Numbots
With six Numbots certificates awarded this week, it’s great to see the children continuing to work hard at home to achieve their next level.
Certificates are awarded every Tuesday so let’s see how many more we can achieve before the end of the year.
Super skippers
This week, Year 2 took part in our Skipping School KS1 festival at Leeds Trinity University against four other Leeds schools.
The children have been learning lots of individual and group skipping skills and today it was great to see just how much the children have progressed.
All the class worked hard as a team to earn as many skips as possible in their events. Dexter’s 99 single bounce skips in 30 seconds certainly helped to contribute to our total!
After all the points (skips) were added up, the winning school was announced…
We were so excited and proud to hear we had won!
A huge well done to all the children for fantastic determination, resilience and team work. They have worked so hard by practising in PE, at lunchtime and playtime, at skipping after-school club and even at home!
The festival has been really fun. I feel happy.
I like it because I’ve learnt lots of different skips and people encouraged me.
I feel proud of my skipping.
This is the third year in a row our Year 2 classes have achieved this and we feel very proud of their success.
Design and Technology – What makes a stable structure?
First, we looked at the design process.
PLAN – MAKE – EVALUATE
This week, we have been looking at what makes a stable structure.
A stable structure is strong, has as flat base and is free-standing.
We moulded playdough into different 3D shapes and made predictions about which would be the most stable and why. We placed each structure on a flat surface (a whiteboard) and tipped it. We measured how high we could lift the board until the structure started to roll off.
Help at home by looking at structures in the environment and trying to use our topic vocabulary to describe the structures.
Tennis
Today, Year 2 had a great tennis session with a coach from Roundhay Tennis. This weekend, Roundhay Tennis club are inviting children to attend their free ‘Family Fun Tennis Opens Days’.
Living and Learning: physical health and fitness
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.
How do we manage to achieve our 30 minutes during the school day?
- Daily WUSU
- 2 weekly PE sessions
- Playtimes
- Lunchtime play – front playground, MUGA
- 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, tennis lessons or have a look at our local physical activity guide for more ideas. Don’t forget to do skipping practice for our upcoming festival too.
Roundhay Tennis open days
Maths: length and height
It’s always great to hear about extra learning at home.
Here’s some great measuring.
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 a reading 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 and fresh, frozen, canned, juiced and dried all count.
A portion is about a handful.
In our circle time on this theme, the children thought about what changes or swaps they could make to help them and their families eat healthier.
I could have more fruit or vegetables if I have a packed lunch.
I could have less chocolate and sweets.
You could add some sweetcorn or peas to your pasta for tea.
I could have more fruit and vegetables as a snack.
I could choose fruit instead of cake for my school dinner.
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).
Topic: Heroes
Our topic this half term, Heroes, focuses on significant people throigh history that have made a difference to others and inspired people. We have been looking real life heroes in particular-Nelson Mandela and Leonora Cohen.
The children are learning about their lives and beliefs.
They have been using vocabulary such as apartheid and suffragette to describe what these two historic people stood up for and the difference they made to others.
Last week, it was wonderful to see the children dress up as their real-life heroes. From footballers and teachers to members of the emergency services and soldiers, the variety was fantastic. Some children also chose to honour historical figures who have made a lasting impact, including Florence Nightingale, Alan Turing, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, and a suffragette.
Living and Learning: health and prevention
As part of our learning about health and prevention, we’ve been thinking about the importance of sleep.
Sleep helps your body work and can help you get better if you don’t feel well.
If you don’t have enough sleep, you feel grumpy, you can’t focus and you can’t control yourself.
If you have a busy brain it can be hard to get to sleep.
We read a story about Mia who had trouble sleeping.
Sometimes, things can stop you getting to sleep.
- loud noises
- lights
- nightmares
- being on a screen close to bedtime
- staying up too late
- being too active before bedtime
- if you are scared
- if you have a worry
To help Mia, we thought about the things that can help you get to sleep.
- calm music
- relaxation and mindfulness
- yoga
- reading a book
- counting sheep
- drinking some warm milk
- thinking of something nice that you want to dream about
- being in a dark room
- tidy away your things to have a tidy bedroom
- having a teddy or toy with you
- stop using a screen an hour before bed
As always, we encourage the children to talk to a trusted adult if they are worried about anything we cover in Living and Learning or write down a worry if they prefer.
Help at home: ask your child what they are going to try and do at home to help them with getting to sleep. We’d love to hear what helps. Have a look together at these sleep tips for children.