Science fun, Hampton Court and hunting for Easter eggs!

What a fun-filled week it has been!  On Wednesday, we took part in a science workshop where we developed our investigating skills and carried out some fascinating experiments.

Thursday was our trip to Hampton Court Palace.  We found our way around the maze, explored Henry VIII’s apartments and kitchens, then took part in a Tudor Times workshop.  We met Lady Alice, who taught us how to greet the king or queen and bow like a Tudor (Mrs Alton was our queen for the afternoon!), we were able to handle and learn about Tudor artefacts, and we even learned a Tudor dance.  The boys behaved beautifully all day and were a credit to the School.  Well done boys!

To finish the week, we all had fun at the PTA Easter Egg Hunt.  Thank you to the parents for arranging this!  No doubt, the boys will enjoy their chocolate eggs this weekend.

After such a busy few days, enjoy a restful weekend and see you next week!

Mrs O’Brien

 

 

 

 

World Book Day

Lots has been happening in Lochinver this week to celebrate World Book Day.

On Tuesday, we welcomed author Clare Luther to School.  She spoke to us about her love of communication (as well as sausage dogs!) and how she uses her writing to help children explore and talk about big emotions that are part of everyday life.  The characters in her books are often dogs or endangered wild animals.  As she read her books to us, we noticed they were written in rhyme, just like a book that we’d looked at in our English lesson the day before.  We thoroughly enjoyed listening to Clare’s stories and thanked her for sharing her stories with us.

 

On Wednesday, we had the final of our poetry competition.  Federico and Zavian represented the class and recited their poems beautifully, so beautifully in fact that Zavian was the runner-up and Federico the winner in the Year 2 category.  Well done, boys – we’re very proud of you!

On Thursday, World Book Day, we enjoyed dressing up as our favourite book characters.

As well as celebrating World Book Day, we have been busy in class.  In English, we looked at poems and stories from the Caribbean, including ‘Creepy Crawly Calypso’ and ‘Anancy and Mr. Dry-Bone’.  We learned about the physical features of Jamaica in Geography.  In Science, we started a new topic learning about forces.  This week we focused on learning about pushes and pulls and how these start or stop motion. In Maths, we learned how to solve word problems that involve length.

Have a lovely weekend and see you next week!

What a busy week!

It’s been a particularly busy week in 2OA!

Our week began with our Mental Health Breakfast.  It was a great chance to talk and catch up after a busy weekend.

We were delighted to welcome Alim and Eesa’s mummies into class to talk to us about what it is like to be Muslim.    We learned all about the Five Pillars of Islam, the importance of prayer, and we looked at some Muslim artefacts, including a prayer mat and prayer beads.  We all learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed the presentation.

In Science, we visited Mrs. Barry’s lab to conduct an experiment to see how materials can be altered by heating them.  We predicted what would happen to a marshmallow, chocolate, sand, ice and water when heated.  We carefully observed what happened as Mrs. O’Brien used a Bunsen burner to heat each of the materials.  Some materials turned from a solid to a liquid, some didn’t change, but the water turned from a liquid into gas, known as water vapour.  Mrs. Barry showed us that this change could be reversed by holding a mirror over the water vapour, which created condensation, and the water vapour became water again!

 

In Welly Time, we created journey bracelets by collecting natural materials as we went for a walk around the School.

To conclude our rainforest topic, we were very lucky to take part in a Perform Drama workshop called, ‘Rumble in the Jungle’.  It was a fun and exciting way to learn all about rainforest animals.

After such a busy week, we’re all ready to rest and relax over the half term holiday.  Remember to find a poem and learn it by heart for our poetry competition.  We’ll be listening to your poems in class the week beginning 20th February to decide who the finalists will be.  Good luck and have a wonderful half term break!

 

 

The Big Mosaic

We were very lucky to have Mrs Blackborow visit us this week to help us make clay tiles which will form part of a whole school mosaic.  This is to celebrate the 2022 Big Draw Festival theme, ‘Come Back to Colour’, a theme to help us rediscover and find joy in our world after what has been a challenging few years.

Mrs Blackborow encouraged us to think about all the colourful and beautiful things that there are in the world and try to capture these in the design of our tile.  From Jamaican beaches, to English gardens, from British wildlife to jungle animals, the boys had some fantastic ideas.  We learned different techniques for creating our designs in clay, including scoring clay to create pattern and texture, as well as using ‘slip’ to attach pieces of clay to the tile.

We’re looking forward to seeing what our tiles look like once they have been fired.  Once this is done, then we can glaze them.

Thank you to Mrs Blackborow for a really fun afternoon!

Interactive money game

Although our Maths work has moved onto 2D shapes and their properties, they boys were keen for me to share the link to a game we discovered whilst learning how to add coins. The boys can customise a car by buying parts and paying with the coins. Here is the link:

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/customCars/index.html

I would love to see pictures of the cars you make!

Mrs O’Brien