Year 2

The three significant people we explored were Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Martin Luther King Jr. We began with exploring Florence Nightingale. In history lessons, we learnt that Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 and wanted to become a nurse. We investigated Florence using different resources and sources, such as our ipads. We discovered that she transformed Scutari Hospital during the Crimean War, making it much safer for patients. Nightingale has helped improve our lives because she helped the medical profession understand the importance of nursing and cleanliness in hospitals.

We then inquired into the life of Mary Seacole, who was also a nurse. Mary and Florence both helped patients during the Crimean War. However, we learnt that Ms Seacole is especially important because she had to fight against those who were prejudiced. Similarly, we learnt about the importance of Martin Luther King Jr and his work in the civil rights movement in the USA.

During our geography learning, we used maps, atlases and digital maps to discover and describe important locations. We found out that Florence Nightingale was born in Italy, on the continent of Europe. We learnt that Florence travelled to Scutari Hospital in Turkey and that the Crimean War was on the Crimean peninsula. We also discovered where Jamaica and the USA are located.

In art and DT we have been very creative. We developed our sewing skills by learning a running stitch to create hand and finger puppets, to use in a musical story. While painting, we developed our knowledge of primary and secondary colours as well as how to use different white to make different tones. We then explored the pop art style of Andy Warhol and had a go ourselves.

In Science, we have been learning about animals, animal groups, life cycles and how animals grow. We were able to sort animals into the main animal groups: mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians, and enjoyed exploring life cycles of frogs, butterflies, chickens and humans. We can’t wait to study animals and plants more during Term 5 and our Sharing the Planet theme!