Spring 23
Welcome to the spring term in Year 2. On this page you will find information about topics, activities and our timetable .
Our theme for this term is
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Get ready to take to the high seas and set sail in search of treasure! This term, we’ll learn about the famous Welsh Pirate, Barti Ddu and write information portraits based on his life. Our reading corner will be filled with exciting and adventurous pirate stories and non-fiction texts which will inspire us to write our very own four-part pirate stories based on what we have learned about Bart Ddu. We will have ‘The Royal Fortune’ roleplay area in class and pretend we are the crew of Barti Ddu’s famous ship. As a class we will learn and perform a poem about the most famous Welsh pirate and perform it for the rest of the school during our St.David’s day celebrations.
Our science and technology skills will help us to understand how boats float. We intend on visiting Burry Port Harbour and the RNLI station to find out all about boats, ships and water safety. We will have our very own RNLI lifeboat station set up in the classroom! We will be part of the crew, wearing the uniform, answering important calls from people in distress and taking our first aid kit and boat out onto the choppy seas to rescue them! Using all this knowledge, we’ll design and make model ships using a variety of materials, making decisions about the shapes, materials and methods we will use.
In expressive arts, we’ll study a variety of ‘seascape’ pictures from a fantastic American artist called Matthew Cusick. He is known for collaging maps into wonderful seascape pictures. We will then use what we have learned about the technique he uses to create our own. We’ll even find out how to talk and sing like a pirate! Listening to and learning a variety of sea shanties and playing a variety of percussion instruments along with them.
In our investigation area…what’s that…It’s a message in a bottle…but who wrote it? What does it say? We will be developing our sense of wonder and our questioning skills to find out more!
Pirates were amazing navigators so we will be developing our map reading skills to help us identify different places on the Welsh map as well as seas and oceans around the world. We will be learning about the history of Welsh shipwrecks, starting with our very own shipwreck on Pembrey Sands. Stories of pirates will inspire us to make pirate flags and treasure maps.
Our maths skills will help us to describe the position of objects on our treasure maps and directional language will make sure that we can find the buried treasure by helping us to move along grids using treasure maps. Money will also be a focus for Maths where we will apply our skills to see how much loot those pesky pirates have stolen.
Shiver me timbers; it’s going to be good!
Remember in our EPIC pupil voice sessions it's your ideas that count so get your thinking caps on ... what would YOU like to find out about Barti Ddu and his pirate friends?
We will finish off the Spring term by looking at the Christian celebration of Easter and all the new life that comes with the beautiful season of Spring.