Once upon a Tyne in Year 2!

20/10/22

This half-term has been jam-packed for the pupils in Year 2!
Our topic, ‘Once upon a Tyne’, has led us on an exploration of our local area.

The maps we used to locate Newcastle upon Tyne, the Quayside, the bridges, the mouth of the Tyne and the source of the river!
The Tyne Bridge being built!

After locating key places and features along our maps, we began to think about the physical and human features in our local area. We were most interested in the bridges over the River Tyne, which we studied in detail! We learnt the names of the bridges, where they are, who uses them, when they were built and what they are made from!

The children worked together to create a timeline, looking at the date each bridge was finished being built and ordering these chronologically!

We considered where to put our bridge, and who would benefit from it most. Should it be for cyclists to reduce the pollution from transport vehicles? Or should it be in the countryside to make it safer for dog walkers and hikers? Or even in the city, connecting people to the increasing restaurants and cafes in the Ouseburn? We decided on our location then got onto designing the bridge!

We became journalists and wrote newspaper articles about the new bridge designs, remembering to include a headline, a picture and lots of information!

An example of the brilliant writing that our pupils produced!

And, of course, we went on to build our bridges as part of Art and DT week! We were so creative and imaginative!

Meanwhile, something exciting was happening in Literacy too. Little Red Riding Hood was lost! We were provided with maps and clues to her whereabouts and using our map reading skills we were able to find out where she was. Then we wrote some fantastic directions for Grandma to be reunited with Little Red!

An example of the maps we used to practise our navigation skills!
The children loved listening to the clues and finding out where Little Red Riding Hood was.
The fabulous directions that we produced!

Trip to the Discovery Museum
Year 2 enjoyed a trip to the Discovery Museum. We explored the exhibitions which supported our topic ‘Once upon a Tyne’ so much! The ‘Story of the Tyne’ exhibition had models of the bridges, large 3D maps of the River Tyne and models of the creatures that have habitats along the river too.
We took part in a building bridges workshop that taught us the skills we used when building our own bridges!
Special thanks to the parent helpers that volunteered their time to help!

It has been a fantastic, fun-filled half-term and we cannot wait to see what Autumn 2 brings!
Well done for being Caring, Courageous, Creative and Curious this half-term, Year 2!
Miss Stewart