World book day
Today, on World Book Day, Year 2 and Year 6 shared some of their favourite books. The children really enjoyed reading to each other and sharing books. 
Living and Learning: MindMate
This half term our Living and Learning lessons are based around the MindMate learning themes of emotions and friendships.
Our first lesson was based around strong emotions and exploring and describing how it feels to be sad/unhappy.
We thought about how others might express feelings of unhappiness and if they did feel unhappy, to practise asking, and listening to, others about what makes them unhappy.
We reinforced that everyone feels sad or unhappy at times and that’s natural.
In our circle time on the same theme, the children suggested some things to do if they were feeling sad.
Would it help if…
- you talked to a friend or a trusted adult
- you wrote down how you felt
- you played with a friend or brother or sister
- you read a book
- you went for a walk
- you did some exercise
As part of this lesson, we did two of the mindfulness exercises taken from this website.
This week, we started our Living and Learning lesson by working together to match emotions to the pictures and explaining the choices.
We recognised that facial expressions can give a big clue as to how someone is feeling.
This video of two friends shows lots of characteristics of a good friendship and a healthy relationship. Friends do have fall outs and we talked about what to say to someone who is feeling upset because they have fallen out with a friend, being teased or is feeling left out.
This was done by putting themselves in their shoes.
Help at home – ask your child to practise what they might say to someone who is being teased or feeling left out.
SATs information session
Supporting our school charity
St Gemma’s Hospice is our current school charity chosen democratically by the children.
Today, we welcomed Steph and Stewart from St Gemma’s Hospice for an assembly to find out more about the fantastic work they do in our local community.
Here, two of our junior leaders are presenting them with a cheque for £377 for the money we have raised so far.
Steph and Stewart commented on the impressive behaviour of the children and the intelligent questions they asked.
Our junior leaders are planning a visit to the hospice over the next few weeks to continue this partnership.
Living and Learning: online safety and Safer Internet Day
Over the last two weeks, Year 2 have been learning about four main areas of online safety (plus lots of other online safety tips too).
- I know that there are sometimes age restrictions online.
- I know that passwords are important.
- I know that some things online may not be true.
- I know that I shouldn’t share personal information online.
We welcomed Dave from d:side last week to support this learning and this week was Safer Internet Day.
We thought about how and why we might use the internet. Here’s some of the class’ favourite things to do online.
We’ve had lots of discussions about staying safe online. Here the children are sorting websites into those we would trust (eg our school website, well known websites such as the BBC website) and those we wouldn’t trust (eg a pop up telling you that you have won something).
We learnt that the padlock next to the web address tells us this is a secure and trusted site.
This video reinforced key messages about not everything online is true (this could be people or information) and the importance of not sharing any of your personal information.
These texts all have important online safety messages and our daily poem this week is this online safety rhyme.
Throughout this learning, we reinforced the message that if the children were unsure or something didn’t feel right they should always Start Telling Other People and let a trust adult know.
We even got to meet Buddy (NSPCC mascot), who was visiting Year 5 and 6, and it was great that the children all remembered him from our recent Speak out Stay safe NSPCC assembly.
Help at home: here are the PEGI age ratings. Ask your child what they are for and why they are important.
We are scientists
This half term, we have been learning all about materials and their properties.
Firstly, we identified and described lots of different materials all around us making sure we knew the difference between the object and the material.
For example, this is a table. The material it is made from is wood. Hard, smooth and opaque are some of its properties.
Here’s the vocabulary we have been learning and using in this topic.
Are all objects made out of the same material?
We thought about an object (spoons) that can be made out of different materials – wooden spoon, metal spoon and plastic spoon. We discussed the properties and uses of each spoon and why that material had been used. This made us think about other objects that can be made from different materials – chairs, clothes, bags, shoes and lots more!
Is all paper absorbent?
After an initial prediction, this comparative investigation involved dropping water onto different types of paper to see how much water was absorbed by the paper.
The children made some great observations reflecting back to their predictions.
Alongside this learning about materials, we are using our working scientifically skills to observe over time. Every week, we measure the temperature using a thermometer and record the weather and later in the year we will use this data to look for any patterns.
This deciduous tree is in our front playground and we are taking weekly photos to observe how the tree changes over time across the different seasons.
Help at home: ask your child how they think the tree will change and when those changes might happen.
Living and Learning: being safe
In our Living and Learning lessons, we have been thinking about being safe in a variety of situations.
Here we are sorting some activities, that all have an element of risk, depending on whether they pose a low or high risk. There were some different opinions and the children were able to justify the decisions they had made.
We also played this hazard identification game to spot and learn about potential risks when at home.
The wires are going across the carpet. Someone might trip up over them.
The candles are burning close to the curtains so they might catch fire.
There’s a hot drink near the edge of the table. Someone might knock it off and it would burn them.
Our reading fluency text this week also has a being safe theme.
The NSPCC Speak out Stay safe assembly gave a very clear message about being safe and in our weekly circle time, the children were all able to say how they would seek help (Start Telling Other People).
Help at home by reinforcing these important safety messages ready for your homework this week.
The NSPCC has also developed an adapted version of their assembly for parents/carers to use at home with their children and some resources that can be used to enable further discussion whilst doing activities with your children.
You’ll also find online safety information for families of children with additional needs and disabilities.
Childline also have a website with age-appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.
Exploring our locality
On Friday, as part of our topic, Year 2 went on a walk around the local area. We planned a route around Moortown and decided to stop at five different locations to rate the noise, safety, traffic, litter, plants/trees and recycling bins in each place. The children were extremely safe and followed our school rules on our walk. We had some great discussions about what we noticed and will be evaluating our results next week.
Skipping school
Today, we welcomed Katie from skipping school into school for the morning. Year 2 have had a fantastic morning learnings lots of different skills in preparation for the skipping festival in the summer. Over the next few months, we will be practising all the different skips we have been taught in PE lesson and at playtimes. We really encourage children to practise at home too. Skipping ropes are available to purchase from school.
Well done, Year 2!
A HUGE well done to all the children this afternoon for performing so well in their second class assembly of the year. Thank you for coming to share this with them.
We are very proud of their confidence to speak in front of such a big audience and for taking responsibility to learn their lines and the songs and poems.
There’s a class reward for them tomorrow!