Did you know that materials often change when they are heated?  Well, Osprey class do now!  Last week we took Science into the kitchen and got to see just what happens when you heat certain types of food materials.  We also got to use our Maths skills by weighing out the ingredients before we mixed them!

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To celebrate Chinese New Year, our Year 2 Osprey’s have been learning through all things Chinese.  In our ICT lesson we researched Chinese crafts and made a collage of the Chinese flag.  In numeracy we played Chinese number games and in literacy we made story maps and retold the story of Chinese New Year.  On ‘New Years Eve’ we followed tradition and swept all the bad luck out of the Osprey classroom ready to receive good luck that the New Year would bring in.  On New Years Day we all wore red (a symbol of good luck for the future) and had a surprise traditional meal of noodles which we ate with chopsticks!  Each child also received a red envelope with a good luck token for a prosperous year.  Osprey’s have really enjoyed learning about and experiencing another culture, pay us a visit to find out more!

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In Osprey class this half term, as part of our PSHCE lessons, we are looking at how to be a good friend.  In our circle times we have talked about what makes a good friend then wrote our ideas on ‘colourful bricks’ to create a Friendship Wall.  Some of our thoughts included:

A friend is someone who…

• makes us laugh
• cares for us
• helps us
• we can trust
• we can talk to

To show what good friends we are in Osprey and how much we trust each other, everyone got the chance to try a Trust Fall.  This is an exercise where a person allows themselves to fall from a height and trusts their friends to catch them and stop them from hitting the ground.  Everyone was really brave and had a go and you’ll be pleased to know we are all trustworthy friends and caught each other.

If you want to know how to be a good friend, drop in to Osprey class and look at our Friendship Wall.  Soon there will also be a compliment tree which you will be more than welcome to add a compliment to!

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What a great first week we had in Ospreys!  As you all know we are learning about families this half term.  We started our new topic thinking about what we were like when we were babies and how much we have changed.  We began to start collecting questions about things we might ask a Mummy who had a new baby….and who should walk in?!  Mrs Helen and baby Owen!  What a surprise!

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The year two children have been learning about the coral reefs. As part of this study, they made edible coral polyps in class. They also each wrote descriptive  poems about the coral reef.  Lines from everyone’s poems were chosen to create a class poem.   The Amazing Coral Reef Yr-2 poem.  Wow – such it really conveys the busy life of the coral reef habitat – Well done, Year 2!

Each coral polyp consisted of a hard outer skeleton (paper cupcake liner), a soft body (marshmallow), a central mouth (candy corn) feeding tentacles (licorice strings) and algae to provide food for the coral (green sprinkles).

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It all started with a lively discussion at the Year 2 snack table… were the critters that we were finding all over the playground centipedes or millipedes?

“They’re centipede because millipedes are bigger!”

“I think they’re millipede because they have so many legs!”

“Centipedes are brown and this is grey with yellow strips. It must be a millipede!”

“Yeah, but this one is reddish brown so is this one a centipede. It looks the same as your stripey one?”

With no foreseeable definitive decision being reached, it was time for me to intervene.   This then led on to a whole big project of discovery that dominated the next few days of playtime and lunchtime activities!

Beware, the squeamish amongst you may not wish to look at our close-up photos of the critters!

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As we take on ‘exploring our local TCI environment’ through Science, Social Studies, Dance and Music, Year 2 began scientific discovery by learning about the Queen Conch, one of the nationally recognised symbols of this great country.

As part of bringing our learning to life our class paid a visit to the Caicos Conch Farm for a tour of their fasinating facilities, followed by taking up an invitation to taste some delicious conch recipes at the Bay Bistro restaurant.

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Year 2 have written their very own non-fiction books about insects.  In order to be successful authors the children had to:

1. Select an insect they wanted to study.
2. Research their insect.
3. Make notes about their insect.
4. Make complete sentences from their notes to make sections for their book.
5. Complete illustrations and diagrams.
6. Select words for their glossary.
7. Write a ‘Contents’ page.
8. Illustrate their title page.

Finally their books were ready for presentation!  Congratulations on your remarkable books Year 2 – you are fantastic non-fiction authors.  Thank you Miss Sian for making this movie with the children.

Year Two students had fun exploring friction as part of their study of forces and motion.They loved singing a song about friction that helped them understand and remember the concept, and they carried out several experiments to see friction in action. For one of their experiments, the class was divided into two teams. The teams had a race to see which team could move the most jelly cubes from one bowl to another using chopsticks. Then the race was repeated after a small amount of cooking oil was added to the jelly cubes. The students quickly discovered that the jelly cubes with oil on them were much harder to move because the friction was reduced.

Inspired  by the poetry and illustrations in Mary O’Neill’s amazing book  “Hailstones and Halibut Bones,” children from Year Two and Three wrote their own colour poems using their five sense as a guide.  Here are seven examples for you to enjoy:

From Year Two:

Turquoise

Turquoise looks like a bubbly sea, a blue, blue sky and fresh flowers,

Turquoise feels like fresh air in your hands,

It sounds like blowing grass in the wind,

It taste like mint ice cream,

Turquoise smells like fresh leaves and waving grass,

Turquoise makes me think of happiness and fun.

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Year two students have been learning about solids, liquids and gases in science. As a culminating activity to this physics topic, the students experimented with a mystery substance to determine if it was a liquid or a solid.  They discovered that the mystery substance started out as a liquid but ended up as a solid.  Much to their delight, they had made “slime”!

Come and check out the Year 2’s amazing solids, liquids and gases posters up on the wall in their classroom – who would have thought that cheerios could be so great for teaching us about states of matter!

Did you know that there is also a fourth state of matter – plasma – I wonder what the Year 2’s think of this?

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You may have noticed a pumpkin patch taking over the Year 2 Hummingbird Class! We have been studying them closely for our observational art lesson. We have been working on keeping our drawings to a large scale and focusing in on different parts of the pumpkin, such as the inside. We have been learning how to draw using chalk pastel colours, carefully blending colours with in the direction of the lines, or using the flat side to create a thick line or the pointy end to create a thin, defined line. We have also been remembering that with observational work, you stick to what you can actually see in front of you and not work from imagination or add extra parts in that you cannot see!

Come take a look at the fantastic art we have created on display in our classroom and take a peek at some photos below.

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In Letterland, ‘Robot R’ gets his brothers to help him to steal vowels in words.  His brothers are ‘Arthur Ar’, ‘Orvil Or’, ‘Ernest Er’, ‘Urgent Ur’ and ‘Irving Ir’.  When they stand after a vowel in words they often catch it and put it in their net and report back to ‘Robot R’ on their radios, saying their second name, ‘ar’, ‘or’, ‘er’, ‘ur’ or ‘ir’.  The poor vowel is too shocked to speak in the word after that.

The class set out to find all these robbers that steal vowels in words.   The children made posters for each of the Robot Robbers to help them look for them.  They worked by themselves or with a partner.  When they thought of words that had their robot sound in, they wrote them on their poster.  They also found extra words in their reading books and around the classroom.  Those robbers are certainly very busy with stealing vowels… they found a lot of words!   Click ‘read more’ below to see photos of the children busy making their posters and to see all of the words that they have discovered that have these sounds in.

The children also each wrote a story that included lots of ‘ar’ words.  Here is one of them called, ‘The Party Centre’.  Come and read all their stories.  They are hanging up in their Hummingbird classroom.

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We have a new member of the class! Mr Skully, the school skeleton, has been helping Year 2 out with our topic this term – our bodies, our bones and our organs! We actually assembled Mr Skully ourselves, whilst learning which bone attaches to which part of the body. We were amazed at the length of the femur bone (the largest bone in our body) and the stirrup bone in the ear (the smallest bone in our body).
We have been trying to remember all the scientific names of our bones and most of us even can tell you how many bones there are in an adults body! (206).
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In Hummingbird Class we’ve been interviewing each other in Spanish to find out about the activities our friends do when they’re not at school.  We’re a very busy class! We had to learn how to talk about all the different activities we do, then choose one to show in our interview.  We also had to learn how to ask the question “what do you you do in your spare time?” (¿Qué haces en tu tiempo libre?).  We had to really practise our Spanish speaking to make sure we knew what to say – we didn’t even need to write down our lines to help us remember! We worked really hard on building our confidence in our speaking.  It was a bit scary being filmed, but we think you’ll agree that we all did a great job when you watch our fantastic video!

Hummingbird class have been busy with our topic work ‘Our beautiful Ocean’ and this week we have been learning about the life of a jelly fish. Did you know that a jelly fish has no brain, no heart and no blood? We studied different types of jelly fish and wrote up all the information we learnt about them in to our ‘Ocean Fact Files’. We watched how a jelly fish catches its prey and eats it!
We noticed how this linked with the other ocean animals we have been learning about, such as the sea turtle, whose favourite snack is jelly fish! And also our work on clown fish, whose body is covered in mucus so they cannot feel the jelly fishes sting.
After, we created our own jelly fish using paper Mache, coloured tissue paper, and bubble wrap for the tentacles! Come see them bobbing around our classroom!

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Year 2 combined their Drama, Literacy and Design Technology lessons to put together a spectacular show of Punch and Judy. Punch and Judy is a traditional British, popular puppet show featuring the characters of Mr. Punch and his wife, Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Punch and one other character. It is often associated with traditional English seaside culture

The Children loved watching a Punch and Judy Show, then re-creating the puppets using their own designs. They thought carefully about the characters and the plot, making their own scripts and then acting them out to their friends.  Read on to see some photo of the children at work.

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