Native American Cinderella and our dreamcatchers

We shared some Native American stories, including a version of Cinderella called 'The Rough-faced Girl'. Both the story and the pictures were really different to the other versions we had read.  

We watched a short video of a storyteller sharing a traditional Native American tale. You can watch it here.

We learnt about the importance of dreamcatchers in Native American culture. They believe that if the dreamcatcher is hung over the bed the good dreams will be caught and will slide down the strings and feathers to the sleeper. Meanwhile the bad dreams get caught and held in the net and disappear with the light of day.

We made our own dreamcatchers. 

Cinderella stories

We have been reading different versions of the Cinderella story and before the Christmas holidays we can look forward to reading one or two more.  These are the versions we've shared so far. Which was your favourite Year 2?

Dreamtime stories

As part of our IPC unit called 'Stories People Tell' we have been sharing stories from around the world. Including from Australia, where the Dreamtime stories are a very important pGoogleart of Aboriginal culture. These stories are often about animals and nature. We listened to one about a frog called Tiddalik. Here is another version of the story for you to share at home. 

Stories People Tell

In our IPC topic we are learning about stories. Old stories, new stories, stories from around the world, fairytales, true stories, myths, legends...
This week we have been especially interested in the Cinderella story and have read lots of different versions from countries around the world.
Cinderella is a very popular story in our class but maybe you have a different favourite fairytale. Please take a moment to fill in our survey.

Pass The Blog

This week we are taking part in Pass The Blog. Click here to find out what we have been doing.

Christmas (yes, already!!)

We are already getting some artwork ready to decorate the hall for the Christmas Fair and the concerts. Can you guess what our finished picture will show? Clue - think of a Christmas carol.

 

Maths with DST

We share our school building with a German primary school. We see each other around the school and in the playground every day, but we don't normally have our lessons together. This year Frau Mira and Miss Ash decided we would meet up on Mondays to work on some maths tasks together. We started off with some activities on 2D shape.

Friendship Week

We did lots of fun activities during Friendship Week, including ones where we thought about how to be a better friend. We used our ideas about what makes a good friend to write this recipe together.

Friendship recipe

This recipe is a special friendship week dish that can be served after an argument to make things better. 
Ingredients 
• 350g of love
• 20 tablespoons of playfulness
• 250 ml of laughter
• 150g of trust
• A big sprinkle of helpfulness
• 20 slices of fun
Method
1. Mix the love and playfulness until smooth. 
2. Pour in the laughter stirring all the time.
3. Fold in the trust, one spoonful at a time.
4. Spoon the mixture into a deep baking tray.
5. Decorate with the sprinkles of helpfulness and the slices of fun. 
6. Share with lots of other people.

Poetry

We wrote a poem together about the Mona Lisa. Lots of different people thought of ideas and then we put them into an order that we thought sounded good.

Some of us wrote our own which we will perform, record and share on the blog.

Light and Dark art

At the end of our topic 'Light and Dark' we finished with an art lesson where we drew in the dark - well, semi-darkness because we did have torches. Here are some pictures of us drawing still-life pictures. We are trying to show which areas are lit up by the torch beam and which parts of the object are in the shadow. It was a real challenge!

Our trip to the Cité de l'Espace

On Tuesday we spent the day at the Cité de l’Espace. The visit was an exciting ‘exit point’ to our IPC topic, Day and Night. It also fitted neatly with ‘People in History’ that is happening this week. Y2 are learning about Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin and the roles they played in the space race. 

One highlight of the trip was role-playing working as astronauts on important missions using the play equipment at Le Parc des Petits Astronauts. We liked the dramatic experience of seeing 3D film all about the Hubble telescope. We also were excited to do some experimenting with water rockets to work out ways to make them fly higher. 

There was a big model of the solar system which we used to compare the different sizes and characteristics of the planets. We got up close to satellites, rockets and actually inside the replica of the Mir Space Station! We noticed lots of interesting things and asked loads of questions. Everyone had and great day in the sun at the Cité de l’Espace. Enjoy the photos.

Our retelling of the Pumpkin Soup story

The (highly demanded) pumpkin soup recipe

Enjoy!

PUMPKIN SOUP

INGREDIENTS
·       4 tbsp olive oil
·       2 onions , finely chopped
·       1 clove of garlic
·       1kg pumpkin or squash, peeled, deseeded and chopped into chunks
·       700ml vegetable stock or chicken stock
·       100ml cream

METHOD
1.  Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, then gently cook the onions for 5 minutes, until soft but not brown. 

2.  Add the pumpkin to the pan and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until it starts to soften.

3.  Pour the vegetable stock into the pan, then season with salt and pepper. 

4.  Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 mins until the squash is very soft. 

5.  Pour the cream into the pan, bring back to the boil, then purée with a hand blender.

Letters to Duck

In the story, Duck storms off but comes back at night. We imagined that Duck took longer to calm down and travelled further away. All the way to Australia. We wrote him letters pretending we were the cat and the squirrel.

Soup tasting

Pumpkin Soup

We have been working on the story Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper. Her pictures of the animals making the soup made it look so delicious that we couldn't resist making our own. Here are some photos of us chopping up the tough pumpkin. 

Same blog, different authors!

Our first week in Y2 was very busy. We drew and painted pictures to show something that we have enjoyed learning to do recently.

We played maths games with partners.

We met Monty and he even went home for the weekend with Noemie. 

Holidays

Hello boys and girls,
Can you believe we've been on holiday for one whole week already? Has it gone quickly for you? Have you been busy?
I've been catching up with lots and lots of friends. I've been to the beach, paddled in the Ariège (do you know what it is?), visited Animapark and seen fireworks for the 14th July.  I've even had time to read some books and do some gardening!!
Would you like to do some story writing this week? We missed the deadline for the last 100 word challenge but perhaps we could have a go here, on our blog?
This is the prompt for you to write about
… this was no ordinary ice cream…
You can post your story as a comment. I'm looking forward to reading your ideas. 
Happy holidays,
Miss Ash

Our finished wax resist pictures

A few weeks ago Miss Ash posted some photos of us working in art using a technique called wax resist. This is where you draw using wax crayons and then paint over the wax with a wash of black ink. The wax and ink do not mix and so most of the ink sits on the surface. The paper that is not covered with wax absorbs the ink and the paper turns black. Here are our finished pictures.

Follow-up work from Beauville

We had very stormy weather for our night of camping in Beauville. We used our memories of this experience to write a group poem. Here it is:
Storm Camping

Dripping rain whispers
Drumming rain beats a fierce song
Raindrop bullets
Wet and annoying on our way to the toilet
Growing deep squelchy puddles
Like floating tsunamis

The tent
Cosily warm in our sleeping bags
Reading books in bed
Torch shadow play
Whispered conversations
Stories from teachers
Clambering bodies
Sleeping teddies

Strong tents
Sapphire shelters
Our forcefield against
The wild wind
Which flapped the windows
Blowing helicopter gusts
Outside in the dark
The stars cowering behind the clouds.

Tuesday afternoon at Beauville Arts

There's been a lot of hard work today. Getting those dance routines right:

We were really ready for lunch!

And now we're starting to put it all together on stage:

More words about the day

 Alicia – I loved the day because it was fun.

Nathan – I like camping and the dancing and acting.

Lukman – I liked to paint and singing.

Charlotte : je m’amuse beaucoup, on peut jouer. C’est chouette de faire un spectacle.

Noémi : on peut faire de la peinture, fabriquer beaucoup de choses. Dans la tente on pouvait dormir en haut ou en bas.

Gwendal : c’est bien parce que je m’amuse bien, j’ai aimé faire les chants.

Mai-Ly : j’ai bien dormi, je me suis bien amusée, j’aime bien la danse.

Jonathan : j’aime quand on a fait de la peinture. La tente c’est chouette !

Louise : j’aime parce que je suis avec tous mes copains.

Jauffrey ; j’ai adoré la tente, on s’est bien amusé avec mes copains.

Olivia : j’aime quand on danse et quand on chante !

Julie : je trouve que c’est très bien le camping et j’aime beaucoup dormir dans le duvet.

Ludmila : J’ai aimé Beauville et je me suis beaucoup amusée avec mes copains.

Pierrick : J’aimais faire les activités et j’ai bien aimé m’amuser avec mes copains.

Maëly : J’aimais les activités et les animateurs.

Tuesday morning

 All was well. There were chips.

There was the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (English and French):

 And then to our tents, and time to read for a few minutes before sleeping:

What a rainy night it was! But the tents were strong and almost all of us slept well. Now we're up and packed and we've had breakfast:

And the day has begun, with more dancing...

Dancing and singing

A few words about the day...

Sean            Jonathan   Clare    Nicholas

I asked the children for a few words about the day...

Maria - It was a good day and I loved dancing and singing. I enjoyed the gouter and especially the cake.

Jacques – We’ve done lots of dancing and music. I enjoyed it all.

Niamh – It’s been a great day. I wish we could do more. 

 Isabel – It’s been a super time today and I liked the singing very much.

Claudia – I liked the whole day especially the dancing and singing. 

 Pablo – I wish we could stay more nights and our dads and mums could come here and we could put on the show! 

Sanika – It was fun! I like the art lots. The hardest thing is to say the words in the play.

Miguel – The beds in the tents are really cool! 

Mimi – I liked the art painting lots. The hardest thing was the singing – learning all the words.

Gustavo – it is an awesome idea to sleep in the campsite! 

Olivia – This day has been very fun, but I still have energy to eat my dinner. Hope to see you again! 

Tino – The funnest thing was playing with Jacques.

The tents:

The restaurant - now:

Dancing, singing, painting

How hard everyone is working! There are lots of words to learn, for songs and acting. There are dance moves to learn.

And there is scenery to paint. Rocks for Ali Baba's cave:

A fine collection:

Arrival at Beauville- Let's dance!

We have arrived! And it's not raining.

Now we're in the Salle de Fêtes, dancing and singing already!

Babaka blog

Here is the link to the Babaka blog where you can find photos and information about our trip. http://www.beauvillearts.com/2012/babaka

Pablo and Tino's story telling

Olympic Torches

We have been learning about the tradition of lighting the Olympic torch at Olympia in Greece. In groups, we designed and made our own Olympic torches for the London Olympics.

Olympic Mascots Link

On Friday we had an assembly from Mrs Baldwin who visited Greece during the Easter holidays. She went to Olympia (the site of the Ancient Olympic Games) while she was there. During the assembly she showed us her photos of Olympia and taught us about how the Ancient Greeks used the different spaces and buildings. 
We saw pictures of the torch lighting ceremony. Did you know that the torch is lit using rays from the sun? Then runners take it in turns to carry the torch on a journey around Greece before it goes on a plane all the way to Land's End, UK and eventually to London.
Back in class we looked at a short video telling the story of the 2012 Olympic Mascots. The story was made up by one of Miss Ash's favourite authors, Michael Morpurgo.
Here is the link to the website
Here is the video:

Niamh's dragon

My Dragon’s is called Megan.  When I go to the shop Megan follows me on the way  Megan goes to Dragon school.  I love my loyal because she spits rainbow fire.  I ride on Megan to IST and I love my school IST.  My name is Niamh.  I love my name.

Claudia's writing

Helo, I am a Which and I have a dragon my dragons name is Mata.  Mata have a dog.

Dominic's dragon

My dragon is harmless and it cant breeth.  But its breth it smells and he has spueeks  lik prilckles.  But wet if Dragon do exilst?

Iman's dragon

My dragon helps me to draw.  He likes to eat fish.  At night he sleeps in my bed.

Dragons by Sanika

Dragon’s are famous in China.  Dragon’s have sharp theet as litel peises of glas.  It’s eyes are as big as a large critel.

Alicia's dragon writing

Dragon’s live in cave’s and some live in mountain.  My favrot one has a head as big as a volcano.  His favrot sport is football and his name is Jack.

Pablo's dragon writing

I am in awe of dragons they spit fire at there prey. I think dragons exist because in China there’s a Chinise Dragon. They live sometimes in castles with the King.  My Dragon lives in Japan and his favourite food is Shushi. In Japan he is in Mount Mina-beaucoup.

Dragons by Mimi

Dragons are the most powerful and fire-breathing creatures that are the rarest in the world.  Some build their nests with glittering and shining jewlery.  They can rescue people in remote places.  For some enermy they shoot larva or snow crystals.  In fire emergensies or in emergensies they’re alwise here to help.

Olivia's dragon writing

My Dragon she is fierce.  Her home is in the Forbidin City.  Her name is Fiona.  Everyone obeys her. And she loves her dog.

Maria's dragon writing

I’m a which and my name is called Ana and I’ve got a baby pet dragon and shes called Lauren.  I live in a catsle and the catsle is called Labroratory that means theres lot of glasses with potioncred, blue, pink, orange and green.  So Ana picks the blue and pink potion and it that the little spider is going to be her servant.  Then the day the spider sais “Why did you said yesterday that I am going to be a servant?”  “Well because you’ve been noty to my bay pet” said the Which.  But then she went furious and she didn’t wait more so she transform her into a servant!

Dragon by Cristina

Once upon a time their was a baby Dragon on the Iland.  She even did not have milk, a home or even a oner. On Tusday she had an oner, milk and a home.  Her name was elena and the Dragons name was clover. One day she left from the house the Dragon was just 10 years old the oner was gone for ever she even did not come back never. The Dragon was sick.

My Dragon by Jacques

I have a pet Dragon.  It is calld exploding bottle becus when it spits fier it macs a big expshen. The teeth are as sharp as the moast shapest thing in the world.  He lives in the  ruins because he leks the ruins.  It is full of sharpnes.

Dragons by Jesse

I love dragons because they can fle 1000 kilometers an hour!  I wish I could ride on one it would be so fun.  I also love dragons because they breath very hot fire! There wings  are so beautiful like gold!  Dragons are very very frightene.

Dragon by Ryan

Dragon are fierce and frightened.  Dragon live in caves and some live in New York. They have pointy teeth.  He has a rilly long tail.  He has rilly long wings.

Drogon the dragon by Rhys

Once upon a time there was a Dragon. It’s name is Drogon. It is as gold as the sun. It is as giant as I.S.T. And it is as boiling as a volcano.

Isabel's dragon writing

My Dragon is called Elly and she is very nice but sometimes she is angry with other people and she is a rainbow dragon and some times she shoots out rainbow fire at the bad gise.  She livse in Span.  I love her.

Irene's dragon writing

My name is Irene.  I have a dragon pet.  He’s got faire inside him.  He go flying to place to place and he has sharp teeth. He like to eat maet he has a big tail he loves to run and I loves my Dragon.  My Dragon sleeps in the flor in a blanket.  I all wase tace him to the park.

Lukman's dragon writing

The dragon is real because he had a sharp teeth. He can fire the people. He can fire the house. If he fire the house and people inside will get dead.

Wax-resist art

We have nearly finished our IPC topic 'Structures'. Our final art task was to create wax-resist pictures of local buildings. Miss Ash had planned to take us sketching in Pibrac but as it was not possible we sketched from photos instead. Look how hard we are thinking about our work.

Our new topic

Welcome back after the Easter holidays. We are all looking forward to our new IPC topic - The Olympics.

Hundertwasser

In our art lessons we looked at paintings of buildings by the Austrian artist and architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser. His pictures of brightly coloured buildings inspired us to create own artwork. We made some sketches then created our final piece on the computer using the program Paint.

Sketching the school

We have been looking closely at our school building. We went for a walk around the whole campus, including the Secondary school. Some children were surprised by how BIG our school is. We took photos of the parts of the building we found interesting and then we did some sketches. Some of us tried to use view-finders to focus on the area that we were sketching.
Look at our photos. Do you think our school is old or modern? How can you tell? What materials can you see? What do you like about our school building? If you could work with an architect to improve our school building what would you add/change?

Our day with friends from Le Ferradou

On Tuesday our friends from the local French school, Le Ferradou came to spend the day with us.  We worked together on the show we are preparing, 'Babaka et la cruche sacrée'. Some of us rehearsed the songs and dances, other practised our speaking parts and a third group made posters to advertise the show to our parents and friends. 

In the afternoon we worked as a big group to make Easter chicks. We spoke to our partners in a mixture of English and French! We gave them a present of a book we had made and they gave us a picture book by an author they are working with called Magdelena. We can't wait to read it. 

What else could Jack have found at the top of the beanstalk?

Add your ideas here

Building the tallest beanstalk

We read the story ‘Jim and the Beanstalk’ by Raymond Briggs. Then we worked in teams to build the tallest possible newspaper beanstalk.  
This task helped us work towards lots of the IPC Personal Goals. 
Enquiry
Goal -I can make links between what I know and my new learning.
In a maths lesson on 3D shapes we built shapes and this helped us to understand that triangles are strong shapes. So, some of us used a triangle shape for the base of our beanstalk.
Adaptability
Goal -Be able to cope with unfamiliar situations
Even though most of us had never done a task quite like this before we did not panic and we worked calmly with our friends. 
Resilience
Goal -Be able to stick with a task until it is completed 
We kept going even though our beanstalks fell over and the paper got crumpled.
Communication
Goal -Be able to make their meaning plain using appropriate verbal and non-verbal forms 
We gave each other instructions and sometimes used actions to explain our ideas. 
Thoughtfulness
Goal -Be able to use a range of thinking skills in solving problems
Some groups used good thinking skills and doubled up the newspaper sheet to make the tubes stronger.

Working with DST to paint eggs

Some visitors to our blog might not know that we share our school building with DST (a German-speaking Primary school). Every day we see them in the playground but we don't often get chance to work with them. So we were really pleased to get together with them on Monday morning to paint Easter eggs together. There were lots of different languages being spoken, German, English, French and even Spanish!

The eggs looked gorgeous when we had finished. Thanks to all the parents how helped blow the eggs at home and to the wonderful group of IST and DST mums who helped in school on Monday!

Which glue sticks the best?

We have been learning about buildings. The bricks are 'glued' together with cement. In school we use different types of glue. We did an investigation to find out whether all glues have the same ability to stick. 
First, we stuck 4 buttons onto card. We used PVA, glue gun, UHU stick and a 'homemade' glue, which was a paste of flour mixed with water. When the four glues were dry we held our card upside down to see if any buttons would fall off.  
At first they didn't but the next day some of the buttons did fall off. We all got different results but with one thing in common - none of the buttons stuck with glue from the glue gun fell off!
Also, one glue really surprised us. Do you know which one?

Our writing about giants

We have been writing about giants. Click on the links below to hear Irene and Pablo read out their writing.

listen to ‘Irene - instructions ’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Pablo - giant description’ on Audioboo

Structures topic

In History we have been finding out about how houses looked in the past. In pairs we worked together to sort pictures of houses into chronological order, from very old to modern. These pictures show us working.