Year 2 w/b 27th March
Date: 30th Mar 2023 @ 4:30pm
What a wonderful week we enjoyed to conclude the Spring term. In English, we each wrote a set of instructions for making our pizzas. It was clear that the children had worked hard to include all of the key features from our instructions toolkit, as well as many aspects of Year 2 grammar. Well done Year 2 for thinking so carefully to make each sentence excellent!
Our spelling rule was ‘the r sound spelt wr’. This is used for words like: wren, write, wriggle and wrong.
In maths this week, we have continued with our unit 'Mass, capacity and temperature'. In these lessons, we have been:
- Exploring, measuring and estimating mass using both grams and kilograms.
- Measuring and comparing volume and capacity.
- Using millilitres (ml) as a standard unit of measuring capacity and volume.
In history, we learnt all about Queen Elizabeth II. It was so interesting to hear how we celebrated her Silver, Golden, Diamond and Platinum jubilee. To conclude our history learning for this half term, we completed our comparison grids, comparing the time periods within which each of our three queens ruled. This prompted some rich discussions about the progress made across different aspects of life and the changes that we think have been most significant. We then enjoyed a quiz to ‘prove what we know’ about Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.
This week, we have celebrated British Science week. We were very excited to welcome Mrs Mowby on Thursday, who shared with us her role as a vet. She told us all about what vets do, what her day looks like and even asked us to guess which animal the x-ray belonged to! Finally, by looking at an x-ray of a dog, we put our detective hats on to work out how many puppies she was going to have.
In PSHE this week, we learned all about money and our needs and wants. First, we imagined what would happen if our family (or an imagined family) spent all the money they had to live on for the month on toys. They’d have lots of new toys but couldn’t buy anything else. Would this be a good or bad thing? What problems might there be? What kinds of things do families have to spend money on? How do they decide what to buy? We decided this wasn’t a good idea and we should be really careful how we spend our money. Finally, we discussed what are items we need (food, shelter and water) and what are items we just want (toys, cars and books).
We have been very fortunate this week, as the theatre has visited us twice! The children have enjoyed professional performances of both Wind in the Willows and Scrooge- these were fantastic!
In preparation for Holy week starting this Sunday each day this week we have read, reflected and prayed about the days that led to Jesus’ crucifixion and Resurrection. Looking at the paintings of artist Nebiyu Assefu has helped us think about the emotions and feelings of Jesus and his disciples during this time.On Maundy Thursday, at the Last Supper, Jesus shared bread and wine with his disciples as a way to help his disciples remember him. As Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, his disciples fell asleep. Jesus was afraid but he prayed. Judas then betrayed his friend with a kiss and Jesus was arrested and taken away. We thought about times when we had been betrayed or let down by friends- it makes us feel mixed up. We reassembled pictures of friendship in groups and agreed it is good to be back together with friends. Next, we looked at Assefu’s paintings of Jesus’ judgement. Even though there was no reason to find Jesus guilty, the chief priests and elders decided Jesus must die. We wondered how we would feel to be unfairly judged. We looked at pictures of famous people and places and compared our judgements on them. Is it fair to make judgements on people or places we do not know?
Good Friday was the day Jesus carried our burdens. He carried his own cross to Golgotha where he was crucified between two thieves. As we looked at scales weighed down, we thought about Jesus weighed down by carrying everyone’s sins. We thought about the things in our own lives that can weigh us down like worries about ourselves and people we love. As Jesus died, he offered forgiveness to a thief next to him on a cross. Forgiving people that have hurt us can be hard but if Jesus can do it as he dies on the cross perhaps we to can forgive others. On white boards we wrote things we were sorry about. In rubbing them away we thought about fresh starts. Forgiving people is like giving them a fresh start.
Finally, we focused on hope and the empty cross. On Easter Sunday, Jesus was resurrected, he was alive again. Our Easter gardens with the stone rolled away revealing an empty tomb and new life growing all around reminds us of the joy, light and peace of that first Easter morning over 2000 years ago. The start of Christianity and the Church as we know it today.
In RE, we explored how symbols help us understand the meaning of the Easter story. We then extended our knowledge and learnt that the paschal candle shows the alpha and omega symbol, which means the first and the last and that God was there at the beginning and will be there at the end- He is a constant presence.
On Friday, we very much enjoyed our Easter service. Everybody thought our singing was amazing! Thank you for joining us for the walk down.
Thank you for your continued support. I hope that you all enjoy a wonderful, restful break and I wish you all a happy and blessed Easter. The Year Two team are looking forward to seeing everybody back in school on Monday 17th April to begin another excellent half term of learning.
Miss Roxburgh and Mrs Taylor
