Stanningley Primary School

We have been so lucky to have the chance to have a final visit to Esholt Farm before it closes its gates for ever. Farmer James was amazing again. He showed the children all the different animals on the farm. We even had the chance to pet and stroke them. We all went into the Play Barn and had a great time on the slides, poles and climbing walls. Then a fabulous lunch on the grass in the glorious sunshine. Followed be a sneaky ice lolly. We finished our day with walk around the park and grounds and a visit to the hay barn. What a treat. A BIG Thank You to all the staff at Esholt for giving us another fabulous day at the Farm.

Fun Fun Fun!!!

Year 2 have been observing mini beasts and their habitats. We also collect leaves , twigs,grass and small pebbles to make our own Mini beast habitat.

Year 2 have entertained their families in our annual class assembly. We told our family and friends all about Captain James Cook.

Part of our staying heathy, Year 2 have been having a closer look into our eyes and how to make sure we look after them. We have been lucky enough to have a visit from the Bramley Opticians, Abul and Mohsin. They talked about the structure of the eyes and showed us why it is really important to look after our eyes. They played a little game of catch and the children had to wear an eye patch. it was fun. Then we had a little eye test.

Ten children in Year 2 were lucky enough to be chosen to compete in the Bramley Olympics with other children from Key stage 2. It was an amazing afternoon. We completed many different activities as fast as we could. Each activity was timed and each score was then counted up. We all got a certificate for taking part.

Year 2 have had a very busy sporty week this week. We have collected sponsors for our annual Race 4 Life event. We are so proud to be raising money for four special charities. Candle lighters, Maia Mouse, Wills Way and Every Man. First we prepared for the big race with a fantastic warm up from our P.E coach Gaz. Then Mrs Goodwin said," Get ready, set, GO! " We were off, It was great fun, we high fived our year 6 friends on the way around the course. Everyone completed at least two laps. What an amazing event. We all got a medal and a drink at the end.

Year 2 had a fantastic time at the Skipping Festival held at Pudsey Leisure Centre. We have been practising hard for our very first ever Skipping Event. We had great fun learning new skills and keeping fit at the same time. We can all do the click jump, Run jump out. Some of us our really great at Keep the pot boiling, swing jump, double bounce, hop swap, face to face and even speed bounce. We had a great day and came away with; 2 Gold Medals,1 Silver Medal,13 Bronze Medals. We would just like to say thank you to Chris and Jodie for your support. And to all those who helped us get ready for the competition.

Fun Fun Fun!!!! Year 2 always have a great time in Music with Mrs Rivers. We have been using boom wacker to rhythms.

Year 2 have been listening to the different creation of the world stories. We discussed the Big Bang, Jesus and Allah. We have looked at how humans are treating our world and how the different faiths expect us to look after our world. We have been on a hunt around school to see if we can make some changes to help the world. We discussed all the wonderful things that we do already do and have come up with a list of things we cam improve on such as; turning of the lights when we leave the room, Use both sides of our paper, make our own paper plant pots out of old newspaper. To finish our topic we had a special visitor who came to talk to us about her faith. Our friend talked to us about her faith and even showed us how to pray using a prayer mat. We liked the colourful mats so much we designed one of our own.

Art - Sculptures - Science - Plants We have been looking at the British sculpture Andy Goldsworthy who is a photographer and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings. We have linked our Science topic and followed in his footsteps and produced our own Transient art. We all went into the SPS garden and had great fun being little sculptures.

Our theme this half term is Young Gardeners. We have labelled parts of plants and trees. We have drawn our own flowers and written a short description. We have written our own bossy instructions, How to plant a seed. We have thought very hard and had lots of discussions how to grow a healthy seed. So we have all decided to complete a scientific investigation. We have planted four seeds in exactly the way. We have placed each one in a different position. We are going to water one of the two seeds we have put in the full sun shine. We will water the one we have put on the window sill. We will water the one we have put in the shade. Now we need to wait and observe to see what happens.

In our science topic we are looking at seeds and plants. We have been very inventive and made our own little plant pots by recycling old news paper. We have reused lollipop sticks too. We used our little plant pots to plant a little seed and our lolly pop sticks made great name labels for the pots. We will water them and watch them grow into seedlings. Then we will replant them in our school garden for everyone to see.

Year 2 have had a great time this half term learning all about The Great Explorer Captain James Cook. We have listened to his marvelous adventures followed his detailed maps and looked closely at his ship The Endeavor. Some of us made our own maps at home for our classroom display. We used tea and coffee to make them look old. We have learned about his life story and used action to remember the facts. Then we used our sequencing skill to order the pictures. Finally we wrote our facts in the form of a non fiction book and drew picture to match our information. We have really enjoyed this topic and so we produced an information book to read to our friends in class 1

We have been learning about symmetry and pattern. The children had great fun inventing their own Symmetry pictures.

During Healthy Week Year 2 had a great time learning about how we can become healthier eaters. We have investigated how many cubes of sugar are lots of items that we have in our own kitchen cupboard. We have looked how to make fruit smoothies to help us get our 5 a day. We also have used tape measures to measure how well we have been growing. It was great fun!

Year 2 have used their English skill to create a lovely Mothers Day Acrostic Poem.

We are so lucky in year 2 to have our friends from Chance to Shine deliver us some brilliant Cricket Workshops. We have been learning how to field a ball, how to balance a ball on a cricket bat, how to run carrying a ball, how to weave in and out of cones guiding a ball and balancing a ball on our bats. We have been having an amazing time and our skills are developing so quickly.

We have begun our exciting topic of Food through the years. We began by looking at cooking appliances through the ages. We discuss how we could warm our food/ water without electricity and gas. We did a little experiment to see if we could make the water hot by placing it in different areas around our environment. Then we sorted the appliances into chronological order. We noticed that the modern day appliance mostly had a wire and plug. These were also often made of plastic. We have now moved on to looking at food in the past. We thought about Guy Fawkes and what he might have eaten. We looked at the wealthy peoples diet and the poor peoples diet. We even tasted watery porridge, pottage soups and snippets. Some of us liked it. Some of us didn't want to taste it. Some of us really didn't like it at all.

We are learning to skip in year 2. What great fun we had with our friend Jodie who came to help us.

Year 2 had the opportunity to meet Dave the Samba man. We attended a whole school assembly followed by class a session. In the session we had an amazing warm up. We were all raring to go! Then we all had turns at making fantastic sounds and music using a variety of instruments. At the end of the day we were all invited to a Year 6 performance. What a treat it was for all those families that cam to see it.

We have been adding to our knowledge of Internet Safety. We have had discussion around how to keep safe on the internet and that we don't speak to people we don't know.

We have been extending our knowledge of materials. We have used our observation skills to compare and draw objects. Then we used magnifying lens to look even closer at the objects. We compared the different drawings and we were amazed at the difference in the detail we saw when we used used lenses.

We have had a lovely morning with our friend Rachel from the Dog Trust. Rachel talked to us about being safe around dogs. We know you never stroke or touch a dog without asking the owner and our own adults. We have looked at human expression and compared it to dogs expressions. We know not to go near or stroke a dog that is showing its teeth to you and whilst it is eating or sleeping. We know that the Dog trust do an amazing job looking after all the homeless dogs. Thank You Rachel for a lovely Morning.

We are learning to multiply and show these in a number sentence. We can show our time tables in groups. These are called arrays.

We came all to school dressed with numbers on our tops. We paid £1 to support the NSPCC and all the great jobs they do. We have played some nice games and completed some nice challenges such as decoding for Hangman, Writing in code for our friends to crack, measuring anything and everything and we even had time to see who could make the funniest face.

We all had a walk up to our local Tesco on Stanningley road. We were looking to identify the food shops on the local high street and understand that they are a source of many different foods. We made notes of the different kinds of food they sell and where the food comes from. It was a chilly day but we had fun on the way.

Year 2 have been having fun listening and learn to play a Ukulele.

Year 2 are now learning about money . We are using the skills we have already learned to sort and arrange coins in value order. We have been using our number lines to add two or three values together to find a total amount of coins. We are also doing a brilliant job of adding new vocabulary to our maths wall.

Wow ! We are so lucky on our first week back to have our friend Paul helping us with our Gymnastics skills. We have learned how to make shapes with our bodies and some special names for some shapes like the pike and tuck we have learned that we can do high and low shapes too.

We all came to school every day in Autumn.

HO ho ho!!

Ks 1 have had a lovely time practising for our annual Nativity performance.

Year 2 have used their DT skill to design and make these little vehicles. Firstly we coloured a cylinder then we cut a little space in the top for a driver to sit. Then we worked together as a group to work out how we could put wheels on our vehicles. We talked and worked out that we could use straws for our axles and cardboard circles for our wheels. We then used our fine manipulative skills to wrap a loom band around the end of the straws to keep the wheels on.

We have been investigating Everyday Materials. We have identified and named a variety of materials. we have investigated the different uses of materials and suggested materials that familiar objects are made from. We have even completed and investigation . Our class question was ; Can all materials be bent, squashed, stretched and twisted? Our conclusions were varied and lead to some great discussions.

Year 2 have had a great Peace week. Week all participated in the National Odd Sock Day. This gave the children the opportunity to express themselves and celebrate their individuality and what makes them unique! We have completed lots of activities such as; Using odd socks in math to make pairs for counting and addition. We all completed a piece of a jig saw to show our individual qualities and we also filled special leaves with sentences and words to show how we can all show kindness.

Year 2 were all very happy to have a photograph with Pudsey Bear.

Year 2 have been learning about Armistice Day. We all wanted to send messages to our Fallen Heroes. We wrote our messages on large love hearts and when they are all joined together they make a lovely big poppy for us to display and remember all our heroes.

In Year 2 we have being observing the weather closely. We have discuss the different season. We have used our observations and what we know to write acrostic poems. We chose to write about the season Autumn.

We have had enjoyed our Geography topic that we have linked to our art topic paint. We have being observing the different types of weathers we have been having since September. We have nominated a weather watch inspector ( a friend in our class ) each week to observe three times a day and record their findings. We used the information we found then experimented with different types of paint to create these beautiful pictures of the different seasons.

Class 2 have had a fantastic time this week learning how to use balance ability bikes. We have all been on balance bikes and can balance our bodies on a bike with no pedals. Then we all progressed to bikes with pedals. Most of us can now ride a 2 wheeler bike without any support.

Animals Including Humans We have been looking closely at the off spring of animals, including humans. We have played guess who games with our very own baby pictures and also matched animals to their babies. We researched the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival (water, food and air) We looked at a healthy diet and sorted food into groups of healthy and unhealthy foods. We also performed two investigations 1, The importance for humans to exercise - Each week in one of our P.E sessions we used a timer for 1minute to perform different exercises in a circuit. Our investigation was to check if the more times you do an exercise the easier it gets? The result were inconclusive some of us found it easier but some of found it just as difficult. 2, For the hygiene part of our science we looked at the importance of using a tissues for our sneezes. Firstly we all joined in a group discussion on what to write on our investigation sheet. Then we all did our own just like real scientists. After that The Fun Began! We all took turns in squirting the gloop that we were pretending was snot from different distances. The final result was a big surprise.

• How far can a sneeze travel?

Year 2 have been looking at how Christians celebrate and welcome a new born baby to their family. We pretended that our class puppet was a new born baby and celebrated by giving it a christening and naming the baby Elizabeth.

Year 2 have begun to learn the 3 times tables. We have had great fun using clever stick to help us. We have built different shapes and realised that triangles can fit inside other larger triangles. We know that all triangles have 3 sides.

Year 2 always enjoy their Music lessons with Mrs Rivers.

Yum, Yum a lovely bun.

In Year 2 we have begun to investigate our bodies . We have begun to collect data in our P.E sessions. To see what the effect of exercise on our body is and to see if the more we exercise the more we can do.

We have had a super time in music with our new Music Teacher Mrs Rivers.

We have continued to build on our daily mile in year 2. Each week are managing to add 1 or 2 more laps to our daily mile.

We have begun to investigate paint in class 2. We are learning how to mix different types of paint such as ; powder and acrylic. We have watched the changes that occur when we add black or white to a colour. We have used this new knowledge to show our interpretations of different seasons linked to our Geography learning.

We have been so luck to have a visit from the Road Safety Team. We started the day with a whole school assembly. Then our friend Amber came to class 2 . In small groups we put on our high vis jackets and went out to the road. Amber talked to us about being safe around the road. We all got a chance to show off the skills that we have learned in our pairs. We also completed some fun activities in the classroom. We know you have to THINK - STOP - LOOK - LISTEN & CHECK AGAIN , before you cross the road. We made posters to remind us.