Spring Term 2023
W.C. 27.03.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
I'm feeling very proud of all the work the children have done this week - it's been a good one!
In English, we have written an explanation text all about the life cycle of frogs. We started by rereading an example and picking out key words that are interesting to us. We then starting writing with a big focus on our adjectives and conjunctions. We also had to continue to check we are putting in our capital letters and full stops correctly too.
In Maths, we have been continuing to work on time. We have been reading and telling the time to the nearest quarter hour (both past and to!) and to the nearest 5 minutes too. For each of these, we spent time first using the physical clocks to make sure we were placing the hands in the right places. We then moved onto our book work, again making sure that we draw the hands on carefully.
In History, we finished our topic on flight. For our final lesson we looked at the Concorde and discussed why it was an important new aircraft and how it unfortunately is no longer in service. We learnt that it was a supersonic aircraft and could go two times the speed of sound!
It was also Women's History Week this week. Year Two focused on the artist Georgia O'Keeffe and found out that she was the first woman to have her own exhibit in New York. To celebrate her work, we did our own drawings of flowers - these were beautiful!
We were also lucky enough to have a visitor on Wednesday who spoke to us about Online Safety. We learnt that it is okay to block someone who is being unkind to us online and to tell a trusted adult if we need help!
What a full on week, well done Year 2!
Thursday and Friday - Miss Cragg
So close to the finish line now, we can do it Year 2!
In Maths this week we’ve continued to learn about time, finding the nearest 5 minutes and working with minutes in an hour where we have been using our knowledge of hours and minutes to count on. We used bar models to separate amounts of time into hours and minutes and reminded ourselves of how many minutes in a quarter and half of an hour. Finding the time to the nearest 5 minutes is TRICKY! We’re working on counting around the clock in 5’s and thinking about whether the time is past the hour or going to the next hour.
In English this week we’ve done work on tenses which can be hard, we recognised matched words and put them into sentences to show which have happened in the past and which were happening in the present. We used our editing skills to amend and improve a highlighted sentence from our most recent Big Write which was about the life cycle of a frog.
In Science we wrote some instructions in present tense using time conjunctions, bullet points, numbers, a title, commas, imperative verbs and short, clear sentences on how to plant a seed. In RE we completed an end of unit quiz assessing everything we have learned this half term about Islam. Time for a new topic next half term, we will be learning about Judaism when we return after Easter. We finished the week with our spelling test, the next one will be the first Friday back when we return, on Friday 21st April and the spellings to practise are:
television treasure usual measure pleasure
decision vision leisure version visual
Enjoy your weekend!
W.C. 20.03.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
Wow, another week down and what a busy one it's been!
In English, we have been busy writing a setting description about the pond where the creatures in our story live in and surround. We have split this into two parts - the environment above the water and what it is like under the surface too! We have worked extremely hard on using our conjunctions to extend sentences as well as placing in noun phrases and even trying our best to use adverbial phrases too!
In Maths, we have been continuing our work on fractions. It has been a tricky week with three-quarters, counting in halves AND counting in quarters - well done to you all. You have persevered and kept going even when it was very difficult!
In History, we explored the importance of the first manned flight into space! We learnt all about the animals that went into space first before Yuri Gagarin did on Vostok 1. We also compared his journey to that of Tim Peake and Richard Branson!
In PSHE, we have been busy discussing the importance of healthy eating and what would happen to our bodies if we didn't give it the right foods. We know that if we only ate burgers for the rest of our lives we would be very unhealthy and sick! We used the Eat Well Plate to show our knowledge of the five food groups: protein, carbohydrate, fruit and vegetables, dairy and fats.
In Geography, we have completed our unit on seasons by exploring the weather that is experienced at the polar areas of the world. We know that in the extreme north and south area they have very little daylight in Winter and 24 hours of it in Summer! We compared this to our previous work on the weather of countries near the equator and decided which one we would choose to live in if we had the choice!
Well done Year Two - keep up the good work :)
Thursday and Friday - Miss Cragg
That half term break is getting closer and closer! Another week, in the bag and its been a busy one.
In Maths we’ve moved away from fractions and onto learning about time, firstly reminding ourselves of our previous learning from Year 1 about o’clock and half past. We know the long minute hand moves around the clock and points to the 12 when it is o’clock and the 6 when it’s half past the hour. The shorter hour hand points to the hour at o’clock and begins to move towards the next hour at half past. We’ve begun to think about there being 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour as well as using our fractions knowledge to count in fractions of ½. We can read and make the time on our own little clocks, can write the time and can even draw on our own minute and hour hands to demonstrate our understanding of o’clock and half past.
In English we edited sentences from our Big Write, a setting description about the place where our story, ‘Tadpole’s Promise’ is set – a pond or lake. In our DIRT activity with Mrs Lawson we used conjunctions and adjectives so we challenged ourselves to improve the selected sentences by adding conjunctions and adjectives. The end result was some really lovely and very descriptive writing, well done everyone. We also wrote a plan about our next Big Write which will be an explanation text next week, this time about the frog life cycle. We even had some very tiny and very wriggly guests to our room, the frogspawn which is currently residing in Reception on loan from Mrs Wardell’s pond. How cool!
In Science this week we learned about germination and just in time too as some of our bean plants have actually germinated! We were extremely excited to see that some of our plants have sprouted roots and are beginning to grow little stems, a very welcome sight after the great flood of Mr Godson (don’t let him near your houseplants!). We know that germination means those plants had all of the correct conditions needed in order to grow. In our last RE lesson learning about Islam we discussed Muslim funerals and talked about the ceremony being a celebration of life as well as an opportunity to say a final farewell.
The week was topped off with a spelling test – only 9 words last week! 10 this week though, sorry about that! Here they are ready for the test on Friday 31st March:
word work worm world worth
warm war towards warn warned
Have a great weekend and we’ll see you bright and early next week!
Thursday and Friday - Miss Cragg
That half term break is getting closer and closer! Another week, in the bag and its been a busy one.
In Maths we’ve moved away from fractions and onto learning about time, firstly reminding ourselves of our previous learning from Year 1 about o’clock and half past. We know the long minute hand moves around the clock and points to the 12 when it is o’clock and the 6 when it’s half past the hour. The shorter hour hand points to the hour at o’clock and begins to move towards the next hour at half past. We’ve begun to think about there being 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour as well as using our fractions knowledge to count in fractions of ½. We can read and make the time on our own little clocks, can write the time and can even draw on our own minute and hour hands to demonstrate our understanding of o’clock and half past.
In English we edited sentences from our Big Write, a setting description about the place where our story, ‘Tadpole’s Promise’ is set – a pond or lake. In our DIRT activity with Mrs Lawson we used conjunctions and adjectives so we challenged ourselves to improve the selected sentences by adding conjunctions and adjectives. The end result was some really lovely and very descriptive writing, well done everyone. We also wrote a plan about our next Big Write which will be an explanation text next week, this time about the frog life cycle. We even had some very tiny and very wriggly guests to our room, the frogspawn which is currently residing in Reception on loan from Mrs Wardell’s pond. How cool!
In Science this week we learned about germination and just in time too as some of our bean plants have actually germinated! We were extremely excited to see that some of our plants have sprouted roots and are beginning to grow little stems, a very welcome sight after the great flood of Mr Godson (don’t let him near your houseplants!). We know that germination means those plants had all of the correct conditions needed in order to grow. In our last RE lesson learning about Islam we discussed Muslim funerals and talked about the ceremony being a celebration of life as well as an opportunity to say a final farewell.
The week was topped off with a spelling test – only 9 words last week! 10 this week though, sorry about that!
Here they are ready for the test on Friday 31st March:
word work worm world worth
warm war towards warn warned
W.C 13.03.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
In English this week we have continued to read the Tadpole's Promise - a story all about the love story between a tadpole and a caterpillar. We have worked on verbs and using them effectively to describe the action of the story. We imagined we were the frog wondering where the caterpillar had gone! We have also retold the story using some adverbs of time, adjectives and exciting verbs.
In Maths we have been able to identify what a third looks like, how to find a third and also understood what unit fractions are. We have worked really hard to make sure that we don't just call everything a half! We are also trying hard to understand which fractions are bigger compared to one another.
In Computing, we have started to look at spreadsheets and how to colour cells and even created our own counting machine! We are continuing to get to grips with how to use different tools to get the effect we want.
In PSHE we have learnt about ways we can keep our bodies and minds healthy. We learnt about the importance of relaxing and thought of our favourite ways to relax. We also learnt about how to be safe around medicine - we must only take them when a trusted adult gives it to us and must not take it on our own!
Thursday and Friday - Miss Cragg
Week 4, done and dusted! Well done everyone, lots to be proud of this week.
In Maths we’ve continued our learning about fractions, looking at other fractions such as thirds and 3 quarters as well as noticing the connection between half and two quarters. We are smashing this!
In English we’ve been building sentences with adverbial phrases about time, place and manner including a main clause and the correct punctuation. We’ve also written a plan for our Big Write next week which will be a setting description of the pond where the tadpole and the caterpillar live. Our handwriting is looking beautiful and we’re taking so much care over our work.
We had the opportunity to experience a very special event on Thursday afternoon: the festival of Holi, otherwise known as the festival of colours. We learned about the significance of the Hindu festival which celebrates the beginning of Spring, new life and love. We also looked at the story of Holika and Prahlad and it’s significance to the festival. Throwing brightly coloured powder paints on the field was so much fun! Have a look at the photos on the Church Lane Facebook page to see what we looked like by the end of it!
Just enough time for a spelling test to round off the week, and speaking of spellings, here they are for the next test on Friday 24th March:
Want watch wander wand quality
Quantity wasps squash squat no tenth word this week!
Have a great weekend!
W.C 06.03.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Lawson
In English this week, we have started a new book called the Tadpole's promise. We started by exploring apostrophes for possession and the children even made their promises! We have also worked on using adverbs for time to write about the life cycle of a chicken. On Wednesday, we continued to focus on our handwriting.
In Maths, we have started to look at fractions. We started by looking at equal parts and remembered that this is just like our multiplication and division! We then explored halves and what they looked like before we moved onto finding an actual half.
In PSHE, we looked at what it takes for us to be healthy. We discussed how we can eat healthy, drink lots of water, exercise and brushing our teeth.
In Geography, we explored countries that are close to the equator and found out about their weather. We found that countries like Ecuador and Brazil don't have four seasons like us, they have two - the dry and wet season!
Thursday and Friday - Miss Cragg
Another week, done!
In Maths as Mrs Lawson mentioned we’ve moved on to fractions, on Thursday and Friday we were recognising and finding a quarter. We know that a quarter is one of four equal parts, we can spot a quarter of a shape and can share a number into 4 groups by using our knowledge of the 4 times table, by sharing and crossing out and also by halving and halving again. Lots of tools added to our toolkit to help us solve our problems!
In English we’ve been learning some very grown up words: possessive and contracting apostrophes and adverbial phrases…things I’m sure most grown ups might not actually know about! We can use apostrophes to show belonging and can spot when they are being used to omit letters from words such as don’t, can’t, I’m and you’ll. We also read some of our new book, ‘Tadpole’s Promise’ and found out that it is about a caterpillar who falls in love with a tadpole who promises to never change but then can’t stop his little body from sprouting arms and legs and his tail from disappearing. We wrote sentences using adverbial phrases imitating one from the story; 'where the willow meets the water'. We wrote using some lovely adjectives, verbs, adverbs and nouns and created a really descriptive piece of writing.
In RE this week we were learning about Muslim wedding ceremonies and can identify some of their features. In Science we recapped what plants need in order to grow and planted some seeds of our own, some peas which are in a nice sunny spot on the windowsill. Hopefully they will germinate over the weekend and begin to sprout in the coming few days. How exciting! A spelling test and a PE lesson to finish off a busy week. Here are next weeks spellings for the test on Friday 17th March:
key donkey monkey chimney valley
trolley journey turkey jockey kidney
Have a lovely weekend and we’ll see you next week.
W.C 27.02.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Barratt
This week, the children have worked their socks off practising using all their skills to complete a practise SATs test in Reading, Writing and SPaG. The children have been amazing and proved how super they are! Well done Year 2.
In English, we have written our own story based on the book 'The Minpin's'. Again, the children have wowed us with their writing skills and ideas to make the reader so excited to read it.
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Week 2, in the bag!
A different week this time around with lots of assessments happening, the children have coped so well and should be very proud of some fantastic results. On Thursday we completed our tests, finishing off with a Science assessment which we tried our absolute best with and who can ask for more than that? Thursday also contained a Science lesson learning about the different ways seeds disperse from plants – next week we’re going to do some planting of our own seeds, giving them everything they need to grow. We had an RE lesson in the afternoon, learning about the Muslim ceremony of Aqiqah to welcome a new baby and ended the day with some guided reading.
On Friday we edited our Minpins Big Write and practised our handwriting which is such a huge focus for us at the moment. We had a PE lesson learning how to make a full turn – trickier than it sounds! Assembly to show off our AMAZING World Book Day costumes, more guided reading and a spelling test to end the week.
Next weeks spellings for the test on Friday 10th March are:
Other mother brother nothing cover
Money some dozen wonder done
Have a great weekend – be safe and have fun!
W.C 20.02.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Barratt
Another busy week in Year 2.
In Maths this week, we have been working on odd and even and the ten times tables both multipling and dividing. We are so good at our ten times tables counting forwards and backwards!
In English, we have been working on writing in the progressive form and statements which brings us to the end of our writing unit 'The Minpin's'.
In History, we learnt about who Amy Johnson was and why she was so special. Did you know, she is the first women to fly solo from the UK to Australia?
In Geography, we have been looking at our new unit all about the seasons. We had to compare seasonal weather to daily weather.
On Wednesday, we had Mrs Freeman for art and Mr Godson for PE.
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
What a week – phew! We made it!
In English we’ve designed our own Roald Dahl-esque monster and named it….the brain-squashing, toe-munching, heart-swallowing Eye Chewer. We wrote a character description about our monster and then wrote our plans for our Big Write changing Little Billy to Little Lily, the Spittler to the Eye Chewer, Mum to Dad and the wall to a fence. We started writing the beginning to our story on Friday and all of the grown ups in the classroom are so impressed by the start we have made.
In Maths we’ve continued working on times tables, this week multiplying and dividing by 5. We are recognising more and more of the bonds between these numbers and the answers are coming to us quickly. We’ve been dividing using pictoral resources such as arrays and making use of our fingers to count in 5’s.
In Science we were introduced to our new topic for this half term – plants. We looked at what plants need to grow and touched on germination as well as seed dispersal which we’ll look at in more detail in the coming weeks. In RE we continued to learn about Islam, this time around looking at some important Islamic festivals such as Eid ul-Fitr which celebrates the end of Ramadan and Eid ul-Adha which celebrates the end of Hajj. We managed to squeeze in a gymnastics PE lesson which was making half turns from equipment and our spelling test to round off the week. Next weeks spellings for our test on Friday 3rd March are:
all ball walk call talk
always fall small also bald
Some easy ones for a change. Have a great weekend!
WC: 06.02.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Barratt
It's the final week before half term!
In Maths this week, we have continued to work on our multiplying and dividing. We have made equal groups by sharing and grouping items equally, then we looked at multiplying by 2. A great job this week in Maths.
In English, we are still working on our novel 'The Minpins', we have been looking at adding the suffixes -er and -est e.g., big, bigger and biggest and creating short character descriptions all about Little Billy, Minpins and the Spittler. We have also re-written the story so far in past tense. On Wednesday, we worked really hard on our transcription again, focusing on letter formation and joining using cursive.
We have come to the end of our Geography unit all about the coast. We compared our hometown, Sleaford, with Skegness and looked at the human and physical features of both different towns.
We have also completed our PSHE unit 'Dreams and Goals'. We looked at lots of different gardens and talked about how they made us feel; safe, secure, happy peaceful. We created our own garden dream birds to go inside our 'safe and secure garden'. We had lots of fun using feathers, pom poms and tissue paper to create some amazing birds!
On Wednesday, we had art with Mrs Freeman and PE with Ms Liston.
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
We’ve made it, hello half term!
In our Maths lessons this week we were dividing by 2 as well as doubling and halving, we worked so hard to understand these concepts and our confidence in spotting number bonds and relationships between numbers is growing all the time. In English we looked at apostrophes for possession as well as coming back to subordinating and coordinating conjunctions including a few that we haven’t used before, we’re getting really adventurous in our writing!
Time for our final Science lesson on the importance of keeping our hands clean and we did a little experiment with some glitter “germs” which was very funny. We completed our end of unit quizzes for both Science and RE and managed to squeeze a Music lesson in too with Mrs McCordick learning about chords. Guided reading and a spelling test finished off our week, and here are the spellings for Friday 24th February:
hummed clapped wrapped ripped dragged
patted dropped clipped napped drummed
Have a great week off and we’ll see you again soon!
WC: 30.01.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Barratt
This week in English, we have been reading 'The Minpins' by Roald Dahl. We used conjunctions to link our ideas together and then used suffixes to change root words into 'a sense of' (E.g., a noun that describes the feeling the boy felt). We did these tasks really well and took the challenge in our stride. We have also been practising our transcription- handwriting and finger spaces- we are improving massively especially with our letter formation.
In Maths, we have continued with multiply and divide. We have made equal groups, then used repeated addition to add equal groups and then introducing the 'X' sign e.g., 3+3+3+3 = 12 is the same as 4X3 = 12. We have tried really hard to understand this concept, it has been tricky, but we have ploughed through!
In History, we learnt about the Royal Air Force (RAF) and what impact it has had on aviation and our local area. We know that RAF Cranwell is used to train pilots up and has done for over 100 years! Also, RAF Coningsby is the home to the Typhoons!
We were really lucky on Tuesday afternoon because we had a 'real-life' pilot come in to talk to us. His name was Guy and he has flown a lot of different planes because he was in the RAF and now flies commercial planes for British Airways. We learnt a lot about different planes, a day in the life of a pilot and all the experiences Guy achieved and has seen over his years as a pilot.
On Wednesday, we had Art with Mrs Freeman and PE with Mr Godson.
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Another busy week over and done with. One more to go until half term! This week we’ve continued with our new topic in Maths, multiplication and division. Our focus was multiplication sentences on Thursday which was our first real introduction to using the ‘x’ symbol. We wrote our number sentences thinking about how many groups we had and how many in each group. Fridays lesson was introducing another brand new concept – arrays. We learned about rows and columns, that we have to be really careful and neat when drawing our own, how to read them and that they can be interpreted two ways; by looking at either the rows or the columns first.
In English we’ve been doing writing, writing and more writing in our lessons! Using the conjunction ‘but’ to compare contrasting adjectives and write sentences about the Minpins and then also writing with verbs to describe the actions of the scary smoke that chases Little Billy through the forest!
In Science we’ve completed lesson 5 of 6, thinking about healthy eating, why we need to eat healthy foods (giving our bodies vitamins, minerals, fibre and calcium are just some of the reasons!) and which foods belong to each food group. Next weeks lesson is about the importance of good hygiene, specifically hand washing. Our final RE lesson this week was about the 5th Pillar of Islam: Hajj. We discussed the importance of pilgrimage to Muslims and looked at some of the features of Mecca in Saudi Arabia including the Kaabah. Guided Reading and a spelling test to finish things off. Well done to all of our star pupils of the term who received badges in assembly, you are demonstrating the school values by working hard, being kind and achieving greatness!
Next weeks spellings for the test on Friday 10th February are:
humming running clapping flipping slipping
patting dropping hopping sitting wrapping
Enjoy your weekend and we’ll see you next week!
WC: 23.01.23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Barratt
Another week down!
In English this week, we have continued our 'Big Write' writing all about bears. The pieces of writing Year 2 have created are AMAZING. We are so impressed with the use of facts and conjunctions to link all of our ideas together in paragraphs has really impressed us. Well done Year 2.
In Maths, we have continued with money. We have been making £1 and finding change. These have been really tricky concepts to understand but we have had a really good go with it. Year 2 had all the coins out and had an amount to work out before needing to find out how much more money they needed to be able to make it to £1, then we had to do this but as the inverse, so we had to find out how much money we had left after spending some of it in a shop.
In History, we have been learning all about the Wright Brothers. These brothers were the first people to invent a man-powered airplane. They took many years to achieve their goal but after hard work, resilience and determination they managed to achieve their goal and fly their plane.
In Geography, we looked at the human and physical features that we may find at the beach. We looked at lots of new vocabulary too including coastal defences, stacks, arches, pier and residential areas etc. We enjoyed labelling lots of pictures with all of these features.
On Wednesday afternoon, we had Art with Mrs Freeman and PE with Mr Godson.
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Week 4, already! In our English lessons this week we were using the sentence openers never, always, do and don’t and linking our ideas with the conjunctions ‘but’ and ‘and’. We came up with a great list of commands using rules of things to do and not to do at school and at home. In our other lesson we were making up our own names for some scary Roald Dahl type monsters and writing a character description for a warning poster – Don’t go into the woods or you’ll be munched. There is an eye-popping, hair-sucking Pinchsquiddler that will eat you whole. What a nightmare! Do you want to be swallowed?
In Maths we finished off our learning about money with a lesson on two-step problems. A tricky one with wordy questions but we worked together and achieved greatness! We’ve now moved on to new learning about multiplication and division with a lesson about finding equal groups. In contrast a very easy lesson compared to the day before!
RE was about the 4th pillar of Islam, Sawm. We discussed the important events of the holy month of Ramadan including fasting, breaking the fast and the celebrations of Eid. In Science we learned about the importance of exercise and the effects on our bodies. Time for a spelling test, more guided reading and a Music lesson about rock music.
Next weeks spellings are:
humming running clapping flipping slipping
patting dropping hopping sitting wrapping
WC: 16/01/23
Monday - Wednesday - Mrs Barratt
Week 3 completed! Well done Year 2, some great work this week so far.
In Maths this week, we have been working with money. We started by counting pounds (£), then tried counting pounds (£) and pence (p). This was a little trickier, but we worked out how to group the pounds together and then the pence together. Next, we looked at choosing the correct pounds and pence to make an amount. We worked really hard to understand the differences between pounds and pence and which coins were the pounds was tricky to remember!
In English, we looked at using coordinating conjunctions (and, but) to join facts together all about bears, this is to help us ready for our big write later in the week. We then created our plan for our big write, we are writing a leaflet using subheadings all about bears: appearance, types of bears, habitats and foods they eat. On Wednesday, we concentrated on transcription in English, this involves handwriting and forming letters accurately and using these letters and putting them into words and sentences with finger spaces! Can't wait to read your leaflets all about bears next week.
In History, we learnt about the Montgolfier brothers. We know they invented the hot air balloon. Did you know, they sent a chicken, duck and sheep up first to make sure it was safe before sending humans up to try out the flight? We then designed our own hot air balloons and had to decide where we wanted to go.
In Geography, we looked at the coastal towns in our area (Lincolnshire), we used google maps to find the different coasts that we may know including Skegness, Mablethorpe, Cleethorpes, Anderby Creek etc. We then plotted them onto a map of Lincolnshire.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mrs Freeman did Art with us and then we had PE with Dance Lobo.
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Week 3, done! Carrying on with learning about money this week, with lessons about making the same amount with different coins and notes, and also about comparing money where we reminded ourselves of the inequality symbols – greater than > less than < and equal to =.
In English we started and continued our Big Write which is a fact file about bears. We are very knowledgeable and know lots of information, ask us some bear facts! In Science we’ve been learning about human survival, this week talking about healthy food, drinking water, the importance of exercise, getting plenty of sleep and keeping clean (making sure we wash our hands before eating and after the toilet so we don’t get poorly!). In our RE lesson we continued to learn about the Five Pillars of Islam, this week Zakat which is an act of giving where Muslims give to charity each month. Add to all this a spelling test, spelling activities with our new words and some additional Guided Reading and we’ve had quite the week!
Speaking of spellings, here are the words for the test on Friday 27th January:
shining hoping surprising writing caring
hiking joking smiling loving coming
Have a great weekend!
WC: 09/01/23
Monday - Tuesday - Mrs Barratt
A fantastic first week full week back for Year 2 this term. We have come back full of 'ready to learn' magic!
We have continued with our book 'Bear under the stairs' this week, we have been looking at the main character William and what he is frightened of - a bear under the stairs. He has never seen the bear but presumes there is one there and thinks he knows what it looks like. We then talked about our own fears and what has frightened us and how we can overcome them. Also, we have written letters to a friend acting as William telling him about the bear under our stairs and how he may be able to help us move him! A great start to English this week.
In Maths, we are continuing with shape. We have been counting the vertices on 3D shapes and looking at patterns to help us counting them to avoid making silly mistakes when counting them e.g., on a cube, there are 4 vertices one side so there are 4 the other side making 8 vertices. We then looked at sorting 3D shapes and working out which was the odd one out and which one didn't fit into the correct label. We have had a good go at using 3D shapes to help us answer lots of questions.
In History, we started our new topic 'How has flight changed?'. Our first lesson was all about 'Have people always wanted to fly?' We learnt about a famous scientist, inventor and artist called Leonardo Da Vinci who invented the flying machine (first hang glider) and that he invented the parachute. We then used some of his ideas from over 800 years ago to design our own parachutes. We then had a competition in class to see whose parachute was the best and took the longest to fall. We worked out that the best parachute had to have a large cover in order to slow down the parachute!
In Geography, we started our new unit all about the beach with 'What is a sea and where can we find them?' We used an atlas to find the seas around the UK and labelled them onto a map. We know that an ocean is larger than a sea and that it also has a higher salt content too.
A great start, keep it up Year 2.
Wednesday – Friday – Miss Cragg
An extra day for me with Year 2 this week, lucky them! Lucky me! In English this week we’ve retold the story by sequencing pictures and writing sentences with interesting sentence openers, identified rhyming words in our story, ‘Bear Under the Stairs’, and written rhyming sentences and also begun to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction, writing informative sentences about bears as well as things that are made up such as that they can talk or wear clothes in fairy-tales.
In Maths we’ve finished our learning about shape with a lesson on making patterns with 3D shapes and then started our new learning about money. We had a practical lesson exploring coins looking at their value, any similarities and differences, making and comparing amounts as well as beginning to recognise the coins by sight.
Our Science lesson was all about what humans need to survive. We role-played being stranded on a desert island, talking about how the sun was beating down and no boats had been seen for a long time and that the island was just sand surrounded by sea with a small amount of shelter. We then discussed what we might really miss from home and what would make us happy. Next we thought about what we might need to survive on the island and made a list of the basics, thinking about the items which were essential and which were non-essential. Then we thought about the reasons why we might need those things, thinking about food and clean water, shelter and warmth, as well as keeping clean and looking after ourselves. We know that humans need water, food, air and shelter to survive but the list of things we need to make us happy is a lot longer!
In RE we continued our learning about Islam, this week looking at the second pillar of Islam, Salat. We watched videos about how Muslim people pray in a mosque and talked about the requirement to pray 5 times every day, discussing the importance of wudu and some of the Arabic phrases that are said during prayer. We completed our Guided Reading tasks, spelling tasks and a spelling test and have enjoyed story time this week.
Here are the spellings ready for the test on Friday 20th January:
Happiest angriest driest tidiest funniest
Happier angrier drier tidier funnier
Have a fun and safe weekend and we’ll see you bright and early on Monday!
w/c 02.01.23
Thursday and Friday – Miss Cragg
Happy New Year and welcome back! Short week for us this week but very much business like usual, carrying on with our learning about shapes with lessons on faces and edges on 3D shapes in Maths as well as another lesson on statements, commands, exclamations and questions and new learning about homophones. We squeezed in an RE lesson introducing a new religion to learn about this term: Islam, and we started off our new Science topic with a lesson about how humans change over time. We finished off the week with the usual spelling test and managed to do some spelling activities with next weeks words and some Guided Reading about Tim Peake.
Next weeks spellings are:
Replied fried relied multiplied supplied
Copied spied applied identified magnified
Have a great weekend!
