What a roarsome trip...

What a day it was last Friday at Africa Alive.

We had the perfect weather and that was accompanied by a brilliant teacher, called Sara, who we loved listening to as she talked to us about the animals in Africa's Savannah, desert and rain forests. Ask us who, Elton, Willy Wonka or Mork (and Mindy!) are if you want to know more...

We've come back and spent time this week writing a recount of the trip and making our puppets of an African animal. At the summer fayre next Friday be sure to come into our rooms to find out more about what we have been doing. We are super proud of our efforts!

Next week we will continue to think about animals, mostly birds as we spend a week learning about them. We will also have a week were we look into primates, and focus on animal conservation before we finish the topic so start to research animals that fall into those families. As well as that we have got a lot of practicing for our summer concert to start doing. We hope you can get the year 2 songs out of your head, they're really catchy! 

Also next Thursday (during the school day) there will be another transition event for all of the children who are going to Old Catton Juniors. The event will be over before lunch time and will be at the junior school so there will be the full year 2 team walking them down there. If anyone would like to know anymore then please come and speak to the year team.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend in the sun and see you ready for some singing next week!

Only 30 days of year 2 left!!!

We have realised today that we are about to begin the final 30 days of the children's time in year 2 and therefore at Garrick Green. 

However, we still have plenty of things left to do and look forward too. There's the whole school trip to Africa Alive, sports week and the making of puppets to name but three. The puppet making will be of an African animal that roams the savanna, can you begin to decide which one you would like to make? The animal each child selects to make a puppet of will then also be used as the basis of a poem that they will write. Eventually we are hoping to create our own class version of the book The Carnival of the Animals that is photographed below and was inspired by the music of Saint-Saens. Talking of music we also have the schools end of year performance to look forward to and in preparation for that it would be great if every child could begin to think about some of their favourite memories of there time at the school.

This week we have begun to consider how different books are more suited to different readers, with the language used in each being appropriate to that reader. This is some of the work we will do to be ready to write our own poems next week. If you can it would be great if you could begin to read poems in order to know some of the features of poems that you could use when we write them next week. In maths we have been focusing on continuing to use the skills and strategies taught to answer a variety of different problems, such as this...

The first person to come to Mr W or Mrs R with both answers will earn a team point! We have also been learning to tell the time and this has included conversations about the three different ways we talk about time. Can you tell your parents what those three ways are?

Finally, we would like to remind everyone that a PE kit is needed all week at school. As ever, if there are any questions or concerns please come and speak to one of the year 2 team.

Welcome back after your half term holiday. We have spent this first week back learning about Russia in our international week. This has included learning about the composer Tchakovsky and artist Kandinsky. We also used some measuring maths skills as we baked some Russian honey cake and enjoyed the mini world cup. Our talk homework this week has a very famous religious landmark on it from Moscow can you share what your families what you know about it. Please note that due to the sing up event that some of the year two will attend we have decided to send this home on Monday.

The mini world cup (see photos below) has got us into a sporty mood especcially with the school sports week looming on the horizon. We have also had good news with one of our golf teams being selected to take part in Norfolk summer school games 2018. Those asked to take part will be informed shortly and the event will be during the school day (10-12.30) of Tuesday 19^th June and will take place at the Norwich family golf centre. The PE theme continues with some children going to the Norfolk show soon to perform a dance. Please continue to support us in reminding the children that they have been provided with a fabulous opportunity and should treat it as one when taking part in any of the experiences, from practice through to event.

Next week sees us return to our carnival of the animals topic and with the whole school trip to Africa alive coming up we are going to be learning about more worldly animals from places such as the polar, desert and rainforest areas. Can you name where any of these are on the map? Do any of the countries you represented at the mini world cup have any of these habitats?

We plan on doing some maths work that includes telling the time and different daily puzzles and questions that will encourage the children to use many of the skills taught this year. Please continue to try and use your maths skills at home, have you got an older/younger sibling you could teach or test?