Dolphins, 2021-22 Archive
Welcome to Dolphin Class
Year 2, Year 3 & Year 4
Mrs Bowles (teacher)
Miss Sims (TA)
June 2022 – The Stolen Seagull Scavenger Hunt (SSSH!)
Earlier in the year we were honoured to be able to decorate a seagull that will take part in the SSSH! this summer around Torbay. We held a school wide competition for designs and the winning 2 were combined to create our environmental awareness seagull which the children painted and then named Enviro. Our seagull has now landed in it’s new home for the summer and you will be able to see him at Brixham Museum – so please pop along to visit him.
June 2022 – Berry Head Trip
As part of our learning about our local area we visited Berry Head to find out all about the geographical features of Berry Head, how it has changed over time and the impact that humans have had. We met with the Torbay Coast and Countryside Ranger who led our visit informing us all about the Napoleonic Fort, WW2 observation posts, the quarry, cold war bunker and the rare flowers and animals that live here too. We learnt how to use a compass and create a map of Berry Head labelling the human and physical features that we could see.
May 2022 – Queen’s Green Canopy Tree Planting
In honour the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and her Green Canopy initiative we have planted nine trees in our school field, with the aim of creating a small forest school area for generations to come. We planted three rown and six silver birch which will create a fabulous wildlife area and also support the work of our eco-committee in increasing the biodiversity of our school grounds.
May 2022 – Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Celebrations
We celebrated the Queen’s platinum jubilee by making and designing our own crowns; red, white and blue pom-pom shakers and wearing red, white and blue too. We then joined together as a whole school with our families for a tea party with jubilee quiz, cakes and ice lollies! A great time was had by all.
May 2022 – Science – sound
We have started learning all about sound and how we hear. We started by exploring how sound causes vibrations, watching how the vibrations from a speaker underneath a drum caused rice to dance around and ripples to form on water droplets. Such a great way to visualise something that we can’t always see.
April 2022 – PE, rounders
Following the Easter break Dolphin class have moved outside and started learning all the key skills required for rounders. They have this week particularly been working on their running and fielding skills and then putting them into a game. So nice to be out on the field again!
April 2022 – Art, clay
In art we have linked our learning to our recent Ancient Greek history lessons. We examined Ancient Greek pottery, how it was made, what decorations were on the outside and how these were created. We then got hands on with the clay! We learnt how to mould and shape the clay and created an individual tile with pattern, texture and form.
March 2022 – Science, light
Dolphin class made the most of the spring sunshine and went outside to investigate light and shadows – great fun! We then used our findings along with our other science invstigation conclusions to help solve the robbery of the diamond earrings!
Here is a link to the knowledge organiser (KO) for science, light: Science_light KO
March 2022 – Buckfast Abbey Visit
We had a wonderful day out to Buckfast Abbey, we looked around the Abbey learning all about the events of Holy Week and made a bead string along the way for us to keep and remind us of each event. We created our own stain glass window crosses and explored the Abbey grounds. We all had a marvellous time and the children were keen to visit again some day.
February 2022 – Geography, rainforest
Our new geography learning is based all around the rainforest. We started by recalling the continents and their locations and then plotted the locations of the rainforests in the world. We noticed that these were all around the equator, we studied the climate of all these areas and noticed the similarities, also how different the climate was to our own.
We learnt all about the layers of the rainforest, including what types of plants and animals that live in each layer. Finally we considered why the rainforest is so important and considered the impact of deforestation and what we can do to help.
Here is a link to the knowledge organiser (KO) for geography, rainforest: Geography rainforest KO
January 2022 – Maths
We have progressed in maths to learning about multiplication and division, learning formal written methods as well as continuing to practice our times tables and related division facts. Every Friday we are still completing our Big Maths Beat That challenges where we have a set time limit to answer a sheet full of multiplication facts. The aim each week is to beat your previous weeks score, the children are making excellent progress and during the course of the year have all moved up to a new challenge sheet – outstanding!
January 2022 – English, poetry
We have started the new year by looking at poetry in English. We have learnt about all the different types of poetry, how some rhyme and some don’t, some are just list and others a like stories and how some don’t even ‘make sense’ and looking at how they use alliteration, repetition and rhyming. We have also started practising reading them aloud to the class in our teams practising our intonation and flow.
What is your favourite poem?
10 January 2022 – Science
Over the last week we have completed our learning all about electricity. Learning how to make circuits with switches to light bulbs or make buzzers sound; investigated insulators and conductors and found out how batteries work. We looked at historical electrical inventions and ordered these, amazed at how long ago some of our modern day appliances were first invented. We are now also able to draw electrical circuits accurately using the correct symbols.
Here is a link to the knowledge organiser (KO) for science, electricity: Science_electrcity KO
6 January 2022 – Epiphany
After learning what the word Epiphany means and how this links to the 3 kings arriving to see Jesus we celebrated Epiphany by sharing an Epiphany cake, each table got to choose one of the buns to see who would be our ‘king’ for the day.
4 January 2022
Happy New Year and welcome back following the Christmas break.
Advent & Christmas 2021
As part of our Advent preparations we made Advent promises on how we could prepare for Christmas ourselves and how we could help other, we wrote these onto purple ribbons and tied them onto our Christmas tree. We learnt all about the Advent wreath and the meaning of the candles and then we got to make our own wreath for our classroom and some children got to carefully set up our nativity scene in our prayer space. Each day during December we opened our Advent calendar which had a book for each day retelling the Christmas story.
As a reward for acheiving over 1000 dojos as a class we baked and decorated Christmas cookies together – they were delicious and then got to watch a Christmas film!
Unfortunately, we couldn’t have our planned nativity but we did hold a Christmas assembly with our families, sharing songs, prayers and readings.
Merry Christmas everyone from Dolphin class!
25 November 2021 – English
In our English lessons we took inspiration from what might happen if we entered our Stone Age cave, that looked like a circus tent inside, to write our own portal stories. We have been working on creating tension through short sentences and by putting our main characters in situations where they are alone; helping our reader to picture our settings through detailed descriptions and using ambitous vocabulary. They are almost complete and make excellent reading – well done Dolphins.
16 November 2021 – PE
Following out focus on netball last half term, this half term in our PE lessons we are learning all about gymnastics. We have started with simple movements, jumps and rolls; learning all about the correct body tension and form and as always ensuring we are completing them all safely. The children have loved using the equipment and are all getting much more confident at jumping off the boxes and balancing along the benches. Well done Dolphins!
11 November 2021 – Remembrance Day
To mark Remembrance Day we learnt all about the symbol of the poppy, why we wear them and why it is important that we remember those who have fought for us in the 2 world wars and other battles. We wrote prayers and poems of thanks onto poppies which we coloured and added to our school gates, we then invited our grown-ups to join our act of remembrance by writing the names of those that they would like to remember onto red ribbons which were then tied to the gate too. At 11am we all gathered on the playground in our classes to mark the 2 minute silence.
5 November 2021 – Geography
We have started our geography learning this hlaf term initially focusing on where we live and being able to locate Brixham and Devon on a map of the UK. We are then going to look at the countries of the UK and their capital cities, and the oceans and seas that surround us. Later in the term we will look at rivers and the coast; learning how to identify the key physical (natural) and human features and how these have changed over time.
Here is a link to the knowledge organiser (KO) for geography this half term:Geography KO_UK, rivers & coasts
21st October 2021 – Harvest Assembly
Dolphin class hosted our whole school assembly to celebrate harvest. They did a fantastic job with readings, prayers, harvest songs and a drama to help us reflect on how we should share all that we are given. A huge thank you to all our families who donated food which has been given to Brixham food bank. Thank you everyone.
11th October 2021 – Science
Following on from our learning about healthy eating and our healthy bodies we are now learning all about rocks and fossils. After learning all about the rock cycle and the 3 types of rocks: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary, we formed our own rocks using sweets to show the process they go through. It really brough to life and helped us to understand how these different rocks are formed (and we got to eat them afterwards!).
We then moved onto classifying rocks by testing them to identify their properties to help us, we captured some fantastic views using ournew handheld microscopes which really helped us to see the layers or crystals in the rock samples.
Here is a link to the knowledge organiser (KO) for science, rocks and fossils, for this half term: Science KO_rocks & soils
October 2021 – World Mental Health Day #helloyellow
On this day we celebrated the little things that we all can do to look after ourselves and eachother, we wore yellow and raised money for the Young Minds charity to show that you are never alone. We learnt how important it is to look after our mental well-being as well as our physical well-being. We practised our mindfulness techniques and thought about ways we can help ourselves and help eachother when we are struggling with our mental well-being.
29th September 2021 – History
Our historical focus this half term is on the Stone Age period and we have been learning all about how Stone Age people lived, what they ate, and their homes. We were amazed this morning to find that a Stone Age cave had appeared in the corner of our classroom! We were intrigued to know how it got there and who might be living inside? We started reflecting on how we know about Stone Age people and how to archaeologists find out about the different time periods in history – we realised that they learn through what has been left behind. To put this to the test we investigated the contents of the bin from Starfish class to see if we could find out what they had been doing that morning. Mrs Bowles (whilst wearing gloves!) pulled out the contents one by one and we deduced that they had eaten oranges, been writing with pencils as there were pencil sharpenings in the bin and had been doing some art work possible as there was also glitter, feathers and paper in there. We are looking forward to see what we might be able to learn about the Stone Age from our classroom cave!
Here is a link to the knowledge organiser (KO) for history, Stone Age, for this half term:History_Stone Age KO
21st September 2021 – Maths
Over the last few weeks we have been focusing on our place value knowledge in maths, using various resources to help us represent 3 and 4 digit numbers. One of our favourite maths lessons is our fluency Friday where we take on the Big Maths Beat That challenges and complete maths problems with our partners using graffiti maths. Great fun!
17th September 2021 – Science
Conitnuing on our theme of learning about humans and what we need to survive, today we though about our hearts and exercise. We learnt all about our heart, what it looks like and it’s size and where it is in our body; we also learnt how to take our pulse. We then conducted an experiment to see what would happen after different activities to our heart rate. Using our working scientifically skills of observing, measuring and recording, after making our predictions we went outside and completed several challenges, measuring our heart rates after each one. The children’s prediction were correct and their heart rates did raise after exercising. We discussed why this happened and why it was important to exercise and eat healthily to help our heart. Super scientists Dolphins, well done.
14th September 2021 – PE
Much to the children’s great excitement we have Mr W, a PE specialist from Kinetic Sport, delivering our PE lessons this year. He started last week with some ice breaker team games and ball games to welcome the children back and assess their current skill level and today saw the children start their first netball lesson, which will be our focus for the rest of this half term. Mr W said he was very impressed with their listening, ball handling and team working skills already – well done Dolphins!
9th September 2021 – RE
We have started our RE learning thinking about new beginnings, and how many we have each and every day, including for many the new beginning of the school year. We watched the Finding Nemo clip of Nemo’s first day of school and discussed how new beginnings can feel different for different people, just like in the clip for Nemo and his dad. We reflected on the various new beginnings we’ve had in our lives, drawing a picture of one of these for our special books adding on the different emotions that we felt at the time.
7th September 2021 – Welcome to Dolphins Class
What a wonderful first week back to school we have had in Dolphins Class. It has been wonderful to welcome the children back to school after their summer break, all keen to learn and excited to see their friends again. I couldn’t be more proud of each and every one of my Dolphins, who have all impressed with their attitude to their learning and settled in so well to their new class; we have completed so much already:
- Science – we have startred learning what humans need to survive both physically and mentally
- History – we recalled what time periods in history we have already learnt about and placed these on a timeline before then adding the Stone Age – our new historical focus for this half term
- Maths – started on our place value learning with some graffitti maths with all our maths resources
- English – started our instruction writing based around ‘How to wash a woolly mammoth’, completed our reading assessments, borrowed new books from our library and started completing AR quizzes
On top of all this we’ve also had time for some fun team building challenges, PE, art and RE too.
Once we have all the photo permissions back from parents I shall be adding lots of photos – so watch this space…
Well done Dolphins Class – I am looking forward to working with and helping you to succeed this year!
