Willow Class - Yr 2

Welcome to Year 2, Willow Class!
 

School Year 2018-2019

Fabulous Fantasy Flowers

We used our engineering skills, knowledge of materials and the parts of a plant to design and build fantasy flowers in Science. Many thanks to Mrs James for her wonderfully inspiring activities in our lessons over the last two terms!

Stepping back in time to meet the Victorians was an amazing learning experience for Willow and Maple Classes this July. Dr Livingstone, the great explorer and Mrs Drew, the cook, showed the children what life was like at Newstead during this exciting era. The children worked with Mrs Drew and her maids below stairs to prepare bread rolls and churn butter for Dr Livingstone’s dinner and then polished the silver and used the dolly, plunge, mangle and irons to do the laundry. Upstairs Dr Livingstone told the children of his explorations in Africa and his visits to Newstead. He also showed the children round some of the wonderful rooms including the nursery, bedroom and dining room. Willow Class were especially excited to see real William Morris wallpaper in the bedroom. The children did us proud by sharing all their knowledge with the providers and of course the visit to the shop was a real highlight! Many thanks to the providers and all the parents who helped on the day. Please see Maple Class page for more photos of the day.

Willow Class Visit to Patchings Art Centre

Willow Class visited Patchings to learn about the work of Georgia O'Keeffe and her abstract flower paintings. After looking at her work, we created a pattern on paper which we traced onto 'silk' fabric using silver pen. The final magical stage was to use silk paints to add beautiful colours which we blended in parts of our work.

Science / History

We have made terrariums for Father's Day. They were popular in Victorian times as the Victorians wanted to bring nature into their homes. Our terrariums contain gravel, compost, two succulents (water retaining plants) and small items representing the interests of the person receiving them.

Religious Education

In R.E. we are focusing on Judaism and learning about their festivals, celebrations, rites of passage and commitment to God. We have found out about the 'harvest' festival Sukkot. All Jewish families build and decorate a Sukkah or shelter. This is to remind them that their ancestors lived in tents as they wandered in the desert on their escape from Egypt to Israel. We learned about the features and special plants used to decorate the Sukkah by making models of our own.

Willow Class have made a great start to their topic on plants. They have been busy weeding and planting seeds in the allotment. In class, they have been talking about seeds, bulbs and tubers. Beautiful observational drawings have been made of ‘fruit’ and their seeds and Mrs James has helped us to make ‘The Great Potato Race Shoeboxes’. We have placed ‘chitted’ potatoes into a shoebox with obstacles and a hole and we are excitedly waiting to see whose potato will grow out of the hole first!

Jubilee Ponds.

With the sun shining we had a fabulous time exploring the local area. We had chance to investigate how animals adapt to their environment and looked at what used to live in there thousands of years ago. Finally we went pond dipping and could not believe what we could find in the water trays!!

Thank you to Mr Cast for a wonderful morning, and to Mrs James and Mr Stockford for joining us.

Science Week.

This week we have had lots of fun as part of Science week. We have taken part in lots of different activities including a minibeast hunt, building bug hotels and bird feeders, planting potatoes and making boats from junk modelling materials.

Spring Term 2019

This term we have been learning about Materials and their Properties. We have had some fantastic practical Science sessions with Mrs James, one of our parents, and also incorporated this learning into our understanding of the Great Fire of London. We have also read The Iron Man and written newspaper reports about the events of the story.

In Geography, we have been finding out about the country of Kenya, its landscape, wildlife and people.

Autumn Term 2018

In Science this term, we have been learning about how to keep our bodies and minds healthy. Grant and Sam from Premier have been coming in every week to teach us. As well as learning about making healthy food choices and the need for regular exercise, we have learned how important sleep is and how we change as we get older.

Our work concluded with a fun session in which we designed and made a healthy snack of fruit salad or a fruit kebab.

Black History Month

In History we have been learning about Mary Seacole and her life and work in the Crimea. She overcame racial prejudice to achieve great things. We were lucky enough to share a dance class with Bemma where we learned moves for tribal and rain dances.

Mesmerising Monets!

The children in Willow Class have all painted a 'Waterlilies and Morning Willows' picture in the style of Claude Monet. They learned that using the 'tache' or touch technique, using a flat brush, produced a stunning IMPRESSIONIST style!

School Year 2017-2018

Lovely Lighthouses

We have spent the last few sessions in DT and Art designing and making model lighthouses, using junk, papier mache, paint and finishing touches. Well done everyone on really detailed models!

Grace Darling would have loved them!

Sports Week Photos

Summer Term 2018

This term we have been finding out about Queen Victoria and life in Victorian times. We are also learning about lighthouses and the work of the RNLI.

Grace Darling has been an interesting heroine to find out about. She lived in Victorian times in the Farne Islands and carried out a remarkable sea rescue of the survivors of a shipwreck.

In Art, we have focused on nature and flowers and studied the artists William Morris and Georgia O'Keefe.

Patchings Art Centre Silk Flower Painting

On Friday 22nd June we went to Patchings Art Centre to work with an artist called Linda. She showed us the painting 'Almond Blossom' by Vincent Van Gogh. We then made a blossom pattern, used silver pens to trace our pattern on silk, then used silk paints to complete our work. STUNNING!

Spring Term 2018

World Book Day Dressing Up

African Tribal Masks

We have been learning about Kenya this term. One of our Art projects was to design and create a tribal mask for storytelling, special occasions or ceremonies.

Willow Class Christmas Homework

The children were asked to learn about the story of Jesus' birth from the bible and from story books. Then they were tasked 'being creative' in order to share their knowledge of the story. Everyone loved sharing their own clever work and looking at each others'. Mrs Smith and Mrs Town were really impressed with the amazing variety and effort. A big well done to you all!

PRICKLY HAY

Our Nativity this Christmas was 'Prickly Hay'. We loved dressing up and having a great Christmas hoedown while telling the story of the very first Christmas.

CHRISTMAS HATS

Merry Christmas from Mrs Smith and Willow Class!

In English we are writing explanation texts and have been finding out about Antarctica. Mr Thornewill, Polar Explorer, came to talk to the class about his expeditions to the continent and we had great fun seeing all his equipment and sledge and learning about a typical morning on an expedition.

Emperor Penguins have developed very special features and ways to keep warm and this has inspired our writing too.

Brackenhurst Nativity and Decorations

On Monday 27th November, we visited Brackenhurst Environmental Education Centre to learn all about the Nativity and to make Christmas decorations out of natural materials. Although it was a freezing cold and wet day, we all enjoyed re-enacting the journey Mary and Joseph took to Bethlehem, meeting the farm animals, paying out taxes and having a quiz on the way. The morning concluded with some great stable drama and singing!

In the afternoon we made glittery pine cone angels, baubles, ash-key decorations and ivy wreaths. Then we made artists palettes out of natural materials we found. Thank you to all our parent helpers and Mrs Lamb who led the day.

Happy Diwali Day!

Willow Class have had a wonderful day celebrating Diwali! We welcomed Dr Heena Patel for our worship this morning and loved hearing the story poem of The Ramanyana, listening to beautiful music and sharing songs and fudge.

Then we returned to class to make Cucumber Lassi. As we are now experts in writing instructions, we added recipe writing to our repertoire!

Dr Patel then showed us how to make the ghee wicks and clay divas that  welcomed Rama and Sita back to their kingdom after exile in the forest.

The afternoon saw us making a sweet treat, Mango Lassi . I think this was more to the children's taste! We made masks to help us retell the story of Rama and Sita.

Our Reading Rainbows!

We love reading in Willow Class! This year, Mrs Smith is encouraging us to read regularly and to write comments about our books by awarding us rainbow colour sections for lots of reads. It gets progressively harder to win each colour but everyone has made a great start!

School Year 2016-2017

Making Lighthouse Models

This term we have been sharing The Lighthouse Keeper stories and learning all about the life of Grace Darling the Victorian heroine who rescued 9 people from a shipwreck. We have also been finding out about the geography of Grace's home area i.e. the Northumbrian villages of Bamburgh, Seahouses and Craster.

To make our lighthouses, we collected junk and then after sticking it together, we covered it with 2 layers of papier mache. When our models were dry, we used masking tape to make the stripes then painted them. Finally, we added the finishing touches!

Year 2 Trip to Newstead Abbey

This term we have been learning about life in Victorian times.

On July 12th we had a wonderful trip to Newstead Abbey to learn about life below stairs for the servants and upstairs for a wealthy family, in a Victorian household. The cook, Mrs Drew showed us how to churn butter from cream and make rolls for the family's tea. Dr Livingstone showed us how to do the laundry, clean the house and polish the silver. He also told us all about his great explorations in Africa and showed us round the house. We loved seeing the Nursery and toys in the attic and all the wonderful musical instruments in the Drawing Room. We even learnt how to play some Victorian parlour games. WHAT A FANTASTIC LEARNING EXPERIENCE WE HAD!

In Religious Education this term, we have been learning about the Jewish holy book, The Torah. It is a special book because it teaches Jewish people how to lead a good life, just like the Bible does for Christians and the Koran does for Muslims. It has lots of great stories in it and we recognised these as they also appear in the first five books of the Bible.

After sharing the stories of the Creation, Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark and following our work in Science and Geography on the variety of animals and habitats, we decided to write prayers about nature. This is also the theme this term in our Key Stage 1 Tuesday Collective Worship, 'Something to Think About'. What wonderfully thoughtful ideas the children had and how we have loved sharing them in Collective Worship!

Spring Term 2017

Fantastic work is already underway in Willow Class this term! In English, we are studying The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. All the children made a huge model for our display and have written newspaper articles with super similes and awesome adjectives! Look at some work from our display below.

In Geography we are studying Kenya. This is to link in with our support of St Dorcas Orphanage in Bungoma, Kenya. We have found out some fascinating facts and have made some beautiful oil pastel and black paper silhouette pictures which represent the colourful Masai tribe and the wonderful wildlife of the country.

This term we have been learning about the 'Festivals and Celebrations' of different religions.

We visited Brackenhurst to celebrate Diwali. Lots of fun was had retelling the story of Rama and Sita, and doing some basic orienteering to find decorations for our Diwali trees. Indoors, we made clay Divas, Rangoli patterns, Diwali gift boxes and decorations. Enjoy our photos!

Willow Class Trip to Brackenhurst: From Sheep to Woolly Jumper

Willow Class children visited Brackenhurst on March 9th 2016. We spent the morning learning about the Lincoln Red beef herd, seeing new-born calves and visiting the pregnant ewes in the barn. Unfortunately we didn't see a lamb being born but we found out a lot about what happens to the ewes when they give birth and to the lambs when they are triplets or single births. As ewes only have two teats, one of the triplets is given to a ewe who only has one lamb, to look after. Back inside we used milk and lemon juice to make soft cheese!

After lunch, we went on a nature ramble in the grounds and collected pieces of natural vegetation to create an artist's palette. Back in the classroom, we used our palettes to choose colours to make a woolly bookmark.

We all agreed we had a super day and found out so much. Even the rain didn't dampen our day!

Thanks to Simon, the teacher at Brackenhurst for making our day so informative and memorable!

Why not take a look at our wonderful photos of the day?

Keeping Warm at the Poles

As part of our work on Weather in Geography and  report and explanation writing in English, we have been finding out how animals, including humans, keep warm in the Arctic and Antarctica.

We made an in depth study of Emperor Penguins at the South Pole. Then Mr Thornewill, Arctic Explorer, came to talk to us about his expeditions to the Arctic and the special equipment he needed for these trips. 

This is what we learned from Mr Thornewill...

Arctic means 'bear' and Antarctic means 'no bear'. Amelia

The bears at the North Pole are Polar Bears. Cora

They travelled to the Arctic on an aeroplane that had engines on the tops of the wings so they don't 'suck up' the ice. Evie P.

Mr Thornewill and his crew travelled on three planes to get close to the North Pole. Olive

All of the team had to eat a massive piece of chocolate and nuts every hour, for energy. Molly

The special plane was from Russia and could land on ice. Oliver

Inside the tent, they had a special piece of tube for a chimney. Hugo

Polar bears can be very dangerous. They could kill you. Mr Thornewill carried a flare pistol and a rifle to keep safe. Luca

When polar bears see you and your sledge, they might eat you or the food in your sledge! Elizabeth

Inside their tents they had a stove to keep warm and to cook on. Millie

They had to have a whole morning practising how to light the stove safely. Jasmine

They had three stoves in every tent to keep them warm. Charlie

When it is windy it could feel like -50C. Jack

The adventurers had a balaclava and a fur hood to keep their faces warm. Daisy

Mr Thornewill found a tree trunk in the ice. It must have travelled a long way as no trees grow there! Conrad

They had a special coat like a duvet to keep warm.