Summer term 1 has been extremely busy for the year 2 children. They have worked very hard revising for and then completing their SATS exams. We are all very proud of them for their hard work!

One afternoon in May we had a wonderful visit from Rossendale Animal Rescue. The children got to stroke some cute little cats and dogs and ask lots of questions. We all learned lots about animals.

In our Computing lessons this half term, the children have been Creating Pictures on Purple Mash. We have used the ‘2 Paint a Picture’ tool and have tried out lots of different styles including Impressionism, Pointillism, Lines and Patterns.

We have continued reading Egg Box Dragon in our English lessons and the children all made their very own egg box dragons! We have only read the beginning of the story so far but the children have made predictions about what they think will happen, created Role on the Wall posters and created pieces of drama.

In preparation for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, we have used pointillism to decorate the Union Jack flag. These are currently displayed in our classroom.

The Year 2 children thoroughly enjoyed their visit from the Life Education Team along with Harold the giraffe. We discussed feelings and talked about how to keep our bodies healthy.

In our Maths lessons we had a focus on Arithmetic ready for our SATS exams. We are now consolidating our knowledge of times tables before moving on to division. Prior to this we did some outdoor learning where we investigated position and direction. We used the playground equipment to explore terminology such as over, under, above and below.

As part of our RE learning, we had a visit to the Ghausia Masjid Mosque in Burnley. Lots of us had never been inside a mosque before so it was particularly interesting. We talked about everything we could see and were able to explore and ask all our questions.

The Fantastic Foxes have been studying the religion of Islam. We have learnt about belonging, how having a strong sense of belonging to a group and how praying together gives you a great connection with God. We have learnt about Muslim prayer, the wudu wash, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) and the features of a mosque. Several children brought in their own prayer mats to show the class. We had the pleasure of a few year 6 children coming into class and discussing Muslim pray times.

The class visited a local mosque where we were saw the features we had learnt about in class. A lovely lady called Rhana, lead the visit. She gave us a tour around the outside where we spotted the tower, the minaret, the dome, Arabic writing, the crescent moon and the speakers on the tower.

Back inside we took our shoes off and Rhana showed us around the beautifully decorated walls. We followed the actions for wudu and praying.

The children asked some super questions.

In Science, we have been learning about Materials. We started by exploring different materials and experimented to see if they could change shape. We have also sorted materials and learnt about recycling.

The children have been working on their painting skills in their art lessons. They have been exploring hot and cold colours and mixing their own colours too.

The Fantastic Foxes have been thinking about the beginning, middle and end of music. We studied the coloured structure strips as the music played on Charanga. We chose three classroom percussion instruments and laid them in order. As each instrument was played, we thought about dynamics and tempo. As a group we talked about grouping the instruments into tuned and untuned. Using a 4 beat rhythm grid we selected either a crochet, crochet rest, quaver or semi-quaver then transferring this we decided which pitch to play on the glockenspiel. We then linked our music and art learning together and used the Chrome Music Lab on the laptops and created music with the Kandinsky app.

As a treat for their hard work with the SATS tests this half term, the children had a treat! They chose to play out on the field and eat party food. Luckily we came back inside just before it started to rain!