Amazing Easter art, LB2! Have a Happy Easter, everyone.

Today is Earth Day which has been celebrated every April 22nd since 1970. The aim of Earth Day is to raise awareness of the damage done to the environment.

You might like to try Google’s doodle for the day – a relaxing game where you control a bee visiting flowers and which will teach you lots of things about how important bees are: google.co.uk

Why not find out about some of the wildlife around where you live by learning the names of the birds that you can see from your own home? There is more information on what to do in the video below or read the text at the bottom…

If the video does not play in your browser, click here.

Objective: To be able to recognise and name at least six different British birds.

Quick bird spotting guides:  Sheet 1   Sheet 2

How: Spend half an hour a day for a week quietly recording the birds you can see from a window. Putting out some food can help if you have any but avoid bread at this time of year as it is not good for chicks.

Can you find out which is the most common bird to visit your garden?

Challenge: Can you think of an investigation to carry out as you bird watch? Perhaps you think different birds will come at different times of the day – how could you find out? Or maybe you could investigate the birds’ favourite food? (Try sorting out some mixed bird seed). 

Mrs Bowen brings you a simple art project to try at home. If the picture doesn’t show in the video, download the file here.

Dear Parents and Carers,

Over the last few days, we have come across lots of online resources that are available to support children’s learning at home during the unprecedented times. This list is by no means exhaustive, nor are we promoting anything in particular, but we thought we’d share some of them with you. All children have different learning styles and interests – maybe something below will click! We will also update our learning packs on the class pages as time goes on.

With very best wishes from the staff of Lickey Hills PSN.

https://www.themathsfactor.com/ THIS IS GREAT!! Carol Vordermann is offering free access to her great website for maths offering games, challenges and daily lessons to support learning. There are motivational medals to earn too… Also lots of fun times tables games at https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/times-tables . Finally – great online, live lessons and follow up activities from Gareth Metcalf at http://www.iseemaths.com/home-lessons/

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/ – Fantastic resources and games for reading, writing, spelling and maths.

Some lovely reading opportunities to share at https://www.storylineonline.net/

https://www.literacyshed.com/home.html Go to The Literacy Shed for some great ideas for story writing. The Literacy Trust have developed a fantastic portal of resources for families – go to https://literacytrust.org.uk/family-zone/ . Also there’s a list of virtual author activities at https://www.weareteachers.com/virtual-author-activities/

Joe Wicks – The Body Coach is running a daily workout, Monday – Friday at 9am. https://www.thebodycoach.com/blog/pe-with-joe-1254.html?fbclid=IwAR13SHNgsUZEGLVRZYjbFzTf8PDAJvD4I8BxOASuWkVmjSNI6fsKHP1vs40

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zhyb4wx (KS1) and https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zxsvr82 (KS2) to practise your Spanish skills

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/mar/23/10-of-the-worlds-best-virtual-museum-and-art-gallery-tours The Guardian published 10 of the World’s best virtual museum and art gallery tours – but this list is not exhaustive!! The Tate Modern, for example, will give you some ideas for really crazy art to try!!

https://kids.sandiegozoo.org/ Learn about all the animals around the world!

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/ for geography and science ideas and fascinating facts. https://bpes.bp.com/the-emperors-new-clothes Some great science activities on BP’s website for Primary children – including this fun activity to help the Emperor find the right clothes for each season!

More science fun at https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/collections/primary-games/1

Here are some of the wonderful things we have been busy with in LB2 this half term:

We have studied the BFG and created our own words, complete with definitions. We have also discussed how we can work out what words mean from their roots, similar words we know and the context of a passage. LB2 then created their own dream writing. Our display is very eye-catching. Now, we have moved on to writing complete stories based on our second significant author’s work, Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Our stories range from How The Hedgehog Got His Prickles to How the Peacock Got Its Tail and How The Flamingo Got A Body Like A Brain to How The Cheetah Became So Fast.

In maths, LB2 has been hard at work on multiplication and division. We are so good at our higher times tables and the related division facts!

Our new art work based on China and our Chinese New Year lanterns and riddles are also stunning. 

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to our open afternoon. The children  and staff loved having you here.  We all had fun joining in some of our daily activities and listening games.

In case you wanted something to revise over half term, our words of the day for the last three weeks have been:

howling, excruciating, idle; disagreeable, mischievous, inquisitive; exclaimed, responded, commented

They are all to do with our Just So Stories.

Have a great half term.

Whether it is drama for writing, writing our own story introduction, exploring character in our new book, Tin Forest, Celtic art, shields for theme, ancient hill forts or mountains in different medium, LB2 have worked hard to produce some stunning, insightful and imaginative work. What an amazing first half term! Well done LB2!

In LB2 we have been very busy this month. In maths, we are concentrating on larger numbers. In Literacy, we have been studying Tuesday and have become detectives investigating a strange case of flying frogs. We have written some amazing police reports. We have built hill forts (complete with sheep) in our theme lessons and our art work is outstanding. Every day we learn a new word in our word of the day. This week’s words are neighbour, mention and popular. We are using our new words in our written work. What a great start to the year.

Is our school field just grass with the occasional daisy? Far from it as LB2 found out when they took plant identification charts outside and found a large range of wild flowers lurking between the tufts of grass.