Last week, the Year 1/2 class carried out an experiment which involved a big bucket of water, playdough boats and golden pebbles. The children were investigating how changing the shape of a material that sinks in water can help it to float.

The children were each given a ball of playdough, which when they first put in the water, sank straight to the bottom of the bucket. They came up with the idea of molding the playdough into a boat shape, which they discovered allowed the playdough to float. Once it was in the water, they tested to see how many golden pebbles it could hold before it sank.

Click below to see more photos of the children experimenting, to see what they learned and how many pebble weights their boats could carry.

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Recently, Year 2 have learned all about traditional tales and have even written some of their own. The children really enjoyed reading and listening to the traditional tales and particularly enjoyed going on a hunt to find more traditional stories on their own. The children loved it when they found examples of traditional stories in their own home, or in the school library.

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Year 2 have been really busy in Science this half term looking at ‘Plants and Animals in the Local Environment’ .

They were very lucky to be invited to the Beaches Turks and Caicos Resort to explore the many plants they have in their garden nursery and throughout the resort.

Did you know that the resort recycles all their used water and uses it to water the plants on the Resort? Did you know that a banana tree only flowers and grows bananas once?

The trip provided an opportunity to compare the vegetation at the resort, which is very much landscaped and irrigated, with the predomintely native bush that we have in our playground.

What a fabulous morning it was… A BIG thank you to ‘Beaches Turks and Caicos’, the children really learned a lot!

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Year 2 have been developing their understanding of shape, form and texture as they learned about sculptures. They started the topic looking at the work of Bell, Rhodes, Eggmore and Goldsworthy and were inspired! They decided to sketch one of their favourite yoga stretches and base their sculpture on this pose.  Can you identify the pose of the blue sculpture in the photo?

First the children used wire to create the form, and then they used lovely messy mud-roc to bring the form to life. Finally, they painted their sculptures in beautiful bright colours and added lots of sparkly bits!

Their intention was to brighten up our new outdoor garden with their calm, yet colourful creations which they most certainly did. A big thank you to the parents that came to view and celebrate these gorgeous creations – we hope you enjoyed the ice-cream too!

Outdoor Adventurous Activities is a unit of study that is part of our PE curriculum. In this unit, children take part in simple orientation activities using maps and diagrams. They are set physical challenges and problems to solve, and work on their own and in small groups.  An important part of the learning is to observe what they and others have done and use their observations to improve their performance.

At the end the unit, Year 2 children invited their mums and dads to come and find some treasure!  The children worked on developing their instruction, thinking and movement skills while they created their own trails and maps for their parents to follow.  The children watched carefully to see if the parents worked collaboratively, listening and helping each other in their groups, just as they had needed to do when they created the Treasure Trails.

Super work was achieved and it was lots of fun had too. Oh, and parents… the children said you worked successfully together, using great collaborative skills.  Well done, we hope you enjoyed the treasure you all found, too.

Year 2 have been working out some challenging subtraction number sentences in Numeracy today.  They involved subtracting a two-digit tens number from a three-digit tens number, crossing the hundreds barrier!  We teach children to use mental methods when appropriate but when faced with a calculation that they cannot do in their heads, they are encouraged to use an efficient written method.  How would you work out 220 – 70?  What strategies would you use to help you?

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Year 2 have been looking at patterns in ‘mother nature’. Take a look at a slideshow of their pencil, computer and printed patterns.

First they went on an adventure walk down to “Flamingo Pond”.  There they collected lots of natural materials.

Using magnifying glasses they looked carefully at the patterns that they found in the collected natural materials. They learned how to use pencils in different ways and copied some of the patterns they could see.

Later, they used these patterns to test their ‘control’ skills on the computer and re-created their original natural designs using the different tools in the ‘Paint’ program.

After this they cut an orange in half and looked carefully at the beautiful natural design inside (Then they ate it…yummy!!!)  Again, using their new found pencil skills they made a template of the patterns that they found and used the template to create a print, (Cor!  This bit was really exciting!)

Finally, they used all of their studies and produced a ‘mother nature’ collage.  We think they turned out great… who would have thought there were so many patterns in all the natural things around us!

Year 2 made some delicious healthy fruit smoothies as part of our  ‘Be Active’ Week.
Everyone had a turn at preparing the fruit and choosing what they would like in their own special smoothie recipe.  They used the juicer to make it and then enjoyed drinking it down. Can you spot the smoothie moustache!

Thank you Jo for coming in and making these together with the children. Great fun and a super way to encourage healthy eating habits!

Look out!  The school telephone bill will be very high this month!

During this Literacy lesson the children were asked to express a ‘point of view’ while having a conversation on the phone. As well as putting their thoughts across they had to also listen carefully to what their partner was saying; beginning to learn the essential elements in the art of conversation, thinking and taking account of what others say. Well done Year 2 – this sure looked like a fun lesson!

RED

Red is a beautiful rose
Red is the colour of a juicy tomato
Red is the colour of a beating heart
Red is wrapping paper that keeps my feelings in
Red is a juicy cherry
Red is the background of my life.

YELLOW

Yellow is the colour of a sweet banana
Yellow is a dandelion
Yellow is stars in the night sky
Yellow makes me shine.

PINK

Pink is the colour of an amazing flower
Pink is the colour of my favourite T-shirt
Pink is the colour of a beautiful flamingo flying
Pink is a beautiful fish in the coral reef
Pink is the colour of my favourite book
Pink is my favourite cake icing
Pink is the colour of my favourite pencil
Pink is the colour of my moms lipstick
Pink is the colour inside me.

All of our classes study aspects of the Turks and Caicos Islands (T.C.I) as part of their Social Studies Curriculum. The Grade 2 class did some research about our past and present leaders. They created portraits of each leader using recycled material. These are displayed in the classroom in chronological order. Take a closer look at our leaders on our slideshow.  The music playing is our National Song – ‘This Land of Ours’ written and composed by Reverend Dr. Conrad Howell. Click on to read the words to this song.

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In Grade 2 Science lessons this term, the children have been learning about variation of plants and animals.  They have organised them in groups according to their similarities, differences and unique characteristics.  The children have done a fantastic job in creating their own classification keys about different animals.  They answered questions about each of their animals using their keys.  The animals were made using paper art.

Webkinz have been all the craze in Grade 2, so when we started thinking about our Design Technology project this term on wheeled vehicles, we decided to design and make a vehicle for our Webkinz! Take a look at our slideshow to see all of our wonderful creations – talk about traveling in style! The vehicle above has a ladder up to the extra roof seating and even a GPS to guide them on their journey. What fun we had making them and what a variety of models.

The Grade 2 thoroughly enjoyed their visit to Skybase at Providenciales Airport. Captain Donny Click took us on a guided tour and showed us the hanger, a small plane and a helicopter.

See our slideshow and click below to learn more about our experience.

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At the end of last term, Grades 1 and 2 enjoyed a great trip to the Turks and Caicos Conch Farm – the only one in the whole world! Danver gave us a super tour and we learned all about the life cycle of the conch. It was fun to meet Sally and Jerry, the resident wild conch. We also enjoyed singing the song ‘Dry Conch’. Listen to the song as you see photos of our trip. Thanks again to all the parents who helped out with transport. So much to see and learn – I think we all learned something new!

Click the conch farm image to visit their website. Find out more about conch and plan your own trip to the farm. Grades 1 and 2 highly recommend that you take a visit!

In Grade 2, we have enjoyed looking at some of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings. He used vivid colours and wild brush strokes to express how he was feeling when he painted. This term, different people have helped us to use pastels, paint and computer software to create our own pictures in the style of Van Gogh. Take a look at our slideshows to see our work.

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