Yorkshire Wildlife Park
What a truly amazing day we had Yesterday at Yorkshire Wildlife Park! The children all had a brilliant time, were extremely well behaved and learned so much about animals from the visit. The workshop we attended was brilliant! The Brave Year 2 children held cockroaches and African land snails. They also learned more about the types of animals in Yorkshire Wildlife Park and how they look after them.
Living and Learning: money workshop
Today, visitors, from HSBC, came to deliver a money workshop as part of our Living and Learning curriculum.
The workshop, to buy or not to buy, included learning about:
- the difference between a need and a want
- people making different choices about saving and spending money
- prioritising needs over wants
- saving for the things we want
Our visitors were very impressed with the knowledge and participation from the children. The visit supplemented our recent learning about money education so it was great to hear this.
Reading books
Over the next two weeks, we will be using the children’s home reading books and reading record books in class.
Please could your child bring these into school every day.
Books will continue to be changed on Tuesdays and Fridays as normal.
Design Technology – textiles
This half term, our topic learning will be all about textiles and design technology. Over the next few weeks, the children will learn all about the design process, different types of sewing stiches and make their own puppet.
At the end of the topic we will evaluate our product and discuss what went well and anything we could have done differently.
This half term’s topic vocabulary.
Amazing skipping
Today, the day had finally come. It was the event we had been building up to after all our skipping practicing – the Year 2 Skipping Festival!
Jodi, Chris and Katie welcomed us and the other five schools to the event at Armley Leisure Centre. 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…
Double bounce – Rory 1st and Erica 1st
Single bounce – Daniyal 2nd and Roshni joint 1st
Side straddle – Aaron 2nd and Haleema 1st
Side swing – Ibrahim Sh 2nd and Grace 3rd
We were so pleased to have received so many awards. Sadly, we weren’t the winning school but we were amazed to hear that we were in 2nd place out of six schools and that it was very close between us and the winners.
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.
To be told by one of the class at the end of the event, ‘thank you for teaching us to skip’, made it all worthwhile!
Here’s some of the action. Keeeeep skipping!
Year 2 Lexia learning
Nearly 50% of the class have either achieved the end of Year 2 certificate (Level 9) for Lexia or are currently working on this level. Well done to all those children!
As we start our final half term in Year 2, it would be great to see as many of the class as possible achieve this target by the end of this year.
Just ten minutes a day, at home, can help to achieve this.
Please let us know if you have any difficulties with your child’s log in.
Living and Learning: Body image
Body image, as part of our Living and Learning curriculum, uses a focus on self-esteem to promote a positive body image. There is a strong emphasis on appreciating and celebrating everyone’s unique qualities, talents and abilities.
We want to enable pupils to feel proud and confident about who they are and to value their own and each other’s individuality.
Firstly, we talked about what makes us special – maybe something physical or personal. Here are some of the children’s ideas.
I’m special as I love reading books.
I’m special because I can make new friends.
I’m special because I hard try hard with my learning.
I’m special as I’m brave by swimming in a big pool.
I’m special because I’m good at helping others.
Next, we discussed why we have names and what if everyone was nameless?
If we didn’t have names, we wouldn’t be as special as we are.
We have names because we are unique and special.
We need names as we wouldn’t know who people are.
A name makes us special.
Then, we considered why we like different activities.
We like different activities because we are different people.
Some people like different things.
Not everyone likes the same thing because we are all different.
It would be boring if everyone liked the same things. It is good to share each others’ successes and interests.
Remember – not everyone can be good at everything but everyone is good at something.
Finally, we thought about why we look different and what things we can change and what things we can’t change about ourselves.
You can change your personality because if you don’t share with others, you can learn to share.
You can’t change your skin colour.
Listen to this text, Your Body is Awesome, with your child. What is brilliant about their body?
It’s always great to hear the children discussing and sharing ideas in our Living and Learning sessions. The children always have such a lot to say about this key area of our learning. A special mention to Erica who showed fantastic listening skills to all the children as they shared their ideas in this lesson.
Science this half term
This half term, in science, we are biologists and we are learning all about plants.
Here is a summary of the key learning and also the vocabulary we are using.
We used our observation skills when looking at the parts of a plant.
We’ve also been planting seeds and measuring our plants as they start to grow.
In this video, have a look to see what goes on underground when a seed has been planted. What parts of a plant can you see?
We’ve also been doing some gardening in the front playground planters.
It’s been great to see the children spotting plants in their garden and in their neighbourhood.
Can you identify any of the plants? What parts of the plants can you see?
Today, we finished our plants learning with a walk around Moortown Park to see what plants we could spot. We used the Seek App to help to identify plants that we found.
Skipping festival
We are working hard on our skipping skills, that we learnt with Jodi from Skipping School, ready for the Year 2 Skipping Festival that is coming up after half term (Thursday 9 June).
We are very much looking forward to cheering on our friends, watching some great skipping skills and most of all having FUN.
All children will need to bring a packed lunch to eat on our return to school. They should also bring a fruit snack and full water bottle to take with them to the festival.
Please return the permission slip and the photograph permission form to school by Friday 27th May 2022.
Don’t forget that skipping ropes can be purchased from the office at a subsidised cost of £3 for your child to practise these skills at home.
Martial Arts
Today, we enjoyed a martial arts session from Premier Martial arts.
The children were excellent throughout learning some key martial arts skills. They had great focus, listening and enthusiasm. Well done Year 2!
Please refer to the letter brought home tonight, if your child is interested in attending the club.
