Year 2's Madagascan Adventure

Year 2 arrived at the start of the Summer Term to find their archway decorated with the characters from the Madagascar film! The pupils loved the story and started to look after their toy lemurs, delivered in a packing crate, just like the story in the film.

The pupils quickly moved on to finding out all about the real island of Madagascar, discovering all sorts of things, such as the fact that it is the 4^th largest island in the world. They researched lemurs, particularly ring tailed ones, indigenous to Madagascar and used new apps to create fact sheets.

The children have been reading ‘Into the Jungle’ by Katherine Rundell and, through the story of Bagheera, debated animals in captivity. Year 2 thought about whether this was right and produced some thoughtful artwork to accompany their story writing.

In the second half term, the children have learnt all about vanilla, which Madagascar farms and exports more of than any other country. They have learnt how the vanilla is processed, what it is used for and, most importantly, tried baking with the real Madagascan vanilla in St Peter's 8-13 cooking lab, They made some delicious vanilla cupcakes!

Year 2 decided to raise money for the charity ‘Vanilla for Change’ which is committed to giving a fair price to vanilla farmers in Madagascar. The charity links Unicef with Walls ice cream manufacturers, so, of course, the children also made their own vanilla ice cream! Through charity work, the pupils have learnt about the lives of children in Madagascar and were encouraged to discuss how lucky they are, to live where they do and to go to this lovely school. Year 2 made some lovely adverts describing St Peter's School, as a way of acknowledging their gratitude.

Finally, the pupils worked together to bake vanilla biscuits, to sell for their chosen charity, 'Vanilla for Change'. The children took these home and parents were asked to make voluntary contributions. It’s been a brilliant term of learning, fun and delicious food!

Mrs Hall said ‘What started as an opportunity to read the story and watch the film of ‘Madagascar’ grew into a fascinating theme, learning about communities in different parts of the world, understanding how they make money to live and taking on the responsibility of raising some money to help. Along the way we loved finding out about the amazing wildlife on the island and wrote some brilliant stories!’

Andrey:

I loved making the African T shirts and wearing them to the drumming workshop

Arabella:

I liked learning about lemurs as they are so soft and cute.

Olivia: 

I enjoyed trying lots of food with vanilla in it and then baking!