Finches Class

Year 2/Year 3

Welcome back to the Summer Term!

Our Spring Learning Journey

What a busy half term we have had! We have thoroughly enjoyed enriching our curriculum through author visits, a Zoolab experience, a visit to the midday concert and a great outdoors day amongst many other things1

Stations of the Cross - Our Easter Reflection

Our Author Visit

With thanks to our wonderful PTFA, we were able to enjoy a visit from Jennifer Doyle - author of Billy the Blackbird. Jennifer came into school and shared her book with us, alongside lots of interesting bird facts! Then, in the afternoon, we created bird feeders and took our learning outdoors to complete a bit of bird spotting! What a brilliant day.

World Book Day Fun!

We are musicians

The Finches had a lovely morning at the midday concert with the Tango Siempre Quartet, listening to their music and learning all about the instruments that they were playing.

We are historians

We thoroughly enjoyed exploring how homes changed from the Palaeolithic Period, through the Mesolithic Period and to the Neolithic Period in our new non-fiction books. We are now experts in prehistoric homes!

The Miracle of the Loaves

To begin our Galilee to Jerusalem unit of work in RE, we retold the miracle of the loaves and how Jesus fed 5000 people with only 5 loaves of bread and two fish. We then reflected on how the people may have been feeling and what they might have said before considering how amazing the miracle is and the similarities between this and the Last Supper.

Reading For Pleasure

The Finches have enjoyed taking our ‘Reading Suitcase’ home recently. We have snuggled up with our people at home, had a hot chocolate whilst cuddling Paddington Bear and loved reading Oliver Jeffer’s ‘How to Catch a Star’.

Spring Term 2

Welcome back,
I hope that you had a wonderful half term break and are ready for the second part of the spring term. Please see our updated weekly timetable for this half term and our parents newsletter for our learning up until the Easter holidays.

Children’s Mental Health Week

The Finches looked fabulous for Express Yourself Day , supporting Place2Be for Children’s Mental Health Week. We began by focusing on this years theme ‘Your Voice Matters’ and listening to the story ‘Speak up’ by Nathan Bryon where we heard how Rocket saved her local Library by speaking up and educating those around her. We thought back to Black History Month and how we learnt that Rosa Parks used her voice to stand up for what she believed in too and shared out own stories. We were then joined by the Year 3 from Swifts Class and created our own ‘Proud Cloud’. We recognised how we feel happier when people tell us how proud they are of us. We shared something we are proud of someone else for and something we are proud of ourselves for. Miss Hodgson was proud of how thoughtful we were and how we recognised achievements big and small by others - we have lots to be proud of. We ended our Mental Health Week by ‘expressing ourselves artistically and listening to music.

Our Spring 1 Learning Journeys

We are Scientists

This half term in the Finches we have been learning all about plants in Science. We have thought about what a plant needs to survive, how different plants are adapted to different environments and have different requirements, the parts of a plant and it’s lifecycle and pollination. We have run an investigation into whether the amount of light a plant receives affects its growth and completed an experiment to illustrate how the xylem and the phloem work with food colouring and celery. We rounded off our unit by taking our learning outdoors to demonstrate seed dispersal demonstrating the wind, animal and self-propelled exploding method and discussing how this enables new plants to have enough space so that they are not competing for water, light and nutrients with other plants. Great work Finches!

We are Geographers

After learning about what a desert is, we used the atlas to locate and label hot and cold deserts across the world and learnt that there is a desert in every continent! Do you know which is the largest desert in the world?

Safer Internet Day 2024

Today we thought about how technology has changed over time and created our own futuristic device, considering what devices will be like in years to come. When then listened to a story about Mo and Jazz who has something pop up that made them feel worried and learnt that we must tell a trusted adult if this happens to us before looking at a range of scenarios and how they made us feel. We discussed lots of ways to keep safe online and all agreed that we now know how to do this well! Great work Finches.

Spring Term

Welcome Back, I hope that you all had a brilliant Christmas holiday and a very happy new year! Please see the link below for our class newsletter and what’s happening in the Finches class this half term.

Christmas in the Finches Class

A huge well done to our Year 2 children who took the lead roles in our KS1 nativity ‘Snuggle up Stable’ and our Year 2 children who joined the chorus for the KS2 nativity ‘Bethlehem the Musical’. Your hard work to learn your lines and all of the words to the many songs did not go unnoticed, you were all stars!

A huge thank you to Kendal College who invited us along to The Box to watch their performance of ‘The Jungle Book’.

Advent

This week we have been learning about the advent wreath, we worked collaboratively to create our own. We ensured that it was a circle to remind us that God’s love is never ending and cut out hand prints to represent the evergreen leaves. Afterwards, we each made an advent promise.

Children in Need

After dressing up in spots for Children in Need today and bringing in donations for the charity, we joined with the Sparrows class to make and enjoy Pudsey biscuits.

The Finches Remember

This week, we learned all about Remembrance Day and why we wear poppies before creating our own. We then wrote a prayer collaboratively thanking God for our fallen soldiers and the sacrifices that they made for us as well as those who continue to fight in war, asking Him to keep them safe. Finally, we visited our local memorial garden with other classes to show our respect and participate in a silence to remember.

History - How has transport changed?

After learning about the history of aeroplanes and how they have changed over the years, we followed in the footsteps of the Wright brothers by designing and making our own aeroplanes. We then took them on their first flight!

We learnt how Rosa Parks stood up for what she knew was right when she didn’t give up her seat on the bus. We made our own buses and participated is some excellent and very mature discussion about why she was brave before thinking about ways we have shown bravery like Rosa.

Today we showed our support for World Mental Health Day by taking part in ‘Hello Yellow’ before thinking about the things we can do to make us feel better if we are feeling worried or overwhelmed such as talk to someone, go for a walk, have some calm time or do something that we enjoy. We also created our own self-affirmation suns to remind ourselves of how amazing, clever, brave, strong and loved we are.

Baptism with Father Hugh

Father Hugh joined us in Finches Class today to show us what happens during a baptism. We chose a name for our baby, chose Godparents and then baptised him. A huge thank you to Father Hugh for sharing this with us and answering all of our questions.

Investigating in Science

This week in Science this week Year 2 conducted a practical investigation into how different objects made from different materials change shape. We squashed, twisted, stretched and squeezed objects from plastic bottles to elastic bands and socks to playdough to investigate which was the most changeable. Year 3 then conducted an investigation into the properties of different rocks thinking about whether they were permeable, dense and durable. We then shared the findings of our investigations with each other in a super discussion.

We all belong to the church family

In RE this week, we discussed how, not only do we each have our own very special families at home and how each of these are unique, we all belong to the church family. We created images of ourselves and placed these together to form a church before thinking what being part of the church family means to each of us,. We participated in some very thoughtful conversation.

Super Scientists!

Today the Year 2 children took their learning outside to explore the different materials that they could see and their uses. We discovered that the fences are made from wood and metal, the tyres from rubber and the benches from plastic whilst Year 3 investigated soil, making observations about what soil is made up of before conducting a soil experiement.

‘Use your Imagination’

To kick start our unit of work on traditional tales, we began to read the story of ‘Use your Imagination’ by Nicola O’Byrne. Just as we got to the exciting part, we stopped reading and created freeze frames of what we thought the ending would look like. We made some super predictions using our knowledge of the story from pirate sword fights to poor rabbit being eaten by the wolf, we even thought they may become friends and have a tea party!

Mathis - Partitioning Number

We had a fun Maths lesson today where we got practical, using the base 10 to practise the skills of partitioning two digit an three digit numbers into hundreds, tens and ones. What super mathematicians we are!

Welcome Back

September has arrived and that can only mean a brand new school year, I hope that you had a wonderful summer break with your special people and are ready for the next part of your learning journey.

This year is the start of a great adventure as we become the ‘Finches’ class, combining Year 2 and Year 3. This is a wonderful opportunity to undertake the next stages in our learning with some existing friends as well as some new friends. I cannot wait to see where this new chapter takes us!

We are very lucky to have Mrs Carter for a time each morning, she will be helping us with some additional phonics as well as supporting in class. Please take a look at our Curriculum Map to see what we will be covering in class each half term and keep an eye on our webpage for updates on our journey.

Miss Hodgson

Year 2 - 2022-2023

Feast Day of St. George

To celebrate the Feast Day of St. George, Year 2 took part in a Prayer and Liturgy where they reflected on how they could be brave and show strength and compassion like St. George before we read the story of St. George and the Dragon. We then created our very own dragons and St. George shields.

Easter in Year 2

In Year 2 we read the Easter story from the Bible. We created palm leaves and acted out Jesus entering Jerusalem before create artwork to acknowledge the last supper. We wrote prayers to reflect on Jesus dying on the cross and celebrated Jesus rising again for our whole school ‘Stations of the cross’ work. We also participated in a fantastic fundraiser organised by our Mini Vinnies to raise money for Mary’s Meals. We wish all of our families a wonderful Easter break and I cannot wait to welcome you back for the summer term.

Building a caring community

As part of our Lent work across school, ‘building a caring community’ , Year 2 made and wrote Easter cards for our local care homes.

Stations of the Cross

Today we reflected on the journey Jesus took through the Stations of the Cross. Year 2 created artwork to think about the fifteenth station: Jesus rises from the dead. We showed respect and reverence as we followed this journey illustrated by all of the classes in the hall.

Prayer and Liturgy - Lent

During our class Prayer and Liturgy this week, we reflected on Lent and what it means and made some lovely Lent Promises thinking about fasting, giving and praying.

Year 1 and Year 2 Class Mass

A huge well done to our fantastic Year 2 readers in our class Mass today led by Father Hugh. The children showed great respect and reverence throughout.

The greatest gift in the world…

In our Prayer and Liturgy this morning we reflected on that God gave us the greatest gift in His son, Jesus. We thought about what the greatest gift we have ever received is and what gift we would like to share with others. We suggested clean water and enough food for everyone, keeping God’s world healthy and peace for all.

International Week

What an incredible week we had in Year 2 for International Week, a huge thank you to our visitors and to those of you who have sent things in from home - we are extremely grateful ……

Our Prayer and Liturgy in the Prayer Garden

Today we took part in our ‘Corpus Christi’ Prayer and Liturgy in our Prayer Garden outside, a huge thank you to our beautiful readers. Once we had finished our worship, we took time to close our eyes and listen to all of the wonderful things we could hear in God’s World.