We’re having an exciting time in Year Two.

If you take a peek into our classrooms you will see that we have been busy planting beans. This is for our Science topic on Plants and Animals. As part of our literacy we wrote instructions on how to plant a seed, then we followed this through with the fun bit! We have been checking and observing the growth of our seeds on a daily basis – for some this has been more regular, such as every hour!

At the end of next week we will be going on a trip to the Amsterdamse Bos. You will be receiving a letter with the details very soon.

Our other topic is ‘Famous People – Great Inventions’. As this is such a huge topic, we will continue it until the end of term. We are starting with the lives of two famous nurses: Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. (click on the link below to find out more)…

We have a busy last week of term lined up! Our Viking day is on Wednesday, as you will have read from the letter sent home last week.

In addition to pancakes, we will be making bread!

We advise children to bring in their usual packed lunch, as Viking food hasn’t gone down too well in previous years!

If, however, you would like to have a go at making some Viking food for us , click on the picture below to take you to a food website.

We will not be sending any home learning activities this week, but the children can take reading and library books home as usual.

We had a fantastic time at book week last week – come and look at the samples of work displayed along the Year 2 corridor!

Our science topic this term is ‘Electricity’ and we’ll be learning all about making an electrical circuit, and thinking about all sorts of appliances we use in everyday life.

What was life like before we had electricity? We hope to explore this in our ‘Vikings’ topic! We also wonder why the Vikings decided to leave their homelands and settle in other places. Did they just enjoy having lots of battles?

Click on the picture below to help you find out more about the Vikings.

Can you answer the following questions?

Where did the Vikings come from?

Where did the Vikings go on their travels?

How do we know the Vikings existed?

Aside from Vikings, we have a lovely trip planned for the Nemo Science centre next Wednesday, so please read the letter in your child’s bookbag!

In Year 2 we are looking at the well-loved tale of  ” The Three Billy Goats Gruff “.

We will be using it to learn about how stories are structured, and doing some of our own writing and drama based around the tale.

What other well-known stories do you know?

We love to read stories from other cultures too, so if you have a traditional fairytale from another culture, please bring it in to share with us!

Click on the picture below. It should play the audio version of the story for you to enjoy!

On another note,  swimming will be starting for the Year Twos next week. We’ll be sending out a letter by the end of this week to let you know more details. The children are getting quite excited at the prospect of swimming with their class groups. The swimming teachers cater for all levels, so no need to worry if your child hasn’t much experience!

Click on the map of Texel below to take you to a website named taggalaxy. You and type in the name of any city or location to view lots of photos of that place! Have fun!

We are busy beginning our topics for this term:

In Science we will investigate forces (pushes and pulls) and this ties in with Design Technology where we will be making super fast vehicles from re-cycled materials!

Our topic  is Geography based and we will be comparing quiet Island life with the busy city. We will look at the Wadden Islands and make comparisons with our surroundings here in Amsterdam.

In Art and ICT we are busy making designs for T-Shirts in the style of artists such as Matisse and Klee.

Just a quick reminder – could we please have all P.E kits in as soon as possible!

We’ll keep you updated on our Year 2 news and events.

We had great support in making our puppets, so a big ‘Thank you’ to the parents for coming in to help. Sewing was a new experience for many children, and we appreciated the help and guidance.

Also, we enjoyed learning about  festivals such as St. Maartens,  Divali, Thanksgiving and Hannukah, so another ‘Thank you’ to parents for coming into class to tell us about your customs and celebrations.

Here are some photos:

Just to let you know that for the last 3 days of school, next week, we won’t be setting any tasks for Homelearning!

Very soon we’ll be sending home the Wackadoo Zoo DVD for you to enjoy with your families – the children are all still singing the songs!

We have  a busy and exciting schedule for the weeks ahead. Our new topic (history) is ‘The Great Fire of London’. We have been asking questions as a starting point:

When did it happen and where did the fire start? What was life in London like in those days?

Click on the picture to learn more about our topic!

Puppets…

We are very excited about our puppet making, which will begin for all Year Twos next week. Thanks to our volunteer mums in advance for helping us to sew them together!

Finally…we have begun learning the songs for our show and soon the children will start rehearsing. Lines for songs and speaking parts will be going home soon!

Can you find out any interesting facts about Alexander the Great?

Look at an old map and see how the world was a very different place in those times.

As part of our living and growing topic, Mrs Michels kindly visited us yesterday with August’s new baby brother! He was very well behaved and very sleepy. Each class had a visit and were able to ask Mrs Michels lots of questions about her baby!

Some of the question were:

1.) How old is your baby?

2.) What does your baby eat?

3.) How long does your baby sleep for?

4.) What does he like to play with?

5.) When was he born?

The Year Two team and children would like to thank Mrs Michels for taking the time to come in and talk with us. You can enjoy some of the photos from the visit below!