World Science Day 2020

10th November 2020Miss K. Wilkinson

On Tuesday 10th November we celebrated World Science Day at West Boldon! Every class looked at a famous scientist linked to their topic.

Year 1 looked at the scientist James Dewar (inventor of the flask) as well as insulation.

Their experiment was to put Vaseline on one of their fingers and dip one finger with Vaseline and one finger without into cold water and describe the different feelings. We found that the finger without Vaseline felt cold in the water whereas the one with felt warmer and a bit different. We talked about the meaning of insulation, looked at James’ invention, described these feelings in our books and draw pictures of what the experiment looked like. They really enjoyed it.
Year 2 celebrated World Science Day with a tribute to a very famous, Victorian scientist.
Florence, as a child, followed her determination to become a nurse. She trained other nurses to go to the Crimean war and make the hospital clean, and care for wounded soldiers.
Florence worked long hours and would tend to the injured soldiers at night holding her lamp. She became known as The Lady with the Lamp. Florence wrote books on Nursing and  is also credited for helping to popularise the pie chart.
Her revolutionary nursing earned her an award from Queen Victoria and her legacy serves to show much of what we now know about clean, organised hospital conditions today and is thanks to her hard work and research.
Florence Nightingale changed nursing forever. She is the real hero of Victorian science!

Year 3 looked at palaeontologist Mary Anning and her work on fossils.

They created a fossil jar whereby jelly represented the soil and sweets represented the animal remains. Each day this week they will add a new layer of jelly to the jar representing how soil layers occur over time. They talked about how these fossils form and also made a zigzag book!

Year 4 looked at Micheal Faraday today for their Science Day project.

They quizzed and found out about some famous scientists and inventors. Then they completed a treasure hunt fact finding mission to answer questions about Faraday’s life and inventions. The children worked in pairs to move around the 2 classrooms looking for the answers and then presented it beautifully.

Year 6 looked at Charles Darwin to link to their topic on Evolution. They all created a factfile about him explaining why he is so important in his field.

What wonderful scientists we have at West Boldon!

Year 2 Autumn 2 Focus Text

5th November 2020Miss K. Wilkinson

As we run up to Christmas time, Year 2 will be reading the festive story ‘Coming Home’ by Michael Morpurgo.

It is an exciting adventure story about a brave little robin’s long journey home battling through storms, oceans and terrifying hawk attacks.

During the half term we will be writing non chronological reports about robins, diary writing from different characters perspectives and retelling scenes using exciting verbs. In line with Talk for Writing, we will be retelling the story using actions and phrases before innovating the story and changing different elements to create our own narrative.

Here is a video of author Michael Morpurgo telling the story:

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Pollution

27th October 2020Miss K. Wilkinson

Children in Year 2 have been looking at Pollution in our world and how it can affect our local community.  They created some posters to tell other children in our school about Pollution.

‘Wild’ role play in Year 2

12th October 2020Miss K. Wilkinson

Year 2 are studying the text Wild by Emily Hughes.

Look at how much fun they are having freeze framing. Children were asked to reread part of the story and used a picture as a freeze frame. We asked, what is happening here? How is Wild feeling? What could you say?

Year 2 used their senses to describe the picture.

Excellent role playing to help with retelling the story in more detail!

What do we know about the Victorians and the way they lived?

11th October 2020Miss K. Wilkinson

In Year 2, the children are thoroughly enjoying finding out about and singing about The Victorians as part of their History topic. They are working on answering the Learning Challenge question: What do we know about the Victorians and the way they lived?

Take a look at our Victorian children, sitting in straight lines, writing out sums…

 

Year 2 Phonics Screening Check Autumn 2020

8th October 2020Miss K. Wilkinson
8th October 2020
Dear Year 2 parents/carers,

 

The Year 2 children will be completing their Phonics Screening during the week commencing 7th December 2020.

 

What is the Phonics Screening Test?
The test is a national requirement for pupils in the Summer term of Year 1, which as you know what cut short due to lockdown. The test will be carried out by their class teacher and supported by additional adults.

 

The children need to read a range of real and nonsense words using the phonics skills they have learnt in school.

 

How can I support my child?
You could support them at home by practising their weekly spellings and reading at home three times per week as a minimum. You could use the previous versions of the Phonics Screening to show your child the format of the test. They are available on the government website. The guidance for adults is also attached below.

 

What if my child does not reach the pass mark?
If your child does not pass the Phonics screening, they will resit the test in June. If you have any queries do not hesitate to get in touch

 

Yours sincerely,
Miss Fraser

 

Important documents:

Marvellous Maths

2nd October 2020Miss K. Wilkinson

Year 2 have been busy working with Base Ten to make 2 digit numbers.

In small groups, the children were tasked with asking their friend to represent a number that had so many tens and ones. They used language like ‘greater than, less than and the same as.”

Their partner then had to make suggestions about what that number could and could not be and give reasons for their thinking.

Smart work Year 2!

Year 2 Autumn 1 Focus Text

17th September 2020Miss K. Wilkinson

Children in Year 2 will be looking at the text ‘Wild’ by Emily Hughes.

A little wide eyed girl stares out from the cover of this beautiful picture book. The child found in the jungle is taught to talk by the birds, eat by the bears and play by foxes and she is ‘wild’.

Then she meets the humans…

Over the next half term, children in Year 2 will be making exciting predictions about who the girl is, writing a letter of persuasion and talking about the beautiful setting of the story.

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Learning about synonyms

28th February 2020R Smith

Year 2 have been reading the story ‘Wild’ and tracking the main characters feelings throughout the text. We learnt the valuable skill of how to use a thesaurus to find better alternatives for words such as ‘happy’ or ‘sad’. We will be trying to use some of the interesting words we found this week when we write a diary in role as the little girl.