Year 2

Central idea: Natural disasters impact living things and their environments

We are continuing to think about natural disasters and emergencies as part of our inquiry, looking more closely at flood plains and how they work. The children created their own houses and a flood plain model out of clay to test the impact on various different amounts of rainfall testing the effectiveness of their design. We had been able to have some really rich discussions with the children about the positive and negative impact of flood plains and have been impressed with how engaged the children have been.

In writing the children used their excellent knowledge of nouns, adjectives and powerful verbs to write poems representing water including metaphors, similes and onomatopoeia. The children really showcased their use of expanded noun phrases to give a real depth to their poetry.

As part of our line of inquiry the children spent some time investigating the water cycle, bringing scientific skills and writing skills together. Using their knowledge of instructional writing we carried out an experiment using ice and hot water to make 'rain', representing the link between evaporation, condensation and precipitation. The children were fascinated seeing the 'rain' drop through the clingfilm on the bowl and we were really excited to hear that some of the children managed to recreate this at home to showcase their learning with you!

In maths we have been focusing on the strategy of fractions, we are really trying to recall our times tables facts at the moment to help with the finding of halves.