29th November 2024

What a busy week in Year 2! 

In science, we have continued our learning on how humans can stay healthy - we focused on the importance of good hygiene this week. 

In History, we started our new unit on what we know about the contribution of black people to world history. Our opening to this was to look at discrimination and how is feels to be treated unfairly. To really help the children understand how discrimination feels, we started by treating 6 children more favourably than everyone else with no explanation. This provoked powerful and insightful conversations that were impressive and moving. 

We finished the week with an amazing outdoor learning session which led to an impromptu whole class certificate to celebrate the wonderful behaviour of all children! 

Fabulous Year 2 - keep it up!

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

22nd November 2024

We've looked at stereotypes this week in PSHE. The children have been sharing lots of great ideas about how and why we often make assumptions and the negative consequences of doing so. We've also looked at ways in which we are similar and different to our peers. Feel free to ask your children the following questions relating to our learning - we're sure you'll be as impressed as us by their responses. 

• Do all boys have to be the same, and all girls have to be the same? How do you feel about this?
  
• Are stereotypes fair? 
  
• Can a person be friends with someone who is different from them?

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

15th November 2024

This week in Year 2 we have been reading the story 'I am Rosa Parks' . We have begun to learn about the beginning of her life and have planned a piece of writing retelling a section of the story where Rosa is on a bus. We will be retelling this story next week.

In maths, we have continued to strengthen our understanding of addition and subtraction. We have been adding and subtracting using number lines and are beginning to learn to subtract across 10.

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

8th November 2024

In DT this week we have been exploring structures. Our design brief was to design a strong and stable chair for Baby Bear that was 'just right' (based on Goldilocks and The Three Bears). 

We had lots of fun exploring the strongest shape and we managed to build a paper structure that was strong enough to hold some of our Year 2 children. There were many gasps of amazement that it actually worked! 

We then got to making our own structures for 'Baby Bear' and evaluated how successful they were by their stability and strength. 

What a fun week of DT!

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

25th October 2024

The final week of the first half-term is here and what a busy week it has been! 

In English, we have been working hard to write our own version of Wild. It has been lovely to hear the wonderful ideas being shared by the children and they have tried really hard to apply their prior learning to their final piece. Well done Year 2. 

In the afternoons, we have finished our learning on habitats. The children particularly enjoyed learning about food chains this week. We also wrote our own acrostic poems about kindness to mark the end of our RE topic. 

Have a lovely half-term break and we will see you back in Autumn 2!

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

18th October 2024

This week, we took part in a special PE session delivered by the Year 6 children. It was wonderful to see the Year 6 children lead with kindness and respect - the Year 2 children had a great time and listened well to the older children. 

In computing, we have been thinking about how to stay safe online both at home and school. We also took part in a 'digital 5-a-day' session to demonstrate the importance of a balanced digital diet to assist with better well-being. The children took part in a carousal of different activities: 

• An active station (the class favourite) 
• A computer station
• A mindfulness station
• A creative station 



What a busy week of learning!

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

11th October 2024

We have been ordering numbers in maths this week - we even got to take out learning outside! 

In outdoor learning, we had lots of fun learning how to use equipment safely. We used a bill-hook to chop wood and a hack saw for sawing. Outdoor learning always ends with quiet reflection against a tree. It is lovely to listen to the nature around us.

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

4th October 2024

We have produced some beautiful pieces of art this week - look at our wonderful collages! We also voted for our School Council representatives. We held a traditional secret ballot to vote for our favourite candidate. Well done Year 2.

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

27th September 2024

We have continued our place value learning in maths this week. We've enjoyed lots of practical activities and hands on learning. In English, we have worked hard on re-writing our own version of 'Wild' using descriptive language and inspiration from the book. 

In the afternoons, we have been learning about The Good Samaritan in RE - exploring how we can show kindness. This linked nicely into our PSHE conversations about responsibility too. The children have also been enjoying our outdoor learning sessions and we were impressed by the team working skills they displayed. 

Well done Year 2.

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

20th September 2024

We've had lots of fun in maths this week exploring partitioning numbers using concrete materials. It was wonderful to see the children come up with lots of different representations - well done Year 2! 

In the afternoons, we've started looking at seaside resorts in Geography and have begun looking at Information Technology in Computing. The children seem to be enjoying these topics. 

We've also been impressed with the conversations Year 2 have had this week in RE, Jigsaw and our No Outsiders session. Keep showing kindness, Year 2. 

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

13th September 2024

We have continued looking at our focus text 'Wild' this week. In English, the children had wonderful discussions about how the main character came to live in her unusual habitat, which linked in nicely to our outdoor learning session. During outdoor learning, the children were able to try whittling and they all had a chance to use the flint and steel. It was magical seeing their proud faces when they managed to light the cotton wool! 

We have also continued our Art project and have moved onto making our collages. There were some excellent pieces of work produced and it was lovely to see some collaborative work taking place. 

Keep up the hard work, Year 2!

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

6th September 2024

Year 2 have had a wonderful start to the new school year. We have been working hard to establish our new routines and the children have settled in really well. 

In English, we have begun looking at our focus text 'Wild'. It has been fantastic to hear the children's predictions and their developing inference skills. 

In the afternoons, we have started our Art project for the half-term. The children have had fun exploring colour mixing and creating textured paintings. 

We are looking forward to a fantastic year! 

Mrs Grannon and Miss Costello

28th June 2024

Year 1 has enjoyed a busy couple of weeks. First we loved performing our production of 'There's a sunflower in my supper' with year 2, both performances went well, the one to the rest of the school and the parent performance.

In RE we loved tasting apples and honey as part of our unit on the Jewish faith and things the Jewish enjoy during Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

More recently we had our outdoor learning session where we tried to build towers with sticks and had a go at using a flint and steel to make a spark. We had campfire donuts to eat, which is our favorite outdoor learning food.

Miss Ferguson

14th June 2024

We have had a busy couple of weeks since returning from the half term holiday.

Last week we enjoyed our D Day picnic despite the cold weather. We always enjoy dressing up and all looked fabulous in our outfits. During the day we learnt all about D Day and what happened at that time, we completed a timeline of events and completed some D Day inspired crafts.

This week we had a great morning with Dave from British Gas Energy Futures where we were learning all about Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect. We enjoyed investigating what will happen to the polar ice caps if we don't do our bit for climate change.

Our maths sessions this week were all about fractions. We have been finding out about halves and quarters. We loved finding quarters of wraps and making sandwiches and cutting them into quarters, it meant we could eat our maths too!

Miss Ferguson

17th May 2024

During our outdoor learning session this week we had a go at making some leaf rubbings, we created images of trees using twigs and leaves then added labels to them to show we understood the different parts of a tree. Mrs Thompson made sweetcorn fritters for us on the campfire which we really enjoyed.

In RE we have been learning about what Jewish children do during Shabbat. We discovered that they share challah bread and drink grape juice so we had our own little Shabbat and shared Brioche and grape juice. We chose Brioche as it has a very similar taste to challah bread. Some of the boys tried on a Kippah which is usually worn by Jewish males.

Miss Ferguson

10th May 2024

What a lovely week we have had in the sunshine this week!

Our play rehearsals are now well underway with lots of children already knowing their lines so I am sure by the time the performance comes round in June we will all be word perfect.

On Wednesday we tried lots of different fruits and some juices, and from this we have now made our choices for smoothies which we will be making next week. 

In our English we have been looking at the story Jack and the Beanstalk and how castles were used in the story. As our science unit this half term is plants we have planted our own beanstalks. We will be eagerly waiting for some shoots to come through in the next week or so. 

We finished off our week with lots of physical activity linked to Reading and Maths which was kindly led by some students from Holderness Academy. We also had a fantastic time and enjoyed an ice lolly as a treat afterwards.

Miss Ferguson

3rd May 2024

Year 1 has had a busy week beginning with a fun afternoon of sport with the help of the Holderness Academy students.

We then enjoyed our outdoor learning session on Tuesday afternoon where we ate a lovely pasta dish cooked over the fire by Mrs Thompson. We made land art pictures using all sorts of natural things we could find around the outdoor learning area.

We also started learning some of the songs for the school play we are doing with year 2 called 'There's a sunflower in my supper'. Those of us who wanted speaking parts have all got our lines now so we can start learning those too.

Have a lovely bank holiday.

Miss Ferguson

12th April 2024

Year 1 has had a lovely start to the Summer Term. We thoroughly enjoyed our first Science week where we have conducted different scientific investigations each day.

We learnt all about the scientific method of asking a big question, creating a hypothesis, testing our hypothesis and drawing conclusions based on our results. To help us understand this process we watched Ada Twist the scientist each day.

Some of the investigations we completed were watching how fruit decayed over time. We wondered if we put milk on top of the fruit it would slow down the process of decay.

We also wondered what would happen if we put Gummy Bears in different solutions. We put them in a salt water solution, a sugar/water solution, in white vinegar and water and watched the changes each day.

We put an egg in orange squash, coca cola, water, white vinegar, sugar/water and salt/water to see what effect the liquids would have on the shell. We were very surprised to see that the shell of the egg in vinegar had completely disappeared and it now resembled a bouncy ball!

Finally we made sure we had dirty hands and touched some bread all over. Then we cleaned our hands and touched a different slice of bread to see what the effect of washing our hands has on the development of mould and bad bacteria.

We finished off our science week by taking part in a whole school science investigation. We listened to the story of the Gingerbread Man and tested biscuits to see which biscuit would have made the best Gingerbread Man by dunking biscuits in warm water.

We are already looking forward to our next Science week.

Miss Ferguson and Miss Meekin

8th March 2024

Year 1 enjoyed a lovely outdoor learning session this week where we made bird feeders to support our science unit on animals including humans. We discussed the different birds we may find in our school grounds and decided that the best way to encourage them to visit would be to provide some seeds and nuts in the wildlife area. Within this session we also loved helping Mrs Thompson make stewed rhubarb and strawberries with granola, Greek yoghurt and honey. It was enjoyed by all with most requesting seconds.

In English we started to work on a non-chronological report on wild animals and enjoyed using the Chromebooks to research our animal. 

In RE we are learning all about the Easter story and this week we sequenced the main parts of the story.

1st March 2024

Another busy week for year 1. Our science sessions this half term are focused on animals, including humans. We have been learning how to classify animals into different groups, so far we have looked at grouping by what animals eat and using herbivores, carnivores and omnivores to describe these groups. We have also looked at the 6 main animal groups - birds, fish, insects, mammals, amphibians and reptiles and looked at which animals belong to each group.

We have further explored sculpture in art by looking at how we can fold paper to create 3D sculptures. The children had lots of great ideas and were able to show their creativity with these.

We ended the week with our music session and the children enjoyed playing the glockenspiels to 'Sing me a song' and were all very proud of the results and specifically asked if I could record them playing which we all watched back on the large screen afterwards.

23rd February 2024

We have really enjoyed our new book 'The Bog Baby' this week. We went on a hunt around the wildlife area to see if we could find any evidence that the Bog Baby had visited our school. We were really excited to find him floating on a leaf in a bog! We then used watercolours to paint pictures of the Bog Baby.

We are starting to make sculptures in our art lessons so we began by making some clay sculptures of animals in our outdoor learning session. We then made some 3D paper sculptures in art.

9th February 2024

In Jigsaw this week we have been talking about how we can stretch ourselves to complete goals which aren't easy to complete rather than giving up too quickly. To remind us to do this we made some stretchy flowers using handprints as flowers and pipe cleaners as stretchy stalks.

We have also completed our hand puppets which we have spent the last few weeks making. We began by joining materials together by pinning, glueing and stapling. We then created our templates and used these to cut out our puppet shape, joined these together then used buttons, wool and googly eyes to embellish them.

As part of our current science unit on changing seasons we looked at weather patterns and the work of a meteorologist. As a result of this we created our own windsocks to help us measure wind speed and direction.

26th January 2024

Over the last couple of weeks we have been finding out what life was like when our grandparents were the same age as us. We thought that they wouldn’t have many toys and the ones that were available would only be made of wood. It was lovely to see some toys that Rosie’s grandparents sent in that they used to play with when they were little. We found out that Snakes and Ladders and hopscotch were popular toys in the 1960’s and 1970’s and have been playing these in our history lessons too.

We have now started making our own toy puppets in our DT lessons, so far we have been busy practicing how we can join the fabric by stapling, gluing and pinning.

17th November 2023

Year 1 has had a busy few weeks. On Friday we loved coming to school in our pyjamas and getting involved with lots of children in need activities including decorating spotty biscuits, drawing Pudsey bears and thinking of other ways we could fundraise to support Children in Need. 

Earlier in the week we enjoyed creating our own Space themed dance routines and using the globes to find the North and South Poles, the Equator and where we live.

The week before we had a full week themed to commemorate Poppy Day. We learnt all about why we commemorate Poppy Day, we made our own poppies and poppy wreath. We painted poppies and decorated biscuits to look like poppies. The week was rounded off with a walk to church with the foundation children to lay our poppy wreath inside the church, alongside the memorial to those who fought in World War 1 and 2 from the village of Preston.

Wednesday of this week saw the launch of our Preston 70 books and the children were very excited to receive the first of their 10 year 1 books to read. It was lovely to see so many of our parents in school to read with the children too.



12th September 2023

The children have all settled well into their new classroom and are enjoying getting to grips with the new routines and challenges of year 1. They have enjoyed exploring their new outside area and spending more time with some of the older children too. This week we have done lots of activities around their summer holidays and they have helped us create some super displays for the classroom. The children are adapting well to the mix of formal teaching and continuous provision and with the help of our visual timetable most of them know what they have to do and when. From next week the children will begin accessing the full year 1 curriculum. Well done Year 1, Miss Meekin and I are looking forward to the year ahead. Keep up the good work!

Miss Ferguson