Cool Cricketers

Year 2 have absolutely loved our cricket sessions with Warwickshire cricket board. 

We have learnt so many new skills and we will really miss Charlie and Danny next term.

Each week we looked at a different skill and then combined them all in the final week.

We started off being cool catchers and we used "big hands" and hand-eye coordination. We then moved on to being "brilliant bowlers" and had to use listening and safety skills to hit targets.

After these sessions, we moved on to fielding

where we had to throw accurately whilst listening to become "ferocious fielders".  We also loved our session being "brilliant batters"

The next sessions enabled us to become "skillful scorers" where we were able to combine all the skills we had learnt to play mini games. 

Finally, we put our skills into practise to play team games. We can't wait to apply these skills outside when we have warmer weather. 

Pirate Portraits

During our Art and DT sessions, we have been working towards creating our very own Pirate portraits. 

Firstly, we used different sized strips of card to create a pirate themed background. We used colours that were popular in Pirate books we have read. We had to create a repeated pattern of our choice to create the desired effect.

After this, we were ready to draw our self-portraits. We used mirrors to look carefully at our facial features and followed tutorials on how to draw with added detail.

Once this stage was complete, we added different media to our portraits to add colour, texture and a 3D element. We used materials such as: wool, cotton, string and card to enhance our features. 

Our final part was to add a slide mechanism but we had not seen many before, so we looked at a range of early slide mechanisms in the library. There were some books that had different slide mechanisms so we decided to use a simple lever to create a moving tongue.

We were so pleased with the final product and we are all so proud of how our work turned out. 

Tidying our local environment

We are shocked and saddened to see so much litter around the perimeter of our school. We do not think it is acceptable for members of the public to throw litter in our playground or to chuck rubbish on the floor where we have to walk!

We think it's really important to take pride in our local environment and to think about the animals who have to live in these habitats. We have been learning to empathise during our PSHE sessions and to think about ways that we can improve our community and well-being.

The litter patrol (year 2) decided that enough was enough and we decided to take action in the hope that we could influence others to do the same.

We hope to spread the message that littering is not okay and that everyone has a responsibility for their own litter. Put it in the bin if it is not recyclable.

Fitness Fanatics!

 In year 2, we have had a real push on health and fitness. During lockdown, we were not as active as we usually are, so we decided that our physical and mental health needed improving!

In our PE lessons, we have started each session with Miss Fortner's fitness routines to ensure we get our heart rate pumping as this is vital part of preparing your body for physical activity.

As well as this, we have been focussing on Yoga to help improve balance, posture, coordination and the importance of calm, self-love and relaxation of the mind. Thanks to Yoga bugs and to Jannine in the office for the recommendation!

To end our physical week, we were treated to a spectacular Paralympic session thanks to Aspire sports UK! We enjoyed the range of activities on offer and it was great way to appreciate Paralympic athletes and sports. Check out our Twitter page to see photos of each class!

   

Awesome Aboriginal Art

Our new topic is all about Awesome Australia! First, we researched different Australian animals during our computing lesson. We used a search engine and key words to do this.

Once we found out the animals that live there, we then decided which animal we would like to use for our Aboriginal artwork.

To start off our art lesson, we explored a variety of aboriginal dot paintings as well as the colours, techniques and patterns they used.

After we were familiar with the techniques, we practised how to create various dot sizes and patterns using eco friendly cotton buds!

Next week we will be transferring the skills we learn onto our chosen animal. We are really excited to see the end result!

Great Gymnastics!

 In PE this week, we have been learning all about different types of rolls in gymnastics. 

We started off with a pencil roll and we had to make sure we kept our arms straight above our heads and keep our legs straight too as well as pointed toes. 

We then tried a teddy bear roll where we had to sit in straddle position with our legs straight. We held on to the front of our knees and rolled onto the side of our shoulder onto our back. 

                                  

After that, we tried an egg roll where we had to tuck our knees tight into our bodies. As we wrapped our hands around our knees we then rolled onto our backs.

Finally, we tried the hardest roll of all - the forwards roll. For this roll, it was really important that we kept our chin close to our chest so that we didn't put our weight onto our head.  

We had so much fun learning the various types of rolls and next week we will be extending our learning further by linking sequences together.

Coding Champions!

During our Computing lessons, we have been looking at how to create instructions (algorithms) for our Bee Bots to follow.

To begin with, we had our own treasure maps and we had to use directional language to explain how we can reach the Pirate treasure!

After we had created our algorithms, we used a large version of our treasure map to program our Bee Bot to move from our starting position to the treasure.

We then realised that we could get to the treasure in more than one way, but we would need to re-programme our Bee Bots in order to get there.

We used trial and error to get to our final location and had to do some debugging along the way if we hadn't chosen the correct command for our Bee Bot to follow.