Brain Day, Halloween and Loy Krathong- two busy weeks!

Wow! -the last two weeks have been so busy, packed with learning and special events. Here is a round up of them.

Brain day focused on what we should eat and drink to keep our brains healthy. The children learned that the brain needs water with Mr Carey and they did an experiment using flowers to see how they absorb water, much like our brains.

The flower experiment

Water is good for our brains

Ms Griffiths helped the children learn what a healthy plate of food looks like-making sure it has a balance of food groups.

Ms Sherlock looked at a story about processed food and taught a song to help us remember our brain food. On Friday in assembly Year 2 sang the song for the whole of the Primary school.

Some of the children were still dressed in Halloween costumes as they chose to dress up in their Golden Time.

A spooky looking Year 2

Last week we found out what the children know about the Heroines. They were shown photographs of the Heroines Monument and asked who they thought the people were and how they have Made A Difference. We got a wide variety of ideas! We will now begin finding out more about them.
We will be continuing to read a wide variety of information texts including biographies with the children to find out about different people from the past and considering how they have Made A Difference to our lives.

In Maths the children have been collecting data using tally charts and representing the information on bar charts. This has involved them in problem solving activities in small groups-considering how the information which involves large numbers can be shown and read easily.

Working together to solve a Maths problem

Thursday was extremely colourful as we celebrated Loy Krathong. The costumes that the children wore were amazing and so were the Krathongs that they made. Thank you to all the parents who came along to help and join in this wonderful day.

 On Friday BISP hosted the biggest Football Tournament we have ever had with over 1000 children from across Asia playing football games. Well done to Tegan who played in the Under 9 Girls Team. She played so well, gave her best  and never gave up!

Finally a huge Well Done to our Year 2 Stars of the week-we are very proud of you! And we would like to welcome Rawad and his family to BISP, we hope you will enjoy being part of this friendly community.

Our stars!

Who has Made A Difference to us?

Our new topic has got off to a great start this week with the children full of questions. The topic is 'I Made A Difference in the Past' and we will be learning which people have made a difference to our lives and how. On Monday Ms Sherlock, Ms Griffiths and Mr Carey dressed up as famous people from the past who have Made A Difference and the children had to ask questions to discover their identities.
They discovered that Ms Sherlock was Jane Goodall who has made a difference to wild animals and encouraged people to look after their environment. Ms Griffiths was J. K. Rowling who has made a difference by making reading exciting for millions of young people, and Mr Carey was one of the Wright Brothers who made a difference by adding a motor to an aeroplane, enabling us all to travel further quickly.

We will now be starting to find out who the Heroines are and why there is a statue of them in Phuket.

Brain Day
On Tuesday we had our Brain Day and learned which foods are 'Brain Foods'. We found out that natural foods are best,  not processed foods and that fish, nuts, avocado's and blueberries are super foods. Ask your child to sing the Brain Food song to you-it's very catchy!

Phonics
This week the children chose which Phonics group they should join. After showing them the different sounds we would be learning in each group they thought about what they needed to learn to develop their reading and writing. We are approaching Phonics teaching in this way to give the children some control over their learning and encourage them to think about their learning and what they need to do to improve. This also means that they are not in an ability group but join a group for specific sounds that they are unsure of. The groups will change each week.   We were thrilled to find that the children approached this very sensibly, choosing appropriately (they joined the groups exactly as we would have placed them!).

Halloween
On Friday it is Halloween. It is also our Golden Time! So we have invited the children to bring in some simple Halloween clothes to wear during Golden Time if they wish to.

Swimming
Please note-there are no swimming lessons for Year 2 this half term. Instead the children have 2 PE lessons each week so please wear PE kits on Mondays and Wednesdays. Children will be doing Fusball and Tennis during these lessons. Please make sure they bring a water bottle and a hat.  Swimming lessons will begin again after Christmas.

Loy Krathong
On Thursday 6th November the school will celebrate Loy Krathong. For this lovely celebration we ask all children to wear traditional Thai clothes. At 10:40am we will be making Krathongs in our classrooms and we invite all parents to come and join in. Following this (around 11:00am) we will walk to the pond in front of the main school building where we will float the Krathongs.

Uniform
Children should wear their school uniform with black shoes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (the days that they don't have PE).  If they need to wear sports clothes for an after school activity they should bring these in their school bag and change before the activity.

Hats

Our school has a rule,  NO HAT = NO PLAY IN THE SUN!
Therefore please make sure that your child has  a hat with their name in it so they will be able to play with their friends outside.