Christmas Party

We had a fun filled day at the Christmas party. We played games, danced and enjoyed a delicious lunch. The highlight of the day was ‘Santa’ visiting us and handing us presents for being on the ‘good list’.

Young Writers

Congratulations to our children for getting their poems published in the ‘Young Writers’ book. Over 10,000 children submitted entries and six of our Year 2 children will have their work published in a publication ‘I have a dream-out of this world’.  Well done to all those who submitted their entries for this competition. Well done children, you continue to shine like superstars!

NSPCC

We were very fortunate to have a NSPCC team member visit and speak to us.  We spoke about how every single child has the right to speak out and be safe. If anything worries us or we feel uncomfortable we need to speak to a trusted adult. We discussed who our trusted, safe adults were and we learnt the number 0800 11 11 to call when we need help.

The Great Fire of London: Action!

Today we acted out The Great Fire of London. We explored what it would have been like in 1666 during the fire. We learnt about the historical fire while moving like the characters from history.

Water Carrier Carts

The children used their chosen materials (rubber bands, blue tack or sellotape) and attached the wheels to the axles and finished making their water carrier carts. They tested to see if the wheels moved smoothly after attaching them to the shoe boxes.

Mary Poppins

Thanks to the PTA, we watched Mary Poppins at the theatre. We had a fantastic time watching Mary Poppins and enjoyed the popcorn, sweets and juice that the PTA provided for us.

The Great Fire of London - 1666

The children read up on ‘TGFOL’ to find the answers to some of their questions in their history lesson.

Living or Non-living Things

Our new topic in science is about Habitats.  We recapped on Mrs Gren to identify what things have life and then we differentiated between living and non-living things.

Prophecy and Promise

In our RE lessons, we have started our new topic for this term on Prophecy and Promise. We spoke about who prophets are and wrote a job advertisement for the role of a prophet.

PE

We will be learning Tudor dance as part of our PE lessons.  We hope to perform this dance for our Tudor assembly in March.

Homework Corner

The children continue to shine like ‘SUPERSTARS’ with the fascinating homework projects they have done over the holidays, from brilliant paintings to fabulous models of Pudding Lane bakeries! Well done Year 2!

Sacred Heart of Jesus

The children prayed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and observed a one-minute silent reflection on the 12 promises of the Scared Heart. When Catholics receive Holy Communion on the first Friday of nine consecutive first Fridays, Jesus will grant 12 special and powerful graces to the devout soul.

Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I leave all my trust in you!

Wheels and Axles

The children explored different ways to make the wheels of their vehicles and decided on using either blue tack, sellotape or a rubber band to attach the wheels to the axles. They cannot wait to make their vehicles.

Poetry

The children have been reading different poems about autumn. The children identified rhyming words and were happy to read their poems aloud.

Ordering Numbers

In Maths, we ordered numbers from smallest to biggest and then put them on a washing line to double check if we had put them in the right order.

Reading Buddies

The Year 2 children were visited by the Year 4 children, who read with them. It was lovely to see how they interacted with each other.

Baptism

Baptism is a sacrament in which we become part of God’s family. The children were happy to share photographs and special symbols of their special day. Many of them brought the outfits they wore on their baptism day. It was truly an exciting afternoon learning about baptism.

Rekenrek

We enjoyed using a rekenrek to help us understand what numbers are made up of. These are some of the things we found out: 

• that 8 is made of 5 + 3, so 3 + 5 makes 8
• that 8 is made of 4 + 4, so 4+ 4 makes 8
• that 8 + 2 make 10, so 10 is made of 8 + 2

A rekenrek is a counting frame used in maths. They are used to help children build a sense of number, by helping children to understand number composition. A rekenrek is a fantastic piece of maths equipment to show pupils how to compose and decompose numbers. This helps them build strategies for doing basic mental maths calculations which will help them with their life-long maths understanding.

Dictionary

In our English lesson we used dictionaries to help us understand the meaning of words we did not know. We spoke about words being arranged in alphabetical order and also sang the ‘A, B, C, D ‘nursery rhyme to help us remember the correct order of the alphabet.

Junior Monets

The children used all the skills and techniques of Monet to create their own Monet painting. They stuck to cool colours just like Monet did.

Mother Mary

As October is the month of Mary, we spent some quiet time in the chapel praying to Mother Mary. We spoke about Mary being the mother of God and how much she loved her son and about the graces one receives when you say the rosary at home. Catholic rosary beads are made up of a cross or crucifix, a medal and large beads. We recited the ‘Hail Mary’ together.

Atlas Work

In our geography lessons, we looked at atlases to identify the 7 continents and 5 oceans. We also identified the 4 countries that make up the United Kingdom.

Claude Monet

We used different brush strokes to create our own version of Monet’s famous ‘Water lilies’ painting. We were very impressed with our creative and artistic touch.

Pilgrims of Hope Pledge Day

We had a fabulous day celebrating our Pilgrims of Hope Pledge Day at STA. Our day started with a CAFOD workshop, which threw light on how fortunate we are to have an opportunity to study in a school since millions of children do not. We then went on a prayer walk around the school playground focussing on what we are ‘HOPEFUL’ for and remembering the fact that it requires just one person to make a change and it can be every one of us. We also made door stops to remind us that Jesus is the door and his door is always open.

Maths

In our Maths lesson, we formed numbers in different ways and explained to our partners how we made the numbers.

Zones of Regulation Day               

The children had an exciting day dressing up in colours of the four zones of regulation. They spoke about what each colour/zone stood for and shared that it was possible to be in more than one colour zone at any point in time. They then looked at various strategies that could bring them to a happy, calm and peaceful state. Each child chose three different strategies and shared what strategies they chose. The most common strategies were taking 3 deep breaths, speaking to an adult or using a fidget toy to calm them down.

Observing Plants and Trees

We started our science topic on ‘Plants’. As part of our lesson, we went around school, observed and made note of the different plants and trees we saw. It was both exciting and fun!

Planting Seeds

The children enjoyed planting seeds, in their science lessons,  as they continued to learn about what conditions are required for a seed to grow.

Homework Display

The Year 2 homework display is looking amazing, thanks to the fantastic artwork that most of the children have done. We have quite a few ‘Monets’ in our class and it was brilliant to see so many children using pointillism in their artwork. Keep up the fantastic start, Year 2!

Class Beatitudes

As a class, the children came up with beatitudes for their class so that they could be inspired to follow Jesus’ footsteps.

New Beginnings

We started our first day in Year 2 with class worship. We thanked God for keeping us safe during the summer holidays and  for bringing us all back safely to school.