St John the Baptist CE VA Primary School Year Two

St. John the Baptist School has been busy during our Environment Week. We are helping to make the children more aware of the environment and their role in protecting it. We are also hoping to develop the children’s awareness of the steps they can make to improve and care for our environment.

The week so far.

Monday: Year 2 looked at wood. We visited our Forest School and discussed how useful and important work is.

Tuesday: We concentrated on plastic and watched a video on how plastic gets into our oceans and seas and killing the creatures who live there.  We recycled used fizzy drink bottles and made a self-watering plant system. As you can see, some of them are beginning to sprout already!

Wednesday: We looked at our local environment in particular, at birds we would see in Britain. Mr Braggs came in and did a talk to Year 2 and Reception about the top 10 birds in Britain.

Did you know that the woodpigeon is the top of the top 10p birds? They are usually found in woodlands and gardens. Woodpigeons can live up to three years and they eat seeds, leaves and fruit.

We still have two exciting days left. Will update you all when we get back after the half term.

This term Year 2 are looking Australia. Part of this is recognising the history and partnership the Aboriginal people have with their natural environment. During our art sessions, the children are developing a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space. These are the paintings the children produced, experimenting with the Aboriginals’ use of earth colours and their practice of the use of different size ‘dots’ to represent pictures.

This morning the Year 2’s went on a fieldtrip to observe their local area. All geared up with our coats, boots and reflective jackets, off we went. We looked at the different styles of houses in the local area e.g. cottage/bungalow/detached. We observed the different walkways and pathways we had to go on.

We stopped to have a look at Great Amwell Parish hall. Some of the children knew this building as the place where they went to nursery, LBV and even birthday parties! Walking down the side of St. John the Baptist church, we noticed that it looked like the church might have been built in different stages, as the back of the outside of the building looked different to the middle part. We crossed over the river and went to look at the War Monument. We linked this with this half term’s Value, ‘Justice’. We talk about things being fair and having freedom. Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit Emma’s Well as a tree had fallen down and was blocking the path, but we looked it up on Google.

The children drew sketches of the buildings/monuments we saw and labelled them. They enjoyed themselves and were great ambassadors for our school. Five minutes after we came back it started to rain! A big thank you to the adults who came along with us and contributed to explaining the local area.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and safe Easter.

The Year 2’s had a wonderful time this half term planning and designing their salads. They have put a lot of work into their project. They had to investigate what a salad was, what was expected to be found in a salad, food preparation and Health and Safety issues.

Mrs Wright, the school’s Cook Manager visited our classroom and demonstrated how to use knifes safely and appropriately. Class 2 put some questions to Mrs Wright with regards to her chosen profession. The children were very interested in her answers, particularly when she made a reference to her ‘secret ingredients’, but she didn’t give anything away! A big thank you for Mrs Wright’s participation towards our project.

On Tuesday Class 2 had the opportunity to put their skills into motion. After talking about hygiene and the children and adults wash their hands, they started to prepare the food, washing the fruit and vegetables. They used a variety of skills to prepare the food, including chopping, peeling, grating, slicing and tearing. They had the opportunity to use peelers, knives and graters to name just a few.

After the fruit and vegetables had been prepared, the children then presented their finished results in bowls and brought them up to the hall. They were joined by their parents and carers were given the opportunity to sample the children’s salad. We had a very good turnout. Thank to those who could come. For those who couldn’t make it, a sample went home. A great time was had by all.

Some feedback from some of the parent.

“What a lovely idea”!

“….. loved taking part and enjoyed eating salad with me”.

“It has encouraged ………. to eat more vegetables and to be more involved in the kitchen”.

Thank you very much for your feedback

In Class 2 we have been looking at poetry, in particular the kind of language usually used. In this unit, the children enjoy listening and responding to poems in a range of different ways. They explore poetic language and identify adjectives and verbs in a poem. They draft, edit and compose their own poems and read them aloud. Having looked a number of poems about spring time we went outside to see if ‘spring had sprung’ and what kind of language we could use.

In Science in Year Two we have been learning about plants. We planted some broad beans and have watched them growing in our classroom. After waiting patiently for two weeks, look how impressive they are now!

Year 2 have been looking at how the Chinese celebrate their New Year. If your child was born in 2011, then their year is the Year of the Rabbit along with Queen Victoria, David Beckham, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They are known to be a symbol of hope and peace, rabbits are compassionate and modest, with a good sense of humour. They’ll do anything to escape from a dull life! If they were born in 2012, then their year is the Year of the Dragon and share this with Bruce Lee, Rihanna and Florence Nightingale. Their traits are ambitious, energetic and intellectual, dragons are romantic and strive for perfection, but they can also be impatient! Mrs Carroll-Lane was born in the Year of the Horse. Can you guess which year that was?

The Year 2’s have been braving the cold for another fun packed tennis lesson with Andy and Ben from Legends Tennis Club! This week they focused on ball control skills. The children are thoroughly enjoying the experience.

“Tennis is one of my favourite sports.” (Henry)

“I haven’t tried tennis before and I’m happy to be doing it now.” (Noah)

“It was cold in the beginning but it’s a lot of fun and I did warm up in the end.” (Skyla)

What a wonderful start to the new year! The children have come back full of enthusiasm and eager to learn. We have been having informative conversations about taking photograph and planting seeds and bulbs. Well done everybody and keep up the good work!

The Year 2s have been very busy over the past few weeks rehearsing for their Christmas Production of ‘A Midwife Crisis’, (and didn’t they do well!) yet they still found time to make Christmas decorations for our Christmas Tree. We are very grateful to Van Hages for donation a beautiful tree to the school. It is situated in the lobby by the school office. If you have time, please pop in and see not only our contribution to the decorations but every year group also made something.

We made ours by mixing salt, flour and water to make a salt dough and kneading all the ingredients. We used pastry cutters to cut out the shapes and a straw to make the whole. We had to let the dough dry out completely before we could paint them. We think they have been a great success.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Looking forward to seeing you all again after the holidays!

Class 2 have really enjoyed their Great Fire of London topic. The children have put a lot of effort and enthusiasm into their given activities, in particular, the houses they made to represent how London might have looked during the beginning of September 1666. On Tuesday afternoon on the 4^th of December Year 2 opened their doors and invited the rest of the school to show their exhibition. Some of the children in the other classes tried to trick Year 2 and asked questions about their topic. However, the children in Year 2 were able to answer all the questions correctly.

Later on, most of the parents and carers of Year 2 came to see the exhibition and were delighted to see how hard their children had worked and on how many facts they had remembered.

Some parents left messages on their thoughts of the exhibition:

“Very creative ideas”.

“…how excited the children were to show us”.

“Amazing display that has brought The Great Fire of London to life”!

“A lot of hard work by all the pupils”.

“…really enjoyed this topic”.

Thank you all for your positive feedback. There will be other opportunities to visit the classroom and see the work the children have done throughout the academic year. I will try to give as much notice as possible so you can book time off work if necessary.

On Monday 1^st of October 2018, Class 2 were invited to participate in a KS 1 Athletic Skills morning at Wodson Park. The children were given the opportunity to try out lots of different skills. These included running, jumping, throwing, skipping and balancing to name just a few. Ten other schools were participating at the same time as us so there was a lot going on. Class 2 had a really good time, giving 100% to all activities and listened well to instructions. The children showed how awesome Ambassadors they were to our school through their impeccable behaviour. A great time was had by all.