Portway Infant School
This term we have been learning how to play the ukulele with Mrs Moore from Hampshire Music Service and we have been working hard to improve our plucking and strumming. Today we were so excited to perform in a concert with a full audience! A huge thank you to our wonderful music teacher, Mrs Moore, and to our grown ups for supporting us this afternoon.
Year 2 were so excited to have a visit from Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service this week. We loved our session with Laura who talked about what to do during a fire as well as teaching us a song! We played games and some of us even got to dress up in firefighters' clothing. What a great time we had, thank you very much to Laura and the rest of Hampshire Fire and Rescue.
Today we had an exciting visit from The Drama Hut where the very talented actor, Kat, took us on a journey to explore the events of the Great Fire of London. We met Thomas Farriner who described what happened the night the fire started and we also met Samuel Pepys who read his diary to us. We also loved showing off our knowledge from this term's learning. What a fantastic time we had! Have a look at our photos below!
This week has been a very sporty one for Year 2! First some of the children had the opportunity to represent Portway at a local schools hockey festival. After practicing their hockey skills in a series of challenging drills, the children then took part in mini competition winning both of their games thanks to goals from Cici (3) and Roshil.
On Wednesday the children had a visit from Mighty Netball. The Mighty Netball coaches put on a fantastic coaching session for all the children introducing them to a series of Netball skills. The children had great fun and may have found their new favourite sport.
Today we were treated to a fantastic performance from a ukulele band! Everyone enjoyed clapping and singing along to popular songs and we were even taught some new songs too. Some children from Year 2 played a piece of music from their weekly ukulele lessons. A huge thank you to the wonderful musicians who came to visit and share their talents with us.
On Thursday we dressed up as our favourite story characters for World Book Day! Our day began with sharing our amazing costumes and talking about our characters. We read a story called ‘Where has all the cake gone?' We then discussed if Albert was telling truth and explored his very imaginative story. We then had the opportunity to create our own story about the missing cake.
Can you guess who we are in the photos? If you dressed up then who would you like to be?
Year 2 were extremely lucky last week as we got to take part in a Chinese New Year workshop. We were introduced to the 12 different animals of the Chinese calendar and were excited to find out that this year we are celebrating the year of the dragon. The fun didn’t stop there though as we got to perform a traditional Chinese dance and even form our own class dragon! The Chinese believe that the longer the dragon, the more luck you will get.
Today we ventured out in the wet for a fantastic day using our amazing school grounds. We enjoyed using our measuring skills alongside our newly learned skills of cutting and hammering as we created a stool to replace the one broken by Goldilocks. We had to make a shelter that would keep the rain off us, a perfect activity for today! We were all especially excited to go on a hidden trail through the woodland to find clues from different traditional tales before creating clay faces to match one of the characters.
We loved ending our week with a special Willow Pattern Day. We created our own plate based on the style of the Willow Pattern. We designed our own Pagodas and painted them using different tones of blue for effect. Then after lunch we turned our hand to creating 3D pagodas using different construction kits.
Have a look at our fantastic work!
Year 2 enjoyed a road safety workshop this afternoon where they were able to learn about how to keep safe when near or crossing a road. The children identified safe places to cross when out and about and thought about what to do when there is no specific place to cross.
They all enjoyed singing a song about road safety too!
Remember......stop, look, listen, think!
Year 2 had a great time at the Children’s Concert in Southampton. After a fun coach journey, we found our seats in the Central Hall and we were very excited for what was to come! We especially liked the magician on stage who turned a piece of paper into the conductor's baton – wow! It was wonderful to see so many new instruments as well as some we already knew and we listened carefully to each piece of music. Sometimes we even pretended to conduct the orchestra ourselves! What a fantastic morning we had!
This week we listened to the story and music of Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev. We loved learning about the different characters and their personalities. Part of our learning is to retell the story and this is why we created our story sticks. We used different fabrics and wools to represent the characters and places in the story. If you look closely at our sticks can you see the different characters and events that happen in the story?
Today we were lucky enough to be joined by some very talented Portway parents for our Christmas assembly in the hall. The grown ups impressed us with their musical talent and it was lovely to see so many different instruments. What a great way to come together and sing some well known Christmas carols! Thank you to our wonderful performers for joining us.
This week we have been learning about the role of angels in the Christmas Story. We then created our own spoon angels! Look below at how beautiful they are!
This term we have been learning how to play Bamboo Tamboo with Mrs Moore from Hampshire Music Service and we have been recreating the sounds of the Caribbean using our percussion instruments. This week we were excited to perform in a concert with a full audience! A huge thank you to Mrs Moore who has shown such hard work and dedication this term. We are excited for the rest of our music lessons this year!
We had such a great time designing and creating our own type of penguin. We carefully planned which penguin we wanted to make. We used paper and paste carefully to mould our penguin shape and then chose suitable materials to match our plan and decorate. We are very proud of the results. Have a look at our wonderful photos!
We have loved our dance lessons this term in Year 2! As Antarctica explorers, we made sure we were wearing the correct clothing for the freezing temperatures, we waddled on the ice like penguins and even created different shapes of icebergs!
Today was Penguin Day and what a great day we had! We were each given an egg to look after for the entire day. We created our brood pouches using a range of materials to help keep our egg safe, warm and dry. It was so lovely reading some of our favourite books to them during the school day. We then created our penguin enclosures following our designs to make sure the penguins needs were all met. We finished the day by practising the first part of a 'Penguin Dance' which was made all the more exciting because we were dressed as penguins!
Our author focus last half term was all about the amazing work of Roald Dahl. We loved listening to his stories so much we were thrilled to be able to create our own puppet based on our favourite characters. We carefully planned our puppet before having a go at sewing our puppet together. Take a look at some of our wonderful creations.
This term we have enjoyed our cycling lessons. Before cycling we remember to do an 'M Check' to make sure our bikes are safe to ride and we put on our helmets too. Look at us going around the new cycle track!
We have loved our topic about The Enormous Crocodile this term! We had a lot of fun exploring the school grounds finding different places that the sneaky crocodile might disguise himself as. Can you tell what we are pretending to be?
This term we are learning how to play Bamboo Tamboo with Mrs Moore from Hampshire Music Service. We have been recreating the sounds of the Caribbean using our percussion instruments. We can't wait to continue practising ready to perform next half term.
Year 2 ventured out into the fresh air for a brilliant day of Forest School. We enjoyed building some amazing dens, concocting a muddy menu in the mud kitchen, creating the perfect habitat for our school snails and recreating some nature art based on the style of Andy Goldsworthy. Luckily the sun shone for us all day as well. What a fun day we had!
This week we started learning all about snails. We had a lot of fun exploring the school grounds trying to find all of the different places a snail might like to call home. We also had the opportunity to practice our sketching skills. We are now taking care of them in our classrooms. It’s a lot of fun getting them out, watching them and holding them.
