Poppies, Remembrance, poems and Hilary Robinson.
14/11/2015 at 9:59 AM
Inspired by the wonderful book, ‘Where the poppies now grow,’ by Hilary Robinson and our trip to see Poppy:wave at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, we have been busy working on a collaborative art project and being poets.
Every child in Year 2 created a large poppy, using metallic paper and layers of tissue paper. Attached together with split pins and then secured into thick straws with a wooden screwer inside them. Some of the children found the large poppies really challenging to make, but then when we made the smaller poppies they discovered that their struggle had helped them and now they could master these smaller poppies with more confidence. Together we created over 200 small poppies and these were wired into a single piece of art, so it could be displayed with the large poppies and then taken to the Farsley War memorial. On Wednesday, 11th November at 11.00 all the children from the North Building, stood together at the end of playtime, on the playground, near our poppy display and stood for the 2 minutes silence. We finished with a short few words of remembrance for all the soldiers of the 1st and 2nd World War, but also for those who have lost their lives in war and together we prayed for peace across the world.
The child created word webs about poppies and war, thinking about descriptive adjectives and verbs and adverbs to describe movements and actions. Having used these words and phrases to create verses for their poems, we spent time reading them together and making changes to improve them. Again we discovered that good learning can feel like a struggle, we had to think hard and kept making mistakes, but gradually we saw some amazing poems created from our hard work.
On Thursday we walked together down to the Farsley War Memorial, carrying with us our special poppy wreath. The children with their poems formed a circle round the memorial and the rest of the class walked round listening to each poem being read out. We then all held hands together and stood in silence to respect the soldiers from Farsley and all those who have died in war. We prayed together for peace. It was a very special trip and I would like to thank the family members who came on the trip with us too.
Here are photographs of 2C on their trip too.
On Friday we were thrilled to welcome the author of the book that had inspired our poems, Hilary Robinson. She came and visited both 2F and 2C and read her story, ‘The Christmas Truce,’ to the children. Do look at her website http://www.hilaryrobinson.co.uk/, it has lots of information about her and the wonderful books that she has written. The children listed carefully and we learned a lot about the stories behind the book and the illustrations. She talked to the children too about how as an author, she spends a long time thinking about ideas and often comes up with the ending first, then the title and then fills in the rest, drafting and redrafting until she is happy with the book. She encouraged us all to be authors and to keep writing. Some of the children read their poems to her and I know she was really impressed with the quality of the children’s writing.
Here is a short video of Hilary Robinson reading the beginning of ‘The Christmas Truce,’ with the children.
We would all like to thank Hilary Robinson for coming to visit us. It was a very special end to a wonderful week inspired by her book. 🙂
Maths, learning our tables and drawing arrays.
14/11/2015 at 9:01 AM
It is wonderful to see so many children really enjoying their Maths learning and developing a really positive attitude towards their Maths learning. We have talked about the importance of challenge and how easy work doesn’t stretch our brain, so now we all take on challenges, and often our learning can feel quite a struggle, but then when we get there, we are really proud of our new learning. You can almost feel the heat coming off the children’s heads as they grapple with Maths….
At the end of one of our Maths lessons we watched this video and discussed what Jo Boaler and her students tell us.You might like to watch the video at home and talk about it with your family. I would really appreciate your thoughts as comments on this post.
We have been learning our tables using a book called 2×2=Boo! A fitting book for this time of year, as it is a spooky collection of multiplication stories!
We created the times tables with objects and also learned how to draw arrays. We saw how we could turn the array around and so saw that multiplications can be swapped around in the same way as additions.
When we had learned how to do arrays we did a task from Jo Boaler, the professor of Maths at Stanford University’s website, Youcubed. The task was to use a dice and record arrays on a 100 square and keep going until you couldn’t fit the array on to the sheet. The first time we did it, some of didn’t think about where we were placing the arrays and soon we couldn’t find a space for our next array. We had lots of unfilled spaces. We started to think more carefully and tried again. Some of even tackled the task with a 400 square and a 9 sided dice. You might even like to try the challenge at home. Post a comment to let me know how you get on.
I assigned the children some brilliant games on Mathletics to help them practise this learning. Some have finished them, but others still have a few to complete. Some children have been bringing in sheets of extra practise for their times tables, we will be busy ticking off objectives on their Maths Learning Journey next week!
Do the strictly.
14/11/2015 at 7:47 AM
Below is the tutorial for learning how to dance the strictly. Everyone is KS1 has been set the challenge of learning this. It is quite tricky, so it will take practise and determination to learn the dance.
Last week, when I couldn’t blog…
14/11/2015 at 7:15 AM
Here is the email that was sent home last week.
Dear parents,
While you are able to view our Year 2 blog, the administration part of it is down. It will be sorted very soon, but in the meanwhile, here is a brief update of last week’s learning and this week’s events.
Thank you to everyone who attended parents evening on Tuesday or Wednesday. Miss Cuthbert and myself really enjoyed the evenings. It was good to be able to share all your child’s learning with you.
In Literacy we learned about Guy Fawkes and the events of the Gun Powder plot on November 5th 1605. We then used fireworks as the inspiration for some more poetry writing. When the blog is up again, I will post some of the children’s poems; they are fabulous. We learned how to use onomatopoeia and alliteration. We also used our knowledge of creating noun phrase by using adjectives to describe the fireworks and we remembered to use comma to separate the adjectives. Next week, we will continue to be poets but our theme is based around Remembrance Day and the 1st World War.
In Maths we have started to learn our tables. We used a book called ‘2×2 =BOO!’ and discovered the secrets of the ‘0’ and ‘1’ times table.
(Ask your child!) We then learned about drawing arrays to help us visualise multiplication and we worked on our 2x and 5x table. The children were assigned games on Mathletics to help them to pracitse their learning.
Learning Logs have been sent home and the new task is to choose a country and find out about it. This will be shared with the class, when we start our next topic, ‘Wonderful World.’
Spelling books are now going to go home every week, with 4 or 5 words from the New Curriculum Spelling List for Year 2. Please encourage your child to learn these words and also to write them out neatly, thinking about the size and shape of the letters and how they will join together. They are presented in a cursive font in the spelling books, to help your child see where the flicks go.
All the children in KS1 have been introduced to the songs we will be learning for this years Christmas performance. It is a nativity with a mathematical theme, so the children will also sing the songs at the beginning or end of their Maths lessons! Soon they will be bringing home the words for the songs; please encourage them to learn them.
We have also set them a special challenge – to learn the ‘Strictly.’ This is quite a tricky dance; it will help them to see what they can achieve with practise and determination. Here is the link, so that they can practise at home too – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p034sj7n
Next week –
Wednesday – Remembrance Day. Year 2 Poppy Sculpture, inspired by our trip to the Poppy:Wave at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, will be on display on the grassy bank near the conservation area. Also our wreaths and some of our poetry.
Thursday – Walk to the War Memorial. Please return the slip, if you would like to walk with your child’s class to the War Memorial in Farsley. We will be laying our wreathes and reading our some of poetry.
Friday – Children in Need. Home clothes, Champions of Change and the Farsley Farfield Bake Off!
In the meantime, have a great Sunday. I hope to see some of you at the Table Top Sale in the North Building, this morning.
Well done to everyone for a brilliant start to the new half term.
Mrs Fisher.
Welcome back.
30/10/2015 at 1:23 PM
The year 2 team are looking forward to welcoming all the children back to school on Monday for another busy and exiting half term. We have lots of fun learning planned for the next seven weeks, starting with finding out all about Guy Fawkes, Firework Safety and writing poems about fireworks. In Maths we are going to be learning our tables and solving problems using multiplication and division.
Here is the Ethos Bee for the next half term. The theme is ‘Getting on and falling out,’ so we will be focusing on building good relationships and working on what to do when friendships go wrong. As part of this theme we will also be focusing on ‘Anti Bullying’ during the week starting November 16th.
The hexagons with an overview of the half term’s curriculum are below.
Click on the images in the gallery to see each section in detail.
Thank you for all your support. £1713 raised for Unicef.
30/10/2015 at 11:13 AM
Thank you to everyone for all the donations that were brought into school for Unicef to help support the refugees from Syria. A total of £1250 has been brought in to school and our Just Giving site has collected £463.25, giving a total to date of £1713.25.
The children all had a wonderful day and everyone enjoyed doing lots of Maths based on the book 365 Penguins and worked hard to achieve their Mathletics Certificates. Across school, 143 children achieved their Mathletics Certificates in the week of World Maths Day.
A special Mathlete of the week trophy, a china penguin, decorated with the hive colours, was awarded to Sally in 2F. Well done to all the children who raised money for Unicef by gathering sponsors for their Mathletics totals during the week.
QR Code
