Class 2- Autumn 2- Week 3

What a busy, brilliant week it’s been in class! We’ve jumped into a fantastic new topic, wrestled with some tricky mathematical shapes, and continued our exciting preparations for the Christmas play. The classroom has been buzzing with focus and creativity! This week, we kicked off our brand-new English unit by exploring the classic story of Pinocchio. We started off by making some great predictions about what might happen next in the story, which led to some wonderful class discussions. The main focus of our work has been all about making our writing more descriptive and vivid!

• We've been focusing intensely on using great adjectives (those brilliant describing words) to paint clear pictures for our readers.
• We then learned how to combine these with nouns to create fantastic noun phrases. Instead of just writing 'the wood', we're now writing things like 'the dark, magical wood' or 'the kind, old toy-maker'. In our separate grammar lessons, we’ve been working on a key skill: identifying the difference between proper nouns and common nouns. It’s important for the children to know that proper nouns, like names of people (Pinocchio, Geppetto) or places (Italy), always need a capital letter. Our mathematical journey has continued with the topic of shape, but this week we have moved into the exciting realm of 3D shapes! The children have been working hard to understand the different parts of shapes like cubes, pyramids, and prisms. This can be a little bit tricky, but they have shown excellent perseverance! We’ve been learning to identify:

• Faces: The flat surfaces (like the sides of a box).
• Edges: Where two faces meet (like the folded lines on a box).
• Vertices: The corners where the edges meet. If you have any food packets or containers at home, you could ask your child to point out the faces, edges, and vertices! Practice at home always helps cement these concepts! Our Religious Education lessons have turned to the theme of The First Christmas, setting the scene for the upcoming festive season. We have been discussing the order of events in the Nativity story, from the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary, to the journey to Bethlehem and the shepherds following the star. We also had a really interesting discussion where the children thought about: Would a special baby born today be treated any differently to how baby Jesus was 2,000 years ago? This led to some thoughtful answers about fame, media attention, and how people might react in the modern world. The excitement in the hall is building as play practice continues! The children are doing so well and working hard to learn their lines, songs, and stage positions. We can’t wait for you all to see the final performance! For our final outside learning session, In Outdoor Learning, Year 2 transformed into Bare Branch Detectives for an exciting November nature hunt! Exploring how the world prepares for winter. The main focus was to observe the changing state of trees, specifically focusing on deciduous trees losing their leaves and preparing for a period of rest.The children worked in small teams to complete the 'Five Finds' challenge. Taking part in scientific inquiry, observation, and collaboration.Their mission was to collect one example of each of the following clues:

• A Tree Seed or Nut: Evidence of next year’s life hiding in plain sight (e.g., acorns, sycamore ‘helicopters’).
• A Twig with a Bud: The children loved finding these tiny, protected lumps—the spring leaves waiting patiently inside!
• Something Rough: A texture challenge, comparing things like fallen bark or bumpy sticks (Science: Materials).
• A Leaf Skeleton or Last Leaf: The fragile remnants of autumn.
  • The Colour Mud-Brown (in three different shades!): A visual challenge to tune their eyes to the subtle shades of the forest floor. During our end of block treat (hot chocolate), each group picked two of their finds and had to come up with two amazing adjectives to describe them. There was some wonderful descriptive language used, and questions like, "Is your seed smooth or wrinkled?" and "Is your bark flaky or hard?” We finished by reflecting on what we have learned about the environment and how we worked together.. The children were encouraged to share one scientific find (explaining its purpose) and one feeling about their teamwork. We also discussed respect for the environment. Before returning back to the classroom, we returned our seeds and sticks gently to the forest floor, explaining that nature needs these things to reuse and grow new life.​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ What a productive week! The children deserve a well-earned rest this weekend.