Blackbirds - Year 2

Seven Wonders of the World

Welcome back!

Our final term is upon us. How quickly the time has flown! Hopefully, we should see some summer sunshine now.

Our topic for this term is indeed a big one, and hopefully, something for everyone to enjoy. We will be travelling the globe and looking at The Seven Wonders of the World. Do you know what they are? (I had to look them up myself):

• The Taj Mahal (India)
• The Great Wall of China
• Machu Picchu (Peru)
• Chichen Itza (Mexico)
• Petra (Jordan)
• Christ the Redeemer (Brazil), and finally…
• The Colosseum (Italy)

We will be studying various aspects of geography, history, culture and civilisation, making comparisons to now. Children will hopefully gain a sense of dates throughout history, geographical locations and an understanding how people lived in the past. They will learn why each of these landmarks qualify as ‘Wonders of the World’, are key landmarks and popular tourist attractions today. Hopefully, this will be an interesting topic for all.

Home project:

This term, children will have the opportunity to complete a project at their own leisure at home. They can make a model, write a story / poem or create some other art work that relates to one of the Seven Wonders. I will send out more information in due course. Also, just to give you a ‘heads up’, the class will be hosting a dress-up day in the last week, whereby parents will be invited to take a look at all of their work. They will be able to dress up as a person of their choice based on one of the Seven Wonders (e.g. Roman Gladiator, Incan/Mayan tribesman/woman, Chinese emperor/peasant). Again, I’ll let you know more on that later on. ..

Home learning:

In order to polish up on spellings (getting ready for Year 3), your child will be given two lots of spellings per week (based on spelling patterns): Once on a Monday and again on a Friday. It would be greatly beneficial if they could practice these by following the LOOK, COVER, WRITE, CHECK (LCWC) process. This involves writing and re-writing them until they can do it unaided. They will be assessed informally each week in class. They will also be given some maths home-learning as well – which will either be a problem to solve or number work (this won’t be marked, but will be an opportunity to be involved with their maths learning).

In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you all back soon!

Mrs Durman, Mrs Nicholls, Mrs Heery and Miss Dawson

Christopher Columbus

Welcome back!

We hope that you have had a fantastic Easter break – lots of rest, not too much chocolate but lots of energy for our penultimate term. Hopefully, we should see some summer sunshine now!

Our topic for this term is indeed an interesting one, and hopefully, something for everyone to enjoy. We will be setting sail on a voyage of discovery – to find new lands, learning loads about Christopher Columbus and his crews on the way.

Did you know…?

• Christopher Columbus discovered The Americas.
• He thought he was the first from Europe, but The Vikings got there 500 years earlier (unbeknown to him).
• However, he was in fact trying to find a direct route across the sea to India, but somehow stumbled upon other lands that we now know to be America.
• Because he thought he had found India, these islands became the West Indies, and the people in them, were to known as Indians.
• This was not an easy mission though. Many a time, his crew had had enough, and wanted to give up.

We will be studying various aspects of geography, history, culture and civilisation, making comparisons to now. Children will hopefully gain a sense of dates throughout history, geographical locations and an understanding how people lived in the past. They will learn how important these discoveries were in terms of how civilisations are today – and make up their own minds as to whether Christopher Columbus and his contemporaries were right all those years ago.

We will be writing some poetry to express our feelings about finding a new discovery, using rhyme, rhythm and verse. The children should hopefully learn enough to be able to write a report about their findings.

In maths, we will continue with the curriculum from last term, including fractions, geometry and measurement, as well as continuing to practice mental strategies for efficiency.

PE will be tag rugby this term which is outdoors. This will continue to be on a Friday so please ensure that your child has his/her PE kit including trainers so that they can take part safely. We will continue our daily run most days of the week.

As the weather is going to be getting hot now (we hope!) it is important that your child has their water bottle with them every day. It is ok for them to leave it at school until the end of term. Please make sure that your child has sun-tan applied before they come to school and have a sun-hat.

In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you all back soon!

Mrs Durman, Mrs Nicholls and Mrs Heery