Week beginning 24.04.16

Maths

This week it's been all about the money in maths as we have been mentally adding a range of coins; finding different ways of making a target amount and using written methods to add larger amounts. We can now add together numbers with 2 decimal places. 

Literacy 

It's been a very creative week during our literacy lessons, as we have been creating our own poems using metaphors. We first looked at the difference between metaphors and similes in a matching game. Then we have looked at photographs, pictures and video footage of peacocks and making metaphors to describe their movement, sound and visual appearance. We then put all of our ideas together and wrote a poem in the style of the seventeenth century poem 'I Saw a Peacock'.

Science 

In science we have got up close to nature, as we looked at the role and function of the parts of a flowering plant. 

Art

We developed our fine brush work skills and working at speed, as we blended together stains to create images of peacocks. Look at the blog next week to see some of our stunning results.

A big thank-you to everybody that came to the Year 2 SATs meeting. Remember if you have anything you would like to discuss about the upcoming assessments or any of your child's learning in school, please just pop in after school. 

Week beginning 17.04.17

We have hit the ground running in Seahorse class, as we start the final term of the academic year. We just can't believe that our time together is going so quickly!

Literacy 

We started the week with some grammar work; looking at different types of sentences. We defined and gave examples of simple sentences. Then we got more creative, joining clauses together to make compound sentences and even learnt about using special conjunctions that help create complex sentences with sub-ordinate clauses. Phew! We have also enjoyed the start to our new poetry unit. We have looked at the way professional poets such as Micheal Rosen perform and picked up some tips, as we delivered our own performance. 

We also had a poetry appreciation lesson, as we took some time to look through books and select our favourite poems before explaining our thoughts, ideas and opinions about them. 

Maths 

Maths this week has been all about the scales. We have been placing missing numbers on number lines and calculating the increments on a variety of scales. We have been learning about the units used to measure different quantities and reading a range scales. 

Topic

This terms topic is 'Rain forests'   and we already know that we are just going to love learning all about them. So far we have got the atlases and globes out again, as we locate the main rain forests around the world. We discovered that most were found around the equator due to the specific weather patterns. We have also learnt that this unique habitat is split into micro-habitats, as we learnt all about the layers of the rain forest. Looking at the different layers and seeing how the environmental conditions and wildlife vary between them. Ask us what they are called.

P.E

In P.E this week we had a fun lesson finishing off some of last terms work. When we learnt that the ancient Greeks started the Olympics, we thought it might be fun to try some of the traditional events. We decided against the wrestling (on health and safety grounds!) but had a go at the rest of the ancient pentathlon games such as: discus, javelin, 200 stad and standing jump. 

In other news...it's fantastic to see some very impressive rain forest homework coming in already. Keep up the hard work and remember that you have the whole half term to make up your 12 points. 

Also, I am aware that in year three a lot of new methods for calculating with larger numbers are introduced. If you would like to discuss these methods further or discuss you child's progress with them, please do not hesitate to pop in after school. 

Week Beginning 27.03.17

Where has the time gone! Another term has flown by, as we start our Easter break and Seahorse class have definitely earned it, with all the hard work they have been doing this term.

We have really enjoyed literacy this week as we have been writing our very own myths. Not to shy away from a challenge, we have written an extra chapter for the 'The Odyssey' by the classic writer Homer. We have been: organising our writing into paragraphs; using fronted adverbials; including expanded noun phrases and inserting subordinating conjunctions. Phew! What a lot to remember! It has been worth the hard work though because our end results are just fantastic. If you would like to read some of our stories just pop in after school. 

In maths, we have been problem solving. We have been thinking about which method to use when solving mixed operation word problems and deciding which is the most efficient method for different problems. We have also been driving ourselves a little bit potty with magic square puzzles; using lots of trial and error before finding the right answer. 

We have really enjoyed our 'Ancient Times' topic this term and will quite sad to move on. We finished off our work by looking at different types of artefacts and seeing what we could learn from them and how archaeologists build up a picture of the past. 

The seahorses became the teachers in science this week as Miss Palmer handed over control of the learning to the class. We were given the name of a famous scientist and had to work as tam to research all about their life and achievements and create a way of presenting this information to the class. We all learnt a lot and and showed just what we could achieve when we all worked together. 

Finally,  a massive thank-you to those who came to share in Easter celebrations at the local church. I think you will agree, the Seahorses gave a stunning performance of their poem prayers; showing off their reading skills and delivering with such confidence in front of so many people.Well done!  

Week beginning 20.03.17

Literacy 

We have had a fantastic week this week in literacy designing our own mythical island. We have been  drawing our ideas and describing features using expanded noun phrases and giving a guided tour of our islands. We have been looking at sentence starts and experimenting with opening them in a variety of ways. Such as starting with: an expanded noun phrase, starting with a preposition, time adverb or even a fronted adverbial. Of course we have been selecting adventurous adjectives too!

Maths

In maths, we have been getting our head around some mental methods for calculating. We have been using our knowledge of partitioning to add and subtract near multiples of 10 and 100 by rounding and adjusting and we have been identifying the operation in multiplication and division word problems.

History

We have been getting groovy with the ancient Greek gods and we have been working together to create fact books. 

PE

In PE we have been working on our body control  and core strength as we learn new moves in yoga. 

In other news...don't forget our Easter celebration is taking place next week on Wednesday 29th March at 9:15 am in Necton church. The children will be singing, performing poems and reading prayers and everybody is welcome!

Week Beginning 13.03.17

It's been an explosive this week in Necton Primary School as we have enthusiastically embraced British Science Week. Everyday we have been forming hypothesis, conducting experiments and discussing results based around the topic of change.  

On Monday we looked at different states of matter during our changing matters session. We identified, sorted and classified different solids, liquids and gases and observed some of the changes between the states. We then mixed cornflour and water to make a strange paste that acted like a solid under pressure but once released flowed like a liquid. Weird!

Tuesday, we were helping to save the world, as we looked at our changing environment by learning about the greenhouse affect and what affect it had on penguin populations in the South Pole. We joined an online, international data collection experiment to help count the penguins in different colonies, so scientists can monitor their health. We loved looking at all of the icy webcam pictures and tagging all of the penguins that we could see. If you would like to have a go at home, just visit https://www.penguinwatch.org/ and get counting!

On Wednesday we got a little bit artistic as we observed some changing colours. We watched food colouring and washing up liquid battle for control over the surface area of a plate a milk and made some glorious patterns as we watched the ingredients in skittles spread out into water making colourful solutions fit for an art gallery wall. 

Thursday and Friday we looked at changing materials as we combined two materials to see what reaction we could get. We watched as we created the now classic coke bottle fountain, when a Mento mint encouraged the bubbles go crazy and jet into the sky. Our favorite experiment was definitely when we made our own lava lamps by mixing oil, water food colouring and effervescent tables. Ask us all about the science we observed. 

Of course we have still packed the week with our normal lessons from the curriculum designing and describing mythical creatures ready for our ancient myth writing next week as we learn all about our hero Odysseus in The Odyssey. 

In maths, we have been tackling written methods for multiplication and division by calculating with two and three digit numbers. 

In other news, well done Mikey for getting Wonderful Work this week for your excellent scientific insights during our class discussions. 

Week Beginning 27.02.17

What a fantastic World Book Day! Everybody in the Seahorse class made a fantastic effort with their costume and we had a lovely time guessing who everybody had dressed up as. The clues were very imaginative and cryptic. We had an excellent range of costumes and I think we have all learnt about some new books that we would want to read soon. 

Literacy 

We have had great fun in literacy this week as we wrote our very own play scripts. We started by writing a story map. Some of us chose to write an alternative ending to a play we have been studying and others rose to the challenge of turning a complete story into a play script. some even chose to change a Greek myth! We made sure we included all the key features and even had a go acting them out to make sure they worked.  

Science 

In science, we got up close with the soil beneath our feet. We collected soil from different parts of the school and made some careful observations using magnifying glasses and thought about why soil is different, what it is made up of and why it is so important. 

Numeracy 

In numeracy, we have been finishing off our work using the column method. We have been practising subtraction with double exchanges, using the inverse to check our calculations and  identifying the operation needed in mixed word problems.