Topaz Class
Teachers: Miss Pennell and Mrs Wilson
Adults in Class: Mrs Loveridge, Miss Dean, Mrs Davies and Miss Grainger
Topaz Class yearly overview 2023-2024
Topaz Class Planning Pathway Autumn 2023
Topaz Class Spring term learning pathway 2024
Topaz class pathway planning summer 2024
Welcome to Topaz Class! We are a Year 2 and Year 3 class. We have had a busy start to our new term and we are excited about the learning to come in our pathways for the year ahead. Please see the documents above for our yearly overview and our planning pathways. Please also keep visiting our class website page as we will update it fortnightly.
Our PE days are Monday and Tuesday. Children need a named water bottle in school and a named jumper/ cardigan and coat.
You will see that we have given each child a decodable reading book and record. Please bring into school each day so that we can hear them read and give them with a new book at the end of the week. We would also like you to show in their reading record that your child has read their decodable reading book 3x a week with you (once for decoding, once for fluency and once for comprehension). Children will also be able to bring home a book to read with you for pleasure at home. These can be changed on a Friday morning from our class library.
16th July
We had a DT day, where we learnt about different mechanisms such as a lever, slide and wheel. We then designed and made our own moving picture. It was a challenge but we persevered and enjoyed sharing our final result with our friends. Afterwards, we evaluated our moving picture. We found that the wheel was the most difficult mechanism to make and we all enjoyed creating our backgrounds.
15th July
In English this week, we have been learning about poetry. We have learnt what a simile is and how we can use it in a poem. We then created our own poems about ourselves and summer and performed them to the class. We have really enjoyed being creative in our lessons.
We created a 3D sculpture using everyday materials based on Norman Rockwell’s Man on the Moon painting. We were very proud of our rockets.
8th July
In History this term, we have been learning about timelines and explorers. We plotted the significant individuals that we have been studying on a timeline according to their year of birth. We then found out about different explorers; Tim Peake, Amelia Earhart and Christopher Colombus. We used a range of resources to research and shared our learning with the class. We used the Dawson’s model to discuss each explorer’s significance and impact.
27th June
Yesterday, we visited Bristol Aerospace to build on our class learning in history, which asks the question, ‘Who is the greatest explorer?’ We went on a journey of aviation history looking in detail at the museum and then explored the amazing Concorde. We learnt lots in our workshop on travelling into space too. We even got to fly the rockets we made!
Today, as we had enjoyed the rocket workshop so much yesterday on our trip, we made our own rockets, improving our designs from the workshop. We were able to test them out with our own launcher.
We have taken part in various sporting activities over the last couple of days in addition to our weekly PE sessions. They have really inspired us to take part in sports and to keep going! Firstly, we had a ‘Sports trail’. We played a dice game in groups, followed by balancing activities and throwing and catching skills.
We were also really lucky enough to have a visit from basketball player, Corey Samuels. After a school assembly, he worked with Topaz on fitness activities which we all put maximum effort into!
Our orienteering session was very successful in Topaz. We managed to find many of the clues and worked really well as part of a team. We showed some very good observational skills!
21st June
Last Friday, we really enjoyed our Topaz Showcase. Here, we were able to show our parents our recent learning as well as take part in some new learning activities with our adults. We were very keen to make cardboard lighthouses that linked to our learning in English with our text, ‘The lighthouse Keeper’s lunch’. We also liked sharing books from our author of the term Mairi Hedderwick and challenging each other to some maths games races! Thank you to all the parents and grandparents that came, we really appreciated your visit!
We also really enjoyed our visit from the Dog’s Trust this week. We listened really well to how to treat dogs respectfully and safely. We were really enthusiastic and thoughtful about the role play activities and we loved talking about what new things we had learnt.
Topaz Class also had a visit from Susannah from SARI charity. We listened to the story The Proudest Blue and used this story to explore protected characteristics, feelings and what would we say to each character. The children suggested standing up for themselves, walking away and telling a trusted adult.
7th June 2024 – Term 6
Topaz have had a busy start back to Term 6.
This week, we have been very excited to take part in our Enterprise challenge for the school fair. We decided to make keyrings to sell. First we talked about designs people might like in a key ring and then planned our ideas for our own unique keyrings. We then carefully created them. We were really proud of what we had made and are looking forward to seeing how much money we can make for the school by selling them. Hopefully, the posters we made to advertise them will do the trick!
This week, we have also really enjoyed taking part in a Frisbee golf session. We learnt how to throw a frisbee correctly and catch it. We enjoyed working as part of a pair and then a team!
We have also been busy learning our new English text, ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’. We have been learning the text using actions and then created our own picture story maps. We have talked about the characters’ thoughts and feelings during the story and enjoyed hot seating the characters to gain greater understanding.
20th May 2024
15th May 2024
Topaz class have been learning all about the skills needed for invasion games. We have been learning how to defend and gain possession of the ball.
We also really enjoyed our robotics workshop. We had lots of fun programming and controlling the robots.
In English we have been finding out about Neil Armstrong. We have learnt a lot of facts and we are going to use these to write a persuasive letter about why Neil Armstrong is the best space explorer.
29th April 2024
We have had a busy start back to the Summer Term.
In English, we have been reading and learning our new text, ‘The Legend of George and the Dragon’. We have hot seated the characters to explore the characters’ thoughts and feelings. We have also freeze framed important parts of the story to discuss our ideas about it in more detail. This week we will be writing our own Legend stories using a predator that we have created ourselves. We look forward to sharing them.
We have also been focussing on our Common Exception word challenge each afternoon to see how quickly we can read and then spell our common exception words. There is quite a competition developing!
In Jigsaw, we have started our new Jigsaw piece on Relationships. Our first piece focusses on family. We have learnt that our families are all different but they all show love and caring for each other and that we need to learn how to share and co-operate. We created our own recipes for a happy family. We had lots of ideas such as ‘A cup of magic’; ‘ A spoonful of love’; ‘A bucket of fun’. What great recipes we made!
20th March 2024
Topaz class enjoyed a lovely afternoon, in the sunshine drawing pictures of our school grounds. We looked closely at things we could see in the background such as the houses and trees.
In PE we have been using the skills we have learnt over the term to play a striking and fielding game. The batter had to try and score as many runs as possible whilst the fielders, back stop and bowler had to try and get the batter out.
In our geography lessons we used the globes to locate the Equator, North and South Pole. We learnt that anything north of the Equator was in the Northern Hemisphere and anything south of the Equator was in the Southern Hemisphere. We then looked closely at a map to discover countries that are hot and cold in relation to the Equator.
8th March 2024
Topaz had a wonderful day out on our trip to Bristol Zoo Project last week. We linked our school science learning about animals to both our African Workshop and our exploring of the Zoo. We even managed to spot Meerkats which we found so exciting as it linked to our Meerkat Mail English text. They looked just like the main character, Sunny!
We have enjoyed world book day this week. We liked talking about the characters we had come dressed up as and the books they were from. We listened to stories when the teachers ‘swapped’ classes and had fun learning about books with the activities in class- the scavenger hunt was our favourite!
In Jigsaw, we have been learning about keeping our bodies healthy. This week, we focussed on the word ‘relaxing’, thinking about what it means and how it feels to be relaxed. We worked with a partner to rank the pictures from most to least relaxed and talked about the reasons why. We then discussed our own ideas about how we relax and why it is important.
We have been busy making some wonderful surprises for a special Sunday this weekend. Topaz can’t wait to show you the real things, but here is a peak at us making them.
22nd February 2024
Topaz class have had a brilliant and busy first week back to the new term. We have started our new unit in PE – striking and fielding. We talked about the roles of the batter and fielders and practised our rolling and underarm throwing.
In Geography we have started to learn about human and physical geographical features of the UK. We discussed features that were made by humans such as a road, buildings and bridges and physical features such as a cliff, beach and forest.
In our English lessons, we have started to look at the story Meerkat Mail. We have sequenced the story and thought about questions we could ask the main character – Sunny. Then we were able to hot seat Sunny. We are really enjoying this story.
2nd February 2024
In English, we have been thinking about our instruction text, ‘How to trap a wolf’. We have been working in groups to think of other ‘bad’ characters in traditional tales and how we could trap them. Now we have our ideas ready (which include trapping various wicked witches and wicked stepmothers), we can write our own instructions using the structure from our model text and it’s language features.
In Jigsaw we have been focussing on ‘Dreams and Goals’. Last week we thought about ‘realistic’ challenges and how it makes us feel when we achieve something we know is hard, but in the end, possible. We looked at steps on a ladder and how building small steps helps us to achieve something big. We worked in groups to meet the challenge of learning verses from ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ or learning the numbers 1-10 in Mandarin. We created our own steps and the reported back about what things other people did to help us achieve our goal. We were very proud of what we did!
This week, in Jigsaw, we worked on our ‘Dreams and Goals’ imaginary bird in groups. We talked about what made our group successful and how we dealt with any problems. We thought carefully about what things other people did to help us reach our own goals and what we can do for ourselves.
19th January 2024
We have been enjoying using the Rekenreks in maths during our Mastering Number sessions. We have looked closely at how using ‘5 and a bit’ helps us to use numbers confidently and helps us to spot patterns.
In our other maths learning, we have been learning about fractions- recognising and finding half and recognising and finding a quarter. We have used paper, shapes and a range of manipulatives to help us solve fraction questions.
In English, we have enjoyed reading and learning our Red Riding Hood text. We have learnt the story with role play, actions and a story map. We have also now made our own changes to the story to make it our own. Today we ‘boxed up’ our plan so that we could write our own Red Riding Hood story next week.
Our Author of the new term is now Oliver Jeffers. We have enjoyed reading some of his books this week. If we have any at home we can bring them in to share!
15th December 2023
In maths, we have been learning how to add 2 digit numbers together. We have been using base 10 and other manipulatives to help us. We have also been practising our number bonds as this helps us when we are adding.
Class Showcase
We really enjoyed showing our parents, grandparents and carers the wonderful learning we have done this term during our Topaz showcase. We were very proud to talk to them about the learning that has taken place through the autumn term across the curriculum.
Christmas activities
We really enjoyed making hats ready for our Christmas lunch this week!
7th December 2023
We have had a very busy couple of weeks in Topaz class. We have been working hard practising our Nativity play and we can’t wait to show you all next week.
Art
In Art we have been learning about Vincent van Gogh. We learnt about his life and the types of paintings he made. The piece of artwork we studied was ‘the Starry Night’. As artists we looked at the techniques he used and tried to replicate them in our own artwork. We noticed that Vincent van Gogh used small brush strokes and used straight and circular lines to create movement.
Here is some of our fantastic artwork.
Maths
In Maths we have been adding and subtracting. We started with number bonds and this week we have been looking at 10 more and 10 less. In pairs, using 10 more/less questions we played a whole class game of bingo! We used 100 squares to help us.
Our author this term is Jeremy Strong and we have been enjoying reading some of his books. We really loved ‘Chicken Licken’ even though it did not have a happy ending! We are now reading a chapter book ‘The Hundred Mile An Hour Dog’, we think this one is very funny and look forward to a chapter every day.
Ravenswood
We have been lucky enough to have some students from Ravenswood come into school to work with us. They have been setting up sport activities that we have all taken part in and enjoyed the experience of meeting new friends.
PE
This term in PE we are doing Dance. The last 2 weeks we have been creating a dance called ‘Secret Garden’. We have been moving and dancing like bees and other garden creatures. We have been using 8 counts to make a sequence of movements and are developing our mirroring skills.
Our author of the term is Kes Gray and we have enjoyed learning about some of his books. We have especially enjoyed ‘Oi Frog’, predicting the endings of each page using rhyme. Please talk to your children about this author and find out which book is their favourite. Maybe they could find a Kes Gray book in the local library or at home and bring it in to show us.
In phonics each day, we have been re-visiting our Year 1 sounds as well as learning our new sounds for Year 2. Please look for the sounds cards and CEW cards in your child’s book bag to continue the practice of these at home.
We have started our new scheme ‘Jigsaw’, and the children have already been talking about worries, hopes and fears they might have in a new class and how to overcome them. We have talked about responsibility and the children really enjoyed talking about actions that are ‘responsible’ and which ones are the MOST responsible. Maybe at home they could think about ways they are responsible or how you could encourage them to be responsible around the house. We’d love to hear them report back at school!
Maths
In maths we have been looking at partitioning numbers and place value. We have been using the new rekenreks to help us find doubles and near doubles.
English
In English we have been looking at features of non-chronological reports. We have been learning how to use ? and ! to keep our writing interesting for the reader. We have been learning some fascinating facts about monkeys!
Topic
We have been learning about the Great Fire of London. We have been using our reading time to look through books (both non-fiction and fiction) about the Great Fire.
We looked and handled some replica artefacts. We were a bit shocked by the bucket!
“It isn’t very big”
“It’s soft on the outside and furry on the inside”
“I think the water will leak out!”
Art
We have been exploring colour mixing. This week we have been creating a background for a Great Fire of London scene. We looked at some different art work that portrayed fire. We had mixed views on what we thought. Some of us thought that the more realistic art works were better, but some of us preferred the more abstract art.
We can’t wait to show you our finished pieces!
Harvest
To celebrate harvest, worked in groups to make ‘Being Thankful’ wreaths.
We thought about things we were thankful for. We enjoyed walking down to the church and sharing them as part of our Harvest Service.
English
We are really proud of the non-chronological reports we have just written. Based on our model text, ‘Monkeys’, we created our own monkey and became the experts of it. We then wrote about what it looked like; what it ate; where it lived and how it behaved. Our monkeys were very interesting creatures!
RE
We have been thinking about what Christians learn about God from hymns and stories. We talked about how a Christian might describe God and talked about him being friendly; loving; forgiving; creative; powerful and caring. We worked in groups to make posters of this.
This week, we had a First Aid workshop where we learnt about CPR and what to do in emergency. 
In RE, we have been learning the ‘Big Story’ of Jesus’ birth. We have been acting out parts of the story, thinking about: What surprised us? What interested us? What puzzled us? We have also made our own 3D scenes of the nativity scene.
