2E Weather forecasts, Riddles and Weighing

This week the children have been enjoying reading and writing riddles. They have been thinking of clues that they could give which describe an object but which do not make it too easy for someone to guess what the object is. I have been impressed with some of the figurative language the children have used - things like "I have one ear" and " I have a big hole in the top of my head" to describe a teacup. They will organise their clues into easier and harder clues and think about the best way to order them to make the riddle fun to do, but not too easy.

The children also had a chance to deliver their weather forecasts which they completed just before the holiday. The task was to present a weather forecast in the style of a TV weather presenter, including a suitable greeting (Hello. This is the weather forecast from the BBC for tomorrow.) and a sign-off (And that's the weather tomorrow. Goodnight.) We watched a couple of examples online of how professional weather forecasters speak and how they use their hands and the children tried to emulate them. Below are some photos of them doing their forecast. 

In maths this week, we have been using weighing scales to measure the weight of various classroom objects. The children had to estimate how many cubes each object weighed (by hold the object in one hand and the cubes in the other) and then measure it accurately using the scales. They had great fun doing this activity. There are some photos below.

Using scales to weight classroom objects.

Paired reading in class 2A

In class 2A today we had a visit from some year 4 children. The year 4's came down to listen to some of our children read. They asked them a variety of questions about the text, storyline and characters and shared their knowledge of reading and books. The children really enjoyed sharing a book with them I could hear some really interesting conversations going on. Here are some pictures of them at work...

Here's Jack telling Karen all about his book!

Cedric is working with Hans, showing him the blurb. He explains to Hans that this is a short description of a the book. The boys went on to read it together.

Ethan is reading to Sebastian. He is concentrating really hard and could answer questions about what he was reading.

Sunny enjoyed reading to Nichola and sharing a book with her. Good work!

Stephanie enjoying reading to her new reading buddy Evelyn!

Edward could discuss the text with Anne

Justin asked Hinston questions as he read

Year 2 (beginner) learn clothes in Chinese

This week in the Mandarin class,  the year 2 (beginner) pupils learn Chinese about clothes. They read the story of "My wardrobe" 《我的衣柜》and go through the vocabluaries. They can read, speak, and write in Chinese. They learn very carefully and practice with attention. 

2B - Moon Landing, Chinese New Year and Subtraction

2B have settled back into school extremely quickly and have impressed me with their hard work today. In the morning they each wrote a recount of their Chinese New Year - working hard to include time words, connectives, an array of punctuation, and adjectives for description. The children were able to include trickier writing skills such as using commas,  speech marks and connectives such as 'however.'

In Maths the children began to extend their knowledge of subtraction by writing number sentences and showing their workings out on a number line. They all did fantastically and quickly moved onto creating their own two 2-digit subtraction sentences and drawing their own number lines rather than using a template. The children also really enjoyed the Math extension games!

In History we started learning about the Moon Landing. The children were engrossed and asked so many fantastic questions that the lesson turned into a research and discussion task. We will continue this tomorrow when we watch a video clip of the first moon landing and share the answers to some of today's interesting questions before completing the task. Questions included: "what was the material used for the astronauts suit and visor?" 'How thick would the visor material have to be to protect them?" "How deep are the craters of the moon?" "Which way does the Earth spin as it rotates around the sun?"...among others...!