Commotion in the Ocean

Last week we read 'Commotion in the Ocean' by Giles Andreae. We made a joint display to show the ocean layers.

 

During Big Write we all wrote about the animals in the ocean. Here is Noémie reading her work.



listen to ‘Noémie’ on Audioboo
We each made an octopus and a 'plate fish'.

Listen to our story 'Year 2 Save the Circus!'

If you missed our assembly this morning or if you would like to hear the story again then you can listen to it here.

listen to ‘Y2 saves the circus’ on Audioboo

The Diary of a Killer Cat by Anne Fine

We have been reading Tuffy's diary. These photos show us acting out the first scene from the book where Tuffy, the cat, drags a dead bird into the house. We 'freeze-framed' the scene then each character came alive to speak their thoughts aloud.

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.

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.

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. 

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

Add your ideas here

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

Catching a stone giant

On Monday a stone giant was spotted near our school and Miss Ash heard about it on the French radio. Yesterday, Mrs Greenland was walking her dogs and she believes that she caught a glimpse of the giant but she was too frightened to approach and touch it! We asked her some questions to find out more information about this mystery.

THEN, when Mrs Greenland went to the art room she found this giant letter. 

The mummy giant was asking for our help. We brainstormed ways to catch a stone giant. Gustavo said that we need to find out from an expert more information about stone giants and their habits.
In pairs, we wrote questions for an expert: 

Are you an expert on stone giants? Can you answer our questions? Please help.

Our questions:

How harmful are stone giants?

Have you seen a stone giant? Can you give detail on what they look like?

Do stone giant children speak English?

What animals are stone giants scared of?

What animals do they like?

Where is Stone Giant Land?

What do stone giants eat?

Do stone giants weigh 40kg or more? Please tell us how much the adults and the children weigh.

What do they drink?

What if stone giants are bad?

Should we kill the stone giant?

Has a stone giant been spotted in France before?

Monday's writing

During our Monday morning guided reading lesson the pupils who are not working on reading with Miss Ash or Mrs Greenland work instead on independent writing.  Sometimes we write a letter to Monty, or other times a recount of our weekend. This week we were given the title 'In the garden' and had 30 minutes writing time. Click below to listen to Maria and Niamh read out their writing. 

Blog 29th Feb 2012

Today we have been involved in this project.

Our blogging entry was a list of 29 wonderful things about The International School of Toulouse.

We have a class mascot.

We have a climbing frame.

We have 20 mins of Golden Time on Friday where we can choose a fun activity.

We have assemblies where we learn things, sing and see what the other classes have been doing.

Our school is big and it has lots of children.

Our school teaches us good manners.

We have lots of computers.

We don’t need a black board because we have an interactive Smartboard.

We have bricks and construction materials to play with.

We have PE inside and outside.

Our pitch is big and can be used in all weather.

You learn lots at our school.

Mrs Bain is our headmistress and she is very kind.

We have ER (independent silent reading) for 15 minutes every day.

We have a blog.

We do cooking with our teachers.

We have a reading corner with cushions.

Gabi looks after us when we hurt ourselves.

We do art lessons.

We eat delicious food in the canteen and we can choose our own puddings.

If it is wet play we have lots of games to play in class.

Pupils at IST are kind, clever, fun, hardworking and we want to learn.

We can take books home from our brilliant library.

Everything about our teachers is great.

Big Write is fun and helps our writing get better.

Our school subjects are interesting like science, IPC and maths.

We go on fantastic trips.

The doors to our classrooms are open.

Phonics at our school is good because we play games, work things out and write silly sentences.

Maybe some of the Y2s will click on the picture link and write their own blog entry on the 29thFeb site. Rememeber you can write about anything that interests you.

Pants

In class we read 'Pants' by Giles Andre and Nick Sharratt. Their funny book inspired us to design our own pants. Which ones would you wear?