Welcome to Larch 2!

2025 – 2026

Mrs Stockton/Mrs Brelsford - Class Teachers
Miss Dow, Mrs Calloway, Mrs Faultless - Teaching Assistants

Spring 2

Under the Canopy

Larch Class delivered a fantastic class performance all about our recent World Book Day celebrations, and we couldn’t be prouder of them! The children worked incredibly hard to memorise a poem, adding brilliant actions that brought their words to life. They also sang a joyful song all about their love of reading, which was performed with great enthusiasm and big smiles. As if that wasn’t enough, the class retold one of their favourite stories, showcasing their confidence, expression, and —of course — their amazing acting skills! Every single child played their part beautifully, and their effort and teamwork truly shone through.

Well done, Larch Class — you were amazing! You should all feel extremely proud of yourselves. 

This week in Science, Larch Class became mini-beast explorers! We visited our Forest School area and the kitchen garden to count how many different mini beasts we could find.

We discovered that woodlice were the most common mini beast in our search. We talked about why this might be and decided that the recent rainy weather has made the ground very damp, which woodlice like. We also noticed that we didn’t see any butterflies. As a class, we discussed that this might be because the weather is still too cold for butterflies to come out.

We loved investigating outdoors and using our science skills to observe, count and think about why animals live in certain places. 

What a fun-filled and wonderful trip we had to the Botanical Gardens!

First, we took part in a rainforest learning session where we discovered lots about rainforest plants, trees and animals. We learned some amazing facts, including that in the rainforest a bamboo plant can grow to twice our height in just two days! During the session, the children were given the choice to hold, or simply look at, some fascinating animals including a cockroach, stick insect, giant land snail and a corn snake. They might not be the prettiest animals to everyone, but they were all very calm and seemed to enjoy meeting the children.

After our session, we had lunch together and enjoyed chatting about everything we had learned so far. Then we explored the glasshouses where we saw many beautiful plants and flowers from the rainforest that linked perfectly with our learning this half term. We also got to experience just how warm a rainforest environment can be!

Next, we explored the outdoor gardens, which were beautiful and full of a wide variety of plants. Before heading back to school, we even had time to enjoy some fun in the play area.

It was a fantastic day filled with new experiences, great learning opportunities and lots of wonderful memories.

Year 2 Larch Class had an amazing, fun-filled day celebrating World Book Day! The children arrived at school looking absolutely wonderful in their fantastic costumes. Thank you to all parents and carers for helping the children come to school dressed as their favourite characters — it made the day extra special.

We had a very busy day packed with lots of exciting activities. We began with DEAR (Drop Everything and Read), where everyone took time to enjoy their favourite books. We were also very lucky to have Mrs Woodall, our community governor, visit us to read a story, which the children thoroughly enjoyed.

Later in the day, we took part in shared reading with Year 3, which was a lovely opportunity for the children to read together and share their love of books. We also performed our poems to one another, and the children did a fantastic job speaking clearly and confidently.

We would also like to say a big thank you to the Aston Villa Coaching Team for kindly donating some books for our book corner. The children are very excited to start reading them!

What a wonderful day celebrating the joy of reading. 

Larch Class have had a brilliant start to their gymnastics lessons this half term!

We have been learning how to perform a front roll safely. The children practised the correct starting position, tucking their heads in, and using their hands carefully to support themselves as they rolled. We talked about the importance of staying safe, listening carefully to instructions, and using good control and balance. Everyone showed great determination and enthusiasm during the lesson.

What a fantastic job, Year 2 — we are so proud of you!

Larch Class have made a fantastic start to their Computing learning this half term!

This half term, we are learning all about spreadsheets. We discovered that a spreadsheet is a computer program used to store and organise data. We also learned that spreadsheets can convert data into useful graphs, helping us to understand information more clearly.

We explored some important vocabulary, including

    Cell – an individual box where data is entered
    Row – a horizontal line of cells
    Column – a vertical line of cells

The children worked brilliantly to understand these new concepts and showed great enthusiasm when exploring how data can be organised. Well done, Year 2 — we are very proud of you!

Larch Class immersed themselves in their World Book Day text, Dear Earth by Isabel Otter. The story tells of a little girl called Tessa and her grandpa, an explorer, who “paints a picture in her mind” about the wonders of the Earth. Inspired by everything she learns, Tessa decides to write a letter to the Earth to tell it how amazing and beautiful it is. At the end of the book, Tessa reflects on how fragile our planet is and how important it is to care for it.

Inspired by Tessa’s letter, we are beginning our own writing journey in Year 2. We will be writing about London. To immerse ourselves in our new topic, we started by drawing pictures of London landmarks. This helped us to generate exciting adjectives to describe what we could see.

We thought carefully about what makes London special and came up with words such as busy, historic, towering, sparkling, and magnificent. We are looking forward to using these adjectives in our upcoming writing to create our own wonderful descriptions — just like Tessa did in her letter to Earth!

This week in Larch Class we have started learning about Henri Rousseau, a famous French artist. His artwork is linked to Impressionism, and he is well known for painting beautiful jungle scenes — even though he never actually visited a rainforest or jungle!

We have been exploring his artwork and talking about what makes it special. We are hoping to recreate our own Rousseau-inspired pieces of art and are very excited to get inspiration from our visit to the botanical garden this week.

To begin our art learning, we completed some fantastic hexagonal thinking about primary and secondary colours, as well as tints and shades. The children made excellent connections in their learning.

Well done, Larch Class!

This half term, Larch Class have started learning gymnastics in PE – and what a fantastic start we have had!

To begin with, we practised some different types of jumps on the floor. We worked really hard on:

   Star jumps – stretching our arms and legs out wide like a big star
   Tuck jumps – jumping up and pulling our knees up to our chest
   Half turn jumps – jumping and turning around in the air
   Pike jumps – keeping our legs straight out in front of us

We practised bending our knees, pointing our toes and landing safely with control. Everyone showed great listening skills and tried their very best!

After that, we moved on to jumping from different apparatus at different heights. We made sure to think about:

   Safe take-offs
   Strong body shapes in the air
   Controlled, balanced landings

It was so exciting to try our jumps from higher up, and we all grew in confidence as the lesson went on.

What a lot of fun we had! We can’t wait to continue developing our gymnastics skills over the next few weeks. Well done, Larch Class!

Larch Class were fully immersed in our new class text, There’s a Rang-Tan in My Bedroom by James Sellick.

Through this powerful story, we learned about the deforestation happening in the rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo. We discovered that rainforests — which are the homes of orang-utans — are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. This destruction is causing the number of orang-utans to decline, as they are losing their natural habitat.

We had thoughtful discussions about how this makes us feel and what we can do to help. As a class, we agreed that we need to make people more aware of this issue so they can make informed choices and use less palm oil where possible.

To help spread awareness, we are now creating our own non-chronological reports to inform others about deforestation and how we can help protect orang-utans and their rainforest homes.

We are excited to become rainforest protectors! 

Spring 1

Alive and Kicking

A huge well done to our Larch Class Dojo winners this half term! Your hard work, positive attitude and fantastic behaviour have really stood out, and we are so proud of the effort you are showing every day. Keep it up!

We would also like to say a big congratulations to our competition winner, Leah! What a brilliant achievement — we are so proud of you for representing Larch Class so wonderfully. 

Larch Class have absolutely loved their Computing theme this half term! The children have been developing their programming skills and building their confidence using the Bee-Bots.

To finish our unit, we focused on making predictions. The children explored different programs and predicted where the Bee-Bot would stop on the map before testing it out.

Then, the class then created their own programs. First, they used a paper Bee-Bot to predict where their algorithm would end. Finally, they tested their instructions using the programmable Bee-Bot to see if their prediction was correct.

It was fantastic to see the children thinking like programmers — planning, predicting, testing and improving their work with such enthusiasm! 

This half term, Larch Class have been building their rhythm and singing skills in Music. We began by marking the pulse with actions and revisiting Hi Lo Chicka Lo to practise high and low pitch. The children then learned the words and actions to Grandma Rap, exploring “walk” (steady) and “jogging” (quicker) rhythms and reading simple notation.

They created their own 4-beat rhythm patterns using a rhythm grid and performed them confidently. To finish, the class performed Grandma Rap, with actions, together. We are very proud of their growing confidence and teamwork!

Year 2 had a fantastic time celebrating Number Day! We loved dressing up in clothes with numbers on and sharing our amazing outfits with our friends.

We listened to The Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett, which helped us learn about the Fibonacci sequence. We discovered that the Fibonacci sequence can be seen in many places in nature and art. We combined our maths learning with art and science by creating our own Fibonacci snails. We talked about where we have seen the Fibonacci spiral before, such as in sunflowers and pinecones. We also made paper clocks and answered questions based on our book about time.

What a fun and busy day of learning!

Year 2 have had so much fun creating their colourful jumping bean salad! We learned how cous cous is made and how to tell the difference between a fruit and a vegetable.

The children used a range of skills, including bridge and claw cutting techniques, and carefully added all of the ingredients. To finish, we squeezed in some fresh orange juice for extra flavour. It looked sooooo delicious!

Thank you to all the grown-ups for bringing in tubs so the children could take their salad home to enjoy.

Larch Class have continued their computing learning by exploring the importance of putting instructions in the correct order. We used the same four commands to instruct our Bee-Bots, but even though the commands were the same, changing the order gave us a different outcome.

This helped us understand how sequencing is an important part of computing. Well done, Larch Class – what super learning!

This week, Larch Class have immersed themselves in a new text, The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. We listened to the story and then discussed how the children must have felt when the Giant banished them from his garden.

The children thought of lots of convincing reasons why the Giant should open his garden and allow the children back in. These included ideas such as winter going away, the children being safe, flowers blooming and smelling sweet, delicious fruit growing, and birds singing beautifully.

We then created a conscience alley and chose one person to take on the role of the Giant. After this, the children role-played in partners, with one person acting as the Giant and the other as a child trying to persuade him to open his garden.

What a great way to immerse ourselves in our text and develop our speaking and listening skills!

Year 2 Larch Class have been exploring colour in art. The children have been creating tints by adding white to their base colour and shades by adding black. Well done to all our budding artists!

This half term in Computing, Larch Class have been learning about how computers work by using algorithms. We learned that computers need clear and precise instructions to work properly.

Mrs Stockton first gave us some very vague instructions for a picture she wanted us to draw. She didn’t tell us what the picture was, so everyone’s drawings turned out very differently. When we tried again, she gave us precise instructions, and this time we all created the same happy face picture.  The children also worked with partners, taking turns to give and receive instructions. This helped us understand how important it is to listen carefully and be clear.

We then took turns pretending that our partner was a Bee-Bot robot, giving them clear, step-by-step instructions to help them move in the correct direction. We had lots of fun while learning how important it is to be precise when giving instructions to a computer.

This week in Larch Class, we have been continuing our learning about abstract art. We explored the work of artist Mark Rothko and learned about his famous colour field paintings. Inspired by his work, we created our own colour fields and even gave them special names.

Well done, Larch Class – fantastic creativity!

This half term, Larch Class have been focusing on team games in PE. We have been practising dribbling the ball and passing it, while learning how to work together as a team. The children have shown great enthusiasm, teamwork and determination. Well done, Larch Class!

In Larch Class, we have been learning all about animal habitats. We completed an activity where we matched different animals to the habitats they live in. We learnt that animals are specifically suited to their individual habitats. Some animals can manage hot or cold temperatures, some use camouflage to blend into their surroundings, and others have special body structures that help them survive where they live. We really enjoyed learning how animals are perfectly designed for their homes!

This week, Year 2 went on an exciting habitat hunt around our school! We explored the wooded area, the playground and the kitchen garden to see what microhabitats we could find. After our walk, we returned to the classroom to talk about what we had discovered.

We learned that different microhabitats have their own temperatures and amounts of light, which help living things survive. While we were outside, we were lucky enough to hear our little local celebrity, Peter the Robin, singing to us! The children shared some fantastic ideas:

‘We saw slugs under the wood because they were hiding from the birds,’ Felicity.

‘We saw lots of worms under logs so that they don’t get dry skin,’ Leah.

‘The birds like to be up high so that they can look for prey and stay safe from predators,’ Harley

Well done, Year 2 Larch, for your brilliant observations and thoughtful discussions!

This half term we have started our maths learning by exploring arrays. We began by using concrete resources, such as counters, to build our own arrays. We then moved on to drawing arrays and linking them to multiplication and division. The children have shown great enthusiasm and understanding as they developed their learning step by step.

Well done, Larch Class – what a fantastic start to our maths learning! 

This week in art, Larch 2 began learning about the artist Piet Mondrian, who was an abstract artist. We looked closely at some of his artwork and talked about what we liked, how the paintings made us feel, and what they reminded us of. We noticed that Piet Mondrian often used straight lines and primary colours (red, yellow and blue) in his paintings. The children shared lots of great ideas and opinions during our discussions.

After exploring his work, the children had a go at recreating Mondrian-style artwork using a range of different media. They worked carefully and creatively, and the finished pieces look fantastic! Well done, Larch 2! 

The start of our Spring term has brought with it some snowy weather! We have enjoyed making lots of memorable experiences, exploring and playing in the snow together. While having fun, we have also made sure to keep ourselves well wrapped up so that we stay cosy and warm.

This week in dance, Year 2 have been focusing on the story The Elves and the Shoemaker. The children explored how different characters might move and used their bodies to show these ideas. We thought carefully about the frail, old shoemaker and how his movements might be slow and gentle. We also became the tiny elves, creeping quietly around the shop at night and trying to avoid the cat! The children also worked on using facial expressions to show feelings. We practised the shoemaker’s shocked face when he discovered the shoes had been made overnight. Everyone showed great imagination and enthusiasm, and it was wonderful to see the story come to life through dance. 

This week in Year 2 we started reading our new book, The Wolf Story by Toby Forward. In this book, we hear the story from the wolf’s point of view. We learned that, according to the wolf, everything that happened was just a big misunderstanding!

To help us immerse ourselves in the story, we listened carefully as the book was read aloud. We then took part in a fun role-play activity where we became reporters interviewing the wolf. We asked the wolf questions such as:

·                     How did you get into Granny’s house?

·                     Why did you put on Granny’s frock?

·                     Why did you lock Granny in the cupboard?

·                     What were you doing at Granny’s house?

·                     Does your tail hurt where the woodcutter hit it with his axe?

We had lots of fun asking questions and using our knowledge of the story to answer in character as the wolf. This helped us to understand the story from a different point of view and develop our speaking and listening skills.

This half term in dance, we are learning how to portray emotion through movement. We have explored strong starting and finishing positions, facial expressions, and how using different levels can help create variation and interest in our dances. The children have shown great creativity and confidence as they express themselves through movement – well done, Larch Class! 

This half term we have a science focus and an exciting challenge! Miss Haynes has written to us to say that if we can learn all about the basic needs animals need to survive, she will send us a wildlife creature to take care of. How exciting!

To get us started, she sent us a book by Chris Packham. We have loved finding out about him, learning how much he cares for animals and the environment, and thinking about how we can look after wildlife too.

In writing, we are also very excited to begin exploring fairy tales this half term – especially ones with a twist!