Key stage 1

Year 2 students have embarked on an exciting artistic journey exploring the vibrant world of coral reefs! Inspired by the renowned artist Vanessa Barragão, students have diligently focused on observing and drawing the intricate line designs found within these underwater marvels. They have identified and sketched the unique patterns of various coral structures. Building upon these observations, students have created their own coral drawings, utilizing color to highlight the delicate details of each part. To further immerse themselves in this creative endeavor, they have also ventured into sculpture, skillfully molding clay to recreate the three-dimensional forms of coral. The final step in this exploration involved refining and painting their clay sculptures, bringing their unique interpretations of these unique underwater ecosystems to life. Well done Year 2! 

Ms. Cathy Nsherura

In our Math lessons, the children have been working on understanding place value by identifying numbers up to 50. They use base 10 blocks and cubes to see how numbers are made up of tens and ones. This helps them understand what each digit in a number represents in a fun and hands-on way. We focus a lot on using concrete, pictorial, and abstract learning methods to make sure children can easily grasp new concepts.

With concrete learning, the children use resources like blocks, counters etc. which helps them see and touch the numbers they are learning about. This hands-on experience makes abstract ideas more real and understandable.

Pictorial learning includes where children draw or use pictures to represent numbers and groups. They might draw 5 groups of 10 to show the number 50 or use pictures of cubes to represent different tens and ones. This helps children make a mental image of the concept before moving on to more abstract ideas.

Finally, in abstract learning, the children begin to work with numbers and symbols without needing physical objects or pictures. They can write the number 23 as 2 tens and 3 ones, or use simple number sentences to represent their thinking. This step helps children to think about numbers and math problems in a more flexible way.

We have also been learning about arrays, which are arrangements of objects in rows and columns. This helps the children organize objects for counting and introduces the idea of multiplication. By arranging objects in arrays, they can see that multiplication is just repeated addition. Understanding rows and columns is an important step in helping them become familiar with how multiplication works in the future. Using all these different ways of learning – concrete, pictorial and abstract – makes Math more understandable and enjoyable for the children.

Ms. Varsha Gurbani