Year 2 - Stick polygons and investigative skills

How can you read a book which hasn’t any words? That is the challenge the Year 2 children have been considering. It all depends on details in the pictures and expert observational skills from the readers. The children have considered the senses evoked in the first few pages of the book ‘Flotsam’ by David Weisner and they have written a diary page from the boy’s perspective. It has been lovely to see how imaginative the children are and how their descriptions using adverbs, comparative and superlative adjectives and even a few subordinate clauses help create a real sense of being there.

In Maths, the children have been considering 2D shapes. They have learnt names of some quadrilaterals, have realised that not all triangles look the same and have counted sides and vertices of shapes using not just drawings but elastic bands as well. In Forest School, they were challenged to collect sticks and make different polygons and name them - and what a variety they managed! I wonder what a 42-sided shape is called!

In Science, the children have been detectives, using magnifying glasses to look at different seeds more closely and so be able to sort and identify the seeds. They considered the texture, size and colour of the seeds. They were amazed by the wide variety of seeds and are now thinking of how they can germinate some of them. Our focus this term is to encourage the children to be curious and investigate their own questions and there were certainly many questions asked about germination (including a really good one “What is germination?”) The children enjoyed putting cress seeds in the petri dishes and choosing the appropriate resources to help them answer their questions.