During European week we have been focusing on the country Spain. We have been developing our understanding of the Spanish language, using language to greet people, asking how they are, learning our numbers and colours as well as names of food and drink. 

Comparing the traditional food in Spain with the food in England.

We have looked at the continents around the world and understand that Spain is in Europe. We all worked together to create a map of the world showing the different continents. We used our sewing skills to attach the felt countries to the fabric. We identified where Spain and England were and talked about the types of transport we would need to get to Spain and how long it might take.  

We have identified the capital cities in Spain and some of us have been on holiday to these places. We have also created Spanish flags and used the colours from the flag to create a fantastic Father's Day card. Happy Father's Day to all our St Chads daddies!

We looked at a traditional drink they serve in Spain Sangria and made our own fruity version. We used the internet to find out what ingredients we needed and Mrs  Wood went to the supermarket with our shopping list. We all helped to write a set of instructions to show our understanding of how we make the drink before writing our own instructions. The children developed their maths skills talking about irregular 3D shapes and looking at the symmetry of the different fruits.  The year 2 children developed their understanding of capacity being the waiters and measuring out the drinks.  

We all enjoyed our drink of Sangria! Yummy!

We loved Flamenco dancing to Spanish music and used castanets and maracas to add percussion to the music.

We enjoyed learning about Spanish artists Milo and Picasso and recreated some of their art work.

We used paint, pastels or collage to recreate Milo's cockerel.

We found Picasso's cubist art especially interesting.

We shared our learning with the rest of the school in our assembly at the end of the week and enjoyed learning facts about other countries too!

We have lots of  new Explorers who have worked hard to learn something new about our topic, persevered with things they have found difficult and worked as part of a team to solve problems.

Look at them on our Explorers board in the classroom. 

This week we have been working on a design and technology project using the TASC wheel. The children have had to use their problem solving skills to help save an explorer who had become stranded on a desert island.

Firstly we shared our ideas on the thinking floor mat. We decided that the best idea would be to build a raft for the explorer so he could sail off the island.
We generated some design ideas by thinking about which materials would work best and looking at examples of different rafts.After that we picked our best design idea and built our own models.

We tested all the models in water to see if they would float, which nearly all of them did. It was very exciting!
Finally we evaluated how we had done by saying what was good about our raft and what we could do to improve it.

We have been developing or directional language skills to help us to write clear instructions for people to follow. We have learnt lots of new language including half and quarter turn and clockwise and anti-clockwise.

We had to write instructions to help the bird get to the worms to feed its baby in the nest followed by creating our own hunt with a partner. We had to think about a habitat and what type of home the animal might live in as well as think about what it eats. We had to you write the directions as a set of instructions?

  

We then worked in the hall with a partner using 6 cones. We had to choose a start point and a finish point and put the other cones in between. One of us put the blindfold on and using verbal instructions we had to direct our partner to each cone finally ending up at the finish point. We then drew our own maps and wrote on the directional language before writing out the instructions in clear sentences using time connectives, prepositions, imperative verbs and commands.

We are working hard to develop our skills as good learners. Look who has been our 'Explorers of the week' for the last two weeks. They have been following the Explorers code and have been rewarded for their hard work, team work, perseverance, respectfulness, ability to try something new and not give up even when it is difficult.

We have started to think about our new topic- Explorers. We looked though an explorers rucksack to see what we would need if we were to travel to different places around the world. We thought about the following questions-

What essentials would you need to stay alive?

How would you know where to go?

What type of clothing would you need?

We all shared our ideas and Miss Whittaker recorded them on the thinking mat. We discussed and developed the ideas further before using the thinking hats to help us to think about what we already know  about explorers and what we want to find out through our topic work.

Cillian, Reuben and Matthew had a fantastic discussion about visiting an island. They talked about what they would need and where they would get their water from.

Reuben said, "You can not drink sea water because it is too salty and it would kill you."

Matthew replied, "I know what you could do. You can get bamboo and cut it in half long ways."

"That would make a trough." Cillian replied.

"Yeah and then you put one end high and one low and put a pot underneath to collect the rain water." Matthew responded.

The boys then talked about how they would keep one end high through the night using rocks, leaves and tress to support it.

I hope I am with these boys if I am ever stranded on an island. 

We have been very busy learning all about Frogs and how they change from a tadpole to a frog- this is called metamorphosis! We learnt a song to help us to remember the stages in the life cycle of a frog. We then worked in groups to create a dance to help us to remember the different stages. Have a look on Learn Anywhere at  the videos of our dances.

Then we listened to a poem called The Bullfrog and in small groups we learnt a section of the poem. We talked about the poem and its features including repetition, rhyming, short sentences, telling a story etc We performed our poem remembering to use clear, loud voices with expression, remembering to keep with the beat of the group. Have a look on Learn Anywhere at our performance.

We wrote an acrostic poem together before writing our own versions. Come and have a look how we chose to present our life cycle work and read out fantastic acrostic poems.