Margaret Wix Primary School
Excellence, Creativity, Individuality!
Tortoiseshells (Year 2 and 3)
Welcome to Tortoiseshells 2/3
Our class is called Tortoiseshells.
Tortoiseshells are taught by Mrs Campbell-Pugh (Mon-Wed) and Miss Ward (Thurs-Fri).
Tortoiseshells are supported by Miss Serafin.
Things to remember:
Library will take place in class on a Friday.
Please remember to bring back your reading book each Monday and Thursday, so you can choose a new one to allow 72 hours between books being changed.
P.E will take place on TUESDAYS and FRIDAYS.
Please come into school wearing your PE kit on these days.
Key dates:
Please see the class newsletter for important dates throughout the year.
Summer Term 2021
Music performance
Weeks 12 and 13
There were some huge events at school in the last few weeks!
In the photos you can see Tortoiseshells celebrating International Day by learning about China. We found out some interesting facts about China including The Great Wall and The Chinese New Year. This year is the Year of the Ox, so we made Chinese lanterns. We learned how to write in Mandarin and included this on the lanterns as well as fans. We took part in the Door Competition by including a blossom tree, which originated from China. All the children created this cherry blossom tree together by using their finger prints to create the blossom. This represented China but also Tortoiseshells united together as one team! Taste buds were tickled by trying out some Asian food including Chinese spring rolls, Indian vegetable samosas, Korean seaweed snacks and Thai crackers. There were mixed feelings about some of these snacks, as you can see!
On the same day, Tortoiseshells raised money for Sports for Champions UK by meeting Jaydon Paddock, a professional gymnast! They took part in a range of fitness challenges and some were lucky enough to have a photo taken!
One week later, Tortoiseshells took part in their Sports Day morning alongside Cardinals. You can see them taking part in sack and running races and completing their team activities at their stations. Great efforts Tortoiseshells! They were later rewarded with an ice lolly to cool them down and a tasty biscuit!
Sports Day Fun!
The day that Tortoiseshells met Jaydon Paddock, a professional gymnast!
Our International Day Fun!
Weeks 10 and 11
Tortoiseshells have been busy learning all about fractions in Maths; Finding fractions of amounts, adding and subtracting fractions, problem-solving with fractions....you name it, they did it! In English they have been traveling to various countries and continents in the world, learning all about the wonderful festivals taking place. They have been collating information in groups and focusing on the use of noun phrases to describe places....magnificent macaws, tall, towering trees, soaring bird and spotty leopards.
Tortoiseshells have learned lots of new information about the changes to the body as we grow up; They have asked some very sensible questions and participated very well.
Weeks 8 and 9
Welcome back to the last half term of the year!
Tortoiseshells have been introduced to the book 'Atlas of Adventures' which has been taking the class to exciting places in the world! They have all got passports and have visited some spectacular places. This week the children explored festivals of the world and worked in groups to find out lots of interesting facts.
In Maths the class have been learning about fractions and have enjoyed challenging themselves to solve problems and find different quantities of amounts. Tortoiseshells are becoming experts in using bar models!
On Friday Tortoiseshells rocked out for Times Table Rock Stars. We had extended time playing TTRS and many children continued to play in their own time!
This half term's RSE topic is all about changes to our bodies and life cycles. So far we have been learning about what babies need to survive and grow and we will be further learning about changes that happen to our bodies as we get older.
Find out more of what our learning looks like in the photos below...
Dress like a Rockstar! Tortoiseshells are taking this competition seriously in their rockstar outfits!
Amazing group work in English!
Some fantastic examples of learning and neat presentation.
Weeks 5 and 6
Tortoiseshells had so much fun gardening this week. There was wind and rain but that didn't stop Tortoiseshells from experiencing sewing and planting! They made their own recyclable pots out of newspaper and planted either 2 sunflower or 2 pea seeds. One group got to plant sage and one group planted sweetcorn and some bean plants. All of the children were able to set out some tomato plants next to sticks and plant some courgettes. Tortoiseshells showed amazing teamwork skills. It was wonderful to see them calmly helping each other to achieve a goal. The care that they showed for the garden was just wonderful to see. Tortoiseshells seem to be green fingered as they have got some very happy potatoes growing outside the classroom. After half term we will share updates of how well the seedlings are growing!
In Maths, lessons have been focusing on problem solving using bar models and division using arrays and bar models. Our English lessons have continued to focus on the fabulous book 'The Finger Eater' by Dick King-Smith. The children have been creatively planning their own trick on Ulf and using effective vocabulary such as adverbs and conjunctions. This week the children role-played a telephone call with a friend or family member to tell them all about their clever trick. They enjoyed this - check out their smiley faces in the photos! Final pieces of writing will be shared soon!
Spellings are fortnightly and have been focusing on learning the suffixes 'ly', 'ing', 'ment' and 'ness'. We practice spellings through handwriting and dedicated spelling sessions. Don't forget to practise at home!
In P.S.H.C.E lessons, Tortoiseshells have been reflecting on how to solve conflict with friendship issues, using a traffic light tool - which is very simple yet effective. They have also been discussing and reflecting on different kinds of touch - those we like and those that we don't. They have all practised saying "I don't like that, please stop."
In other news...Tortoiseshells had some TTRS competition winners! Well done to Isabella, Arthur and Sofia! The class came in second and third place overall (Year 3 - second place) and (Year 2 - third place). Remember, TTRS is a fantastic and fun way to practise times tables which are so important to know in everyday life.
Enjoy the photos below and to all the families and children of Tortoiseshells, have a very relaxing and well-deserved May half term. 
Photos from weeks 5 and 6....
Weeks 3 and 4
Tortoiseshells have been so busy that we can't believe we are 4 weeks in to the Summer term already! The last few weeks have consisted of many things including Number Day, which involved wearing numbers and raising money for the NSPCC. We focused on the number 100 for Sir Captain Tom Moore reaching 100 last year! This week Tortoiseshells also enjoyed planting a memorial tree for Sir Captain Tom, just outside our classroom.
During Number day we wrote imaginative sentences about the number 100 with sentence starters such as, "If I had £100, I would buy.....". We thought about different calculations that could make 100 and also ran 100 times during team races. Later on, Tortoiseshells began to learn to count in tens to 100. It was a fun day and we were lucky enough to have a visitor who enjoyed learning with us!
In English, Tortoiseshells have continued to enjoy 'The Finger Eater' and created mischevious plans to trick devious Ulf and brave Gudrun from both of their perspectives. Tortoiseshells have been very creative in their ideas and have loved the suspense that this story creates! Our spelling focus has been applying adverbs with the suffix 'ly' as well as spelling correctly when adding the suffix 'ing' to verbs. We have also been reading the whole class book 'Oliver and the Seawigs' which has lots of new, exciting vocabulary that can be used in writing.
In Maths lessons time has been well spent on written methods for column addition and subtraction, but we have now moved onto problem solving and identifying key parts of worded problems.
Tortoiseshells have started planning PowerPoint presentations linked to the curriculum topic 'Stone Age to Iron Age'. They have been excited to choose an area of interest, from Stonehenge, to cave paintings.
P.S.C.H.E lessons have continued to explore conflict and resolution, an important part of social development. In P.E, Tortoiseshells have been so enthusiastic about playing tennis. Check out the smiles on their faces along with the weekly mile!
Take at a peek at our proud learning....
Week 1 and 2
Welcome back to the Summer Term! We have had beautiful sunshine during the last few weeks. Long may it last!
In Maths, Tortoiseshells have been busy learning the formal written method for addition and subtraction. They have been learning about regrouping the tens and hundreds. It's tricky business but Tortoiseshells have shown excellent effort. You'll see some of our great work later on.
Last week in English, Tortoiseshells finished their learning using the wonderful, wordless book 'Tuesday'. They were busy writing detailed newspaper reports to explain the peculiar events of Tuesday evening involving frogs floating on lilipads! This week Tortoiseshells were introduced to the book 'The Finger Eater' in a very dramatic way - ask them about this! They have been describing the trickster troll Ulf and creating wanted posters to warn small children of his disgraceful ways. I wonder what Gudrun will do next? Check our super examples of writing.
In Computing and online safety lessons, Tortoiseshells have been discussing the affects of too much screen time and ways to recognise this as well as how to take regular breaks. You will see some of these examples next time. They have also revised how to keep safe online - an ongoing important discussion! Zip it, Block it, Flag it.....
In P.S.C.H.E,Tortoiseshells began to discuss families and what they might look like. They looked at a range of jobs and discussed whether they can be carried out but females and males or both. They then considered the jobs that get completed at home and by whom. You'll see examples of how they sorted jobs into jobs for females or males, or both.
See you next time!
Examples of our fantastic collaborative learning
Examples of excellent learning in Maths and English
Spring Term 2021
Weeks 3 and 4
Wow, what a couple of weeks we have had with our remote learning. I don’t feel like I need to write much as the pictures and videos of the children’s work speaks for itself. Check out what Tortoiseshells have been up to with their remote learning from Science experiments to telling the time to rainforest layers! All the staff in Tortoiseshells are incredibly proud of all the children and the work they are producing! Keep it up Tortoiseshells!
Reading Dens
Postcards home
Science
Science Video 1
Arthur's amazing 'Good Growing Guided'
Science Video 2
Carys' 'Good Plant Guide'
Science Video 3
Topic
Maths
Art
English
Weeks 1 and 2
Welcome back to the Spring Term!
What a strange start to the new year we have with remote learning via MS Teams but we have some amazing things to learn about this term.
Rainforests, plants, telling the time, new texts to focus on in English, exciting home learning assignments and much more!
Mrs Campbell-Pugh, Miss Ward and Miss Serafin will be online and teaching live at 9am, 9.30am, 11am, 1pm and 2pm each day as well as Mrs Harvey on a Wednesday afternoon.
All the staff in Tortoiseshells are incredibly proud of each and everyone one of the children for taking on the new challenge of remote learning, over coming logging in issues, adapting to a new way of working, completing online assignments and quizzes and attending live lessons on time! You are proving to us all what an amazing and resilient class you are! Keep up the great work Tortoiseshells!
English
In English we have been looking at a new book called The Great Kapox Tree which links nicely to our topic of Rainforests! We have looked at pages of the book and made predictions about what might happen, written from an animals point of view and written 2 sides of an argument about whether or not 'logging' is a good thing.
Maths
In Maths we have been learning the time. Some children have been focusing on telling the time to o'clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past while others have been telling the time to the nearest 5 minutes. The challenge for some children is to tell the time to the enarest minute. We have also linked time to our Autumn Term topic of The Romans by looking at roman numerals and telling the time on anaolgue clocks. Time is such an important life skill and the teachers have been embedding this in the remote learning by telling the children what time they will be online for their next live lesson focusing on the key vocabulary used within the topic of time.
Topic
In our topic lessons we introduced our new topic of Rainforests which we have linked into English, Guided Reading and our Science topic of plants. We have looked at world maps to find where rainforests grown and making predictions as to why we think they grow aroudn the equator.
Art
In art with Mrs Harvey the children have been looking at some rainforest themed artwork linked to our topic and creating some of their own masterpieces.
Science
In Science we have started our new topic of plants and although the lessons look very different to how they might have done if we had been in the classroom, there is some fantastic work being produced by pupils. Check out this labelled plant as an example. Children in both years 2 and 3 need to know the parts of the plant and year 3 have been working hard to understand the 'job' of each part. Fun interactive quiz will be part of next weeks assignments to check the children remember the functions of the different parts of a plant.
Autumn Term 2020
First half term
Weeks 1-2
In English we have been looking at the book ‘Journey’ which is a fantastic picture book where each page has a red image that the little girl draws. We have looked at synonyms for colours and written poems, discussed the images, studied the pages, explored emotions that the images inspire as well as understanding the story behind the pictures.
In phonics and spelling we have been looking at the different graphemes and phonemes for ‘a’ and ‘e’ and what sounds they make in words.
In Maths we have been focusing on ‘counting’ by counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s. We have linked this repeated addition to multiplication and spotted patterns in these number sequences. We have used dice, counting sticks and denes to help us with our concrete learning.
In Science we have been learning all about FORCES and what they are. We have looked at what a force is and how all forces are a push or a pull on an object. We have also experimented the friction our shoes create on different surfaces such as carpet, grass and playground. We made predictions about which surface will have the most friction. The children had great fun carrying out this experiment.
In Topic we have been learning about the Romans. We recorded what we knew and what we wanted to find out about the Romans. The children ordered the events of the Roman Empire on a timeline with their work partners. We have learnt about the Roman Army. The girls were not impressed to learn that women were not allowed to be in the Roman Army. We learnt the difference between Legionaries and Auxiliaries, as your child if they can tell you the difference.
Weeks 3-4
Maths
In Maths we have been using Base 10 to support our learning with regrouping numbers and calculating 1 more/less, 10 more/less and 100 more/less than a given number. We have been applying our learning through a range of activities including games and matching tasks.
English
In English we have been inspire by Aladdin's magic carpet ride and the fantastic descriptive language used in the song 'A Whole New World.' We have been planning and writing recount of the story 'Journey' focusing on using synonyms for the colours red and purple, accurate punctuation, neat and joined up handwriting and using the 'power of 3' with commas to describe the characters and settings. Tortoiseshells have written some amazing pieces, we cant wait to share the completed pieces of work with everyone.
Science
In Science we have been exploring MAGNETS. We have tested what things are magnetic and what things are not. Most of the playground equipment was magnetic but Mrs Campbell-Pugh was not. We then tested 3 different types of magnets (Bar, Horseshoe and Wand) to see which were the most powerful when picking up metal paper clips. Mrs Campbell-Pugh wow'ed us all by picking up paper clips through a piece of paper!
Topic - Art
With Mrs Harvey we have been focusing on Roman mosaics. Using coloured pieces of paper we created mosaic pictures and then we made coasters using mosaic tiles. It has been good practice to develop our fine motor skills as well as our artistic flare.
Week 5-6
Maths
In Maths we have been learning about rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100. We have also be working with the greater than and less than and applying our knowledge in a variety of situations. Our way of remembering which direct they point is imagining they are crocodiles 'eating' the biggest number. We have also looked at the equal sign and what it means for numbers to be equal.
English
In English we have planned, written and published our recounts of the book Journey. We have also made some incredible art by designing our own worlds through the red door.
We are now reading a book called The Paperbag Princess. We made predictions based on the front cover for what we thought the story was going to be about. We have also discussed what we thought the various characters might be feeling and saying. We drew their speech in speech bubbles.
History
In Topic we have completed our learning about the Romans by looking at Roman baths. We researched what the Roman baths were like and designed information posters including pictures and writing. We then used the visualizer on the interactive whiteboard to present our posters, we focused on our speaking and listening skills. We projected our voices and made sure as an audience we showed we were listening. We learnt about Boudicca and her rebelling through role play which we then performed to the rest of the class.
Art
In Art we have made our own Roman shields using seeds with a focus on symmetry. They look truly amazing. It helped us practice our fine motor skills as the seeds were very small.
Scooter Skills
We had our scooter safety session in school. It was great fun and we learnt how to stay safe on our scooters when out and about. If you ask any member of Tortoiseshells we can tell you how to stay safe on your scooter!
Second half term
Weeks 1 and 2
Maths
In Maths we learnt about different units of measure and what we would measure different things in. What would you use to measure the LENGTH of your hair? How would you measure the WEIGHT of a pencil? What piece of equipment can you measure the VOLUME/MASS of a water bottle? We experimented with different scales, reading scales and made comparisons between different objects based on their weight, length and volume. Miss Nelson led a great quiz to check all the children's knowledge.
Science
In Science we have started our new topic of light, we have discuss what is a light source and what is a reflection, we discussed the moon and windows in great depth and concluded they are NOT light sources. We then collected cardboard boxes to carry out an experiment. We hid a range of objects under our boxes and started by making holes in the top of the box, we still couldn’t see into the box, we made holes in the side and some of us could see the outline of objects, we then shone a torch through one hole and looked through another and finally we could see what was in the box. Ask your child what conclusions they drew from the experiment.
Topic
We have been starting our new topic of The UK with a focus of rivers, coasts and mountains. We started off discussing where we live and the 4 countries that make up Great Britain including the capital cities of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We have been learning about a compass and the 8 points of a compass. To embed the learning the children went outside into the playground with their maps of the UK and ran between the giant compass points from the centre when directed to go in a certain direction from one country to another. One child commented "it is great I got to go to 4 countries in 5minutes!"
English
In English we have been learning about Dr Xargle's Earth Hounds and focusing on using punctuation correctly in our writing and how we can use subheading to record information. We also focused on how to use apostrophes for omission and possession.
We also wrote some acrostic poems for Rememberance Day using the words POPPY and SOLIDER.
We also relaunched NESSY with the whole school and in class we have had a good look at how to log in and set up the next game.
Weeks 3 and 4
Maths
In Maths we have been learning to rebalance after subtracting and adding 9 or 11, we have used a range of concrete resources to help use such as Base 10. We have started to look at different methods to help us solve addition and subtraction sums. As always we have been focusing on presentation of our numbers and ensuring all our numbers are formed correctly.
Science
In Science we have continued to cary out a range of experiments to do explore light. We made our own shadow puppets and tested them out using a light source of our choice, a torch. We had to remember to pull the blinds down and turn off the lights to make the classroom as dark as possible. We also experimented with our 'dark den' to see what colours were easier to see than others without a light source.
In every lesson we have focused on asking scientific questions, making predictions, exploring ways to record our experiments. We have had great fun. We also had the opportunity to explain our learning to Mrs Campbell-Pugh via a virtual conference.
English
In English we have continued to focus on using the correct punctuation in our writing with a key focus on CAPITAL LETTERS. We have developed our use of conjunctions to expand our sentences and join 2 sentences together. We finished our work on the book Dr Xargle's Earth Hounds and looked at a new book called Mini Rabbit NOT LOST. Ask anyone in Tortoiseshells about either book and we can tell you all about them.
We also got a chance to share our fantastic work with Mrs Campbell-Pugh via virtual meetings on Microsoft Teams which was great fun.
Weeks 5 and 6 - Maths
In Maths we having been playing games like RISKY using playing cards to add up to and subtract down from 100. It is great fun and gives us the chance to apply our knowledge of mental calculations. We have been using Base 10 as a concrete resource to help us explain our learning using the correct mathematical terminology.
Week 5 and 6 - Art and DT
In Art we did some pointillist paintings by creating river scenes linking to our topic of River and Mountains. In DT we made Leaning Towers of Piza linking to our previous topic of Romans. It was tricky to deliberately make our work ‘wonky’ like the Piza.
Week 5 and 6 - English
In English we have been looking at our class book ‘Mini Rabbit NOT LOST’ and we have been focusing on improving our sentence openers, developing our written knowledge of speech marks and focusing as always on the correct use of CAPITAL LETTERS. The children have really enjoyed this book and have been able to write descriptive pieces to describe the pages of the book.
Week 7 - Christmas Jumpers
