Welcome to Juniper 2!
2022 - 2023
Mrs Bayliss/Mrs Hill - Class Teachers
Miss Richardson/Mr Smith - Teaching Assistants
Summer 2
Beside the Seaside
Grab your bucket and spade and let’s head to the coast! At the beach, we will learn about the physical and human features that can be found and explore how life in a coastal town compares to life in Tamworth. As an island we are surrounded by the sea so we will take a closer look at which seas specifically surround the United Kingdom and how to stay safe when we are near water.
Summer 1
Land Ahoy!
Juniper 2 had a wonderful afternoon with Mrs Smith and Mrs Bayliss to celebrate the Coronation. We had a Forest Schools session building royal residences (den building) and using natural resources with national colours of the UK to decorate their own.
Year 2 were very excited to take part in a zoom call with the authors of our key text, Jan Burchett and Sara Vogler. They read us part of the next story and gave us some top tips on being a writer as well as answering our questions. They have now challenged us to write our own pirate adventure story.
Our favourite fact from Panda Day is how much a baby panda weighs (around 120g) This is as much as a medium to large tomato. How cute they must be! The saddest fact is that there are only around 1800 left in the wild.
Year 2 were visited by Captain Blade’s recruiting pirate to see if any of our swashbuckling children would like to join his crew. The buccaneers learnt about food aboard a ship, parts of a ship, weaponry (which was extremely heavy!) and why people became pirates.
Grace-Pamela, ‘It was the best day ever, the pirate was so cool and he brought in a real sword!’
Science - Year 2 went exploring to look for micro habitats around our school grounds. We looked at where different mini beasts were found and the reasons why those microhabitats were suitable for those creatures. Then we recorded the mini beasts we discovered on a tally chart.
In Geography, Year 2 followed a treasure map around school, looking closely at where the numbers were placed. Some were inside and others outside. Once we found each checkpoint, we had to draw the corresponding pirate picture. Our treasure was a sweet treat if we found all the clues. This task was just to improve our map reading skills and for fun though, as we were surprised to learn that there is no historical evidence that pirates created maps for buried treasure.
Year 2 have learnt a lot about pirates since receiving Captain Blade’s letter so we’ve researched what it took to be a pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy and created a fact page about them.
Those of us that chose to join the crew, wrote a persuasive letter to Blade to tell him why we would make a good recruit.
Ahoy There! It’s time to set sail with Captain Blade and join his pirate crew. Do you have what it takes to become one of his shipmates? Join shipmate Sam Silver to travel back in time to explore what life as a pirate on the open sea was really like and discover more about these famous pirates and their Caribbean home. We might even discover some pirate treasure along the the way!
Spring 2
Under the Canopy
Year 2 have been very conscious of the effects of palm oil production on the rainforests and animals like orangutans so we made palm oil and sugar free cereal bars to complement our work on healthy eating.
Year 2 have visited the Botanical Gardens (just like Henri Rousseau) to find inspiration for their art work this half term. We practised sketching leaves found around school, mixed tints and shades to colour match and finally created our beautiful pieces of art in the style of Rousseau’s Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprise!)
Year 2 had a fun day on Tuesday when we went to visit Birmingham Botanical Gardens. We learned all about rainforests and the plants and animals that might be found there. We even got to hold some rainforest creatures! Walking through the tropical greenhouse really helped us to visualise what it might be like to live in a rainforest. The plants were so big and the leaves were all sorts of different shapes and shades of green. We are looking forward to creating some rainforest inspired art based on our experience!
We also visited Birmingham Central Mosque. This was a really interesting experience. We found out what it is like inside a mosque and why people go there. We were also able to learn more about the Islamic festival of Ramadan.
Juniper 2 have been revising different rolls in gymnastics this week: pencil rolls, log rolls, teddy bear rolls and eggs rolls ready to create a sequence which will include all known roll plus their new roll ‘forward roll’.
Before we write a non-chronological report about orangutans, we spent time researching facts about them by using the iPads and reading non-fiction texts.
Warwick Bear and his friends visited Year 2 today to talk about Scooter Safety when riding on pavements and near roads.
We learned about safety clothing, how to stop and slow down and how to avoid obstacles like pedestrians.
Red Nose Day
As an introduction to our new theme we read ‘There’s A Rang Tan in my Bedroom’ and looked at why rainforests are being chopped down to produce palm oil. We looked at products that use palm oil and why it is used so much. We created our own conscience alley to consider the advantages and disadvantages of using palm oil and thought about things people could do to help.
Books, books and more books - Juniper had a fantastic time on World Book Day! We dressed up as our favourite book characters, had stories read to us by Mr Coleman and Governor, Mr Head, created Reading Rivers, acrostic poems and performed The Sound Collector by Roger McGough to Year 1.
For World Book Day, all pupils will be using the key text ‘Invisible’ by Tom Percival. Year 2 are creating acrostic poems on some key themes in the text: poverty, gratitude, invisible and empathy. We learned these terms in class and created freeze frames for them to show their meaning.
Spring 1
Muck, Mess and Mixtures
Year 2 enjoyed making a jumping bean couscous salad as part of our work in Science and PSHE on healthy lifestyles.
They used a bridge and claw technique to cut and slice salad items as well as juicing, peeling, mixing and trimming.
Year 2 have been learning about algorithms in computing. We began by writing our own algorithm for 'how to get ready for home time', before moving onto coding on the Bee-Bot app. We have followed, planned and debugged codes to get the Bee-Bot to his destination.
In PE this half term, we have been practising our attacking and defending skills while playing games. We've thought of different levels, speed, change of direction and space when playing each game as a defender or an attacker.
Year 2 have been reading The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde and have done lots of work building up to writing a persuasive letter to the giant to let them back into his garden. We have practised exclamation sentences, using conjunctions and we also got into role as the children in the story to understand how they might feel. Here are some of our final pieces.
Eden's persuasive letter to the Selfish Giant
Oliver's persuasive letter to the Selfish Giant
Maxwell's persuasive letter to the Selfish Giant
Today, we did a class conscience alley to help decide what we might say to the Giant to persuade him to open up his garden.
‘The birds will come back and their singing will charm you,’ George.
‘Open your garden and open the Spring,’ Theo.
‘What a wonderful garden you had until you built the wall!’ Lainey.
We then role played having a conversation with the Giant and tried to extend our sentences using conjunctions.
When we arrived back in school, we were tasked to solve riddles to help Paddington identify who the characters were that he had met on his travels. We used our knowledge of stories to identify that they were all from fairy tales/ traditional tales. We then had a discussion about which fairy tales we know, thought about what features we might find in a fairy tale and discussed why they are also called ‘traditional’ tales.
Autumn 2
Significant People
We’ve had such an exciting couple of weeks counting down to Christmas. We had a really successful nativity performance on Friday and opened our winter books gifted by Friends of Birchwood PTA and chosen by our teaching staff.
Juniper 2 loved opening their winter books.
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Juniper 2 loved opening their winter books.
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Juniper 2 loved opening their winter books.
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We had so much fun creating our Christmas wish catchers to raise money at the Christmas Fair.
Year 2 were so sensible using knives during Forest Schools. We practised a technique called whittling with sheath knives to create a wooden peg.
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Year 2 were so sensible using knives during Forest Schools. We practised a technique called whittling with sheath knives to create a wooden peg.
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Year 2 were so sensible using knives during Forest Schools. We practised a technique called whittling with sheath knives to create a wooden peg.
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In Science, Year 2 children were improving their comparative testing enquiry skills by testing materials to see how absorbent, waterproof, opaque and transparent they were.
The children of Juniper class loved the author, James Campbell’s, visit today.
'The umbrella story was so funny,' Chloe.
'He read his stories with prosody,' Erin.
'He makes me want to write more,' Edward.
'The umbrella story was so funny,' Chloe.
'He read his stories with prosody,' Erin.
'He makes me want to write more,' Edward.
Year 2 enjoyed a visit from the Peel Society to find out all about Robert Peel, a significant individual, who lived in Tamworth. We learnt that he was responsible for starting the metropolitan police force and what it was like to be in the police in the past. We also compared uniforms today to uniforms in the past.
The second visitors were Staffordshire Police who taught us about modern policing and how they help us.
'In the past the hats weren’t as hard as they are now,' Oliver.
Year 2 were able to link their learning in Science to their PE today. In Science, pupils were making changes to materials (plasticine) to show the different forces we can apply to change the shape. We noticed it was hard to do that unless you warmed the plasticine up first. We then linked this to our PE learning all about warming up our muscles.
'If we don’t warm up our muscles like the plasticine, we won’t be flexible for our gymnastics.' Mya.
Juniper 2 had a brilliant first Forest Schools session. We built dens in the wooded area and then completed a trust exercise around our trim trail area.
Year 2 have returned to a half term of finding out all about different significant people. We have discussed what the term significant means, used the Dawson's model to help determine if someone is significant, and found out all about Guy Fawkes and his significance to Bonfire night. We have completed a now press play to help understand Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plot, as well as talk about bonfire night safety! It has been a busy day!!
Autumn 1
Bright Lights, Big City
‘God Save the King!’
What a wonderful end to the first half term of the year. We re-enacted a Royal Tea Party to honour the new King as guests of Paddington, who travelled here in style. We ate our bread rolls (with marmalade of course), learned to curtesy and bow and danced the end of Autumn 1 out in style.
In DT Year 2 have been designing & making their own moving vehicles to help Paddington travel around London.
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In DT Year 2 have been designing & making their own moving vehicles to help Paddington travel around London.
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In DT Year 2 have been designing & making their own moving vehicles to help Paddington travel around London.
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In DT Year 2 have been designing & making their own moving vehicles to help Paddington travel around London.
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No fires here! Year 2 have been measuring, mixing, kneading and baking bread rolls then shaping them so they’re fit for a Royal Tea Party. Thankfully we managed this task safely and the children made sure the oven was off before leaving the room!
Juniper had a visit from poet Ash Dickinson. Together we wrote a poem about modern London using our senses. This inspired us to write our own senses poem about London during the Great Fire of 1666.
Year 2 had a fantastic day at Selly Manor to support their history learning on the Great Fire of London. We visited the original Tudor manor to see how houses of the period were made and how this contributed to the spread of the fire. We toured the home with our excellent guide and looked at how the different significant people (King Charles II, Samuel Pepys and Thomas Farriner) from our learning would have dined, slept and dressed. Later we played Stuart games and dressed up in typical clothing of the period. The children amazed us with how much they had remembered from their History lessons but not only that, they could name many materials around the manor due to their Science learning and they were all involved with naming geographical physical and human features on our journey through Birmingham city.
After the wonderful Jubilee celebrations in Year 1, we will continue to build upon our learning about our capital city today and what life is like in a modern big city as well as the human and physical characteristics of the UK.
Fire! Fire! London’s burning! We will then travel back in time to the 17th Century to solve the mystery of how The Great Fire of London started using evidence from Samuel Pepys’ diary to discover more about London at this time.
Welcome to Hazel 1!
2021 - 2022
Mrs Stockton - Class Teacher
Mrs Mills - Teaching Assistant
Summer 2
The Enchanted Woodland
Hazel class preparing fruit for the farmers market
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Hazel class preparing fruit for the farmers market
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Hazel class preparing fruit for the farmers market
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Hazel class preparing fruit for the farmers market
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Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.
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Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.
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Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.
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Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.
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Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.
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Celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.
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Today, Hazel class made Woodland crowns as part of our new theme 'Enchanted Woodland'.
'I loved going on a woodland walk to collect natural objects,' Edward.
'It was magical,' Mya.
Summer 1
Rio de Vida
You all did a fantastic job in our sponsored run today and you still had the energy to cheer the rest of our classes on!! Well done Hazel you showed tremendous sportsmanship.
Hazel Class have been learning all about the census. We decided to create a picture graph to show the number of people that live in our home.
It is wonderful to see all the effort that goes into our home learning in Hazel Class ... It really makes Mrs Stockton and Mrs Mills happy to see you taking your learning home and producing and taking part in such amazing activities. Here are just a few examples ... Well done Hazel!
What an unbeli-bubble time with Professor Bubbleworks!! Lots of laughter and learning.
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What an unbeli-bubble time with Professor Bubbleworks!! Lots of laughter and learning.
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What an unbeli-bubble time with Professor Bubbleworks!! Lots of laughter and learning.
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What an unbeli-bubble time with Professor Bubbleworks!! Lots of laughter and learning.
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Obrigado amigos!! What a wonderful first, class assembly Hazel Class!! You danced, played the samba beat, sang beautifully and acted our the story of "The sock thief" brilliantly ... You all should be incredibly proud of yourselves.
What an amazing day we have had to begin out learning about the Rio Carnival!! We coloured the Brazilian Flag, we made carnival hats, played the samba beat, danced to Brazilian music, and finally had our very own carnival!
Spring 2
Castles
Hazel Class loved showing their fantastic Easter bonnets / hats at our parade!
Hazel Class really enjoyed their day at Tamworth castle. We learnt lots of new facts when we helped the Lady of the castle to dress the table for their evening feast and we learnt how a squire or knight dressed in their armour. We had so much fun!
Hazel Class enjoyed a visit from the chicks! Everybody had the opportunity to hold a chick... it was lots of fun.
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Hazel Class enjoyed a visit from the chicks! Everybody had the opportunity to hold a chick... it was lots of fun.
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Hazel Class enjoyed a visit from the chicks! Everybody had the opportunity to hold a chick... it was lots of fun.
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Hazel Class enjoyed a visit from the chicks! Everybody had the opportunity to hold a chick... it was lots of fun.
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Spring 1
No Place Like Home
Chinese Dragon Dancing .. Kung Hei Fat Choy !!
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Chinese Dragon Dancing .. Kung Hei Fat Choy !!
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Chinese Dragon Dancing .. Kung Hei Fat Choy !!
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What an animal fantastic day we have had today in year one!! As part of our science learning about animals we were able to observe and handle animals brought in by our visitor. The animals included a snake, a cockroach, an owl, a honey bear and a gecko!
Thank you to Polesworth Fire Service who visited year one. We learnt all about fire safety and what to do in the event of a fire.
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Thank you to Polesworth Fire Service who visited year one. We learnt all about fire safety and what to do in the event of a fire.
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Thank you to Polesworth Fire Service who visited year one. We learnt all about fire safety and what to do in the event of a fire.
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Thank you to Polesworth Fire Service who visited year one. We learnt all about fire safety and what to do in the event of a fire.
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Year one we were helping Goldilocks solve a maths problem ... she could only fit 10 berries in her basket, so we had to tell her how many berries she needed to eat to ‘make 10’! The children all worked hard to complete their number equations.
We came into school on our first day back from our Christmas break to find a crime scene!! We used our inference skills and discovered that Goldilocks had eaten all of baby bear's porridge. She found it so delicious that she asked year 1 to write a set of instructions of how to make more! This half term, year 1 will be joining the Jolly Postman on an adventure and visiting lots of other traditional tale characters including one that lives at the top of a beanstalk, one that wears a red clock, one that plants a seed which grows into an enormous turnip and two children that discover a house made of sweets!
Autumn 2
School Days
A huge thank you to “TBPS”, our Parent Teacher and Friends Association, ☺️ Year One were very happy and excited to receive their Christmas gift books today.
For our road safety activity we created our own roads then used small world characters and cars to demonstrate road safety. The children drew crossing for the people and traffic lights for the cars. We even had no parking markings outside of a school!
Victorian Day
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Victorian Day
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Victorian Day
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Victorian Day
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Victorian Day
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Autumn 1
Moon Zoom
For art day, year one painted their own interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'.
We looked carefully at the technique used by Van Gogh and replicated this using small brush strokes.
We were so please with all our little Van Gogh's that we decided to photograph all our paintings together in a collage.
In our science lesson we learned about materials and the properties of materials. We discovered that some materials have more than one property.
Buckle up and come with us on our journey as we blast off into space to learn about the 'space race' and Neil Armstrong's moon landing. We discover what it takes to become an astronaut and develop our scientific skills as we explore the mysteries of the solar system. We identify space nouns and use adjectives to describe space objects and aliens.
Now, Press, Play - listening to Neil Armstrong's moon landing.
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Now, Press, Play - listening to Neil Armstrong's moon landing
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PE - team games with Jack from Aston Villa.
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PE - team games with Jack from Aston Villa.
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Writing - space soup poem (to make delicious space soup we had to add an adjective!)
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Welcome to Chestnut and Acorn!
2020 - 2021
Miss Lowe - Class Teacher
Mrs Tweed - Teaching Assistant
Summer 2
Why do Zebras have stripes?
Show and Share
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Show and Share
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Show and Share
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Show and Share
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Show and Share
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Show and Share
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Broomey Croft Farm School Trip
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Broomey Croft Farm School Trip
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Broomey Croft Farm School Trip
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Broomey Croft Farm School Trip
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Spring 2
Are All Dinosaurs The Same Size?
To complete our learning this half term, we have been given the opportunity to look after and observe the changes of some frogspawn. We are watching them very carefully in the hope that we may see some tadpoles before the Easter holidays.
In PE, children have been enjoying their gymnastics learning by exploring different jumps. We started by learning how to safely get out and put away the mats and benches. We then learnt the difference between a pencil jump and a tuck jump. Children were able to safely have a go at the jumps, remembering to bend their knees and land on two feet.
This half term we have taken part in Census Day learning what this means and why it is so important. "It is all about counting". We chose to complete our own Census to explore our favourite colours. Children were very good at recording the results and interpreting the data.
In maths, we have been exploring subtraction and understand that this means to take away. We began our learning by using concrete resources like cubes and numicon before moving onto the pictorial method of taking away. The children listened very carefully and were able to show their understanding independently.
Chestnut class looked forward to celebrating books by taking part in World Book Day. We looked amazing dressed up as our favourite book characters and enjoyed some time exploring books with our friends and developing our love of reading.
Chestnut Class began their Spring 2 learning by completing our topic all about dinosaurs. After working together to construct, build and decorate a dinoscape, the volcano erupted and we were amazed with the outcome. "This is amazing. It is like red fire." "Wow! It's like a real volcano!"
Autumn 2
Why Do Squirrels Hide Their Nuts?
Chestnut started the half term by going on an Autumn Walk around our school to see what seasonal changes we could observe. On our walk, we also collected a range of Autumn ingredients for our Autumn potions. The children thought it smelt "nice and fresh!"
We have completed lots of learning within our areas focusing on all things Autumn. This included transient art, role playing in the pumpkin farm, using our senses to explore pumpkins and other Autumn vegetables, understanding how animals prepare for Winter, planting in our quad area and discussing harvest as part of our Talk for Writing story, The Little Red Hen.
To complete our learning around Autumn, we made some Autumn smoothies. The first one included carrots, oranges and oats. This one did not go down well with the children who said "it tasted like rotten pumpkins" and "I only like carrots on my Sunday dinner". The second smoothie included apples, raspberrys and natural yoghurt. This smoothie had a much better reaction, the children said "that was yummy", "I like apples, they are my favourite fruit".
We have then gone on to learn all about the Hindu celebration 'Diwali'. The children have thoroughly enjoyed learning all about the festival of light and carrying out some of the traditional diwali preparations and celebrations. This included: dressing up in traditional Hindu clothing, making Diva lamps out of clay, making and tasting Burfi sweets, creating colourful Rangoli patterns, cleaning and tidying the role-play home to prepare and learning a variety of Diwali songs.
We have loved our learning this half term and can't wait to see what next half term's topics are!
Autumn 1
Do you want to be friends?
Chestnut class have had an AMAZING start to Birchwood. We have enjoyed getting to know all of the children and hearing all about their summer holidays. They have learned all about the routines and rules at school as well as all the Learning Areas they can explore.
As part of our hook into our topic, we went on a special tour of the school, meeting some adults that help us and seeing where they do their jobs.
We can't wait to have lots more fun at school.