Music sessions in Year 2 have been filled with fun and noise this term, as children explored tempo, beat, rhythm and notes through a variety of percussion instruments.

Children explored how to clap a pulse and rhythm in time with each other. They explored a range of percussion instruments and found which could be used to play long (sustained) notes and which only played short sounds.

We then began to think about the rhythm of simple songs, and how long or short notes could be used to make a tune sound slow or fast. They practiced and performed a selection of simple tunes – trying to stay in time and maintain a consistent beat.

As all the instruments were percussive, it became a fun game to guess what the hidden tune was. Watch the video to see if you can identify what the children are playing!

Is it possible to build every number from 1 to 100? How would we do it? Which numbers are the hardest to make? Which number would need the most bricks?

Earlier this year, Year 2 investigated how we can represent numbers with Cuisenaire Rods. At first, children added huge rows of the white “1” bricks until, eventually, they lost count of how many they had. It was hard to know the difference between 42 and 43 – those numbers are so similar! [Read more…]

P.E. in Key Stage 1 has got off to a somewhat wobbly start this year. No, not because of the storms – because children in Year 1 & 2 have been busy developing their body control and balance in our Gymnastics sessions.

Sessions start with a range of active and tiring warm-up games aimed at teaching children to be aware of their own space and body movements. Children are improving their skills of observation quickly, while managing their speed and direction to avoid collisions. Warm ups are accompanied by screams and giggles that get all sessions off to a flying start.
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Wow! What a fabulous ‘behind the scenes’ look the Year 2 students had when they visited the IGA on a field trip. As part of our DT (Design & Technology) project this term, the children have been exploring and creating different cereal box covers. We’ve investigated why we think certain cereals appeal to children – like, maybe there is a fun character on the cover, maybe the box is very colourful, maybe the cereal box uses popular movie characters or even perhaps it offers a free gift inside! We used our trip to the IGA to get more inspiration for our next draft of our cereal box cover. Now, we need to think: How can we add more detail and what improvements can we make?

When we returned, I asked the children to write a retell in their journals. Below is one of the journal entries that was written by a Year 2 student:

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Over the past few weeks in Year 2, the children have been exploring measurement. We have looked at measuring cups, rulers, weighing scales and thermometers to figure out how to accurately find out the length/ height, capacity, weight and temperature (how hot or cold) of various objects found around our school. We also thought about where we have seen different examples of the those kinds of measuring tools, such as the scales in the fruit and vegetable area at IGA and the scales at the doctor’s office.

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Here at Provo Primary we are very proud of our Spanish Language programme and we want to make sure that our parents know just how fantastic it is, the progress their children are making and just how much they can do in Spanish!

One of the ways we hope this will be made clearer is through the introduction of our Language Passports. These have also been created to help the children see just how much progress they make from year to year and to keep track of any areas they need to work on.

The passport is made up of ‘can do’ statements which the children colour in when they feel they can carry out the statement, and have shown this understanding to the teacher.  This allows the children to self-assess their ability and the teacher to understand where the children need help and where they are confident.

We will be launching the passports after half-term to Years 1-3 to start with to see how they work. Please feel free to ask Miss Cara or Mrs. Yorka to see your child’s ‘Passport to Spanish’.

Wow! Year 2 completed their first home learning project of the year and they did a fantastic job! As part of our Science in school, we have been investigating all about animals.  Through our reading comprehension sheets, non-fiction books and videos we’ve learned a lot about animals, including humans!  The children were allowed to choose an animal and investigate it, while answering a few specific questions such as where the animal lives, what it looks like, what it eats, how it grows from baby to adult and any other interesting facts they found out and wanted to share.

I was very impressed by their work during this term in Science and was very happy to see that the children’s enthusiasm was shared at home!  The children did a great job sharing their knowledge with their classmates and answering questions posed by them.

I can’t wait to see what our next home learning project looks like! Based on our first one, it will be awesome! [Read more…]

In Year 2, we have been learning about colour mixing. Did you know that when you mix yellow and red, you make orange? Or that when you mix blue and red, you get purple? The children had such a fun time exploring the primary colours and then mixing those primary colours to make secondary colours. Some children even decided to challenge themselves to make turquoise!

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In Year 2, we have been reading and exploring the book, Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. We have really enjoyed learning how to be a detective like Nate and discovering what tools he uses in his investigations.

Read on to see how the children invented mysteries for Nate to solve and wrote letters to Nate!  Watch the videos to hear some of the children reading their letters.

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Last Sunday saw the 42^nd World Environment Day.  It is observed every year on the 5^th June and “aims to inspire more people than ever before to take action to prevent the growing strain on planet Earth’s natural systems from reaching the breaking point.” (http://www.un.org/en/events/environmentday/)

Y1 and Y2 were inspired to take action and decided to do a “Provo Primary Clean Up”.  So, armed with plastic bags and lots of determination, the Key Stage One children went about picking up litter from around school environment.  We feel that we are pretty good at not creating litter, but we are sad to say that we found lots of little pieces of litter, the main offender being plastic!  Plastic drink draw wrappers, plastic food wrappers and plastic bags had all been blown (we suspect) into the bushes that make up parts of our playground.  We worked really hard and are pretty sure we collected almost all of the litter.

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This week Osprey class have become poets and used the story of ‘George and the Dragon’ as their inspiration… well, the dragon in particular. After painting and decorating our own dragons, we used them as our focus for a variety of different poetry styles.

We first wrote poems using descriptive language, in particular similes. Did you know a simile is when you compare one thing to another? When you read our poems you will spot them as quick as lightning.

After that we used our senses to describe our dragons…we thought about what we would see, hear, smell, feel and taste if we met a real life dragon.

And then finally we thought about the dragon we sometimes feel ‘inside of us’ and how we would describe it.

We hope you enjoy reading our poems and please do pop in to see the rest of our work.

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Congratulations to all of our Year 1 – 6 classes!  Our Topic Learning Showcase was a magnificent demonstration of the tremendous talent, hard work, knowledge and creativity of all involved.  It was lovely to see so many family and friends come along to support the event and take part in the activities on offer.  The children all really enjoyed the experience, both of sharing their knowledge with others, and also getting the opportunity to visit and learn from all the other classes too.  An all-round success!

Thank you also to everyone who helped put together all of the amazing costumes – we were very impressed with your creativity, attention to detail and resourcefulness!

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As part of our maths topic last week we had been learning to measure weight using scales, so what better way to put our skills into practice than measuring and weighing out ingredients?

We started off the week using a balance, finding objects that were heavier, lighter and the same, as a given weight. We then learnt how to read the amount on different measuring scales. After measuring the weight of various items around the classroom, including our shoes, we decided we were ready for the serious stuff!

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