This afternoon, Year 2 explored different techniques in art which will help us to create our final piece next week. Children focused on sketching, use of oil pastels and mixing colours. Children used their understanding of primary and secondary colours to help them create their desired colours as well as adding white and black for tint and tone. 

The children were astounded that our bean had grown so well without soil. The children discussed whether their prediction was correct and why they thought it had managed to grow without soil. They learnt that the seed provides enough nutrients to begin with but wouldn't give it enough for the long term. We have therefore potted it in soil so we can continue to watch it grow. 

Year 2 have been reading 'Jim and the Beanstalk' by Raymond Briggs this week. To inspire our innovative writing process, we have planted sunflower seeds to reach the giant in our own castles. This will help us to learn how to care for a plant and what a plant needs to grow. 

What a lovely surprise to wake up to so much snow! Year 2 had great fun joining the rest of the school on the field to build snowmen, have snowball fights and make snow angels. 

A huge thank you to all our parents and carers for coming along to our 'Inspire' afternoon. It was so lovely to see you all working together to create some magnificent masterpieces! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! 

The children in year 2 have been studying the artist Georgia O'Keefe and produced their own art work inspired by her work. They first explored oil pastels in their sketch books and zoomed in on a section of a flower to produce a final design. 

The children looked incredible today in their amazing costumes! So many characters from such a wide range of stories. It really was like diving into a book! 

As part of our science learning, the children learnt all about food chains and how energy is transferred from a producer to the consumers. They represented each part of a food chain on a paper chain. Lots of great learning and discussion whilst making them. Well done Year 2!

Year 2 have been busy learning their spellings this week. The children enjoyed learning the words they found particularly tricky with a game of tic, tac, toe. 

After naming parts of a plant in science, children worked in groups to decide which part of a plant different fruits and vegetables came from. There were lots of surprise answers for the children! 

As part of our new topic 'The Scented Garden', the children in year 2 carefully observed some daffodils to create sketches. Over the next few weeks, children will be studying the work of Georgia O'Keefe and will create their own art inspired by her flower paintings. 

The children were very excited for our school trip to Conisbrough Castle!

When we arrived, the children looked in wonder at the castle as many had never seen one in real life before. We dropped off our bags first and headed for our workshop with English Heritage. The children learnt when the castle was built and who for. After, the children became detectives and used clues to help them learn about the different rooms of the castle. Year 2 enjoyed exploring the castle, especially the keep, where they learnt about what life could have been like living inside a castle (the most popular fact of the day was learning about the toilets- see if they can tell you all about the Gong Farmers!). At the top of the keep, the children looked at the amazing views and discussed what geographical features they could see whilst discussing if those features would have been there 850 years ago. After lunch, they looked for castle features and created some wonderful observational sketches of the keep. 

It was lovely to see the children discussing what they had learnt and applying historical vocabulary. It is safe to say, we had lots of tired children on a the way home! 

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Year 2's battery collection. It is safe to say that Year 2 have an almighty collection! 

In maths this week, Year 2 have been investigating money by counting in pounds and pence as well as finding ways they could make different totals using a range of coins and notes. At the end of the week, the children were able to find different ways of making the same amount. 

This term, Year 2 are focusing on the topic 'Towers, Tunnels and Turrets' with lots of exciting opportunities to develop new skills and learn new knowledge. To start the term, the children have been researching famous towers around the world and using maps to locate them. They have also been learning about Isambard Kingdom Brunel who was born over 200 years ago. Isambard was responsible for ground breaking designs and ingenious constructions including assisting in the first ever tunnel under a River (the River Thames), The Great Western Railway and Paddington Station. The children have channelled their inner Isambard through use of drama techniques (hot seating) and even worked like an engineer whilst trying to construct a tower with marshmallows and dried spaghetti. It was definitely harder than it looked but the children quickly realised working as a team and evaluating regularly could help them improve.