April Blog for class 2GC
English
This month we had a very exciting visitor – Michael Rosen! We loved hearing all about his writing and listening to his poetry. Our class favourite is Don’t!
Some of us asked us some questions. Lilly asked: “Do you still like chocolate cake?”
Willow asked: “How do you get all of your ideas?” He told us he gets his ideas by daydreaming.
We also had the chance to visit his bookshop – here are some of our choices. Charlie chose this one:
Our teachers also bought us 3 books for our story time in class.
Newspapers
We have also been learning all about newspapers. We have been reading through some and finding their features. We have looked closely at headlines and where you can spot speech.
Maths
We have been learning about fractions in our maths lessons. We are getting really good at recognising halves (½) quarters (¼) and solving problems using this knowledge. We have also begun to learn about thirds!
Creative Curriculum
We launched our new topic 'To infinity and beyond' with a fun day exploring our local environment using our own magnifying glasses and compasses. We found our own treasures which we collected and then drew back in class - stones, flowers, fir cones and sticks were our favourite finds. We then had lots of fun learning about the 5 oceans.
We learned all about the names and locations of the oceans and the different layers. We then found out about the animals that might live in these different habitats. The deeper you go the darker and colder the habitat gets.
We learnt a new song to help us remember the names of the oceans.
Science and Engineering Week
Our first week back was science and engineering week at Joseph Cash. We learned about microbes and made our own viruses. We then completed lots of investigations linked to forces and sinking and floating. We made our own bottle divers go up and down by squeezing the bottle and used our growth mindsets to improve our boat designs. Harley was awarded our Scientist of the week award for using great science vocabulary in all of our challenges.
We also continued our learning about plants by investigating the reproductive parts of the flower and we spread gold glitter around our flowers to show the job of bees during pollination.
Computing
In computing we learnt about barcodes and how they work and also begun a new unit on programming. We learnt how to put commands into the beebot robots to make them move where we wanted them to go. The children worked well in their teams and lots of laughter could be heard as the beebots moved - I wonder how many fell off the table!
PSHE, RE and PE
This term in PSHE the children are going to learn about the differences and similarities between boys and girls. This month they began to learn about gender stereotyping of toys and clothes. They decided that it doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl - you can wear and play with whatever makes you happy and that it's important that everyone feels happy, accepted and included.
In RE the children reflected on their previous learning about Christianity and Judaism and began their new learning about Islam. They are learning about the special time of Ramadan and how and why Muslims fast and then feast. They completed a word search using all the new words they had learned and coloured a title page for their journals. Our Muslim friends in class enjoyed sharing this special time with their friends and we look forward to learning more about Ramadan and Eid this term. We wish our Muslim families a great Ramadan and Eid.
In PE this term we are studying athletics and will be working hard to improve our running, jumping and throwing skills. We have already begun to build up our stamina by walking the mile in last week's sunshine. Remember please all children should be wearing our school PE kit - red and black.
This month's challenge
Make an Eid card to share with someone special to you.
