Year 2 – Learning Blog

Teamwork

23rd March 2018 By andrewgraham

16/03/18

The children in Year 1 and Year 2 having been practising their teamwork today. First each group had a discussion about how we can work well in a team. Then the children spoke about what we need to do in school to learn and how to overcome challenges. Finally they got the chance to put this into practice in their challenge. The children had to work in a group of 4 to move the cups from a line of 6 into a pyramid formation without using their hands. Instead they had to use an elastic band with some string attached. The task required communication, perseverance and problem solving. As usual the children did a fantastic job.

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Terrific Tales with Performing Arts students

9th March 2018 By andrewgraham

We have had some Performing Arts students from Bishop Auckland College in school for the last 3 days doing some interesting activities working with children from all year groups including the Nursery.

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Neuroscience Assembly

26th February 2018 By andrewgraham

26/02/18

Today Class 5 led an assembly all about the brain. The children shared their knowledge of the various parts of the brain using the pictures and props that they had created. They then talked about how we can help the brain grow, how mistakes and perseverance are key to learning.

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Big Schools’ Birdwatch

23rd February 2018 By andrewgraham

Every year we participate in the Big Schools’ Birdwatch. As a green flag school we continuously encourage our children to be aware of their natural environment and how their actions can impact on the rest of the world, eg global warming. The children saw a good range of birds and of course we have entered the results via the RSPB website so that the scientists can study the health or eco system. It is always lovely to hear bird song on a spring morning!

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Chinese New Year

23rd February 2018 By andrewgraham

To mark the occasion we made Chinese Lion Puppets. They were a lot of fun to make and then we have our own mini parade.

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The Importance of Mistakes

23rd February 2018 By andrewgraham

23/02/18

Today the children have been learning about the importance of making mistakes. We watched a video all about the importance of mistakes for our learning. Next, the children worked in teams to play a game similar to battleships. They had to work in teams to cross the grid without landing on a “no-go area”. When they made a mistake they had to start again. All children were able to learn from their mistakes and cross the grid successfully! As you can see the children had lots of fun!

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Programming a Pro-Bot

7th February 2018 By andrewgraham

The children in year 2 have been learning how to program the Pro-Bot. Although this is similar to the Bee-Bot and Blue-Bot, it has some differences. The children have been finding out these differences; such as how far it moves when you give it certain instructions. The aim of the session was for all children to make the Pro-Bot draw a square for them. Some children even managed to make it draw a rectangle, we came up against some problems along the way and had to debug our instructions in order for the Pro-Bot to do as we wanted.

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STEM – Building earthquake proof structures

7th February 2018 By andrewgraham

Year 2 children are learning how engineers design and construct buildings to withstand earthquake damage by building their own model structures using toothpicks, straws, lolly sticks and play dough. They experimented to see how earthquake-proof their buildings are by testing them in an earthquake simulated bowl of jelly. Earthquakes can cause walls to crack, foundations to move and even entire buildings to crumple, engineers incorporate into their structural designs techniques that withstand damage from earthquake forces, for example, cross bracing, large bases and tapered geometry. Earthquake-proof buildings are intended to bend and sway with the motion of earthquakes, or are isolated from the movement by sliders. Engineers come up with an idea, test it, and then re-engineer the structure based on its performance. Class 6 loved testing their structures.

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Balloon Rockets and Balloon Powered Boats

7th February 2018 By andrewgraham

The year 2 children enjoyed making balloon rockets. The tricky part was tying the wool onto the chair and blowing up the balloons. It was a lot of fun. So how does it work? It is all about the air…and thrust. As the air rushes out of the balloon, it creates a forward motion called THRUST. The balloon powered boats were the same except we had a few difficulties and needed help cutting a hole in the side of the container and then we had to make our boats stay upright however we got there in the end! We will be improving our designs and racing them next.

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Thinking Skills with Year 2

7th February 2018 By andrewgraham

The children in Year 2 have been talking about space exploration as part of our work in History. After making our timeline in previous sessions and discussing the key events in space travel history we then decided to get our thinking hats out. We explored the statement, “it is a good idea to explore space.” As you can see the children had some differing opinions on this and some had changed their mind by the end of the session.

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