Shire Hall

Meadow 2 had a wonderful time at Shire Hall. We found out about the Great Fire of Dorchester, how it started and also how it was put out. We enjoyed seeing the building where the fire started, it used to be a candle maker’s shop. Candles were made of tallow (animal fat), reeds or beeswax at the time of the fire. We also looked at maps to compare how Dorchester then and now. There were no schools and hospitals but we could see the Guild hall (Shire Hall now) and also a number of churches and a prison.

We also had a go at making peg dolls, a popular toy in Victorian times.

Asl us what we know about the Great Fire of Dorchester or the Great Fire of London, we are experts!

Our week 15.03.24

This week, we have continued to enjoy all our learning about the Great Fire of London. We looked at lots of different sources of evidence about the fire and considered what each one told us. If you’d like to explore these more, have a look at this website: https://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/browse-the-collection/.

We have begun to learn about measuring length in maths. We measured lengths of string and made our own string people!

In PE, we’ve continued to work on developing our fitness and skipping skills. We learned how to complete circuits using different ways of moving, such as heel kicks, tuck jumps and lunges. In spelling, we have been consolidating all the different spelling rules we have been learning this term. Ask your child if they can explain some of these rules and write some examples.

Big Plastic Count

We would like you and your child to take part in the Big Plastic Count 2024 from Monday 11th in the morning to Sunday 17th March in the evening.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0nQHO7Mw-k

In 2022, nearly 250,000 people from schools, households and communities across the country made The Big Plastic Count the biggest ever investigation into UK household plastic waste. It showed that nearly 100 billion pieces of plastic are thrown away in the UK each year, with hardly any of it recycled. 

The rest is burned, sent abroad or ends up in landfill. We can’t recycle our way out of the plastic waste crisis

By joining thousands of people across the country and counting all the plastic you throw away for a week, you can gather the vital evidence needed to convince UK ministers, supermarkets and big brands to lead the way at the global talks that could finally phase out plastic production for good.  

It’s easy!  count as you throw! 

Simply mark every piece of plastic package as you throw it away in your bin or recycling on the Let’s Count Tally Sheet 

TOP TIPS

1.       Put the Let’s Count Tally Sheet up on your fridge, or near your bin or recycling. 

2.       Tell everyone you live with that you’re going to be taking part and ask them to include their plastic waste in the count too. 

3.       Using the Let’s Count Tally Sheet, record the different types of household plastic packaging waste you use for one week. This includes plastic going in your bin and plastic you put out for recycling.

4.       Use the Plastic ID Tool to look up plastic items if you need to.

5.       Remember to write down any piece of plastic packaging you use while out and about, then mark it on your tally sheet when you get back home.

Record your results online by 31st March using your class unique link https://thebigplasticcount.com/submit/2955/meadow-2. The platform will be able to work out each class plastic carbon footprint as well as our schools. 

Prizes to be won for the top three classes that have the most children that record their results. 

Good Luck! 

Our week 1.03.24

In PE this week, the children enjoyed using skipping ropes to play different skipping games. We will continue with these games and learning to skip next week.

The children have enjoyed thinking about how London would have been in the past, compared with how London is now. They agreed that both London in the past and present day London would have been busy but that the modes of transport are very different. The children spent a lot of time discussing which adjectives would be most appropriate to describe London, past and present, before writing a poster to promote London tourism. In topic, the children have started to answer some of the questions they generated last week and to find out about how the fire of London spread and why it spread so quickly. There is a game that some of them have enjoyed playing too – https://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/game/ 

In our maths, the children have continued to learn about division using the language grouping and sharing, you might like to have a look at this game at home. https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/doggyDivision/index.html 

A quick reminder about World Book Day next week, we are looking forward to seeing the children’s outfits.

Our week 23.02.24

We hope that you all had a lovely half term break. 

In maths, we have started to look at division by sharing and division by grouping. We will be focusing on this over the next couple of weeks so practising times tables at home will really help with this. Please see earlier blog posts for suitable maths games, we will also be setting this for homework too.

We are excited to have started our new topic ‘The Great Fire of London’. The children really enjoyed being detectives and piecing together the evidence which appeared in the classroom to work out what the new topic is. The children had lots of questions about the Fire of London and we hope to find out the answers to these in our work this term.

This week’s science work saw us matching baby animals to their grown ups and generated lots of discussion about which animal babies look like their adult. We are hoping to visit the pond and look for frogspawn when the weather is more conducive.

Finally, thank you for all the book cover entries that the children have been giving in, they look amazing. Don’t forget their are other prizes up for grabs – see the poster below.

Our week: 9.2.24

Thank you to everyone that came to ‘Stay and Multiply’. The children really enjoyed sharing the multiplication games with you. There are lots of ways to make times table learning fun and ‘sticky’. We played a range of games including: multiplication bingo, a multiplication muddle board game, times table wheels and also looked and commutativity using peg boards and cubes.

There are also some fun online games which children might like to play at home in addition to TT Rockstars and Numbots, these include: 

Mental Maths Train 

Multiplication Mage

Colour Sprint 

Times Table Duck

Multiplication Arrays (commutativity) 

Visitor:

Earlier this week Year 2 spoke to a virtual visitor, Professor Scourse. The children enjoyed finding out about the work of researchers in Antarctica but also what it was like to travel to and visit Antarctica too. Linked with this, the children have also designed posters encouraging people to think about how they can save the polar regions.

In Literacy, the children have enjoyed writing their own version of the story ‘The Journey Home’. The story has a powerful message about endangered animals and the impact that human activity has on the environment. You might want to share the story with your child at home.

Safer Internet Day

Today, is National Safer Internet Day. The children have spent time discussing how to stay safe online. The main focus of our learning has been the importance of talking to a trusted grown-up if the children come across anything they don’t like or are unsure of online. Ask your child at home about what they can remember about our discussion and for any further information or guidance about staying safe online or Safer Internet Day please visit https://www.saferinternetday.org 

Our week: 2.2.24

The children have had another fun week in school. In Geography they have continued to enjoy learning about the polar regions, this week’s focus was ‘Who lives in the Polar Regions?’ The children learnt about the indigenous lives of the Innuits, and how they are able to travel and live in such a cold environment. We learnt about how igloos are built from snow that has fallen quickly and blown into a drift. We even had a go at making our own igloos from sugar cubes and marshmallows – we quickly learnt that igloo building is not easy!

In Literacy we have found out more about the characters in our class book ‘The Journey Home’ and the problems that the elephant, polar bear, panda and orangutan face in their habitats. We then created a wanted poster to try and catch the poachers or the woodcutters who are endangering the animals. 

Maths this week has seen us applying our knowledge of multiplication facts and solving word problems too. We are working hard on the recall of our times table facts and look forward to showing you how we do this in our ‘Stay and…’ soon.