Year 2 use hand lenses to study the animals

What a week Year 2 are having - it’s animals, animals and more animals! The children started on Monday looking at the picture and brainstorming all they could see, and then they were asked to look more carefully using hand lenses. They were very observant and were fascinated by the variety of animals they found, as well as all the details in the setting. We discussed how Roelandt Savery was asked to paint for Emperor Rudolf II who owned a menagerie. The children then realised that Roelandt Savery must have seen these animals to have painted them so precisely.

We brought these animals into our Mathematics module of Data Handling, asking the children to draw a tally chart and find out the favourite animals in our classes. They then drew a pictogram to represent their findings. They answered some questions using their results and made up their own for a friend to answer.

The children listened the story ‘A Diary of a Wombat’ and looked at the language used. If you don’t know the story, it is well worth reading - it has us all chuckling at the wombat’s antics and how it thought humans make good pets! The children are now researching one of the animals from the painting to write a similar-styled diary. They have also made 3D shapes of this animal and are looking at what they eat so they can use this information next week to build up a food chain.

At home, it would be interesting if you could take note, with your child, the different creatures that visit your garden and what they eat.