Category

Year 2

Year 2 History- Mary Seacole

By History, Year 2

Year 2 have now started their history unit on Mary Seacole.
I am very impressed with the children’s prior knowledge and it has been lovely to see some of the work children produced on the snow day.

Today, we created a timeline of Mary Seacole’s life, sequencing the most significant events within her lifetime. We used cubes to help us think about this with each cube representing 1 year of Mary Seacole’s life. We noticed that between the age of 45- 50, she was very busy and helped lots of people in Jamaica and Crimea during this period.

Well done Year 2!

08/01/2025
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School Pantomime Trip

By Christmas, Community, Drama, FS2, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5, Year 6

Today was our annual trip to Rotherham Civic Theatre to watch this year’s pantomime: Robin Hood. The children were all fantastic and had a wonderful time. 

 

28/11/2024
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Y2 D.T- Food

By Design Technology, Year 2

Year 2 have designed, made and evaluated their own fruit smoothies for other children to encourage them to eat more fruit. In science, we have been learning about the importance of a balanced diet and know that fruits and vegetables are a very important part of this! Their smoothies needed to: have a catchy name, have at least 2 fruit in and be sweet and tasty!

First, we did a sensory analysis to help us decide which fruit we wanted to include in our smoothies. We considered taste, texture, appearance and smell. We practised cutting techniques like the bridge and the claw.

Then we designed our smoothies, thinking about the name, packaging and ingredients.

Next, we were on to making. We chopped our fruit and measure the juice and yoghurt before combining these in a blender.

Now onto the best part- the tasting! There were some mixed reviews but lots of children thought their smoothies were delicious. We evaluated our products considering whether they met our product specification and what we might change if we did the project again. Well done Year 2!

18/07/2024
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Y2 Science – What do plants need to grow?

By Science, Year 2

Year 2 have been investigating what plants need to grow. Each child picked one the of the three enquiry questions to investigate:

Do plants need sunlight to grow?

Do plants need soil to grow?

Do plants need to water to grow?

Each child grew cress seeds in two conditions to compare results. We made predictions about what we thought might happen to the cress seeds in each condition. We discussed how we could make the test fair and what we needed to change/keep the same. The results shocked some children, as they were surprised that the cress seeds without soil and without sunlight still managed to grow! However, we noticed that the cress in these conditions did not look as healthy.

18/07/2024
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Maths- Telling the time in Year 2

By Maths, Year 2

Learning to tell the time can be very challenging for children to grasp. There is so much information needed to be able to tell the time on an analogue clock and this can cognitively overload children. At St.Alban’s, we break this into tiny steps.

First, children only focus on the hour hand in a linear number line. Children practised using their hour hands to show o’clock times on the number line. We then also looked at where the hour hand would point for half past the hour, noticing that it no longer pointed at the number but was halfway between two numbers.

Then we moved our numbers into a circle like a real clock face with the hour hand in the middle pointing to the o’clock and half past times.

After, we started to think about the minute hand as well. We used two clock faces for this: one to show the hour and one to show the minutes. We noticed that the minute hand points halfway around the clock face to represent half past.

We discussed how people don’t wear two watches but have to look at the hour hand and the minute hand on the same clock! Finally we tried to show o’clock and halfpast times on one clock face by moving both the hour and minute hands. We will repeat these steps with quarter past and quarter to times tomorrow. Well done year 2, you will be telling the time in no time!

15/07/2024
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Y2 Picasso Collages

By Art, Year 2

Year 2 have been learning about the artist Pablo Picasso. In particular, we focused on his use of cubism and abstract portraits. The children loved trying to emulate his unique style in their own fragmented collages. Well done Year 2!

15/07/2024
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RSE in Year 2

By PSHE, Year 2

Today Y2  had their first Relationship and Sex Education lesson. This largely focused on considering similarities and differences between girls and boys and challenging gender stereotypes.

Children had to place the objects into the hoop they thought the item was for: boys, girls or everyone. I picked random children to place the items and the first picture shows the children’s initial perception. I then asked if any child disagreed with where any of the objects were placed and to explain their reasoning as to why they disagreed.  Sophie definitely disagreed with football being for “boys” and she argued her case brilliantly. As a class, children debated where they thought the items belonged and the final picture shows what the majority of children agreed upon.

04/07/2024
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Year 2- Dentist visitor (PSHE and science)

By PSHE, Science, Year 2

Year 2 were very lucky to have two dentists visit and give a presentation on how we can look after our teeth. This linked to some learning we had been doing in PSHE and science. The presentation was very informative and children enjoyed seeing whether their brushing technique was effective or not. I’m sure Year 2 will all take good care of their teeth from now on! Thankyou Dr.Thompson and your colleague for taking time out of your busy schedule to come in and talk to us.

26/06/2024
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