Me and my community week
Year 2 have had a wonderful “Me and My Community” week, packed with special visitors and meaningful learning. We were delighted to welcome the Mayor of Wetherby to school and the children listened with great respect in assembly as veterans shared their roles in the war, helping them understand the importance of remembering those who served. The class also joined an online workshop exploring British values and thought about how we can connect these to our Christian values and everyday lives. Throughout the week, the children reflected on our school vision of being a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe. We also explored who St. James’ was and how our school logo of three shells is linked to him as a fisherman and the growth we go through within our school. We are very proud of how thoughtfully Year 2 have represented our school community!
Let’s make a smoothie!
This week, the children enjoyed their very first Year 2 food technology lesson. They made their very own delicious fruit smoothies! Before we got started, we talked about the ingredients we would need, the skills we would use such as measuring and mixing and how to safely cut our fruit using the claw grip and bridge hold. We also discussed the importance of washing our hands and using equipment safely.
The children then got stuck in, carefully chopping their fruit, measuring their ingredients and blending everything together to create their own tasty smoothies. The best part was getting to try their creations!
We were delighted that everyone loved their smoothies, with lots of children describing them as delicious and saying they couldn’t wait to make them again at home. What a fantastic start to our food technology learning!
Help at home:
Here is the recipe for you to recreate your own smoothie at home.
Congratulations to our Year 2 Junior Leadership Team (JLT) candidates!
I am incredibly proud of how hard the students worked on creating and delivering speeches to convince their classmates to elect them. Every single child did an amazing job reflecting on the qualities of a great leader and pouring those ideas into their presentations. We are so lucky to have a class full of such enthusiastic, willing future leaders. Congratulations to George H. and Darcey, our newly elected Year 2 JLT members!
Harvest Festival
Year 2 visited church this week to celebrate Harvest Festival. The children proudly shared a harvest poem with actions that they had been practising in class. During the service, they learnt about the importance of celebrating harvest, giving thanks for what we have and remembering those who are less fortunate. The children also brought in food donations to support the food banks in Wetherby and Seacroft, showing kindness and generosity towards those in our local community. We are very proud of their thoughtful contributions!
Fun in the Sun with Maths.
Maths was taken outdoors today for some hands-on learning. The children had a fantastic time using metre sticks to draw out a full metre. By dividing their lines into halves and tenths, they were able to actively explore and understand numbers from 20 to 99 through the concept of length.
Living and Learning- I know rights come with responsibilities
This week in our Living and Learning lesson, we focused on our statement, I know rights come with responsibilities. We talked about what the words rights and responsibilities mean and thought about the rights and responsibilities we have in school. We then compared these with the ones we have at home and in our community.
We remembered that responsibility is one of our 8 R’s for learning and talked about how being responsible helps us to become successful learners. We also explored how having rights and taking responsibility helps us to understand and respect individual liberty, which is one of our British Values. During partner talk, the children enjoyed sharing their thoughts, listening to each other and building on their ideas.
‘I am responsible for making sure my bedroom is tidy’ – Eli
‘I help Grandad look after my dog’ – Ella
‘I have the right to learn lots of things in school ‘ – Charlie
‘We tidy our trays away after we have eaten lunch’ – Louie
Help at home: rights and responsibilities hunt- Ask your child to talk with someone at home about one right they have and the responsibility that comes with it. For example, I have the right to have my own belongings, so I have the responsibility to look after them.
Year 2 Find Their Roar!
PE- Catch the Butterfly
This term we are focussing on multi-skills, to support building on our fundamental movement skills. This week we have been working on throwing and catching. Our learning objective for this lesson was to be able to catch an object thrown by someone else.
We started this individually, throwing and catching bibs in the air – this was our butterfly. To make this more challenging for the children they were then asked if they could throw the bib into the air and count their claps before catching it. We introduced more challenges such as touching our heads, shoulders, knees and toes before than practicing in pairs.
Next week, we will be looking at adapting the game by introducing other resources, using different sized balls and seeing if they can come up with their own scoring system, such as allowing the ball to bounce once before they can catch it.
Help at home: Practice catching the butterfly at home. A tea towel or small item of clothing would work in the same way. You could challenge yourself further by seeing how many claps you can do before you need to catch the butterfly.
Lessons from the Deep Dark Wood: Our masterclass with Julia Donaldson!
We had a truly monstrous treat this week. Our students logged into a special live webinar with author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler. We were treated to a first-ever reading of their highly anticipated new book, Gruffalo Granny, followed by a fascinating live masterclass where Axel sketched right before our eyes. The children loved seeing how a story comes to life from the page to the canvas. We love the new story.
Science- Animals’ needs for survival
This half term in Science we are going to be learning about what animals need for survival. This week we introduced some key vocabulary that we are going to recap on each week.
The children have been focussing on mammals this week and identifying that mammals have hair and fur on their bodies. During our group activity the children were able to classify a selection of animals into categories such as reptiles, insects, birds and mammals. A few of the children questioned their choices but, through peer discussion and reasoning they were able to select the correct one.
Well done Year 2 for a great first Science lesson!