It has been wonderful to welcome Sycamore Class back into Year 2 following their exciting transition week in Year 3. The children returned full of enthusiasm, sharing stories of their experiences and ready to dive back into learning with fresh energy and confidence. It has been lovely to see how the week away has inspired a sense of maturity and curiosity, and they have quickly settled back into the familiar routines of Year 2 with smiles on their faces.

We began the week with an exciting and engaging outdoor learning experience – a Beach Day at Bursar! This special event served as a creative stimulus for our upcoming writing, and the children thoroughly enjoyed immersing themselves in the activities. Our morning began with imaginative play in the sandpit, where the children worked collaboratively to build intricate sandcastles and proudly decorated them with their own hand-crafted flags. To add to the seaside atmosphere, we enjoyed some cool, refreshing water to stay hydrated and energised.

One of the highlights of the day was our role-play activity in the "Bursar Beach Ice Cream Shop." Children enthusiastically assumed roles as customers, waiters, and waitresses, practising key social skills and exploring real-life applications of money handling at the tills. This activity not only sparked their imaginations but also laid the foundation for some fantastic writing opportunities. We are all very excited to read the children’s recounts of their beach day experiences in the coming days.

In Mathematics, our focus has been on developing our understanding of positional language. The children have been learning how to describe movements and turns using terms such as clockwise and anticlockwise, building on their prior knowledge of telling time. They have confidently explored quarter turns, half turns, and three-quarter turns, both practically and through problem-solving tasks. There has been lots of laughter and movement as we made ourselves (just a little!) dizzy putting these new concepts into practice.

In PE, Sycamore Class continues to develop their athletic abilities with great enthusiasm. This week, we have been practising a variety of fundamental skills including jumping, throwing, and batting. The children have demonstrated excellent teamwork and coordination, and it has been wonderful to see their growing confidence and enjoyment in physical activity.

In Geography, we have been learning about how climate change impacts out world! This week we looked into how it affecting the colder parts of our world. After learning about the glaciers, ice sheets and icebergs, we went outside to look at the ice we previously left in a tuft tray. As most of us predicted – in the time it took us to do our learning – the ice had melted! And this is what is happening on a much larger, scarier scale right now due to global warming.

In English we have been writing sentences using exclamation marks. We have lots of inspiration after reading our class book ‘The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch’! We have been focusing on our spellings, particularly those words that use the ‘cious’ and ‘tious’ sounds. I was absolutely delighted when I noticed so many children using words such as ‘suspicious’, ‘delicious’ and ‘vicious’ correctly in their writing!

This week in PHSE we have been looking at keeping ourselves healthy. Lots of us realised after discussion, that we don’t drink enough water! Especially in this beautiful weather we have been having!

This week, Sycamore Class have embraced their creativity in Art by exploring landscape painting, inspired by the work of Rebecca Vincent and David Hockney. The children experimented with colour mixing, using black and white to adjust shades and tones. They also explored shape, pattern, and texture, applying techniques such as stippling to enhance their compositions. The resulting landscapes are vibrant, expressive, and something the whole class can be proud of.

In Maths, we have been developing our understanding of time. To support this learning, the children created large-scale clocks on the floor and took on the role of the minute hand themselves — an engaging, hands-on approach that brought the concept to life. While telling time can be challenging, especially recognising “quarter past” and “quarter to,” the children have shown great perseverance and are making fantastic progress.

In Music, we were excited to be introduced to a new instrument — the ukulele. We began by learning how to hold the instrument correctly and identifying the frets and strings. Building on our prior knowledge of rhythm, including half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes, we have started to play in time with our partners. It has been a joyful and musical start to the term.

This week, we have been artists. Focusing on David Hockney and Rebecca Vincent, first we did a silent gallery walk! This meant we could really concentrate on the different shades and tones of colours that the artists used. We also were looking carefully at how they used patterns and lines. Afterwards, we used sentence stems to talk about the artwork with our peers. We had lots of fun getting out the paints and we used black to make our blue colour darker and lighter. This is a really special skill we will use when we paint our own landscape!

In science this week we have planted our seeds and bulbs! Thank-you so much to parents and adults at home who bought in pots. We are keeping some of our bulbs and seeds inside by a window where its nice and warm. Then we are keeping some more of our bulbs and seeds outside where it’s a bit cooler! We will be comparing the growth of them next week and we can’t wait to tell you the results!

We have been writing lists in English this week! The book we have been using for our writing, ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’ has influenced us to write about all the different jumpers, socks, trousers and shoes that we think are sold in the clothes shop. We have spoken about how special ‘threes’ help to make the writing more enticing rather than having really long lists. I was so excited to read so many ambitious adjectives in your lists Sycamore class!

The children have had a wonderful first week back. The children have loved their writing sessions this week, focusing on a new book ‘Lost and found’. They are working hard on nouns and adjectives.

In PE, Twist and Flip visited us and will be joining us weekly! We absoloutely loved our first session together.

We have started a new topic in Geography, in which we are focusing on the differences and similarities between Cleethorpes and Oarai, Japan.

I wonder what next week will bring?

This week, we went on a walk in our local area. We went searching for materials that we have been learning about in science. We found brick, glass, plastic, cardboard and many more! I wonder how many other materials we can find in different places we visit?

What another incredible week we've had!

This week, we've been fortunate to welcome several visitors. A dentist taught us about the importance of brushing and caring for our teeth. We also had a visit from the Dogs Trust, who shared valuable tips on looking after dogs. But most importantly, Pudsey made a surprise appearance, hiding in a special spot!

On top of all these exciting activities, we even had odd sock day for support anti-bullying!

This week, Sycamore class have been learning new facts in Geography. They have learnt how to draw the equator on a map. We are now able to understand that we cannot see the equator, but we know that it goes across the world. 

In science, we have been learning about reptiles and understanding that they have dry scales and that they don't like the cold! Which is why we do not have reptiles in the UK without a heat lamp. 

Over the 5 weeks we have been improving our writing skills and children have seen a big difference in their work by working on the formation of letters and including expanded noun phrases, commas in a list and different sentence types!

We also had two new stars of the week and a behaviour award winner!

What another great week Sycamore have had!