Spotting Seasonal Change

Learners have enjoyed science lessons this week. We have been thinking more about how ice and frost is formed. We have been enjoying watching the daily weather report and finding out about meteorologists. Since September, we have been recording what time the sun sets on the first of each month and we are interested to see how the days are shortening as we go into winter. We will continue to monitor this as we go through Year 2.

Learners Class had a wonderful evening on Thursday, where we enjoyed a movie and pizza night in order to raise money for The Zambezi Sunrise Trust. We changed into pyjamas and enjoyed a Christmas ambience of candles and Christmas lights, while we relaxed and ate some tasty treats! Our goal was to raise £100 and we raised £115, smashing our target!

We have begun to write our narratives around The Christmas Jolly Postman. Next week, we will focus on some character description of The Jolly Postman., using some expanded noun phrases and interesting vocabulary. We are beginning to use apostrophes for possession and contraction in our writing which is making our writing simply wonderful.

The Nativity practises are taking shape and we are going to be awesome in the performances next week. Please see the newsletter for the dates and time to join us.

Learners are totally amazing and are so keen to learn!

Whoosh! The Jolly Christmas Postman

Our book this week is The Jolly Christmas Postman and everyone loves it. We have read it together and got to grips with the plot by using a storymap. Everyone is able to add some words to read and write and this is so wonderful. We used the story to make some beautiful imaginary maps and these are supporting our narrative writing. 

We took the chance to do a bit of role play using a technique called Whoosh! We built up each page with the Pioneers taking the roles. Sometimes you were a house and sometimes you were the Postman. Two Pioneers became the stile and we had to discuss what this new word was referring to. They had all heard of a hairstyle but did not recognise the word stile. This fitted in very well with our phonics. It is so fantastic to make these links and see phonics and vocabulary acquisition in action.

The maps and the writing are wonderful and we had a lot of fun being a wall of ice and the elves in Santa’s Workshop.

Dance! Dance!Dance!

The Pioneers love their dance session and each week things become more complex. They begin with a warm up and then extend and develop the routine. This involves a lot of skill and focus to listen and follow multi part instructions. This week saw the addition of ribbons on sticks and leadership exercises to end the session.

The energy is palpable.

Visitors From the Past

Henry Freeman, the famous Whitby Lifeboat man made an appearance in Pioneers. This visit allowed them to consider which questions to ask to find out about the past. They quizzed him on the Great Storm of 1861 and his now famous cork lifejacket. The information they gained will add to their biography. They were a bit confused by that fact that Mr Freeman seemed to have the same necklace as Mrs Hann.

Later in the week, while exploring changes in shopping in Whitby, Mrs Elizabeth Botham dropped in! The Pioneers scrutinized old photographs of Skinner Street to see where her shop is. They were fascinated to see the location then and now. Some of the children noted the different modes of transport and street furniture, having seen the dismounting steps in town. They questioned Mrs Botham about her family and noted that she had a dog. Mrs Botham lived at the same time as Mr Henry Freeman but she could not confirm if he was a Botham’s customer or not!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Christmas is well and truly approaching. The Nativity practises are beginning to take shape and we are all busy learning our lines. Learners have had a busy week in the classroom this week. We have welcomed families in to share with our maths learning, where each activity gave an ingredient of our typical maths lessons – eg maths key skills, number sense, times tables and problem and reasoning questions. We had a huge response to this and many families were able to attend, which was wonderful.

In RE, we have been busy learning about Advent and the traditions that occur in Christian lives. We discussed the meaning of the word Advent and why it was important for Christians to celebrate.

In English, we have completed our adverts to raise awareness for the Zambezi Sunrise Trust. We are busy making preparations for our own class fundraiser Movie Night. We have set our own target of £100 and are excited to see if we achieve it. We are all looking forward to enjoying a Christmas Movie and a slice of pizza together!

After a few frosty mornings, we have been looking at how frost and ice forms in Science. We were very interested to learn the freezing temperature of a liquid to solid and drew some wintry frosty pictures during the lesson.

Keep an eye on the diary dates in the newsletter, which will give you all the Christmas information you need.

Learners are looking forward to celebrating Christmas!

Marvellous Maths

Learners Class have been working really hard on addition and subtraction in maths over the last few weeks..

This week, Learners have been using many strategies to aid their learning and are able to select the resource or manipulative that supports their learning the best. For some this is using ten frames, for others this is using a number line and for others this is using a place value chart or rekenrek.

Learners have access to all of these resources during each maths lesson. Using different practical resources is definitely deepening understanding. This week Learners have been adding and subtracting across ten.

Our history morning on Monday was a great success. We welcomed many families into Learners class to share in our history learning about Whitby now and then. Families were able to contribute and share their own knowledge with us and could reflect on the how Whitby had changed over time. Thank you to all who could join us. 

Learners have decided to hold a Christmas Movie Night, to raise money for the Zambezi Sunrise Trust. Look out for more details on this in this week’s newsletter.

Christmas is approaching and this week we have begun to practise the songs for our Christmas performance. Keep your eye on the newsletters and on Tapestry for any information around this!

The weather is starting to turn colder, so please make sure your Learner has a warm coat in school each day.

Learners are maths marvels this week. Well done Learners, you are awesome!

A Colourful Week in Learners Class

Learners have enjoyed art this week. Building on the skills we developed last half-term, Learners have been looking closely at primary and secondary colours. This week, we enjoyed mixing primary colours to match the colours of autumn leaves. We thought carefully about how to mix just the right amount and ratio of each colour. In some cases, we needed to add a little bit of white to make the shade lighter. There was a lot of concentration and Learners kept checking their c colours until they were happy with the match. Just like our focus artist Wasilly Kandinsky, we listened to some classical music as we painted.

In history this week, Learners have been comparing the changes over time of Whitby fish quay. We looked at old photographs taken by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe and recognised that there was less fishing in the town these days, but more fish and chip shops.

In maths we have been learning different strategies that will help us with addition and subtraction. We are becoming great problem solvers and are able to transfer our knowledge to answer reasoning type questions in maths lessons.

After writing letters to families in English before the half-term, we are excited to welcome our families into the classroom on Monday to share in our history learning. 

 

Lend Your Ears and Open Your Eyes

The Pioneers were very interested in the work of Kandinsky the abstract artist and on his approach to creating the images. We have had the most wonderful week full of energy and intense focus exploring line and colour and shape. We did this on a large scale on the playground and on a smaller scale back in the classroom, at the table and then moving onto the floor. We played Wagner on the Boom Box and experimented with painting to a variety of other pieces familiar to us – Firebird by Stravinsky and Greig’s Hall of the Mountain King.

An artist’s work is never done and the Pioneers are keen to continue their work. They are unstoppable. One Pioneer was heard to say, “Well this is actually art,” as they left the classroom with their larger pieces to take home to parents. 

The process and the art produced were inspirational.

Cricket in the Sun

We had a visit from Owen our marvelous Cricket Coach. The sun shone and everyone was very happy to throw and catch and play as a team.

After a quick and happy warm up we played a game with rules and we managed to follow the rules without the need for a video referee!

The Pioneers all got to bat, hitting the big ball from a big tee.

A thoroughly wonderful session of precision teaching and great learning.

Wonderful Whitby!

Learners have had the MOST wonderful week of history learning.

On Monday we kicked off the week with a drama session with Louise from Red House Theatre. The session supported our history topic of Whitby now and then wonderfully. We used our imagination to visit Whitby in the past. Through movement, we turned ourselves into the steam train, the Abbey and we even became sellers in the old marketplace. 

Back in the classroom, we used iPads to research how Whitby marketplace had changed overtime. We discovered that Elizabeth Botham had sold her bread from a basket in the marketplace before opening her first shop. We also found out that whale blubber had been sold to make oil. Most shockingly we learned that urine was sold at the marketplace, which was used as a cleaning and dyeing aid – we were certainly glad to live in Whitby ‘now’ rather than ‘then’.

On Wednesday we visited Whitby and were able to being all our learning to life. We visited Fortune’s Kipper shop, a shop that we had seen on Frank Meadow Sutcliffe’s photographs of old Whitby. We stopped at the marketplace and were able to use our imagination to become market traders again – this time in the actual same place. We spotted many Whitby Heritage Sculptures around the town, which gave us an insight into Whitby from the past – we particularly liked the ‘Herring Girls’ sculpture near the bandstand. We walked up to the park, where we visited Whitby Museum. The Museum was fascinating, we saw Frank Meadow Sutcliffe’s gallery of photos and delighted in seeing many local artefacts.

Learners class have had the MOST fabulous week and history this week has been awesome!

Learners love to learn 🙂