a seed begins to grow into a plant
seedling: a young plant grown from a seed
Throughout this learning, we have been carrying two investigations.
How do bulbs grow? What do plants need to help them grow?
We put some onion bulbs in different conditions and observed the changes over time.
Ask your child to explain what had happened.
What do seeds need to germinate?
After observing and comparing different seeds, we planted seeds in different locations (and therefore different conditions). All the plants were given water.
Week 1
After one week, this is what had happened. The seeds had germinated in two out of the three locations. Even though the seedlings had started to grow in the cupboard and the classroom, they looked different and we observed these differences.
After two weeks, we were surprised to see that the seeds in the fridge had started to germinate. There were only small seedlings and they looked pale and not very healthy. The seedlings in the classroom on the window sill were definitely looking the healthiest with lots of dark green leaves.
We’ve also noticed a change in the tree in the front playground. How has it changed?
Help at home this week, the children have taken home their own planted sunflower seed to look after. Read the instructions to help the plant to grow as best as it can. We’d love to see how the plants are getting on!
Basketball
City of Leeds Basketball, who provide our after-school basketball clubs, have a range of sessions for children of all ages.
Visit their website to book.
Living and Learning: healthy eating
Our latest Living and Learning theme has been all about healthy eating.
This video helps to explain the importance of healthy eating as part of living healthily. The Eatwell Guide is a key document to show how much of what we eat overall should come from each food group to achieve a healthy, balanced diet. The bigger the section the more food from that group we should eat. The balance of foods from each group does not need to be achieved with every meal but we should aim for the balance over a day or even a week.
We used the Eatwell Guide as part of our reading fluency text too.
In our next Living and Learning session, we thought about the 5 a day message. Having at least 5 (ideally different) portions of fruit and vegetables keeps us healthy. These could be different types of fruit and vegetables.
A portion is about a handful.
Here were some tips for achieving your 5 a day.
You could have some banana on your cereal.
If you put some cucumber in your sandwich, that would be an extra portion.
You could add some sweetcorn or peas to your pasta for tea.
Have some fruit or vegetable sticks when you get home from school.
We also thought about our recent design and technology food preparation of overnight oats and how we used a variety of fruits (frozen, tinned, fresh and dried) in that recipe.
Help at home look at the Eatwell guide together and think about any improvements that could be made. This may be having an extra vegetable a day, trying a new fruit or vegetable, switching to brown bread or pasta or having a healthier snack after school.
More healthy eating ideas can be found by signing up to these Healthy Steps emails from Better Health (formally Change4Life).
Meet the weather!
Today, Year 2 were lucky enough to have another author event. Online, we listened to Caryl Hart and Bethan Woolvin introduce their new book ‘Meet the weather’. This is the third book in the series. We enjoyed ‘Meet the oceans’ in Year 1 so knew we’d like this book too.
Caryl Hart read the book to us and we enjoyed seeing all the wonderful illustrations by Bethan Woolvin. The book is a great introduction to all the difference types of weather and supports our science learning.
During the online event, we sang a weather song, listened to the story and did a draw along with Bethan.
Help at home by talking about the weather and seasons. What is the weather like today?
King’s Coronation!
Today, we have celebrated the upcoming king’s coronation. The children looked very colourful in their red, white and blue clothes. We have enjoyed a delicious picnic lunch in the hall, an informative assembly about the coronation and some craft activities. We made crowns, bookmarks and a collage.
Help at home by talking about the coronation and enjoying the coronation weekend with family.
Learning at home
We continue to award learning at home certificates every Tuesday for Lexia, Numbots and Times Tables Rock Stars. These are for achievement and effort.
Congratulations to the eleven children who have achieved their Level 9 (end of Year 2 learning) certificate for Lexia and the additional five children who are working on Level 9 currently.
For those children working towards Level 9, please continue to work on Lexia at home (little and often is best!).
