Koalas

Welcome to Koalas!

Class Teacher: Mrs Curran

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Hunter

Welcome to Year 2

General Information

Our topic this half-term is ‘Nurturing Nature’. In science we will be learning about plants. We’ll be observing plants and trees, planting seeds and bulbs and doing a comparative test to understand what plants need to germinate and grow. We’ll also learn about the parts of plants and trees, their life cycles and what plants need to stay healthy. In Geography we will be comparing and understanding the differences in climate of Harrogate and India, as well as, comparing and understanding the differences in the way of life and culture for people in Harrogate and an Indian village.

Home Readers

When you read with your child at home, please write a comment to that effect (or just your initials) in the school planner. Please try and read with your child each day, even if it’s only a couple of pages or for a few minutes, every little helps. We will aim to read with your child at least once a week in school. If your child needs a new book during the week, they can pass their book and planner to Mrs Hunter who will change it for them.

P.E. Days

Koalas will be doing PE on a Thursday.

Don’t forget to name your PE kit and keep it in school during the week.

Show and Tell

Children are welcome to bring in an interesting item for show and tell on the following Fridays for this term:

Echidnas : 12/4/24 & 7/6/24

Emus : 19/4/24 & 14/6/24

Wombats : 26/4/24 & 21/6/24

Kookaburras : 3/5/24 & 28/6/24

Kangaroos : 10/5/24 & 5/7/24

Exciting Learning Websites

Below are some exciting websites where you can practise your writing and maths skills. 

March

Our pizza making in DT was a great hit this month as you can see from all of the happy faces! There was lots of designing and chopping involved and the children enjoyed their home made pizzas at snack time. We finished our computing topic this month by making pictograms online where the children definitely learnt some new skills. On Unity Day, the Koalas were very excited to learn about being a police officer and looking around their cars. The children also designed a doll that would be appealing to both boys and girls.

World Book Day 

February

Maths Rocks day was a huge success and the Koalas had a great day! In Art, the children used the skills they’d learnt at the Hepworth Gallery to design and make clay model animals. We learnt all about Chinese New Year when Mrs Foster came in to do an assembly about it. The children learnt all about money in the money sense workshops. In DT, we’ve started to think about how to make our own pizzas by deciding which bread will make the best base. To start our unit about The Wright brothers, we made paper aeroplanes and went outside to see how well they would fly.  

January

What a great start to the year we’ve had! The children have been busy practising their balancing skills in PE and having fun at the same time. In English, they wrote an amazing non chronological report based on ‘The Big Book of the Blue’. In Science, we’ve been learning about local habitats and the animals that live there. In Geography, we’ve located the equator and the Arctic alongside leaning about the types of animals that live there. After our amazing trip to the Hepworth Gallery, the children enjoyed designing and making their clay animals. 

Hepworth Gallery

We had a fantastic trip to the Hepworth Gallery -  the children were amazing and were a credit to our school. 

December

What a festive month we've had! In DT the children have designed and made some amazing wind-up toys. The whole of the Koala's class received a head teachers award for always sitting so respectfully in assembly-I was so proud and so were they! The Polar Express story was enjoyed by all the children and as you can see, they wrote an amazing story-for the independent writing they wrote the story ending. I enjoyed eating Christmas lunch with the children and then we all had fun at the party. The trip on the Christmas bus and the Elf Project was a real Christmas treat and we all had a great time. Merry Christmas everyone! 

November

We’ve had another busy month in school. The koalas really enjoyed the experience day in English to kick off our witches poem as they made potions which bubbled over!  Our next unit was the Polar Express and the koalas went on a train journey where they had hot chocolate while they watched a story being read to them.  During maths week we did lots of investigations around numbers and patterns  before moving on to symmetry. In science we’ve been learning all about materials, including making a coathanger to see which material was the strongest and looking around us to see what material objects are made from.  

Victorian Day

October

We've had a great month in Koalas class. We've had some extra PE lessons with Mrs Dawson from St. Aiden's where the children progressed from jumping to dancing. The children worked hard on their self portraits based around Romero Britto and as you can see, the finished results are amazing! In English, the crayons went on strike and the children wrote letters persuading them to come back. We then went on an exciting walk to find some inspiration for our Autumn poem to finish the half term. In science, we have been learning about how to stay healthy. The children looked great in their dressing up outfits on the final day! I hope everyone has a lovely half term.  

September

We have had a very busy first month here in Koalas class. In maths we have  been learning all about place value using base 10 to help. The children are continuing to work on their portraits in Art and they are looking fantastic as you can see! In computing we have been learning about different types of photos and played a game of bingo  to capture the different types which was great fun. In English, the children wrote a fantastic story based on Incredible You as you can see on the sentence stacker.  The Koalas also had a very special PE lesson with Mrs Dawson from St Aidans where they practised different types of jumps. Finally, although it’s early, the Christmas cards have been created and sent home ready to be ordered  in time for Christmas .

First week in Koalas 

The children have settled in so well in this week and we’ve been really busy! We started our English unit based on the book Incredible You and the children are really getting to grips with place value in maths. The koalas enjoyed their first PE lesson with Mrs Irvine and then afterwards still had the energy to learn about pulse in music. They have drawn some wonderful koalas for our display in the cloakroom and really impressed me with their handwriting skills.