Topic
We have started out new history topic all about real life heroes. The first important person we’re learning about is Nelson Mandela. You can find more about him here. He believed that everyone should be treated the same. We will be learning about equality, apartheid and the suffragettes.
We are biologists!
Biologists study living things, including people, animals, and plants. This half term, Year 1 and 2 will be studying plants.
On Tuesday, we began looking at the different things plants need to grow. We have created an experiment looking at what an onion bulb needs to grow.
We planted four onion bulbs in different conditions. 
We have four environments for our bulbs to grow:
- no light, no soil, no water
- no water, no soil
- no soil
- water, light, soil
After we’d planted them, we made predictions on which bulb we thought would grow the best or wouldn’t grow. Each week, we will be observing our bulbs to see which are growing.
Help at home
Explore plants that you have in the garden or that you see on your walk to school. Observe how plants change over time and talk about what things they need to grow and survive.
Pirate Bonnie and her swash buckling adventures!
This week, year 1 and 2 were lucky to take an adventure to Wetherby library to meet Pirate Bonnie and hear all about her swashbuckling adventures.
We heard tales of old – of pirates that lived long ago. Pirates who faced adversity and persevered through difficulty to become legendary pirates.
We saw a book that was 300 years old and had pictures and stories about the pirates we had just heard about.
Zooming Julia Donaldson
To kick off world book day, we enjoyed a zoom with Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. We enjoyed a story about a hare and a hedgehog who were in a running race. Axel Scheffler showed us how he draws the characters. Julia Donaldson then read us a new story about some baddies. The children were gripped!
Food Technology
This week, we have made some overnight oats.
We washed our hands before we started to wash away any germs. We read the recipe and worked together in pairs to follow the method. We used a claw grip to keep us safe when cutting the banana with a knife.
After, we evaluated our oats saying what we enjoyed and what we’d improve if we made them again.
If you make this at home, please email some pictures to share with us.
Living and Learning: Staying safe online
Today, we had a workshop all about how to keep safe online. We learnt that when we use the internet there are 3 important rules to follow:
- Always ask parents first
- Only talk to people you know
- Stick to places that are just right for you
Here are some of our comments on how to keep safe online:
“You can go on YouTube kids to watch videos,” said Elijah.
“Don’t wear your school uniform on a video as strangers will see the school logo,” said Ethan.
“If it has an 18 on, you can’t play it if you are under 18,” said Gabriel.
“Don’t click on pop ups as it may be a trick ,” said Leo.
“Always ask a teacher if you’re not sure and need help on an iPad,” said Busby.
“Grown ups have rules to keep us safe,” said Lily.
Super scientist: I can perform simple tests
This week in science, we have continued learning about conducting a simple experiment. We thought about how to make an experiment a fair test and we have been conducting a comparative test.
We explored if all paper was good to write on. We used five types of paper and looked at which was the easiest or hardest to write on.
We found that some were easier than others and thought that this was because some paper was shiny and some were dull.
Attendance competition
Last week’s attendance winners were Year 2 with 96.8%. Well done to all the children in the Year 2 class.
Wake up Shake up!
Today, Wake up Shake up happened indoors! Check us out in action…
Topic – Geography
This half term our topic is Geography. We’re all excited to become Geographers. Geographers are a type of scientist who studies the Earth. Geographers study the land (the physical features of the Earth) and the people who live within it (the human features).
This week, we’ve started by looking at an aerial map of our school, naming the four countries that make up the UK and their capital cities and listing some human and physical features in our environment.
We have enjoyed watching a video to help us to remember the 4 countries that make up the UK and their capital cities. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
We have also start to look at our Geography vocabulary, which you can see below.
Challenge: Can your child name the 4 countries that make up the UK and name their capital city?