Author Workshop at YTFC
Yesterday we visited Yeovil Town Football Club, where we took part in an exciting author workshop. Cedar participated first in a range of team building activities, in competition with other schools, which required perseverance and resilience. Maple Class created a spy story in small groups with the author, Tamsin Cooke. The children had to think about a character, setting, something to be stolen and a trap to catch the Cat Burglar which they then wrote in their groups and performed to their class. We then swapped activities! We had to be creative, imaginative and work together as a team for both activities. At the end of the afternoon, Tamsin gave us a signed copy of one of her books!
Visit from the Life Bus
As part of our PSHCE curriculum learning, we had a visit from the 'Life Bus' today who came to teach us some life skills. We were learning about different parts of the human body and how to look after ourselves physically (water, oxygen, food, sleep, exercise). We also learnt how to look after our feelings (be mindful, connect, be active, be creative, give to others). We met Harold the giraffe, who is a puppet that was used to explain a story about bullying. We talked about how important it is to tell an adult if they feel upset or feel they are being bullied.
Visiting Ninesprings
Today was our year 2 trip to Ninesprings. We met the rangers who taught how to use nets to catch bugs in the meadow and how to pond dip to find which creatures live in the pond. We also spent some time sketching the birds that live in the pond. The weather wasn’t too bad and we managed to dodge most of the rain showers!
Hello all,
As you will be aware, we have had a positive Covid case confirmed today in Maple Class.
As close contacts, we will be home learning between Tuesday 29th June and Monday 5th July 2021. We shall be using Microsoft Teams to support the home learning timetable, which has been uploaded below.
If you have any questions regarding Teams (including login details) or need to request printed packs, please contact the school office at: office@preston.ppat365.org
I look forward to seeing you on Teams and even more so to seeing you all again on Monday 5th July!
Sports Day 2021
It wasn’t quite the same without the parents here, but today was our sports day! We all had great fun taking part in lots of different races, showing great sportsmanship and cheering each other on.
Circus Skills
Today the Year 2 children all took part in a Circus Skills Session with Mrs Chislett and parents of children in Maple Class. They all had a go at a range of exciting activities such as tightrope walking, juggling, plate spinning and diablo. The children all had a fantastic time but not as good a time as the parents who stated how much they enjoyed the session! Thank you to Mrs Chislett for organising and running the session.
Global Games Day
Year Two were treated to a morning of activity and sports organised by Mr Bourne and the Year 6 children. The older children were fantastic at explaining the rules of each game and helping the younger children to achieve and have fun!
RSPCA Visit
Today we welcomed Hayley from West Hatch RSPCA centre to Maple Class. She talked to us about the work that the RSPCA do to keep wild animals, farm animals and pets safe, happy and healthy. This links with our science work this term. Hayley showed us what we can do to keep animals healthy and we found out that lots of the things that animals need, like a balanced diet and exercise, are the same things that keep humans happy and healthy!
A visit from some Birds!
Year 1 and 2 were very lucky this morning to have a visit from The North Somerset Bird of Prey Centre. We met a lovely European Little Owl, a Tawny Owl, A Barn Owl and a Harris Hawk. We learnt all about their hunting behaviour and life habits. We were also lucky enough to hold some feathers from each of the birds and we had an amazing morning learning about such magnificent creatures!
Capacity
We have begun learning about the meaning of ‘capacity’ and ‘volume.’ In a rotation of activities, we learnt to estimate the capacity of various containers and compare our estimation to the actual measurements. We also completed capacity based word problems and measuring scales in jumps of 2’s, 5’s and 10’s.
The Gruffalo
This term we have been studying the books written by Julia Donaldson and today we heard the story of The Gruffalo. Our learning objective was to use role play to explore characters and so using our masks that we made in DT, we acted the part of The Gruffalo while our partner asked us questions. Mrs.Rich heard some very good Gruffalo voices and a brilliant variety of questions being asked!
Maple Class Winners
Congratulations to Megan for winning the lucky draw coin bag competition! She won a lovely chocolate Easter Egg. Also huge congratulations to Maya for being the overall whole school winner of the Easter Art Competition! We are so proud of you!
Rev. Ruth Leads Our Easter Service
Rev. Ruth joined us today to lead our Easter service. After the year 2 children read about Holy Week and said some prayers that they had written in our RE lessons, Ruth talked about chocolate eggs and their symbolism in the Easter story. All of the children looked splendid in their Easter hats. Thank you for joining us today, Ruth!
Easter Hats
In preparation for Rev. Ruth’s visit to lead our Easter service, we have created these beautiful Easter hats.
Great Fire of London History Day
Alongside our Science workshop today, the children have had a brilliant day learning all about The Great Fire of London and experiencing what it would have been like to be a firefighter in 1666. The children tried their hand at writing using a feather quill just like Samuel Pepys, learnt about artefacts from the fire and worked in groups to use a bucket to put out 'the fire'. A fantastic day was had by all!
Science Workshop
Today the children had a very special (and Covid friendly!) visit from 'Jupiter Jess' from Fizz Pop Science. The children learnt all about the PH scale, what makes an alkaline or acid, and how to make troll juice! They all had a fantastic time and it was a brilliant way to end our first week back to school.
Spring Term 2021
Due to the current national lockdown and the partial closure of schools, all work, activities and photographs can be found on the Year 2 Home Learning page. Thank you for your continued support.
Santa’s Visit
Well, even though Mrs.Rich stayed late to do some marking, she still didn't see Father Christmas sneaking in to give Maple class their Christmas gifts! Unfortunately, we weren’t in school when Santa came but he did leave us some clues to find some gifts that he had hidden around the classroom. Thank you, Santa! We would also like to say a huge thank you to the PTA for organising our virtual Panto experience and the delicious sweets provided.
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all!
Visit from Reverend Ruth
It was lovely to see Reverend Ruth for a short Christmas Service this morning. Four of our children read passages from the Bible, and it was nice to share the service in our bubble.
Year 2 Virtual Nativity
Dear Parents,
As you know, we have unfortunately been unable to perform our traditional Year 2 nativity this year due to COVID restrictions on singing and performing for pupils in Year 1 and above.
To say this was a disappointment to us all is an understatement, as this has always been an important part of our school year for both pupils and parents.
However, we have persevered to still bring you a festive performance of sorts, and the children have worked incredibly hard to do so.
We pray we shall be in a position to invite you into school soon. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the performances we have recorded for you.
Merry Christmas from all of the staff and children in Year 2.
Christingles
In RE we have been learning about the importance of Advent, and what it means to Christians. Today the children all made a Christingle candle holder, and learnt about the significance of each element.
DT: Pop up cards
In DT we are making pop up cards and this week we made the exterior using cupcake and muffin cases to make snowmen! Christmas is on the way!
Stickman
As I mentioned in our zoom meeting last week, our English focus this week has been the story of Stickman by Julia Donaldson. The children have really enjoyed reading the story and did a fantastic job of writing their own versions of the story. We can now see how far the children have come since September, and how they are using their skills taught in year 2, such as expanded noun phrases, commas in a list and joined handwriting. Well don e Maple Class!
Sherborne Remembrance Day Competition
As mentioned before, all of the children in Year 2 were asked by Megan's (from Maple class) mum to help her decorate her shop window for Sherborne's window display competition. All of the children made some beautiful poppies and the window's looked fabulous! Here is a picture of Megan with the certificate her mum received in recognition of all of our hard poppy- making work!
Winter Silhouettes
In art this week, the children did some lovely winter silhouettes using a variety of colour mixing techniques.
Welcome Back!
We were all so happy to get back to normal this week and to have all of our lovely children back in school! Everyone seems to have worked extremely hard at home and have settled back into school routine brilliantly. As a result of this hard work, we were ready to move onto division this week and all of the children understood this well and moved onto division word problems without any trouble at all! Thank you parents and carers at home for your support during the quarantine period.
Good Morning!
How lovely to see lots of your lovely faces via the Zoom meeting, it has cheered me up!
Some of you have asked for some extra work to complete this week so I am attaching a few links here for you to have a look at. Topmarks.com has some fantastic maths games for you all to explore. Also, supermovers website is fun to reinforce learning.
I mentioned during the zoom meeting a few extra bits that the children can do if they would like to, but here they are again;
This is such a crazy time for us all and we all just do what we can, so please be reassured that anything you can do is helpful. Keep looking after each other and please contact me if there is anything I can do to help as I am happy to contact you at any time.
Many Thanks,
Mrs. Rich
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/ks1-collection/zbr4scw
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/mental-maths-train
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Mental Maths Train - A Four Operations Game Mental Maths Train is a maths game which focuses on the vital vocabulary of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It helps children understand what type of calculation they have to do when faced with word problems. www.topmarks.co.uk |
Home Learning - Autumn Week 10 (week beginning 16th November 2020)
As we cannot be together at school this week I have put together a timetable of activities that you should attempt at home. These activities match closely what we would have been doing in school this week. If you have any problems at all, please email us at yr2@preston.ppat365.org and we will get back to you as quickly as we can. Remember to keep reading every day at home and we look forward to being back together soon.
Stay safe!
Mrs Mann
A Visit From Pete The Poet
Today we had a wonderful visit from Pete the Poet. He helped the children travel to magic lands thinking about equality and diversity whilst thinking about rhymes and rhythms. The children had a great time.
Community Art
This year, sadly like many things, Remembrance Day has not looked the same. With such an important event being a simple affair this year, the people of Sherborne have made an extra effort to decorate their high street and are holding a shop window decorating competition. Megan from Maple Class’ mum works in one of the shops in Sherborne and asked the children in Year 2 if we could help her to decorate her window. The children all made a tissue paper and card poppy and could choose either a red poppy to remember the human effort, or a purple poppy in recognition of the animals that died in the wars. The children did a brilliant job as the display looks wonderful and we hope it wins the competition!
Black History Month
October is Black History Month and we have been researching important figures of our time. We learned all about Rosa Parks and the impact of her bravery, and we have been studying the poetry of British poet Benjamin Zephaniah. In our science lesson this week we have found out lots of facts about Dr Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space. After doing our research, we created factfiles about her.
Remembrance Day
Year Two were asked to make some poppies to decorate a shop window display in Sherborne for a competition. We talked about the significance of the poppy and we also discussed why some poppies are purple to remember the animals that have lost their life in battle. We look forward to seeing pictures of the finished shop window.
Arts Week
This week we have been celebrating Arts week by exploring the use of oil pastels. We began by collaborating with our partners on a joint artwork, reproducing 'Le Moisson' by Vincent Van Gogh by each doing half of the picture. We also thought about our Christian values of creation and thankfulness, and considered the changing seasons and the produce that harvest time brings. We used only two oil pastels to do a still life picture of vegetables, concentrating on shadow and tone to represent different shades of colour.
Welcome to Maple Class
What a fantastic first week we have had in Maple class! Everyone has settled back in beautifully (including us!) and the children have been showing us just how brilliant they are by working really hard to show us what they already know. We have been learning about place value and representing numbers in our maths lessons, using the drawing of 'chips and peas' to represent tens and ones.
In our English lessons, we have also been thinking about how we can work well together as Maple Class, and the children have come up with an agreed set of class rules which will help to keep everyone safe, happy and learning successfully. In our RE we discussed the idea of 'Good News' and thought about times when we have experienced receiving good news. I think we can all safely say that seeing the brilliant work that the children have done so far, is certainly good news to us all!