Autumn Term 2023
W.C 18the December 2023
Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We'll see you back on Wednesday 3rd January.
W.C 11th December 2023
Our last full week of the year and a jam packed one at that. In English we’ve started another new book, this one is called ‘House Held up by Trees’. We’ve talked about seeds and trees, used conjunctions, made predictions, written sentences with adverbs to describe verbs and sequenced using words such as first, next, after that and finally to put events into order.
In Maths we’ve continued to learn about money, using coins and notes. We’ve been counting a combination of the two, making the same amount, choosing money, using the inequality signs to compare amounts of money and calculating with money. I said our week was jam-packed and I wasn’t joking! We’re going full steam ahead. In our topic lessons this week we’ve completed our learning about votes for women in History and Lincolnshire in Geography so we have finished the unit with a knowledge quiz in each subject. This week has been concentrated on our Design and Technology project which this term was to turn a staple food into a festive treat. We taste tested lots of different types of bread then designed and made our own bread, drawing out our festive ideas then weighing out ingredients for a bread dough, forming it into a savoury cheese wreath and a sweet chocolate Christmas tree. We evaluated our designs and had the opportunity to taste our very own festive bread!
PE lessons and art rounded off our week along with a spelling test. Spellings for Friday 5th January are as follows:
replied, fried, relied, multiplied, supplied, copied, spied, applied, identified, magnified
The end is in sight with the last few days ahead before our Christmas break. On Wednesday we are lucky to have a theatre company coming to school to perform a pantomime for us, Sleeping Beauty. This will be followed by carols around the tree after lunch which is open for everyone to attend. We hope to see you there!
W.C 4th December
A jam-packed week with loads going on. We’ve been dancing our socks off in PE and celebrating a delicious Christmas dinner whilst wearing our Christmas jumpers this week, didn’t we all look festive! In Maths we’ve been finishing off our work on shape looking at vertices of 3D shapes, sorting them and making patterns with both 2D and 3D shapes. Then we have officially finished with shape! We have moved on to money, counting in pence and then counting in pounds.
In English this week we’ve been writing away, this time writing a non-chronological report about a variety of animals – foxes, tigers, polar bears, emperor penguins and sharks. We have written under subheadings about their appearance and diet, their habitats and some interesting facts about them. For example, did you know that tiger wee smells like buttered popcorn?!
In Geography we had the opportunity to walk around Sleaford in small groups looking at the human features of our town. In History we completed our learning about women’s Suffrage by considering how our lives have changed now due to the events and the important women of 100 years ago. In Science we looked at how habitats provide for the needs of the animals that live there by investigating simple food chains, looking at predators and prey, scavengers as well as consumers and producers. In PSHE we continued to look at the assumptions and stereotypes made about boys and girls.
On Friday we had a visitor from Sleaford Community Larder who came to thank us for our generous food donations which will go towards making Christmas hampers for families in need. Thank you so much for your support in making this a huge success, we know that times are tough and we really appreciate how much everyone gave. We also presented them with a cheque for the money raised by the Three Peaks Challenge which was completed over the summer by a number of staff at school. Miss Cragg has just about recovered 4 months later!
Spellings for next week are:
Replies, copies, carries, supplies, flies, tries, cries, babies, spies, lorries
Have a lovely festive weekend!
W.C 27th November
A nice start to our week with a trip to visit Father Phillip at St Denys church in the market place. We have been learning about Christianity in our RE lessons so Father Phillip showed us the font where he christens babies into the Christian faith and the altar where people get married and have funerals. A different week to what we’ve been used to as the whole school has been doing assessments. We have completed tests in arithmetic and reasoning in Maths, 2 reading papers (these were tricky!), a spelling test, a grammar test and a Science test. We have worked so hard and tried our best. We should all be really proud of ourselves!
We’ve squeezed a few other lessons into the week too, Maths lessons on 3D shapes counting the faces and counting the edges. We’ve done PSHE for the first time in a little while, looking at the assumptions we make based on gender, talking about girls liking football and boys sometimes having long hair. In Science we explored different habitats and still fit in our regular spelling test on Friday.
Spellings for next week are:
July, fly, try, spy, why, cry, dry, reply, sky, shy
We hope you enjoyed Miss Liston’s Christmas shenanigans on Friday, look forward to more as we get closer to the big day itself! Thank you to those who have donated to our Christmas outdoor area and if you can, donate any old Christmas jumpers ready for Christmas jumper day on Thursday 7th December.
W.C 20th November
Week 3 everyone!!
In Maths we’ve continued our shape learning, this week looking at vertices which are the corners of a shape where the sides meet. We’re really good at spotting them and circling them to count them. Next we moved on to something a little more tricky…drawing shapes! Using a ruler is HARD. We tried our best to use the lines in our books to help us and carefully counted the sides as we went. Then it was time to look at lines of symmetry, we know that a line of symmetry goes down the middle of a shape and that both sides have to be exactly the same. Then it was time to look at sorting 2D shapes and putting them into groups with the same attributes.
In English this week we have been working on ‘The Journey Home’, revisiting our learning on questions, commands, statements and exclamations by writing posters to the people who are destroying the habitats of the animals in the boat by cutting down their trees, stealing their ivory tusks and clearing the bamboo forests. We used question words and question marks, exclamation marks and full stops in our work. We also had the opportunity to practice our handwriting and letter formation so we can make our work even better, and we split into two groups to do some guided reading ready for assessment week next week. We have looked at really descriptive writing this week using adjectives and noun phrases to write some lovely paragraphs about a stormy sea in the book. We finished off the week by beginning to plan a non-chronological report about different animals, working together with a partner to make notes taking important information from a text and finding out lots of facts.
In Science we continued to learn about habitats, looking at familiar habitats that we might have visited before such as the beach, the coast, the woods and more urban habitats and the animals that live there. In RE we investigated how Christians celebrate marriage with a wedding ceremony and in Geography we looked at towns and cities and their human features. We used a map and discussed how man-made objects become landmarks. In History we learned about the events of the Epsom Derby and the impact on the campaign for votes for women.
Emma from Lincolnshire County Council came to visit us and taught us about how to be safe when we use the internet. We discussed the games we play, the videos we watch and how we speak to people when we’re online. What a jam-packed week! Have the next two days off to rest! Here are the spellings for the test on Friday 1st December:
Fossil, pupil, gerbil, evil, basil, pencil, nostril, April, lentil, anvil
See you next week!
W.C 13th November
A very busy week this week with parents evening and all of the general business of school. In Maths we have been challenging ourselves and learned a new method of answering our addition and subtraction problems, column method. We even know how to exchange! We have talked about the tens and ones, always starting with the ones and never switching the numbers around. We know how to exchange a ten and use it to move across to the ones so we can then subtract our numbers or if the number we have made when adding comes to more then ten we know where to put the extra ten to add it along with our other tens. We are column method experts! We also worked on missing number problems before moving on to begin a new topic, 2D and 3D shapes. We began learning how to recognise 2D and 3D shapes and then how to count the sides on 2D shapes.
In English we continued with our book, The Journey Home. We were looking at statements and exclamations, thinking about the punctuation needed and using our full stops and exclamation marks at the end. We used imperative verbs to make some bossy commands and then looked at using the suffix ‘ed’ to show the past tense. We know that not every word can have ‘ed’ added to it though, some have completely random past tense words like ran and swam. We also looked at how to make words plural, mostly by adding ‘s’ but sometimes changing the suffix by adding an ‘es’. And some plural words are completely different like geese…and sheep!
In Science we have begun our new topic, all about habitats called ‘why do animals choose to live where they do?’ We went on a microhabitat hunt around the outside areas and found ladybirds hiding under bark in a tree and lots of woodlice and other creepy crawly minibeasts under the plant pots. We talked about microhabitats being tiny habitats for tiny creatures and that a habitat provides an animal with everything they need such as food, water and shelter. In History we learned all about the exploits of Emmeline Pankhurst and in Geography we discussed cities, using a map to find them and comparing them to towns and villages.
We had just enough time for 2 PE lessons, an art lesson with Mrs Freeman and an RE lesson where we looked at the Christian ceremony of welcoming a new baby to the faith called a Christening. A spelling test finished off our week and here are the new spellings for the test on Friday 24th November:
Petal, hospital, equal, pedal, magical, medal, capital, animal, final, local.
Have a great weekend and we’ll see you bright and early Monday morning!
W.C 6th November
Welcome back! We hope you all had a happy and safe half term break. A few changes have occurred this week, we have welcomed our teaching student Miss Carter to our classroom and also said a very sad goodbye to Mrs Lawson who will be leaving us on Wednesday to go have her baby. We will miss her very much. Miss Cragg is stepping into the gap and will be teaching from Monday to Friday alongside Miss Carter in the interim.
In English this week we have finished off the editing of our Goldilocks story and have begun working on a new book, the name and details of which remain secret for now. We have been working on using adjectives to add detail and then thinking about how we use statements to give information, commands to tell people what to do, questions to find answers and exclamations to show emotion. We have been using a range of punctuation in our sentences, thinking about full stops, question marks and exclamation marks as well as using question words at the start when necessary.
In Maths we have continued to learn about different strategies for addition and subtraction, using our knowledge of number bonds and partitioning numbers in different ways to support us. We have also revisited the inequality symbols and have been comparing number sentences using < > and = as well as all of that lovely mathematical vocabulary when talking about greater than, less than and equal to.
In RE we looked at lots of different Christian festivals, talking about the Nativity story, the Easter story and the events of Holy Week. We also talked about how Easter is celebrated around the world and the importance of the Christingle in the Advent services around Christmas time in Christian churches.
Our spellings for Friday 17th November are:
tunnel travel squirrel vowel towel camel jewel tinsel hazel angel
PE is now on a Monday and Wednesday.
Have a great weekend and we’ll see you again soon for week 2!
W.C: 16th October
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
In English this week, we have been busy planning our retelling of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We started this by rereading the book 'Me and You' which was an alternative retelling of the traditional fairytale. We then looked at the story from Goldilocks' perspective and began to think about how she would have been feeling at each point. We will be writing this with Miss Cragg this week!
In Maths, we have been working on our subtraction skills. This meant looking at what would happen to our number (it had to get less!) We know that if our answer was larger then something had gone wrong! We first subtracted across a ten by taking away ones and then looked at what would happen if we subtracted FROM a whole ten. Lots of us were able to recognise that because our numbers were tens, we could use our number bonds to help us.
In History, we have been comparing the suffragists to the suffragettes. To do this, we compared their tactics and thought about which were the most effective. We then used some role play to act out how each group would react in certain situations. We also learnt that it was after the Great War that the groups became united in their views and were supported in getting the vote.
We have done some PSHE this week. We looked at the rights and responsibilities we have in our school and how these have to work alongside one another in order for us to have a happy and safe learning environment! We also spoke about the rewards and consequences we face in school depending on how we behave.
On Tuesday, we were lucky to have a visit from Mr Hall from Lincolnshire County Council. He took us on a walk around the roads near school and we had to consider which places were safe to cross and how we could do this. We also learnt that wearing Hi-Vis keeps us safe at both day and night as it keeps us visible!
Have a lovely half term everyone!!! :)
Thursday and Friday - Miss Cragg
In Maths this week we have been continuing with addition and subtraction, looking at subtracting across ten. We have used resources such as Base 10 and number lines to help us with this tricky concept, and have begun to think about using column method as another strategy when finding the answers. We have spotted patterns when finding 10 more and 10 less and have been thinking about other days to partition when adding and subtracting, using our number bond knowledge to support us.
In English we have been getting on with our next Big Write, a retell of the alternative Goldilocks story we have been learning about called 'Me and You'. We have written the beginning, middle and end this week. In PE we were filming our final pieces of our balances and movements ready for assessment whilst in RE we completed our learning about Christianity with a quiz about all of our lessons so far.
A quick spelling test to finish the week, we are so ready for half term! Have a fun and safe one, and don't eat too many sweets if you're out trick or treating!
W.C: 9th October
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
In English we have continued to explore the book 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. For our work this week, we have been working on using different openers to our sentences. We first discussed what types of ways we have seen sentences start in fairytales. Lots of us knew "once upon a time" was the main way to start it! We have also worked on understanding the structure of a letter and have written letters to the Three Bears from Goldilocks. We had to explain what things we (Goldilocks) had done wrong and how we were going to make it better!
In Maths, we have been trying our hardest to get back to grips with adding and subtracting. We first looked at adding and taking away 1s from numbers, then using our number bonds to 10 to help us add quickly! We have also worked on adding 3 1-digit numbers together. We had to work out which numbers in the pair equalled 10 first as this made it much easier for us to calculate! For example in 7 + 4 + 3, we knew that 7+3=10 and then all we had to do was add on the four.
In Computing this week, we have continued to explore algorithms and how to program. This time we were looking at using collision detection and even timers to get what we wanted to happen, to happen at the right time! To do this, we had to problem solve a fairy tale scenario - our princess would bump into a frog, stop and then the frog would turn into a prince! Some of us even went a step further and programed it so our princess would magically change too.
In Geography, we have completed our unit on the four countries in the UK. To do this, we compared the similarities and differences between the places by recapping the human and physical features of each.
On Tuesday next week, we have a Road Safety visit by the Lincolnshire County Council team - we will be going on a short walk around the town (in 2 groups), making sure we understand how to behave responsibily as a pedestrian.
One more week until half term, you've got this :)
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
We are creeping slowly towards our first half term break in Year 2, just one more week to go! Another week done and what a week it has been. In English we have continued with our book, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ doing some acting and putting ourselves in the shiny red shoes of our characters. We know that Goldilocks sent the bears a letter to apologise for her bad behaviour and we acted out their responses in a meeting set up once they had received the letter. Our acting skills are top notch! We were able to use inference to think about what each character might say in a speech bubble. On Friday we used the coordinating conjunction ‘but’ in sentences to compare our current book with another very different story of Goldilocks called ‘Me and You’.
In Maths we have been really concentrating on our knowledge of number bonds to ten, using them to help us answer two part questions where we have to find the next ten then add the ones on. All sounds very complicated but we took it in our stride! We also then counted beyond the next ten using resources like ten frames and base 10 to help us, and using our trusty fingers to count too. In Science we talked about the impact of litter on the environment and made a poster to show the ways in which we can help such as recycling and putting rubbish into the bin. In RE we discussed the greatest commandment and sorted the ten commandments into those that talk about loving God and those that talk about loving others. Time for a PE lesson using the equipment to balance and move in contrasting high and low ways and a spelling test to round off the week.
Speaking of spellings, here they are for the last test of this half term on Friday 20th October:
Wriggle, wrestle, wrecked, wren, wrote, write, wrap, written, wrapped, wrong.
Have a great weekend and don’t forget next Friday is our very own Church Lane Pumpkin Patch on our brand new theatre of dreams AKA the pitch at the front of school.
W.C: 2nd October
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
In English this week we have started our new book - Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We didn't know this to begin with - we had to use our investigative skills and the clues in the classroom to help us. We had 3 different sized bowls with porridge in and quickly worked out that these belonged to the three bears. This then led us to think that it could also involve Goldilocks! We explored some pictures of Goldilocks and generated some adjectives to describe her: selfish, curious, clumsy, rude. The next day, we turned these into sentences explaining our thoughts (after we had read some of the story!)
In Maths, we finished our place value unit by counting in 3s. We all used the 100 square to help us and circled all the numbers up to 100 that were in the 3 times table. We found that we just had to keep adding 3 each time! We used this to fill in number tracks that went forwards and backwards and some that did both!! We have since moved onto addition and subtraction. We have begun by recapping our number bonds to 10 - it would be worth continuing to practice these at home! We have also explored fact families involving addition and subtraction up to 20. We had to remember that when we are subtracting, the whole/greatest number goes first!
In Geography, we have looked at the four countries of the UK in depth by exploring their human and physical features. We learnt that human features are those created or built by humans such as bridges, roads or house and that physical features would be there whether humans were there or not.
In Computing, we created our own algorithms and designed our own runways! We had to work out how to get the planes moving without letting them bump into each other. We had to debug our programs if we had problems and even experimented with sound!
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Almost there Year 2, another week down! In Maths this week we’ve been looking at related facts which is knowing that 3 + 5 = 8 so 30 + 50 = 80. A tricky concept but we’ve tried really hard to spot the patterns. In our Friday lesson we were looking at number bonds to 100! We are making links between our number bonds to 10 and making sure we recognise that we are using tens rather than the ones.
In English we are enjoying our new book that we started this week, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. It is a traditional fairy tale but it is told by Lauren Child in a very chatty style. Thankfully we all realise that it isn’t really the done thing to wander into someone else’s house (let alone a house where three bears live!) and steal their food, break their furniture and fall asleep in their beds so well done grown-ups, you’ve raised some children more sensible than Goldilocks! We were continuing with the adjective work started by Mrs Lawson on Wednesday and explaining why we thought Goldilocks was that attribute by using the conjunction ‘because’. In our Friday lesson we were sequencing the story and putting pictures into the correct order. We can retell the story in our own words and in the correct order.
In Science we began to discuss what wild animals need in order to survive without relying on humans, unlike the domesticated animals and pets we learned about last week. We drew a habitat map for a fox, showing where it had a den (shelter), a pond (water), rabbit holes and blackberry bushes (food sources as it is an omnivore) and an area where it could travel around and raise its young (space). In Music we performed our own version of a song we learned last week called “If You’re Feeling Blue” complete with our own sound effects. We then had a very surreal experience listening to a song called “Duet for two cats” which was interesting to say the very least. “Duet for two cats” is an amusing piece for two singers, usually sopranos, set entirely to the word ‘meow’. Although the piece is often attributed to Rossini, it wasn’t written by him, but does include parts of his music from the opera, Otello. We had fun discovering the pitch, listening for sounds getting higher and lower, some got longer and shorter too. We drew our own cats conversation with pitch maps for each of our two cats.
We squeezed in a quick PE lesson somehow, a spelling test and also had a very important and worthwhile workshop learning about some first aid techniques such as calling 999 in an emergency, cleaning a small wound and putting a plaster on it, and even putting someone into the recovery position. Next step, ambulance driving!
Spellings for the test on Friday 13th October are:
Know, knew, knit, gnome, gnaw, knock, knee, kneel, knight, gnat
Have a lovely weekend!
W.C: 25th September
Monday- Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
Another week down and we are continuing to impress with how we have settled into Year 2! We started off the week with our individual photos and had a great time practicing our smiles!
In English this week, we have been busy drafting our first big write of the year - a sequel to Jim and the Beanstalk - Jess and the Beanstalk! We have worked hard on making sure we are using our capital letters and full stops in the correct places and even experimented with conjunctions and adjectives to add detail. Some of us tried to use some speech too!
In Maths, we have almost completed our work on Place Value. We have been working on comparing objects and then moved onto comparing numbers. We know to look at the highest valued column (the tens rather than the ones) first to help us compare numbers. If they are the same, we move to the next highest valued column! We have been working hard to get our understanding of <,> and = symbols too.
In History, we have completed two lessons. We have learnt about who the Suffragists were and then learnt about the life of Millicent Fawcett. We know that she was the leader of the Suffragists and campaigned using peaceful methods to try and help women to get the vote. The Suffragists would march, write letters and put up posters to get people's attention.
In PSHE, we have discussed our rewards and consequences for the behaviours we display. We know that rewards and consequences need to match the actions! We also learnt about how the way we behave has an impact on whether we get rewards or consequences.
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Can you believe we’ve been back at school for a month now?! Where is the time going! Another busy week, life in Year 2 is relentless. In Maths we’ve been ordering numbers from greatest to smallest and from smallest to greatest, reminding ourselves of those inequality symbols and what they mean. We got on really well with explaining how we knew when numbers were greater than, less than and equal to based on their tens and ones. We also had a lesson on counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s which was a little trickier! We are great at 2’s and 10’s but a lot of us found counting in 5’s a struggle. Plenty more practice needed.
In English we edited our Big Write with our purple pen. With a partner we re-read what we wrote and after a lesson on capital letters and full stops we changed and improved our work to include these. Our English books in Year 2 are very different in that we now have handwriting lines so learning to use them correctly is an ongoing process this time of year. In our English lessons this week not only were we amending our own writing but we were also learning how to present an improved version on the page. We are getting there Year 2!
In Science we were looking at how our pets survive and discussed the care of domesticated animals that we might have in our homes such as dogs, cats, guinea pigs and some of the more exotic creatures like a tortoise, snake, bird or lizard. We know that animals need food, water, shelter, regular vet care, exercise and grooming to stay healthy. In Music this week we used our voices and bodies to do actions and sounds to accompany a poem about likes and dislikes. We did really well, even making our own poem up as a class and performing it. We finished the week with PE looking at balances, high and low movements and a transition between the two then our spelling test. Here are the spellings for next week, on Friday 6th October:
Ice, city, lace, circle, rice, race, cell, fancy, space, circus
Be happy, be safe! See you next week.
W.C: 18th September
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
We kicked this week off with a fantastic visit from Robin Windsor! We spent some time learning the Cha Cha Cha, first was a slow beat and then we got quicker. It was great to see all of the children enjoying themselves and getting involved! We had a competition and got to vote for our winners too.
In English this week, we have been busy working on our grammar skills and exploring how to use direct speech for the first time. We learnt what speech marks/inverted commas were and how they show us the exact words that a person or character in a story would say. We had a go at creating our own pieces of speech and tried to punctuate them too. We have also written letters from the Giant to our new character (from the story we will be writing next week!) to say thank you for some of the objects they gave us.
In Maths, we have continued to explore the value of number. We are able to explain what the value of each digit is and show in this expanded form. We have also been using number lines to understand where 10s and 10s and 1s fit all the way up to 100. I was super impressed with how the children took to this. Keep practicing your ten times tables to help.
In History, we have started to learn about the journey that women took in the UK to get the vote. We first explored the roles that women traditionally had in the early 20th century including being a housewife and looking after the children. We compared this to women today and how their lives can be similar but also very different!
We have also squeezed in some spellings practice and a bit of guided reading too- phew what a week!
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Another week, in the bag! They are really racing by now we’re back into the swing of things. In Maths this week we’ve been tackling number lines, a tricky concept to master. We had a practical lesson trying to estimate where different numbers might go on various number lines, taking careful note of where the number line started. We learned how to figure out half way which was always a 5 to help us plot where missing numbers might go. We then had a lesson where we used this practical knowledge to help us answer questions on the stickers in our books. In English this week we were writing a plan to help us with our very first BIG WRITE! We have innovated and changed lots of aspects of our story, ‘Jim and the Beanstalk’ and written down everything that our new main character, Jess, goes to get for the giant. Can’t wait to see what we write!
In Science this week we were learning about life cycles and how animals change from being babies to adults. We know that not all animals look the same when they are young compared to when they are grown up and some animals like frogs and butterflies go through a change called ‘metamorphosis’. We created out own life cycles and wrote about how humans change too from being babies, to toddlers, children, teenagers and adults.
Time for a PE lesson and a spelling test and that’s it, done for the week! Here are the spellings for the test on Friday 29th September:
Gym, magic, energy, engine, gentle, gem, giant, giraffe, digit, religion.
Have a great weekend!
W.C: 11th September
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Week 2, done already, the weeks will fly by now we’re back! Maths at the end of the week has been tricky, we’ve been partitioning into tens and ones and then flexibly which made a few of us wobble a bit. We are getting better at splitting a number and can see more different ways of doing it all the time. In English we’ve been learning about past and present tenses and the way you can change a root word by either adding the suffix -ed or -ing. We’ve also had a lesson on retelling the story of ‘Jim and the Beanstalk’, writing sentences with capital letters and full stops and trying our best to include finger spaces. We are improving how to sequence our ideas and are working hard to include as much information as possible.
We’ve ticked off another gymnastics lesson in PE, looking at contrasting high and low movements and combining those with our high and low balances from last week to make a sequence. In RE we were learning about the parable of the Good Samaritan and we drew some of the acts of kindness that the Samaritan showed to the Jewish man, we also discussed how this demonstrated the Golden rule of Christianity by loving thy neighbour. We fitted in some more of our common exception words spelling test and tried really hard with the spellings we sent out last week. Speaking of spellings, here they are for next week:
charge orange strange sponge fringe
change range hinge dungeon pigeon
We also managed to squeeze in a PSHE lesson on the NSPCC PANTS rules and that topped off our week – very catchy song! Have a great weekend!
Mrs Lawson - Monday to Wednesday
We've got week 2 under our belt and we are beginning to really get to grips with our new routine.
In Maths, we have been continuing to review our understanding of place value. This week, we have been working on recognising tens and ones and using the base ten equipment to physically make numbers. Some of us have even been having a go at Mrs Lawson's challenges! We have also been exploring place value charts and working on recognising that if I have 2 tens this is the same as 20!
In English, we have been practicing using coordinating conjunctions (focusing on but). We had to make sure that both parts of our sentence would have made sense of their own (independent clauses) and that our sentences made sense as a whole. We have also sequenced the events of the story. This was some really impressive work and shows that we have learnt the story inside out! On Wednesday, we did some handwriting practice so we could understand how to use the handwriting lines a bit better in our books.
In Art, we have explored how we can change the appearance of lines by increasing the pressure we apply. We also looked at the difference between B, HB and H pencils. We found that B pencils were much softer (so we didn't have to apply as much pressure) and H pencils were harder.
In Geography, we have been using our atlas and map skills to identify the four countries of the UK, including their capital cities. We have also identified the four seas/oceans that surround the country too!
Thank you for coming to our parent meeting on Wednesday, it was nice to see some new and some familiar faces too.
Reminder: We have Robin Windsor coming to teach us to dance on Monday! :)
W.C: 4th September
Mrs Lawson - Monday to Wednesday
...And we're back! What a lovely few days it has been for us adults to start to get to know you all. I have a feeling this year is going to be lovely :)
We started off by revisiting our understanding of the school rules as well as the class rules and what the expectations are that we have to work to. We have gotten used to our merit system again and are earning plenty of them. It's so lovely to hear all of the children be so polite - they have great manners.
We have also been working hard on getting the new routines down. Don't worry if you haven't quite got it yet... it's taking the teachers a bit of time to get used to as well! We have also started on our learning too.
We have started our English and Maths units. For English, we have started our new book of Jim and the Beanstalk - we all thought it sounded very familiar to another story we had heard of before. That's because it is a sequel! We made some great predictions about this before we had even read it!
In Maths, we have started on Place Value. For this unit, we will be learning all about what 'number' actually is. We have started by revisiting our understanding of numbers to 20 and will continue to work on numbers up to 100.
In Geography, we are learning about the United Kingdom including the countries it includes, the seas and the capital cities. So far, we have learnt that the United Kingdom is made up of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
It's been a busy few days so make sure you have a well deserved rest at the weekend!
Reminder: We have our parent meeting for Year 2 on Wednesday 13th September at 3:30pm. We hope to see you there!
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
We have hit the ground running in our first week in Year 2! We know what our teachers expect of us, we understand the rules of the school and our classroom and we know that in Year 2, we are here to WORK! (We do have a bit of fun too, sometimes!)
In Maths we’ve been concentrating on place value, counting in tens and then beginning to partition by looking at the tens and ones in a number. Times tables are a big focus this year and we have been practicing our 2’s and 10’s so far, moving on to our 5’s soon then eventually 3’s and 4’s. We have been doing some practical work with Base 10 to make and draw our numbers, thinking carefully about the value of each digit.
In English this week we read more of our new book, ‘Jim and the Beanstalk’. Most of us recognised that it was another variation of a famous fairytale about a boy called Jack! We identified the rhyming words in the story and made our own giant chants using rhyming words at the end of each line. We also began to infer how the characters were feeling at different points in the story, explaining why using the conjunction ‘because’.
In RE we began our first lesson about Christianity by looking at the Ten Commandments that Moses received from God on Mount Sinai. We discussed each one and talked about which were the most important and why we thought that. In Science we were introduced to our new topic, about living things. We can identify things that are living, dead and that were never alive and took our new found knowledge outside to categorize things that we found.
We had time for a PE lesson doing balances and travelling using the contrast of high and low in gymnastics and a spelling test of all of the Year 1 common exception words. 20 down, another 25 to go! Speaking of spellings, here they are to practice ready for the test on Friday 15th September:
edge dodge ridge judge lodge
badge bridge fudge smudge wedge
Have a great weekend!
