This week Year 2 have had a visit from some nocturnal animals to give their ‘Dark Nights, Bright Lights’ topic a Fabulous Finish. The animals were enchanting!  We also created invented our own animals, imaging a creature perfectly adapted for living in a lighthouse.  Lighthouses have been a big focus for us this month as we have been learning all about the evolution of the incredible Eddystone Lighthouse; been making our own lighthouse; and writing lighthouse stories in English!

We had started our topic back in January with a Super Start with a visit from an inflatable planetarium when the night sky came to life for us! We started the year by making a new friend: Plop, the barn owl who is afraid of the dark! He showed us that ‘dark is exciting’ and our ‘Dark Nights, Bright Lights’ topic exploded into life with firework work descriptions and artworks with paint and glitter. We also enjoyed bringing Plop, the owl who was afraid of the dark, to life through the girls’ art work. We drew owls, then developed our fine motor skills: tearing, shaping and sticking, to build up textual collage portraits of Plop.

The classes also crafted our own non-fiction mini-books about Nocturnal creatures in the UK and Australia. In February, we completed the class book, ‘The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’ by Jill Tomlinson and explored Van Gogh’s Starry Nights, both part of our ‘Dark Nights, Bright Lights’ integrated curriculum journey.

Earlier in March we enjoyed hearing all about the daring historical escapades of Grace Darling and the wonderful ‘Lighthouse Keeper’ series of stories in English. Our ‘Missing Posters’ will definitely reunite the Lighthouse Keepers with their missing cat! We also explored ‘The Starry Night’ led by Katie Morag who climbed into the painting in ‘Katie’s Picture Gallery’ before creating our own versions in pastels.