WELCOME TO YEAR 2 CRANES

Cranes are opportunistic birds that change their diet according to the season. Cranes class demonstrate this when they adapt their learning skills to different topics. Cranes are kind and helpful to others and bring teamwork into all aspects of our school day. However, they can be solitary at times, using independence and resilience when faced with certain challenges.

THIS TERMS THEME

'Around the world in 80 days'

This term our learning is focused around Geography and History. We will be exploring the countries that make up the United Kingdom and learning about key landmarks. In History, we will be learning about the history of flight.

P.E AND DANCE DAYS

PE days are Tuesdays and Fridays.

Please ensure that your child has the correct PE kit in school all week. We will ensure that they are sent home at the end of each half term.

HOME LEARNING DAYS

Home Learning will be set on a Friday and due in on a Wednesday. 

UPCOMING EVENTS

18.04 - First day back

21.04 - National Gardening day

27.04 - Teachers STRIKE day 

1.05 - Bank holiday

02.05 - Teachers STRIKE day 

08.05 - Bank Holiday Kings coronation 

15.05 - KS1 assessments 

26.05 - Last day of term

June - Pride Month

12.06 - Phonics Screening Retakes 

20.06 - Sports day

26.06 - RSHE week

06.07 - Transition day 

07.07 - Summer Fayre 2pm

13.07 - Annual Reports out to parents

25.07 - Last day of term 

MEET THE TEAM 

If there are any issues or concerns, please feel free to come in and see your teacher (Mr Wingrove). 

swingrove@white-rock-primary.torbay.sch.uk

Thursday 29th June - Dance

Year 3 have been looking at the artwork Naruto Whirlpool, Awa Province by Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige. We have spent four weeks building on to our duet dances. We started with choosing four parts of the picture and adding an action to represent that part, for example a turn for the whirlpool. The following week we added different levels to each picture, then the next week we added different speeds to our four actions on different levels and finally this week we showed our dances to another pair and tried to improve them ready for performance. Take a look at the photos of us sharing with another pair and then the videos of our finished dances. See if you can spot if we have remembered to include a start and end position for our dance.

Monday 26th June 2023 - Music

This week in Music, we talked about lots of new vocabulary including rhythm, pitch, tempo, and unison. We listened carefully to a song and used our hands and feet to find the rhythm. Then we created our own rhythms using dots and dashes. After that, we used instruments to create rhythms with different pitches and tempo. We then put all our newly learned skills together to play and sing in unison.

Friday 23rd June 2023 - Dartmouth Round Robin

Today we combined Geography, History, Art, Writing and many more subjects as we completed our round robin trip to Dartmouth. We travelled over Brunel's viaduct on the steam train, then took the ferry across to Dartmouth. After a quick snack break, we then had a fantastic boat trip along the river - we even saw some seals! After our boat trip, we headed to the park to find some real life Hiroshige inspiration for our Art learning next week. Our drawings were incredible! Finally, we travelled back to Paignton on the steam train. What an amazing day!

Tuesday 20th June 2023 - Sports Day 

Thank you so much to everyone who came to Sports Day to cheer on the children. They had a lot of fun taking part in the carousel of activities and especially enjoyed the picnic on the field at lunch time. 

Monday 5th June 2023 - Geography 

Today Cranes took part in a geography day. They have been learning about map skills including making their own key. To help their learning, Cranes used an old map of White Rock and walked around the school grounds to find out what has changed and add this to their map. When they got back to the classroom they had a go at making their own map of their local area including creating their own key. 

Monday 5th June 2023 - History 

This week Cranes took part in a history day where they learnt all about Isambard Kingdom Brunel. They learnt about Brunel's life as well as some of his biggest achievements that he designed and built. Cranes even got to have a go at designing and making their own bridge. They put their bridge to the test to see if it was stable enough for a train to travel over it!

Monday 22nd May 2023 - Science 

In Science this week, Cranes have been learning about food chains. They have learnt that in a food chain each one relies on the other to survive. After this, Cranes had a go at ordering different food chains as well as using the key vocabulary 'predator', 'producer' and 'consumer' to describe the food chains.

Monday 15th May 2023 - Art 

Today in Art we started learning about the artist Utagawa Hiroshige. We have begun planning ideas for our own print in the style of Hiroshige. We went outside to the field and chose three flowers to sketch in our art book. Eventually, we will have a go at printing these flowers using a technique called woodblock printing.

Friday 12th May 2023 - Religious Education

This week, Cranes have been learning about symbols. We discussed what a symbol was and where we might see them. We talked about why we have symbols and then used iPads to take photos of symbols that we see everyday in our classroom

Tuesday 9th May 2023

Year 2 have been enjoying the Dance Club this half term and this week created dances to Katy Perry's Firework. They were trying to use different formations within their dances. Take a look at the photos below.

Friday 5th May 2023 - Kings Coronation celebration

Cranes thoroughly enjoyed celebrating the Kings Coronation this week. They have been learning all about the Coronation in assemblies and in their classroom. They also learnt two songs as a class which they sung today as a whole school in assembly. The children enjoyed waving their flags as they sung, which they made earlier in the week. The children also loved wearing red, white and blue to school today.

Tuesday 26th April 2023 - Writing 

This week Cranes have started their new writing journey based on the key text 'No-Bot the Robot' by Paul Linnet and Sue Hendra. In their first lesson today, we read the story and talked about the reader and purpose of the story. We discussed how it is a comedy story and it has been written to make the reader laugh. The children then had a go at ordering the key parts of the story with their learning partner. Finally, they had the chance to act out the story pretending to be No-Bot the Robot and do all of the things he does!

Friday 18st April 2023 - Physical Education

Cranes were lucky enough to be able to use the field for their first athletics lesson of summer. Starting to prepare them for Sports Day, the children enjoyed a fun relay lesson focusing on the safe and efficient change over of the baton between their team.

Friday 17th March 2023 - Red Nose Day

Thank you for all the donations for Red Nose Day! Cranes enjoyed taking part in different activities such as: a red nose and spoon race, pin the red nose on the celebrity, guessing how many sweets are in the jar and colouring their own red nose.

Wednesday 8th March 2023 - Science

Today in Science, Cranes took part in an investigation! They were looking at birds with different size and shape beaks and thinking about how this adaptation impacted the food they eat. We used smarties to represent seeds, jelly tots to represent bugs and spaghetti to represent worms. The children used tweezers and straws as the bird beaks and had to try and fill up a cup with food which represented a birds stomach. After the investigation the children discussed what they found. They talked about which food was easier/harder to pick up and how beaks have adapted to help birds eat their food.

Tuesday 7th March 2023 - World Book Day 

Cranes had so much fun celebrating World Book Day this week! Thank you for getting all of the amazing outfits for the children! We took part in a learn to draw session where we had a go at drawing Dave Pigeon from the books by the author Swapna Haddow and illustrator Sheena Dempsey. We also did a role on the wall focusing on adjectives used to describe these characters. Later in the day the children used clay to make their favourite book character. What an incredible day! 

Tuesday 28th February 2023 - PSHE 

This week Cranes have been learning about what fair trade means. We have been looking at this in house assemblies as well as in our PSHE learning. We explored different food and had a look on a map to see which country it came from. We discussed what fair trade means for the farmers and workers who produce this food.

Friday 24th February - Guided Reading 

Every day Cranes take part in Guided Reading. Two groups of children will read with an adult where they read a variety of texts including fiction and non-fiction. They will be involved in a group discussion and answer questions led by the adult. The focus of this discussion varies and may include a focus of comprehension, inference, prediction, summarising, language etc. The other children will take part in independent activities when not reading with an adult. Activities may be based around phonics, spelling or comprehension. We also ensure children have an opportunity to choose a book from the book shelf to promote reading for pleasure.

Wednesday 8th February 2023 - Maths

In Maths this week, Cranes have continued learning about shape. They have been focusing on identifying and counting faces, edges and vertices for different 3D shapes. Cranes were then able to have a go at making their own 3D shape. The paper straws represented the edges and the play-dough represented the vertices. They had so much fun!

Tuesday 7th February - Computing

This week Cranes have been using the algorithm action and singing the algorithm song. They have then been designing their own Strange Characters (Barefoot Computing). Once complete, they have written an algorithm for others to follow when they want to draw the same picture. Here are some of their pictures and algorithms.

Tuesday 7^th February – Computing – Safer Internet Day assembly

Today is Safer Internet Day and we marked this by holding a whole school assembly.

During the assembly each year group shared their own online safety song or poem with the rest of the school. They had all worked really hard to learn their pieces and this level of effort was clear to see in their confident performances.

The Digital Leaders had written their own poem, which will appear on the school website once they have filmed and edited it into a video.

Friday 3rd February - Writing 

We started a new Writing journey this week. Our key text is Mrs Armitage and the Big Wave (link to story below). We started by listening to the story and thinking about how the author wanted us to feel. We talked about how he achieved that and which parts of the story made it funny. We made a class story map to help us retell the story in our own words. Finally, we came up with freeze frames to show different parts of the story.

Friday 3^rd February 2023 -Numbers 1-15 -Spanish

Señorita Head was so impressed with Year 2 this week. iMaravilloso!

We re-capped numbers 1-10 and we learnt 11-15 in Spanish. We noticed that 11-15 have a “th” sound at the end of the word.

We practised the numbers using different voices. The children really enjoyed this.iQué fantastico!

We listened to a Spanish number song and Señorita Head used three puppets (Pedro, Carlota, and Rocky) to help!

The children were excited to sing the CHOCOLATE song in Spanish. We also talked about Churros and that Spanish people like to dip them into CHOCOLATE. iQué delicioso!

Here are numbers 1 to 15 for children to practise at home. iVamos!

1= uno

2=dos

3=tres

4=cuatro

5=cinco

6=seis

7=siete

8=ocho

9=nueve

10=diez

11=once

12=doce

13=trece

14=catorce

15=quince

We played lots of Spanish interactive games  using Babelzone. Don’t forget you can access Babelzone at home. Children should have the username and password in their reading records.

Friday 27th January - DT 

This week we have been using our DT skills to make a stable structure. Using the book 'Outdoor Wonderland' as inspiration we have been making miniature dens. We also had to consider our current Maths focus - shape to form shapes from the wood in order to build a pyramid. Joining the sticks was tricky so we had to work hard on our persistance skills and make sure we worked as a team. Check out the photos below...

Friday 20th January - Writing 

Check out our new handwriter of the week - Penelope! she has been working hard to get her letter the right size and working really hard in handwriting lessons to form sentences correctly. The children have loved our latest writing journey using the book - Outdoor Wonderland. This topic has been all about writing instructions for outside activities. This week we have been focusing on using the conjunctions if, when, because and or. 

Friday 13th January - Science

In Science, Cranes have started learning about living things. Cranes went outside and explored the woodland area to find different microhabitats and minibeasts living there. The children have learnt all microhabitats need to provide food, water, air and shelter. We took some microscopes with us to have a closer look!

Friday 6th January - Maths 

Cranes have had a brilliant start back to school after the Christmas holidays! In Maths, they have started learning about Money. This week Cranes were focusing on recognising different coins and putting them in order, starting with the smallest value to the biggest. They have also looked at different notes and looking at how much they are .

Autumn Term - Week 13 - w/c 5.12.22

This week we had a music day! We spent the whole day exploring different musical instruments including drums and xylophones. We learned about low and high pitch, and even learned some new music vocabulary. We now know that lento means slow, allegro means fast, piano means quiet, mezzo forte means medium volume and forte means loud!

Autumn Term - Week 12 - w/c 28.11.22

This week Cranes have been learning how to spell different homophones. The children have learnt homophones are words which sound the same but have different meanings. They have learnt 'be' and 'bee', 'to' 'two' and 'too' and 'blue' and 'blew'. They have practised this by putting them into sentences using the correct word. They have also had a go at some pyramid spelling where they spell the word letter by letter in the shape of a pyramid.

Autumn Term - Week 11 - w/c 21.11.22

This week in Maths, Cranes have continued learning about addition. They have been using their dienes to help them add two 2-digit numbers. They added the tens before adding the ones.  After this they would then write their addition calculation in a number sentence on their whiteboards. Keep up the hard work Cranes!

Autumn Term - Week 10 - w/c 14.11.22

This week we have a new hand writer of the week...Ariana! Ariana has been working really hard on her letter formation. She is now sitting all letters on the line and ensuring they are all correctly formed. Ariana has also started joining too! She is using what she has learned in class and applying this in her writing. 

Autumn Term - Week 9 - w/c 7.11.22

This week we have continued working hard on our Maths. We have been learning how to add two digit numbers together. We started by using dienes to support us but have now begun to take them away and use mental strategies. We will be super fluent mathematicians in no time! 

Autumn Term - Week 8 - w/c 31.10.22

On Friday we had a super PE festival in Year 2. We enjoyed taking part in a variety of activities including basketball skill games, football skills games and other activities too! All these events were run by our very helpful Year 6 leaders.

Autumn Term Week 7 w/c 17/10/2022 

This week, Cranes made fruit kebabs in Design and Technology. We designed our kebabs and made sure that they were healthy, easy to eat and, most importantly, tasty! We then followed our designs to make the kebabs. 

Autumn Term Week 6 w/c 10/10/2022 

The children love learning in our new computing suite! Check out some pictures from this week computing lesson. This week we were learning to use our mouse and keyboard skills to draw an image of ourselves. It was great to see what we created.

Autumn Term Week 5 w/c 6/10/2022 

We have had so much fun doing some amazing Science this week. We have been learning about how to keep our body healthy and we have been thinking about why its important to keep ourselves clean. We used UV lights and 'glitterbug potion' to show how germs collect on our hands. We learnt that when we washed them carefully all the germs came off! However, when we just dipped them in water the germs and bacteria were still all over our hands and nails. 

See you pictures below...

Autumn Term - Week 4 - w/c 26.09.22

This week, Key Stage One were lucky enough to be visited by Paignton Fire Service. We learned what firefighters do (when they are not fighting fires!), what is kept in a fire engine, and how to keep ourselves safe at home. We learned some helpful rhymes like 'matches, matches never touch. They can hurt you very much' and 'stop, drop and roll around'. Mr Wingrove even dressed up in a fire service uniform! He said it was very heavy.

Autumn Term - Week 3 - w/c 19.09.22

Cranes have been hard at work this week with our writing. We have been learning about the book 'This is how we do it'. In this text, we meet children from all around the world and they tell us about their lives. In Cranes, we have been thinking about our own lives and telling the reader all about how we do day to day tasks. Below is a picture of Isobel who has become our 'Handwriter of the Week' because of her amazing ascenders, descenders and clear capital letters. 

Autumn Term - Week 2 - w/c 12.09.22

Tuesday afternoons are great fun in Cranes! We have loved being back in the Dance studio showing off all of our moves. This term we have been doing Zumba. This is supporting our Science topic of learning about what it means to be active and healthy. Although it is tough to remember all the different steps, we love trying to keep up. It makes you feel really out of breath and sweaty!

Autumn Term - Week 1 - w/c 05.09.22

Cranes have had a very busy first week back at school! They have all been amazing at getting settled back into school and getting stuck in with their learning! In Maths this week, Cranes have been learning about place value. They have been using dienes and counters to represent different numbers up to 20. They are confident at describing these numbers using the words 'tens' and 'ones'. Keep up the great work Cranes!