Autumn 2 

Significant People

Hooray for Toy Day! Wishing all our families a magical Christmas and a wonderful new year from Larch Class.

We were treated to a wonderful cello concert and thoroughly enjoyed listening to the beautiful music. A big thank you to Mrs Fiu for making this magical experience possible. It was truly memorable for everyone involved!

Year 2, Larch Class, had a wonderful time watching Santa live and listening to him read us a story. He answered lots of our questions, including who his favourite reindeer is and where he gets his magic from. What a magical experience for everyone!

Year 2 have enjoyed their Christmas lunch today. With festive music playing and lots of smiles, laughter, and happiness filling the room, it was a truly joyful celebration!

We are so proud of all the children who earned Dojo points for their hard work, positive attitude and fantastic behaviour. You are all superstars – keep up the amazing effort!

This half term in Larch 2, we have been exploring Pop Art inspired by the artist Julian Opie. We learned how Opie uses simple drawings, varying line thickness, and flat, bold colours to create his distinctive pop art style.

Using these techniques, the children created their own pop art portraits. They carefully drew simplified outlines, experimented with different line thicknesses, and chose flat colours to bring their artwork to life.

Our portraits were based on significant people we have been learning about in class, linking our art learning with our wider curriculum. The children showed great focus, creativity, and pride in their finished pieces.

We are very proud of the fantastic artwork produced this half term!

We had a wonderful time opening our winter books this week and the children were absolutely delighted. A huge thank you to Team Birchwood for their kindness and generosity — we really appreciate your support in helping to make this a special experience for our class.

Key Stage 1 had a lovely time at the pantomime of Little Red Riding Hood, and what a howling success it was! From the moment it began, the children were hooked, joining in with all the classic panto fun.

Year 2 Larch Class had a wonderful afternoon visiting Polesworth Library.

We walked to the library and, along the way, focused on a geography task. We practised recognising and counting human and physical features in our village, including houses, schools, hills and rivers.

At the library, we had a fantastic time exploring the wide and exciting selection of books. Some of our children enjoyed scanning their book out themselves. We said a big thank you to the librarian for welcoming us and helping us during our visit.

We enjoyed a lovely walk back to school and were delighted to spot ponies and swans on our journey.

We are so lucky to have our school in such a wonderful village!

In music this half term, we have been focusing on The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. We learned how the tempo and pitch of the music can help us visualise different animals and scenes. We also created our own musical suite using percussion instruments, and we also really enjoyed singing and learning the actions to ‘Once I Saw an Elephant.’

Our class elf has been getting up to all sorts of mischief this week — from wrapping up our whiteboard to making a zip line! But our absolute favourite moment was when he surprised us with an elf cut-out and told us to take an “elfie”!

This half term in Computing, Year 2 Larch have been developing their digital music skills by learning how to navigate 2Sequence. The children have explored how to create and edit their own pieces of music, experimenting with different tools and sounds.

They have:

• Added multiple instruments
• Controlled the volume of each instrument
• Adjusted the tempo of their tracks
• And even created their very own version of “Jingle Bells” using 2Sequence!

The class have shown fantastic creativity and enthusiasm — well done, Larch!

A huge well done to our wonderful Year 2 Larch class for their brilliant performance! You all worked so hard, and your enthusiasm shone through every moment.

Thank you for filling the room with Christmas cheer — we couldn’t be prouder of you!

Year 2 Larch have been having a fantastic time during Forest School. This week, they put the skills they’ve learned over previous sessions into practice by safely lighting their own fire.

Once the fire was going, the children enjoyed toasting marshmallows and turning them into delicious s’mores. There were lots of sticky fingers and big smiles all round!

We all agreed it was a very tasty Forest School session!

This week in Year 2, we’ve been working away like busy little elves in Santa’s workshop as we prepared our craft items for the Christmas Fair. There was plenty of concentration, creativity and just a little bit of glitter-magic involved!

The children worked hard to create their candy cane tree decorations and were very proud of the results. We’re fairly sure Santa would hire them on the spot — although he might struggle to keep up with their crafting speed!

What a lovely (and very festive) way to start our Christmas celebrations. The elves of Larch Class can’t wait to show off their creations at the fair!

In Science, we have been learning about how seeds grow into plants. The children have been exploring a range of different seeds and thinking carefully about what they notice. Working in small groups, they examined each seed closely and classified them according to their size, colour, type, and texture.

The children showed great curiosity and used fantastic scientific language to describe their observations. We look forward to continuing our learning as we discover how seeds change over time and what they need to grow.

We explored our class text Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. After reading the story together, the children took part in role-play activities and created a series of freeze frames to represent key moments from beginning to end.

They worked brilliantly in their groups, carefully thinking about how each character was feeling at different stages of the journey. The children focused on using facial expressions, body language, and positioning to show emotions such as curiosity, loneliness, determination, fear, and friendship. Their thoughtful choices brought the boy and the penguin’s adventure to life and showed how well they understood the story.

We have loved sharing this book and can’t wait to build on our learning in the coming weeks!

In Forest School, Larch Class have been learning an important new skill — how to “feed the fire.”

The children talked about why it is essential to respect the fire, and they learnt the special “respect position” that keeps us safe when adding wood to the flames. We also introduced a special fire-retardant glove, which the children used carefully and confidently whenever it was their turn to feed the fire.

Before feeding the fire, we needed to collect its “food,” so the children set off to explore the wooded area in search of sticks. They worked brilliantly together, hunting for just the right size and type of wood.

Everyone was very excited to see that the fire approved of our sticks — it lit beautifully and glowed brightly! The children showed fantastic teamwork, responsibility, and respect throughout the session.

Well done, Larch Class!

This half term in gymnastics, the children in Larch Class have been working incredibly hard and having lots of fun exploring different body shapes. They have been practising: Plank, Bridge, Arch, Star, and Pike

The children have shown fantastic focus, strength and determination as they learn how to hold each position with control. We are so proud of how confident they are becoming in their gymnastics skills!

Well done, Larch Class!

As part of our Children in Need activities, Larch Class have been thinking about the things that make them feel happy and bright. We loved sharing our ideas and celebrating all the little moments that make us smile!

Here are some of our lovely thoughts:

‘When people let me join in at play time I feel happy,’ Nancy 

‘I feel happy when people are kind,’ Phoebe

‘I am happy when my favourite football player scores,’ Chester

‘When Mummy hugs me I feel happy,’ Ava-Mai

‘When I come to school I feel happy,’ Frankie

We hope these special thoughts make you smile too! 

This week, Year 2 Larch have been celebrating Anti-Bullying Week. We have been learning about this year’s theme, “Power for Good,” and discussing how we can all use our own special powers to make a positive difference.

We agreed that everyone has a superpower — kindness, respect, friendship, or courage — and that we can use these powers every day to help others and make our school a happier place.

We’ve also been challenged to use our power for good every single day, showing that even small acts of kindness can have a big impact!

This week, Year 2 Larch Class have been learning about the significance of Remembrance Day. We discussed why this day is so important and how people across the country take time to remember and honour those who have lost their lives or been affected by war.

The children created their own beautiful poppies to help them reflect on this theme. We explored the symbolism of the red poppy, which represents remembrance and hope, and learned about the purple poppy, which honours the animals that served and suffered alongside humans during times of conflict.

The children showed great thoughtfulness and respect in their discussions and creative work — we are very proud of them

We’ve had a fantastic start to PE this half term in Larch Class! The children have really enjoyed taking part in team games, learning how to work together and support one another.

Through our activities, we’ve focused on communication, teamwork, and using gestures and signals to help our teammates. It’s been wonderful to see everyone encouraging each other and showing great sportsmanship as they play together and compete against their opponents.

Well done, Larch – what a brilliant start to the term! 

This week in Year 2, we have absolutely loved immersing ourselves in our new book, Stuck by Oliver Jeffers. It made us laugh so much! We thought it was very funny, especially when Floyd kept throwing more and more things into the tree to try and get his kite down.

We all agreed that Floyd was very silly for throwing everything into the tree – and then forgetting about it all and going to bed!

On our whiteboards, we wrote down our favourite parts of the story and created our own sentences using some of the brilliant vocabulary from the book. We had so much fun sharing our ideas and talking about what we would do if our kite ever got stuck in a tree!

This half term, Year 2 Larch have started their maths learning by exploring measuring length. We began by recalling how, in Year 1, we used non-standard units such as hands, cubes, and paper clips to measure objects. Together, we realised that these weren’t always very accurate!

Next, we learnt what one metre looks like and had great fun exploring our classroom to find objects that were longer than, shorter than, or about the same length as a metre.

The children loved comparing, estimating, and measuring—it was a fantastic start to our new maths topic!

Larch Class had their very first Forest School session of the year this week! The children did a fantastic job recalling all the brilliant skills they learned in Year 1 — including how to kneel safely in the respect position in front of a lit fire, how to use a peeler carefully to whittle wood and make tinder, and how to create a spark using a flint and steel starter.

After showing such super recall and practical skills, we finished our session by exploring our forest area — enjoying time on the swing, getting creative in the mud kitchen, and having lots of fun together in nature.

What a great start to our Forest School adventures this year!

This half term, we are learning about significant people from the past who have shaped the way we live today.

After receiving a postcard from Paddington Bear, we discovered that he’d ended up in hospital after slipping on some marmalade and hurt his paw! Paddington wanted to know how nurses knew what to do — so we set out to find out!

We learned all about Florence Nightingale, who transformed hospitals by making them cleaner, providing healthy food, and even opening a training school for nurses. 

As part of our learning, we also compared hospitals in Victorian times to hospitals today, noticing just how much things have improved thanks to Florence’s hard work and dedication.

A huge well done to our Dojo winners in Larch Class for Autumn 1! Your hard work, kindness, and brilliant attitudes have really shone through. Keep up the amazing effort — we’re all so proud of you!

To finish our learning this half term about materials, Year 2 Larch had a very special challenge from Incy Wincy Spider. He asked us to create an umbrella that was strong and would keep him dry!

We used our knowledge of materials to design a fair test. We kept the size of each piece of material the same, along with the amount of water and the time the water stayed on the material. The only thing we changed was the type of material.

After careful testing, we discovered that plastic and foil were waterproof, but plastic was the stronger and more flexible material for making an umbrella.

We had lots of fun investigating, and we are sure that Incy Wincy Spider will stay dry with his new plastic umbrella!

This half term, Year 2 Larch have been learning all about materials and their uses. To help us understand what flexible and rigid mean, we carried out a fun, hands-on investigation using playdough!

We discovered that we can pull, push, bend, and twist playdough without it breaking. This helped us understand that playdough is a flexible material. We had great fun experimenting and using scientific vocabulary to describe what we observed!

Larch Class have been having so much fun in music this half term! We’ve been learning “Tony Chestnut,” a fun, fast-moving action song with a simple tune and clever lyrics that link to different parts of the body.

As we sing, we use actions to match the words:
Toe – touch your toe
Knee – touch your knee
Chest – touch your chest
Nut – point to your head
Nose – touch your nose
Eye – point to your eye
Love you – point to your heart and then to a friend

When sung together, it sounds like:

“Toe-Knee Chest-Nut, Nose Eye Love You!”
— which cleverly sounds like “Tony Chestnut knows I love you!”

We also learned the playground song “Hi Lo Chicka Lo,” adding our own actions and rhythms to make it even more fun!

Throughout the unit, we’ve been practising clear singing, playing the melody on tuned percussion, and exploring call-and-response using our voices, actions, and instruments.

Well done, Larch Class – you are amazing musicians!

We had a wonderful end to our first half term in Year 2 by attending our very own tea party!

Although it wasn’t at Buckingham Palace like Paddington’s, we all agreed that we had the best time together. There were smiles all around as we celebrated our fantastic learning and the brilliant start we’ve made to Year 2.

Well done, Larch Class – what a lovely way to finish the half term!

To finish our learning about The Great Fire of London, Larch Class became bakers — just like Thomas Farriner himself!

We learned that flour comes from wheat grains which are ground down before being used in baking. Using flour, salt, sugar, water, and yeast, we carefully measured, mixed, and stirred our ingredients. After letting our dough rise, we kneaded it into rolls — and what a fantastic job everyone did!

The classroom was filled with the delicious smell of freshly baked bread. What master bakers you are, Larch Class! 

This week in Year 2, Larch Class has been learning all about Information Technology and how it’s used in everyday life. In our most recent lesson, we focused on the role of technology in supermarkets. We discovered how barcodes are used to store information about products. Each barcode is unique, like a fingerprint for the item! When the barcode is scanned at the till, it tells the computer exactly what the item is and how much it costs. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect technology to the real world. We’re excited to continue exploring more ways technology helps us in everyday life.

To celebrate National Poetry Day, Year 2 Larch Class learned the classic poem The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear. As part of our learning, we used Makaton signs to help bring the poem to life and support everyone in joining in. We were thrilled to share our performance with the children and staff from The Birchwood Nest — it was a lovely opportunity to come together and celebrate poetry in an inclusive and creative way.

Super learning, Larch Class – we’re so proud of you!

This week, Year 2 Larch began their Infant Agility journey by focusing on aiming and throwing – and what a fantastic start they've made! Their concentration, coordination, and enthusiasm were brilliant to see.

Infant Agility is all about developing fundamental movement skills, and over the coming weeks, the children will explore:

• Running
• Jumping
• Dodging
• Balancing
• Aiming
• Throwing
• Catching
• Reaction and response

These fun, skill-building activities help build confidence, coordination, and a love for being active – and Larch Class are off to a flying start!

Well done, everyone – we can’t wait to see how your skills grow! 

This week, Larch Class have been diving into the world of materials! We began by recapping our knowledge from Year 1, reminding ourselves of the names and properties of everyday materials. Next, we explored a wide variety of materials and worked hard to classify them based on their properties – is it bendy, rough, transparent, or soft? The children really enjoyed hands-on investigations and thoughtful discussions about the different objects they examined.  Well done Larch Class.

This week in Year 2, Larch class have been building their confidence with adding and subtracting two-digit numbers. We used a variety of manipulatives, including bead strings, part-whole models, and base ten blocks, to explore the different strategies we’ve learned over the past few weeks. The children worked brilliantly to solve problems, explain their thinking, and choose the most efficient methods. We then moved on to practising written strategies, showing our working clearly and carefully. It’s been fantastic to see how much progress everyone has made – well done, Larch class!

Larch Class have been busy exploring fixed wheels and free-moving wheels this week, all in preparation for a very important task – designing and building vehicles to help Paddington get to his royal tea party! The children have loved investigating how different types of wheels work and thinking about which would be best for their own vehicle designs. Lots of great teamwork, problem-solving, and creative ideas are already rolling in! We can’t wait to see the finished vehicles – Paddington is in for quite the ride!

This half term, Larch Class have been learning all about two-digit numbers – exploring their value and how they can be partitioned into tens and ones. This understanding has really helped as they've now moved on to adding and subtracting two-digit numbers. It's been great to see their confidence growing as they use different strategies to solve problems.

Great work, Larch Class – keep it up!

Larch Class have been really enjoying their weekly trips to the library! It’s been great to see everyone so excited to pick out books, share favourites with friends, and spend some quiet time reading. These visits are helping the children build confidence as readers and to become more familiar with how libraries work.

Well done, Larch Class – keep up the great reading!

Larch Class had a wonderful time this week making the most of the beautiful autumn sunshine! We headed out to the trim trail for some fresh air, fun, and a chance to stretch our legs. The children loved balancing, climbing, and jumping their way along the trail – and there were lots of smiles and laughter all round. It was the perfect way to enjoy the crisp autumn weather and stay active together! Well done, Larch Class – you showed brilliant teamwork and energy!

Year 2 took part in an exciting Now Press Play experience — and what an adventure it was! While on a school trip to Buckingham Palace, we met the King… but something wasn’t quite right. It turns out the real King was locked in the basement — and an evil imposter, Dr Disguise, had taken his place! Cue a high-stakes mission across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland to stop Dr Disguise and restore the REAL King to the throne! From royal clues to daring escapes, Year 2 were completely immersed — learning about the UK while saving the day!

What an exciting first day back we've had in Year 2! This morning started with a surprise – we stumbled over a mysterious suitcase and a red hat! We quickly guessed that they must belong to Paddington Bear! Of course, our curious minds just had to take a look inside... To our amazement, we discovered a very sticky invitation to a tea party – covered in marmalade, of course! Poor Paddington – he couldn’t read where the party was supposed to be. Luckily, there were some clues hidden in the suitcase to help us figure it out.

We found:

• A toy taxi cab
• A tube ticket
• A picture of King Charles
• A postcard of Big Ben
• A Union Jack flag

Using our fantastic inference skills, we discussed each clue carefully and soon worked out that the tea party must be in London! As well as solving Paddington’s mystery, we also got stuck into learning about the features of non-fiction books. We explored:

• Title pages
• Contents pages
• Glossaries
• Indexes
• Pictures and captions

We’re already showing brilliant teamwork and thinking skills – what a great start to the year! We can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings.

Our Year 2s came back today full of smiles, stories, and energy – and we couldn't be happier to see them! From catching up with friends to diving into new learning adventures, it's already shaping up to be a fantastic year. We LOVE how quickly they've settled back in, ready to learn, laugh, and grow together. Here's to a wonderful Year 2!