Welcome to our Heroes class page

2022-23

We are the Year 2 class at Warren Hills Community Primary School. Mrs Cheetham is our teacher and Mrs Smith and Mrs Cooke support our class.

PE this term will be on Mondays and Thursdays.

Please ensure that your child has an indoor kit consisting of a white t-shirt, dark shorts and plimsols or trainers. They will also need outside kit consisting of dark tracksuit bottoms or leggings, white t-shirt and trainers. Please ensure that long hair is tied back, earrings must be removed (if your child cannot remove earrings themselves please ensure that they are taken out before they come to school).

We Love Reading

In our class, we know how important reading is to help us learn and we follow a reading scheme in our school called Read, Write, Inc. We each have a home reading folder to bring our books home in every day and a yellow reading record. We enjoy reading at home and know how important it is to practise with our parents/carers regularly to help us become successful readers.

A note from the teacher: Please ensure that your child brings their home reading folder back to school every day and remember to enjoy spending some time listening to your child read each day.

Summer Term 1 2022-23

Grab your coat and pooter – we’re going out and about on a minibeast hunt. Sweep your nets in ponds and lift up logs to see who’s home. Then set up a minibeast laboratory and observe their every move. Add notes and labels and ask research questions, just like a real entomologist. Learn about bees and worms and butterflies too. Can you make a food chain to show who eats who? Carry out investigations to find out more, like how far a snail travels in a day and how a spider catches its prey. Then animate to show how your favourite bug transforms from one form to another, perhaps a caterpillar to a butterfly or a maggot to a fly. On your belly, legs at the ready, it’s time to wriggle and crawl.

Spring Term 2 2022-23

See the castle ahead? Get ready to invade its mighty walls. Shoot a projectile with an archer’s aim. Head across the drawbridge, over the moat and up to the top of the tower. Meet Rapunzel who lives in a tall, tall tower. Let’s build a brand new one. Whose is the tallest? Can you measure it? Then dig deep, deep down, making burrows and tunnels, just like the animals who live underground. What’s that sound? I hear little hooves going trip, trap, trip, trap, over the rickety bridge. Watch out for the angry troll underneath. He likes to gobble up little girls and boys. Make sure your bridge is sturdy enough to take our weight and get us safely to the other side. And finally, meet three little pigs who need your help to build a strong fortress. Inside its strong walls, they’ll be safe from the big, bad wolf. No huffing and puffing will blow your fortress down.

Spring Term 1 2022-23

Muck, Mess and Mixtures. Let’s get messy. Muck and mess are good. In fact, they're marvellous. Dive in and get your hands and feet all sticky and covered in paint. Play with liquids, squish some dough and check out the slushiest and mushiest foods. Pour, mix, stir, splat. How does it feel to get your hands covered in goo? Make a wobbly jelly and draw with wibbly clay. Write recipes, instructions, riddles and poems – there are loads of scrummy words to describe messy mixtures. Work with paint and other squelchy stuff to create a new gallery space. What will you make? How will you arrange it? How will the gallery make you and your visitors feel? Don’t worry about the mess – it’ll always wash.

Autumn Term 2 2022-23

Throw it, catch it, roll it, bounce it, up and down and side to side. Can you catch the bouncing ball? Can you bounce too? Jump like a horse, leap like a frog or kick like a kangaroo. How many bounces can you do? Design a game, bouncy or otherwise. Then write instructions for someone else to play. Are the instructions clear enough? Can the players follow them? Who will score the highest? Then let’s create a Sporting Challenge Day for parents and carers. Can they hit it, roll it, win it? Now let’s relax. Breathe deeply and stretch those tired muscles. All that bouncing must have made you tired.

Autumn Term 1 2022-23

This way or that way? Where should we go? Up to the local shops or down to the playing fields? Let’s learn about our local community, looking at houses old and new and finding out how our streets have changed since our mums and dads were young. Perhaps your granny or grandpa went to your school or maybe they worked in the baker’s shop? Make maps and plans of the streets around us, planning our routes. What can you see? What can we find? Whereabouts do you live? Do you know your address? Find out how to write instructions, directions, adverts and learn rhymes all about our community from different times. When the Lord Mayor writes and asks us to help make our street a better place, it’s time to get your thinking caps on and paintbrushes at the ready. Ready to roll, Street Detectives? Get your clipboards and cameras – it’s time to start investigating.

Heroes 2021-22

Welcome back Heroes class! We hope that you have had a restful summer break and enjoyed some of the fantastic weather that we have had this holiday. We cannot wait to hear your tales of 'fun in the sun' when we are back in school. This year, we have some really exciting topics coming up that we are looking forward to teaching you. We look forward to having you back in the Year 2 classroom 'ready to learn' when we return to school.

AUTUMN 1 Street Detectives

This way or that way? Where should we go? Up to the local shops or down to the playing fields? Let’s learn about our local community, looking at houses old and new and finding out how our streets have changed since our mums and dads were young. Perhaps your granny or grandpa went to your school or maybe they worked in the baker’s shop? Make maps and plans of the streets around us, planning our routes. What can you see? What can we find? Whereabouts do you live? Do you know your address? Find out how to write instructions, directions, adverts and learn rhymes all about our community from different times. Ready to roll, Street Detectives? Get your clipboards and cameras – it’s time to start investigating.

Spring 2

We hope you had a good half term break. This half term our topic is 'Towers, tunnels and turrets'. We will be looking at castles and even going on a school trip to Tamworth castle (look out for more info via letters and email), we will be looking at tunnels and bridges. We will continue to go swimming on a Tuesday morning.

 HOMEWORK IDEAS

A dragon's egg!!

A dragon's egg arrived at school for us to look after so we had to do some research and write down some instructions.

We used 'bossy' verbs to start our instructions and had to write them in the present tense.

Science - looking for tunnelling worms!

Science - Where do worms like to live?

To start our investigation we had to collect worms. We learnt that adult worms have a saddle and worms have tiny hairs on their bodies to help them move along.

Where do worms like to live continued....

We chose different materials for our worms to live in; soil, sand, bark, stones, grass and twigs. We put the worms in the middle of the materials and left them overnight to chose where they would like to live. The next day we carefully looked to see which material the worms were living in. The worms mainly chose soil and sand.

Spring 1

We hope you had a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year. This term will be a messy one with our topic 'Muck mess and mixtures'. We will be starting the topic with a messy day with lots more creative sessions planned. We will be using the brilliant story of George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl to inspire our writing. There will be lots of science fun too with some mixing and investigative work. We will also be starting our weekly swimming sessions on a Tuesday, please use parent pay to pay for the sessions. If you have any worries or concerns about swimming please come and talk to us.

Homework Ideas

Science day

We had a brilliant day doing science experiments. Mrs Felstead made an erupting volcano, minty geyser and flying film cannister. We made rainbow rain, fizzing potions, skittles pattern and melted a coloured ice cube in oil. We learnt how mixing certain ingredients causes a chemical reaction. If you mix an acid (vinegar or lemon juice)with an alkaline (bicarbonate of soda) carbon dioxide gas is formed. Our favourite was the minty geyser because Mrs Felstead nearly got covered in coke!

Not so messy art work! 

We have been using the paint program to create our own 'Mondrian' pieces of art. We learnt how to use the fill and line buttons.

Hot and cold science 

We made jelly using hot and cold water. We even mixed the colours/flavours!  Mrs Smith carried out an investigation to see what would happen to different foods when they were heated up. Mrs Felstead had prepared some ice cube paints which were great fun to paint with. We observed changes from a solid to a liquid, liquid to a gas, liquid to a solid and gas to a liquid. 

Yum yum!

The jelly was delicious!

What is mud?

In science we carefully measured out different amounts of water and added it to our soil samples. We had to explore the mud to see what properties it had. 

"I can stretch this sample."

"I can roll it into a ball."

"This is too runny!"

"It feels smooth."

When we looked through the soil samples we had to record what we found using science knowledge from the Autumn term:

Living, Never lived or Dead

"I found a worm!"

"This plastic lid has never lived."

"These leaves are dead."

ICT 

We have been exploring the 'Tate kids' website and created our own pieces of art work. It was quite difficult using the touch pad to draw with.

George's Marvellous Medicine

George's Marvellous medicine has inspired our writing and poetry work. We have come up with some great command sentences....

"Go and get my medicine!"

We have used some great adverbs.....

Grandma began to grow quickly  through the roof.

We have used some expanded noun phrases....

George mixed the brown gloopy medicine.

We have used commas in list sentences....

He put in shampoo, lipstick and toothpaste.

We have used some exclamation sentences....

How quickly Grandma grew through the roof!

ICT 

Not quite so 'messy' art work using the laptops.

Maths 

We have been looking at temperature and reading scales.

Science

Which material is a good insulator? We tested different containers to see which one would keep the water warmest for longest. We carefully read the scale on the side of the thermometer and recorded our findings.

Maths

We have been looking at the capacity of different containers.

Science

We have been investigating what happens to different materials when water is added. We had to find out if they would mix, stir, pour, dissolve, sink or float. We discovered that oil floats on the top of water and sugar dissolves.

A messy day!

Autumn 2 2021

We hope you had a lovely half term break and ready for the long and manic stretch to Christmas! Our topic this term is 'Bounce' which will help to get us healthy and fit. We will be going to the leisure centre to take part in a multiskills event with other local primary schools. We will have some bouncing fun on a variety of spacehoppers! Hopefully we will be able to perform a Christmas play to the parents this year - fingers crossed!

HOMEWORK IDEAS

Advent

We have been learning about advent is a time of preparation for Christians for the celebration of the arrival of Jesus. We made our own advent wreaths. 

Do all balls bounce?

We carried out an investigation in science to find out if all balls bounce and what surface was the best to bounce a ball on. The hard class floor was the best surface. The pom  pom balls were rubbish at bouncing. The football and tennis ball were good bouncers.

Paralympian athlete - Claire Cashmore 

We had a very inspiring assembly from Paralympian Claire Cashmore. She came to our class to answer our questions and show us her Paralympian medals! 

How clean are your teeth?

We have been talking about how to look after our teeth. You need to brush them twice a day for 2 minutes. Some of us have lost our baby teeth!

How much sugar?

This was quite shocking to see! We weighed out how much sugar is in some of our snacks which was more than our daily allowance. We looked at sugar swaps - choosing snacks that contain less sugar. Look on change4life website for good ideas.

We ate a biscuit then looked to see where it had stuck to our teeth! We will be brushing our teeth well so the sugar in the biscuit can’t harm our teeth.

Science 

We put germs (glitter) on some of our hands to see how and where the germs would spread. The results were quite surprising! We found out that germs on our hands can spread very easily and quickly.

Following on from the spread of germs we talked about how to wash our hands which we are actually quite good at now!! But why do we use soap? We had some germs (pepper) in the water and dipped our finger in without any soap on. The germs stuck to our finger. We then put soap on our finger and dipped it into the germs. The germs moved away from our finger because they don't like the slippery soap. So wash your hands with soap.

Maths - creating block graphs

We investigated ways of representing data. We decided that block graphs are an easier way to look at data.

Karate taster lesson

We had great fun learning some karate moves with Simon from Simoncoope Karate school. 

Measuring weight

We had a fun two maths lessons carrying out some weighing activities. We used balance scales to find things that weighed 30g, 40g, and 50g. We used the dial scales to estimate then weigh the bags of marbles.

Multiskills 

We went on a bus to the Hermitage Leisure Centre to take part in a multiskills afternoon organised by the School Sports Partnership. We had great fun developing our sporting skills.

Bouncing fun

The first day of our new topic was a lot of bouncing fun! We also learnt how our heart and lungs work by taking our pulse before and after bouncing.

Bouncing maths

We used the bouncers and timed ourselves to see how many bounces we could do in 1 minute. We also measured out 2m, 4m and 6m and counted how many bounces it took to travel these distances. 

Autumn 1 2021

We hope you have all had a lovely summer break and ready to get back to work. Our topic this term is 'Street Detective' which is full of fun activities. We will be taking a walk around the local area using maps to navigate ourselves. We might be able to visit the library and give you all a chance to become members if you haven't already.

HOMEWORK IDEAS

The Great Fire of London 

We had a great afternoon with Tom from Partake acting out the events in the Great Fire of London. We all know so many facts about the events that happened.

Science - Investigative work

We have been looking at the suitability of materials for different jobs. In this investigation we were finding out which materials were waterproof.

ICT
We have been using the lap tops to learn how to type in sentences using different functions on the key board. We can also change the size, colour and text style of our work. We have also learnt how to insert pictures.

ART

We used charcoal to sketch our houses from the time of the Great Fire of London. We looked carefully at houses from this time and tried to include the detail in our drawings.

Design and technology

Using our charcoal sketches we made a 3D house from the Great Fire of London. Some of us managed to create doors and windows that opened.

English

We are trying hard to write verbs using the correct tense. Our classroom poster is helping us to write correctly in the past and present tense.

ICT  e-safety

We have been discussing how to keep ourselves safe when we use the internet. We know not to share our personal information with anyone. Click on the link below to watch the cartoon.

History

We have been comparing old and new shops as part of our topic. In the 'old days' they didn't have a Morrisons you had to go to lots of different shops for your food.

How has our local area changed over 100 years?

We compared these two maps of our local area. Over 100 years ago our school was a field! 

"My house wasn't built a 100 years ago!"

"The school wasn't here 100 years ago!"

"Agar Nook wasn't built a 100 years ago!"

 Science

We have been investigating the suitability of different materials to make bridges. We discovered that metal made a rigid bridge but the plastic was bendy. We worked in groups to make newspaper as rigid as possible. Some of us managed to put 400g on our newspaper bridge!

Maths

We have been exploring 3D shapes. We tried to make 3D shapes and used 3D shapes to make models. We could name the 3D shapes we made and used. Can you identify a cone, sphere, cylinder, cube, cuboid, triangular prism and pyramid?

Learning walk 

We started our Street detective topic with a walk around the local area. We looked at different types of houses, physical features and human features.

Science - sorting and grouping work 

We have been talking about things that are living, not living any more and never lived. We went outside to find examples of these ideas. Can you identify things that are not living anymore?

2020 - 2021

Summer 2

We hope you had a relaxing half term and managed to enjoy the sunshine. We only have 5 weeks in this half term before we break up for the summer holidays and we have a lot to get through! Our topic is all about the coastline with lots of geography work to be covered about the seas and the features of the coastline.

Sports day 2021

The whole school managed to get out and take part in sports day. We all worked hard to score points for our house team. Oak (blue) were the overall winners followed closely by Beech (red).

Science - What do seeds need to grow?

To find the answer to this question we planted some cress seeds and put them in different places to see if they would grow. Our results were amazing. We were very surprised to see the seeds that were put in the fridge with water had grown a little a bit but were yellow! The seeds that were put in the dark with water grew but were also yellow! The best growth were the ones we put in the sunlight with water. Some of us had never tried cress before and we really liked it - well most of us!

Geography - locating RNLI stations

We used a map of the UK to locate some of the lifeboat stations on our coastline.

Science investigation - Will it degrade?

We have been finding out about living and not living materials. We also talked about the pollution in the Worlds oceans and the type of materials that are dumped in them. In our investigation we put different materials into salty water to represent the sea. We will shake our bottles 20 times every day for the waves. After 5 weeks of observing we will see if living or non living materials will degrade.

Science

We brought our 5 week science investigation to an end. 5 weeks ago we placed different materials into salty water (the sea) to see if they would degrade over time. Every week we have been making observations and every day we shook our bottles 20 times to simulate the waves. We emptied our materials onto paper towels and used magnifying glasses to make our final observations and conclusions. 

"The metal paper clip has started to go to rusty."

"The paper straw has started to degrade."

"The plastic bag has not degraded at all."

ART - Giuseppe Arcimboldo

During our whole school art week we looked at the work of the Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo who painted portraits using fruit and vegetables. We were also looking at the technique of using texture in art. We had a go at using real texture to create our own portraits.

Geography

We have been looking at coastal features and deciding if they are human or physical features.

Summer 1

We hope you have had an enjoyable Easter break and ready for the new term, hopefully with no lockdowns!! This term our topic is called 'Wriggle and crawl!' We will be looking at creepy crawlies, reading stories about different minibeasts to inspire our writing and making fact files about the minibeasts we look at. We will hopefully watch butterflies hatch from caterpillars, worms burrowing in our wormery and we might have some giant snails come to visit us! We will continue to assess and plan for work that children may have missed due to the latest lockdown.

All about snails

Science  - Snail investigations

We had great fun looking carefully at snails. We could see their eyes on top of their tentacles and they made slime trails all over the table! We tested their sense of smell using vinegar on the paper and we put some real and pretend lettuce out for them. When we had finished our investigations we let them go outside.

Maths - measuring

We have been trying to measure minibeast pictures accurately using a ruler.

English

We spent a lot of time planning our own bee stories and then writing t

Hard working Heroes!

What a busy day in Heroes! We’ve written amazing stories using our own plans, investigated thirds and compared fractions!

Learning about insect pollination

In science we learnt how insects help to pollinate plants to produce new seeds. Sam was the plants stigma and some of us were the plants stamens with our anthers full of pollen (bowls of cheese puffs!) Our insect puppet landed on our human flower and picked up the pollen (cheese puffs) on their legs and crawled on the stigma thereby transferring the pollen.  

Maths

Place2be 

Sophie from Place2be came to talk to us about who we can talk to about our emotions and feelings in school.

Class pets! 

We have some class pets to help us with our topic. Mrs Felstead didn't put the lid on properly over night and the next morning some of them had escaped into the classroom! We will be looking at them closely in our science lessons before releasing them into the Forest School area.

Arrival of the caterpillars

Minibeast day!

We started our topic with a minibeast day in the glorious sunshine. We used our information books to help us identify some of the creepy crawlies we found. We made some minibeast homes in the hope we will have some moving in!

ICT 

This term we are looking at how people make our computer programs by coding. We are having a go ourselves - it’s great fun!

 Spring 2

We hope you managed to enjoy your half term break. It was great to see lots of you on our live lessons last half term it certainly was a learning curve for everyone! We have seen some great work being done at home with the help from very supportive parents. Hopefully we will all be back together in a few weeks. Our topic this term is 'Towers, Turrets and Tunnels' which will bring us lots of fun lessons.

Spring 1

Happy New Year! We hope you had an enjoyable Christmas and ready for the new term ahead. We still all need to follow the guidance on social distancing, washing hands and wearing face masks when dropping off and collecting children. We have a fun term planned with one of our favourite topics 'Muck, mess and mixtures.' As the title suggests we might get a little mucky with this topic and there will be lots of fun science experiments.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Autumn 2

We hope you had a good half term and ready for the long stretch to Christmas! This term our topic is called 'Bounce' which will inspire us to become healthier and active!

Santa!!!!

Covid didn't stop Santa making an online visit! We got to ask Santa lots of questions and he showed us his magic key!! 

Children should be physically active for 60 minutes every day. Try using some of the change4life activities below.

 Science 

We put germs (glitter) on some of our hands to see how and where the germs would spread. The results were quite surprising! We found out that germs on our hands can spread very easily and quickly.

Following on from the spread of germs we talked about how to wash our hands which we are actually quite good at now!! But why do we use soap? We had some germs (pepper) in the water and dipped our finger in without any soap on. The germs stuck to our finger. We then put soap on our finger and dipped it into the germs. The germs moved away from our finger because they don't like the slippery soap. So wash your hands with soap.

The new normal!!

A member of our team is having to stay at home due to the new lockdown rules but she is still working with her group via Microsoft Teams!! 

Welcome back!

We hope you have all had a lovely summer break and ready to get back to work. It was great seeing so many of you in the last half term coming to school. It gave us a great understanding on everyone's abilities and how much work you had all done during home schooling. Our topic this term is 'Street Detective' which is full of fun activities. We will be concentrating on English and maths a lot to ensure all the gaps are covered due to the lockdown. Please make sure you hear your child read at least 3 times a week (everyday would be great but we understand the pressures of family life!). Reading is so important for their phonic development in reading and writing.

The classrooms and school are looking different to what we are used to but many of you got to experience this before the summer holidays. We are really looking forward to seeing you all and getting back to some kind of normality!

In this investigation we were finding out the suitability of materials to make a bridge. 

Whole class reading

Every week we have a vipers reading session to develop our reading and comprehension skills. 

We are using the book,  The deep dark wood. What do you think the story is about? Who do you think lives in this wood?

Maths/ICT

As part of our street detective topic we worked with our partners to give them directions to move around a map. We then used a program on the laptops to put directions/instructions in to move something around a maze. Some of us got muddled with left and right!

English - Story writing 

We tried really hard to apply all the Year 2 skills into our writing. We are not afraid to make mistakes because we can improve our work when we do.

Science

In science we are looking at the different ways to group animals. Can you name an animal that belongs in the reptile group? Did you know that mammals have flapping ears? 

English 

We are trying hard to read through our work and check it for any mistakes. We don't want our teachers to use green pen (green for growth)to highlight any mistakes. We want pink pen (tickled pink) to highlight great work.

Is it waterproof?

In science we tested lots of different materials to see if they absorbed water. We had to measure 5ml of water into a syringe and squirt it onto wood, plastic, rock, cotton wool, tin foil, cardboard and fabric. We observed and recorded what happened.

Wake up!

We have been using BBC supermovers site to get us ready for our learning by waking our bodies up with some dances.