Easter is in full swing in Class 2 this week.  On Monday, the children explored the meaning of Easter and explored the Easter story.  On Wednesday the sun came out so we could fully enjoy our ‘Spring has Sprung Day’.  We spent the whole day learning outdoors making willow crowns, building clay homes, taking part in an Easter egg hunt and much more.  We even had some special visitors!  Today we are making our very own Fabergé eggs!

Writing

All of the children in class 2 have shone in their writing lessons so far this term. Using Jane Considine’s The Write Stuff approach has given the children a brilliant forum to share and expand on their amazing vocabulary and build sentences together to gain an understanding of the layout and process of creating different text types. They are using the Writing Rainbow and are working hard to remember the different components of writing including punctuation, grammar and word class. Ask your child what they know about The FANTASTICS! We became immersed in the book ‘Last Stop on Market Street’ and explored the very real and present subject of food banks and the need for kindness in the world.

We have just finished a unit on traditional tales and have enjoyed retelling and rewriting the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

Maths

We love maths in Class 3. Each day we do High Five – it’s a great way to wake up our brains and get us thinking mathematically! We do 5 fast paced maths challenges which reinforce and embed previously learnt concepts. We follow White Rose maths and enjoy exploring maths through practical, pictorial and concrete approaches. Our amazing maths equipment (tens and ones, tens frames, numicon, place value counters and charts to mention just a few) is central to everything we do and always available to use.

Creative Curriculum

This term we have been exploring SPACE!! We learnt about the Wright Brothers and their impact on our lives today. In Design and Technology we have been testing different cutting tools and sticking materials in order to best design and create our own rockets! They were amazing 🙂

The children excitedly explored Toys – Past and Present in Autumn 1. They looked at how toys have changed over the years for example how they are made and the materials and features they have. We explored what their parents, grandparents and great grandparents might have played with and enjoyed looking at the amazing old toys and books sent into school! They loved our ‘Build a Toy’ workshop and completing art work inspired by Andy Warhol. In art they also designed and created their own peg dolls which they will get to bring home soon 🙂

In Autumn 2 we explored ‘The Big Wide World’. So far we have identified the 7 continents and 5 oceans in the world. The children were amazing when putting together their jigsaws of the world. Our role play area is a travel agents at the moment. The children are discovering places in the world they’d never heard of as they book their customers in for holidays and help them create a suitable packing checklist dependent on the weather and terrain etc

Reading

Reading is central to everything we do at Whittonstall First School. In Class 2 we celebrate and understand the importance of reading. Our book corner is an amazing space to explore a wide range of fiction, non-fiction and topic themed books. Each day we learn phonics and on a Friday we have a discrete reading lesson. Each half term we explore a set text or texts. This half term our focus has been ‘Counting on Katherine’. A book all about the fabulous Katherine Johnson, an extraordinary mathematician who calculated the flight path for NASA’s first Apollo moon landing. Books can transport us to other worlds, captivate our imaginations and open us to a range of experiences we may not otherwise have.

We use a range of exciting texts as a stimulus in English, Science, Creative Curriculum and all other subjects.