Miss Moscatiello Year 2 - Skylarks

Welcome to Skylarks

Teacher- Miss H Moscatiello

Teaching Assistants- Mrs L Smith, Mrs A Webster and Mrs A Fisher

Welcome to Year 2 Skylarks!

In our classroom we share our smiles, respect each other and always try our best.

Term 3 - Extreme Habitats

Off on our travels around the world we go again! This time we will be visiting the extreme climates of the world, flying to the North and South Poles and along the Equator to compare and contrast the hot and cold environments. There we will discover the animals who call these extreme locations home. We will look at how they have adapted to their habitats and how they manage to survive in these harsh climates. We will look at famous explorers, Captain Scott and the local explorer Matthew Flinders, who have travelled to these continents and hopefully meet a real life explorer in school. Our English will focus the story of Climate Change by Catherine Barr and the books Lost and Found and Tin Forest. We will be writing narratives linked to extreme habitats and climates as well as writing poems with similes. In maths we will be solving multiplication and division calculations and recalling the 2s, 5s and 10 times tables. We will also be recognising coins of different denominations and adding and subtracting amounts of money.

In Maths this week, we have been exploring how to share equally between a given number of groups to establish how many will be in each group using concrete apparatus.

This term we have been looking at the work by Alexander Calder and Nick Park in art. We have experimented with clay and wire and discussed how complicated the work by these artists may have been to make. We then had a go at making our own sculpture, using a wire frame and covering with clay. Here are some of our creations.

This week we welcomed an explorer! Adrian Hall has travelled to many areas of the Arctic and came into school to share his experiences. He showed us many photos of places he has explored, animals he encountered and people he met along the way.

Art

To build simple thumb pots using clay, including rolling out clay on a board.

Today, we experimented with clay after feeling inspired from the work of Calder. We then made a thumb pot.

We have had an exciting English lesson this week! We walked through the 'desert' and experienced walking through warm, soft sand just like in the desert! After, we brain stormed our thoughts and used ambitious vocabulary to describe the sand. We then used our vocabulary to write a sentence using an extended noun phrase.

Year 2 Term 1 - Raise the drawbridge!

See the castle ahead? Get ready to invade its mighty walls! Shoot a projectile with an archer’s aim! Head across the drawbridge, over the moat and up to the top of the tower… Then meet the lord and lady in the Great Hall of the keep! And finally…meet knights and unconventional princesses who rescue princes and fight dragons! Maps and photographs will help us learn about our local area and also show us where we could still find a castle in our home county of Lincolnshire. This topic will develop the children’s understanding of castles through the ages, different features of medieval castles and the people who lived and worked in the castles. Would you have wanted to be a gong farmer?

English – We’ll learn the stories of The Egg, The Paper Bag Princess and The Boy Who Grew Dragons. We will write poetry about dragons, recounts of our visit to Lincoln Castle and write alternative endings to well-known stories.

Maths – Children will start the term by reading, writing and ordering numbers and partitioning 2 digit numbers. They will be developing their addition and subtraction skills and understanding the difference between the 2 operations, as well as learning about inverse operations. The children will be practising their times tables, counting in 2s, 5s and 10s

What have we been up to?

We went on a visit to St John’s Church to learn about how Advent is celebrated by Christians. On our arrival, Reverend Greg and Reverend Richards talked to the children about the meaning and importance of the Advent wreath and candles. They also explained the colours used in the church at this time of year. In addition, they talked to us about how Christians worship alone or together within the church. In small groups we were able to explore the church to find and look at the features and artefacts used during Advent and worship.

Outdoor learning

In our outdoor learning lessons, we are always getting up to lots of exciting and fun activities! We have been thoroughly enjoying working outdoors and completing challenges with our team, which has helped us to improve our team working skills! We had fun creating tree monsters this week.

Lincoln Castle Visit

Year 2 had a superb day at Lincoln Castle! Our first activity of the day was exploring the castle walls and we enjoyed walking the whole way around the battlements and spotting lots of castle features on our walk. We then went inside and got to make our own shields and selecting our own coat of arms. We then got to experience a banquet, with our very own King and Queen, Lord and Lady, servants, jesters and even a hound! We then learned about the armour and weapons that were used in the past and had a go at using a bow and arrow to ‘attack’ a castle. It was then time to have our lunch! After lunch, we went and tried on replica piece of armour! Finally, we met Lucy the Dragon and her friend Norman before we left and we took a fantastic group shot!