What a fantastic half term we have had with our theme ‘Soaring High and Diving Deep.’ We started our half term off with a ‘Discover and do’ afternoon all about penguins.

In Science and Technology, we investigated why penguins have waterproof feathers by colouring in a penguin picture using wax crayons (to represent the penguin’s waterproof feathers) and then spraying it with water. The water just ran straight off. We were so interested we carried on researching to find out how the penguin feathers are waterproof. We found out that penguins have a special gland called a ‘preen gland’ where they get oil from and spread the oil all over their feathers to make them waterproof. We watched some videos of penguins doing this. We also wanted to find out how penguins keep warm in their cold climate so we researched this and found out that they have a layer of fat under their skin called blubber. So we used what we learnt to carry out an experiment to test it. We filled a rubber glove with oil (to represent the penguin’s fat) and put another glove inside it so we could put our hand in. We placed one plain hand into freezing cold water and then the hand in the glove into freezing cold water. The hand that was inside the blubber glove was much warmer. We had a session with Miss Shepherd in the Apple mac suite and learnt how to edit photographs. It was so much fun. You can see the edited photographs on seesaw.

In Languages, Literacy and Communication this half term we have researched penguins and created a non-fiction reports about them. We thought of adjectives to describe the penguins, verbs to express what they do and adverbs to show how they do those things. We used all of this wonderful vocabulary alongside facts we have learnt about penguins to write penguin poems. We also read ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers and loved the story. We innovated the story by making changes to the characters, the places they visited and the ending. We have loved our theme ‘Soaring High and Diving Deep’ this year because we have learnt so many different things about all kinds of birds. We visited the local council library and talked about how libraries are so useful for the local community. We took a book out to read during guided reading sessions. World Book Day was brilliant and the outfits were fantastic. The children loved talking to the class about what they had come as.

In Welsh, we have been building up to a piece of writing called ‘Dw i’n mynd i hela arth.’ The children learnt the language pattern of ‘Dw i’n mynd…’ and used that to read, write and retell the story. We loved taking part in our Eisteddfod at the beginning of the half term. We had some very deserving winners of the Year 2 competitions.

In Humanities, we looked at Antarctica on Google Earth and we found out where different types of penguins are most commonly found in the world. We plotted these on a map of the world.

In Expressive Arts we looked closely at the line and texture of penguins and sketched different types of penguins. We did a sketch of a penguin before we learnt about penguins and then a sketch after and discussed the differences. We created 3D clay penguins using different tools to show the texture of the penguin’s feathers. We used ‘Chrome music lab’ to produce a piece of music that represented penguins.

In Mathematics and Numeracy we have learnt how to tell the digital and analogue time for o’clock, quarter past, half past, quarter to. We have learnt our bonds of 20 and applied this to real life problems. We have used lots of different strategies to add and subtract 9, 19, 11 and 21. We have also looked at symmetry and the the lines of symmetry for different shapes.

In Health and Wellbeing we have learnt lots of different country dances, including Migildi Magildi and Jac y Do. We have carried on with our PESS gymnastics and created sequences using Frog hopping, foxes, bunnies and many more. We had a workshop from PC Smith called ‘Right and Wrong’ and discussed lots of different scenarios and what we would do.

The Literacy reading workshop was a great success. Thank you to everyone attended. If you have any photographs of the children using their free packs at home we would love to see them, just send them in via dojo or the school email.