Welcome to Class 2!

The Class 2 team are Miss Read & Mrs Morgan.

Hello, welcome to our class page. Here you can find lots of useful information about the learning in our class.

The Parent Information page includes lots of ways our grown-ups can support us with our learning at home.

On the Helpful Website page, Miss Read has uploaded some links to websites that we use in the classroom so that we can use them at home!

Below, there is a gallery of all the exciting things we have been getting up to in Class 2. Please use photographs responsibly.

Enjoy!

Class 2 Days to Remember: 

Homework Due Day: Monday (unless told otherwise) 

New Homework Day: Wednesday 
Book Change Days: Monday & Thursday
PE Days: Wednesday & Friday

Library Day: Thursday 

Class 2's Gallery:

Have a look at what we have been getting up to!

Wow! What a brilliant day! We were lucky enough to be visited by Emma Nwofor, a GB Athlete! She told us all about her journey and how she’s had many set backs but she showed determination , discipline and dedication and never gave up! We got to try her specialist sport, hurdles! 

We loved Beep Beep Day last week! We had lots of fun baking biscuits for the bake sale and decorating them. We learnt lots about how to be safe on and around the roads. We demonstrated our safe road skills on our bikes and scooters around the playground.

What a fab day! To top it off we raised lots of money for Brake! by selling all our lovely cakes & biscuits. Brake is a charity that focusses on educating little ones about road safety

It was lovely of Class 5 to come and show us their pop-up books they have been working really hard on in their D&T lessons! We loved looking at their hard work and hearing their stories. Miss Mann said ‘if people didn’t listen to stories, stories wouldn’t be shared’. 

In PE this half term we are dancing! This week we are looking at a secret garden dance with fits perfectly with our plants topic in science. We used the steps to plant a flower to create a short routine. 

Before Easter, we took part in a fantastic African Drumming workshop where we learnt to play Djembe Drums. Miss Read & Mrs Morgan was impressed with how well we listened to each other to keep in time with the rhythm! 

Joan and her team from The Brentwood Schools Christian Workers Trust came to teach us all about the sadness and the joy felt throughout the Easter Story. We acted out parts of the story and talked about the feelings felt throughout! We made an Easter garden to remember the story and to signify new life. The grass has already started to grow

We had a fab a Science Week! We had a wonderful time in our Sublime Science workshop with Sparky. The Wonder Dome was ‘awesome’ and we loved learning about the planets in our solar system. Miss Read taught us about Non-Newtonian Liquids which are liquids that don’t act like they’re supposed to. We mixed water and cornflour and when we applied stress on it, the liquid turned into a solid. It was so cool! We can make Oobleck at home 

In history, we have been looking at timelines to understand where events happened in history. As well as sorting significant events in history, we also discussed when import dates in our lives like when we were born, when we started school and what year it is now. We put 1666 on our timeline. Someone asked whether there were cameras in 1666 and we discussed that cameras were not invented in 1666. 

We had a great time with Lesley from BYT listening to stories and learning hot and cold dances. 

World Book Day is in full swing! We’re all dressed as Where’s Wally?! Miss Read & Mrs Morgan is finding it tricky to tell us apart. 

On Monday we visited Hyde Hall to learn all about animal habitats. What a fantastic day! We enjoyed looking at the bones and the snakes skin and making mini beasts out of clay. We went on a bird hunt, collected natural materials and hunted for woolly caterpillars. We created food chains and made bird nests by collecting sticks and leaves with our beaks (pegs!). It was a great day and Miss Read, Mrs Morgan, Miss Mills and Mrs Potton was so impressed and proud with how well we represented Blackmore School. 

Here we are practicing our times tables with Daily 10. Knowing our times tables is really helping our maths learning at the moment. Being able to recall and remember facts quickly is making it a lot easier to work out multiplication and division questions. We can practice on Daily 10 at home, there is a link in the useful websites tab on our Class Page. Ask us some 2s, 5s and 10s multiplication questions. 

Happy Chinese New Year! We made lanterns and wrote the animals in order of where they came in the race. Some of us challenged ourselves to write these animals using the Chinese symbols. 2024 is the year of the Dragon, so we made paper dragons too. We learnt that children born in 2016 were born in the year of the Monkey and children born in 2017 were born in the year of the Rooster. Miss Read showed us a video of some of the Chinese New Year traditions and celebrations. We also looked at the food that people from China choose to eat to celebrate. We were impressed by how some eat their food with chopsticks. Ask us why their decorations are red. 

Ask us about the Marvellous Maasai! Today we made necklaces like the Maasai Tribe and learnt their traditional jumping dance in PE. 

On Tuesday 6th February it was Safer Internet Day! We took part in Google’s Be Internet Legends Live Assembly reminding ourselves how to keep safe on online. We reminded ourselves who our trusted adults were if something was to make us feel ‘uncomfortable’ online. Have a look at the online safety tab on our class page for more info! We are now INTERNET LEGENDS!

Have a look at our Safari Sunset paintings. This supported our learning in topic about the African National Parks. We thought about which kind of animals we might see in this landscape. We learnt all about the Big Five. Ask us which animals make the African Big Five! 

Sheriff’s Coming!!! 
Today we had a lovely visit from Perfom and we took part in a special drama workshop. We were so engaged, showing brilliant listening skills and we all got involved. This was a great way for us to express ourselves through movement, drama and dance and build our confidence. Miss Read & Mrs Morgan were really impressed! 
 

There is a leaflet in our book bags for all the Perform clubs in the area with a special discount code!

What a great treat to our Friday PE lesson! We took part in a fencing workshop to learn some new skills and techniques. We had so much fun! En Guard, advance, lunge, retreat, retreat, retreat! 

Look at us counting the edges, vertices and  faces of 3D shapes! We used play dough to make sure we didn’t count the same part twice! 

Our Geography topic in Spring 1 is Where Would You Prefer to Live: England or Africa? We have been looking at maps and labelling the continents and oceans. We have been singing songs to remember them all. Can we remember what continents England and Kenya are on? 

In Jigsaw we have been thinking about our Dreams & Goals. It is important to set realistic goals and challenges that we can achieve. Miss Read set us some challenges and we had to decide if they were realistic or not and how we could achieve them. We worked really hard to pass noisy things around the circle without making a sound. Then we set a challenge for Jigsaw Jo and discussed the steps she could take to lead her to success 

Here we are in our art lesson with Mrs Whannell practicing our paint brush control. We painted these beautiful, stripy tigers. Next week, we are going to explore collage and create a suitable habitat for our tiger. Miss Read said she cannot wait to see what we come up with! We love being creative!

Today we went on Safari with Mrs Whannell to kick off our new topic about Africa! We spotted lots of Safari animals. 

Our PE focus this half term is Dance! We have been learning moves from the Samba including the shimmy, the Samba roll and the carnival wave! Today we worked in groups to put together our own routine using some of the moves we learnt and performed them to our friends. I wonder if we can remember them to perform for our grownups…? 

What a great way to end our term and start the festivities. We sung beautifully at the carol service at the church and our Class 2 nativity reenactment was well performed. Well done Blackmore!

Class R joined us for the special, exclusive premier of It’s a Party! the movie! We loved spotting ourselves and singing along. We felt like filmstars

We practiced the Blackmore Core Value ‘Enjoy Learning Together’ by working together to form paper chains. We struggled at first but we showed resilience and perseverance and we managed to make some pretty long chains. Some of us even joined our paper chains to other groups to make them even longer 

Merry Christmas from Class 2 dressed in the most lovely Christmas jumpers today

We loved our yummy Christmas dinner! Thank you Mrs Stokes and your kitchen team!

Take a look at our lovely Christmas cards. We explored shape by cutting strips of paper and placing them in a triangle shape like a Christmas Tree!

Thank you FOBs for our amazing presents. They are really going to help us out in the classroom. We even played with some of them in choosing time today! We feel very lucky!

For the last part of Christmas Activity Day, we did some art. We watched a tutorial on how to paint a winter scene. We used our colour mixing skills and a steady hand to paint these beautiful scenes on wooden decorations. Aren’t they beautiful! When we reflected on our paintings, we discussed what we would change and how we felt about them. We all said we were very proud of ourselves. Below is the link to the tutorial we followed if we want to make one at home!

Activity morning kicked off with KS1 playing stick the nose on Rudolph! They also made reindeer food with Mr Foley & played party games with Mrs Gibson! We had such great time 

We have been very busy building Ferris Wheels with Mrs Whannell! During the design process we chose a sturdy shape for our frame and tried and tested different materials to make the best wheel. We also experimented with different options for the seats to ensure they moved as the wheel spun. Not a single detail was missed!! We built the mechanisms aiming for a smooth spin. Then, we showcased them in the Blackmore D&T showcase this afternoon! Mrs Whannell said we worked so hard as a team to design and build the perfect Ferris Wheel! Well done Class 2. 

In our topic lessons this half term, we have been learning all about Brave Explorers throughout history and what makes them significant. Today, we put on our binoculars, zipped up our coats and headed out on an expedition through new land. We discovered a place called Blackmore Primary School. When we returned we discussed our findings and how we felt and compared them to Neil Armstrong and Felicity Aston who went on some very brave trips.
I wonder if any of us will be explorers one day…?

We had a special visit from Brentwood Schools Christian Worker Trust who helped us explore the story of the first Christmas to support our RE learning. We particularly loved dressing up as shepherds as we walked through the Christmas story.

We had a great time shopping at Elfridges and buying our grownups special Christmas presents! We were thinking of some good hiding places at home so we don’t spoil the surprise for our grownups before Christmas.

No peeking adults!!
Thank you FOBS!

Miss Read thought that we all deserved a special star of the week this week for our amazing performances in the school play! She said that we’re SUPERSTARS! Mrs Farrant had the same idea so we are this weeks Class Cup Winners! What a great end to the week!

Wow! What a performance! We have really enjoyed rehearsing and preparing for our school play over the last few weeks. We have worked so well as a team to put it all together and make it perfect! We’ve had so much fun! Both performances were absolutely amazing and we are all so proud of ourselves. We had a little photo shoot today now the play is over so we can remember the parts we played so well! 
 

I couldn’t be prouder of you Class 2. You have worked so very hard to put on such an amazing performance to your grown ups. You should all be so pleased with yourself. Well done! - Miss Read 

We had a wonderful time at Queen’s Theatre watching Dick Whittington. What a great Christmassy treat! 

We love festive Friday! It’s been a magical afternoon at Blackmore this Friday! We really enjoyed our special sneak peak into the Spirit of Christmas Fayre with our Reindeer Race and Carousel Ride. We are very lucky and very grateful. Thank you FOBs! What a wonderful treat!
Miss Read said it was lovely to see all us children having fun together at the fayre afterschool and raising so much money for our school. Well Done Class 2! We all feel very Christmassy at Blackmore now. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. 

To link with our festivities, for our outdoor learning time we explored different materials by decorating Christmassy pictures. We worked as a team collecting items from the playground to decorate our pictures, designing and making sure they wouldn’t blow away in the wind. Miss Read said she thought we were being Independent Enquirers and Resilient Leaners. We then discussed the importance of putting the materials back where we found them to allow animals & creatures to use them for their habitats or microhabitats. We learn lots from getting outside and exploring the natural world as so many of our topics link to provide lots of cross curricular opportunities. 

Wow! What a fabulous day we have celebrating BBC’s Children in Need with a very special talent show! And Blackmore indeed did have talent! We had lots of talents showcased  in Class 2 including dancing, drumming, magic tricks and singing! The children showed the core value of RESPECT as they watched their friends perform. The teachers were so proud of us all! We’ve set the bar high so we better start preparing for next years talent show!

We had a visit from Lesley and she taught us all about Anti Bullying Week! She was teaching us the importance of being kind to our friends. We looked at Snow White story and acted out some of the characters! Can you guess who we are? 
We had lots of fun showing off our new dance in assembly!

The brand new refreshed library is looking amazing! We loved attending the grand opening of our new school library today. The Class 2 Blackmore Reading VIPs broke the ribbon and we were free to explore all the books on offer at the library. Mrs Wisdom has made us special library cards so we can borrow the library books to take home! We had such a great time browsing and picking some new books to read. 
We chose books that might help us complete our Reading Quest Challenges! 
Miss Read says it’s really important to have a big love for reading different types of texts. We can’t wait to visit the library next week and swap our books for different ones! 

We made poppies to remember those that have fought for our country in the wars. We sensibly walked down to the memorial in the village and paid our respects.
We won’t forget. 

When learning about firework night, we discussed different ways people choose to celebrate. One of the ways people celebrate the event is by having toffee apple chocolate apples. We asked Miss Read if we could make some and she agreed! We had a great time covering the apples with chocolate and decorating them with sprinkles. What a treat! We even spoke about how we melt chocolate and it’s changing of state…that’s good science!! 

In preparation for Bonfire Night over the weekend, we learn all about Guy Fawkes and The Gunpowder Plot. Miss Read even taught us a rhyme about it. Then we went outside to look for the perfect fire making materials to build our own ‘bonfire’. Mrs Sims and Miss Read taught us all about fire safety and being safe around fireworks as we sat around the ‘bonfire’. We even sang a campfire song whilst Miss Read played the ukulele!

We like sharing our favourite books! We shared our favourite books from our Class 2 Library with our friends in Class 4 today!

A special prize for those who go above & beyond with their reading at home! When Mrs Morgan collects our reading records on a Monday & Thursday, she counts up all the times we’ve read at home and gives us house points when we read more than 3 times a week. She has also been keeping track of these numbers to see who is doing lots of reading at home. 

These are the children who have read the most times this half term! 

We understand that life is busy outside of school but it is so important to find time for reading, even if it a couple of pages a night!
To win the special reading prize next half term, make sure you’re reading lots at home and writing it in your reading records. 
Well Done Top Readers! 
I wonder who will be the Top Reader’s next half term? 

In preparation for Forky coming to Blackmore, we put our map skills to the test by navigating the BlueBots around Blackmore. We had to work together to programme our BlueBot to get to and from different locations in the village - just like how we would tell Forky. We used directional vocabulary (like North, East, South, West, Left, Right, Forwards, Backwards, Turn etc.) to describe our journeys. We then wrote down the directions for others to follow. We also used our computing skills to debug the programme we entered into the BlueBot when it didn’t quite go to plan! Miss Read said we did a good job and that we’d make great tour guides! Mrs Farrant & Mrs Wisdom even came to have a look at what we were up to and they were very impressed!

To finish off our place value topic we consolidated what we have learnt by revisiting some of the activities we have already done but this time we challenged ourselves with tricker numbers! We worked as a team with our partners to make sure we had mastered & remembered the skills we have learnt this topic! 

Forky (from Toy Story) is coming to Blackmore so in geography we have been thinking of things he would find exciting here! We have made maps today to help him find his way around the village. We looked at a map of the village and discussed the main village landmarks, then in groups we plotted them on our maps! They look great! 

In art we have been perfecting our painting skills. This week Miss Read read us a story called ‘Wilberforce the Frog’. In the story, the frogs had to cross the marshland by painting circles to make stepping stones. The rules were that the stones had to be the same shape, the same size and get lighter in colour. We discussed ways we make colours lighter like mixing in white paint or adding more water to our brush. Then we made our own stepping stone artwork using the primary colours. 

We were so lucky today to have a visit from Paul, Britain’s Tallest Man and the World’s Tallest Basketball Player! Paul measures an astonishing 7ft 7”!

He inspired us by explaining that our differences can bring positive life changing opportunities and with hard work & dedication, anything is possible! We had a great time at the basketball workshop with Paul. Even Miss Read & Mrs Sims had a go spinning the ball on their finger. We loved it. Paul even gave us all a signed picture. Check out Paul’s YouTube channel to see some of the amazing things he has achieved.

In maths we have been learning about place value. This week we have been looking at number lines and estimating numbers on a blank number line. Today we got ourselves into height order and made a human number line.

To continue our natural art theme, we explored textures outside. We used crayons to make rubbings using leaves, bark and other natural materials we found outside! We then spoke about the vocabulary to describe these textures which linked to our English focus of describing using adjectives! 

We’ve been practicing lots of skills in PE this half term such as team work skills, balancing skills and ball skills. This week we practiced rolling balls to each other aiming to control the ball and get it through the cones and then reach our partner. It took lots of concentration and accuracy. We altered the cones and the distance apart to make it easier/more challenging depending on what we needed to practice on. 

We’ve been exploring nature to make artwork outside. We made portraits on the playground using natural materials that we have found on playground/field. We made sure not to pick anything living and we put everything we used back once we used it for animals to use as habitats and nests. 

We’ve loved partitioning numbers into tens & ones!

We were so lucky to see the bikes ride past!