Microhabitats

In Science we have been learning all about microhabitats, these are habitats for minibeasts. We went into our Israel garden to see if we could find any... luckily none of us were afraid of the creepy crawlies we found!

This week in ICT, the children produced amazing music compilations using the programme 2Explore on Purple Mash. 

In Literacy they read and enjoyed the story 'The Lighthouse Kepper's Lunch'. Every child retold the whole story in detail, using the storymap.  They then rewrote it ensuring they had a clear structure to their story. Many children added extra description and speech into it. 

We are really looking forward to Sports Week next week! Please remember to send your child in PE kit for the week and if it is hot, they should have suncream on and lots of water with them. See you on Tuesday at Sports Day! 

The children all had a wonderful time on our trip to Southend (despite the British weather). We enjoyed playing on the beach, visiting the sea life centre, a rock pool talk, taking the train down the pier... and of course ice cream!

Thank you again to our parent helpers.

9.5.19

This week the class had lots of fun exploring equivalent fractions using cusinaire rods. 

Lots of the children managed to build their own fraction walls.

In Literacy, the class have continued working on writing their own myths.

We are really looking forward to reading the finished products!

The class are thoroughly enjoying our brand new music programme, last week they had an introduction to playing the recorder and this week they were very fortunate to have a joint music lesson with year one. During this lesson, they learnt a rap and some new musical language. This weeks focus was on the pulse of the music. They enjoyed tapping the beat to the music. 

1.5.19

We hope you have all had a lovely break. The children have settled back very quickly. This week we learnt all about Myths. We read the story ‘How the tortoise got his shell’ and then retold the story using a story map.

Over the next couple of days we will be writing the story and next week, we will be writing our own Myth. 

Class Assembly 

Thank you all so much for coming to our class assembly. We are so proud of every single child in the class! They all shone.

Thank you very much for all the effort you put in sourcing costumes. The children enjoyed every second. 

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. 

Science

This week we gathered results for our experiment ‘Do we run faster as we get older?’ We had great fun timing a number of people of different ages to find out the answer to this question. Please ask your child to explain what they found out.

5.4.19

Hare Krishna Temple Visit

Year 2 had the most fantastic day at the Hare Krishna temple yesterday. The children learnt so much about Hindu culture and religion and got to share their own knowledge with our guides. We learnt about the different Gods and Goddesses, went on a tour of the beautiful grounds and had a delicious vegetarian feast.

A special thank you to Mrs Conroy, Mrs Wax, Mrs Vega and Mr Lowe for all their help on the trip.

29.3.19

It has been another busy week of learning in Year 2!

English

The children have been writing a report about 'How to look after a Hamster'. This has helped to teach them the features of report writing, ready for writing their own pet reports next week.

Maths

The children have been learning how to divide by sharing and grouping. They have also been making links between division and multiplication, and using inverse calculations to prove their answers.

Science

The children have been learning about 'basic needs', these are the three things we need to survive. We used our knowledge of basic needs together with our understanding of other things that are important to us to create a fact sheet about 'How to look after a human'.

Art

The children have been learning how to use oil pastels this week. We looked at the different textures, tones and ways we could mix and blend colours using the pastels. This is in preparation for our butterfly artwork which we look forward to sharing with you over the coming weeks.

21.3.19

PURIM

We have had a great day celebrating the festival of Purim. The children have learnt the story of Purim, have exchanged mishloach manot and taken part in a variety of activities organised by Year 6. 

8.3.19

Science

As part of our science topic we have been focusing on life cycles. Last week we learnt about the life cycle of a hen. This week we learnt about the life cycle of a human. We looked at how humans developed as the got older. We were very excited to invite in Sophia’s baby brother, Brody, to help us learn how we change and develop from when we were babies. The children were able to ask some very interesting questions and find out a little bit about some of the ways our bodies develop as we get older. 

8.3.19

Maths

This week we have really enjoyed completing some maths investigations around number. We challenged ourselves to fill an empty hundred square, focusing on what we knew about number so help us fill it efficiently.

Sound Collector Front Cover Competition

Well done to all of the children who entered our class competition to design a cover for the sound collector poems. 

Congratulations to Sam who won the competition with his fantastic design. We are very proud of you!

Half term voluntary homework activity - Produce an A4 poster with pictures and writing about the Montgolfier brothers inventing the hot air balloon. For the first day back after half term.

There will be prizes for the most informative posters. 

This week in English, we read the story ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’ by Julia Donaldson and Axel Sceffler. We learnt to recall the story using a story map and had lots of fun sequencing the story and acting out different scenes from the book.

After the holidays we will be writing our own version of the story. 

Art

Over the past few weeks we have been developing our sketching skills. We have learnt about creating outlines, shading, tone and perspective. Today we applied these skills by drawing flowers. We are sure you will agree that the results are amazing, and we can’t wait to show you our final painted versions.

Computing

We have been using 2calculate on purple mash to create our own spreadsheets. We learnt how we can use the 2caluclate program to solve different calculations.

Science

Today we had great fun learning about the different parts of a bulb, we used real bulbs to identify each part. We then planted our bulbs and we will be tracking and recording their progress over the coming weeks.

Class Competition 

We are going to make a class poetry book with all the poems everyone has written. However, it needs a front cover.

Can you design a cover for the class book? 

We we are holding a class competition to design a front cover for the book. The winning entry will be used as the front cover. All designs must have the title ‘ The Sound Collector Poems by Year 2’. They should be on an A4 piece of paper and can have pictures of all the sounds in the school poems we have written. The deadline for entries is next Friday and we will be announcing the winner on the Blogg. Get designing! 

The Sound Collector

The children had great fun creating their own verses for the poem 'The Sound Collector'.

Wow what a start to the new term! The class has come back refreshed and ready to work. 

In Maths, we learnt how to add two digit numbers using column addition. First partitioning the digits into tens and ones and then adding them together. The class found it so easy, many managed to apply it to numbers in the hundreds! 

In Literacy this week, we have been working on performance poetry and the whole class learnt the poem ‘The Sound Collector’ By Roger Mcgough. Here is the story map, see if they can recite the poem and actions. 

30.11.18

Today we had great fun designing and making our own Chanukiot using clay.

23.11.18

Using Talk for Writing, the class learnt a set of instructions off by heart. The class learnt what imperative verbs are and were able to use them in their writing. On Friday, the whole class wrote a set of instructions. 

We we are so proud of the class for mastering adding two digit numbers using the think 10 strategy. We are now working on subtraction and bar modelling. 

6.11.18

For Anti Bullying Week the class read the story ‘Willy the Wimp’ they discussed the message of the story and learnt it off by heart using a story map. They re wrote the story using their boxing up plans. 

In PSHE the class enjoyed watching an episode of Sesame Street which was all about RESPECT. They produced posters about how to respect people at home and at school. Well done to Orli and Anna who won the competition for producing the best posters. 

In Maths we have continued work on adding by rebalancing and thinking ten. The class learnt how to round numbers to the nearest ten.

In History we started our new topic on The Gunpowder Plot, we learnt who Guy Fawkes was and all about the plot. The class thought about differences in life then and now and wrote some sentences describing the differences. The new homework grids and spellings will be sent out on Friday. Please make sure they are returned by Wednesday.  

African Drumming Workshop

The children (and teachers) thoroughly enjoyed our African drumming workshop as part of our Black History Week learning. We learnt how to use the drums and create a rhythm as a class. 

Year two loved visiting the library today, they enjoyed looking at the new books especially the Lego ones! All the children have chosen a brand new library book, these will be changed every Tuesday during the Library slot. Please make sure they look after them. A big thank you to Mrs Cohen who scanned all the books for us. 

In Maths this week we learnt the signs for greater than and less than. We generated lots of two digit numbers and ordered and compared them using the signs. We had lots of fun applying it to measure and in groups we compared and ordered different weights, liquids and lengths. We can tell you how many tens and ones there are in any two digit number.

4.10.18

This week we started our new topic on report writing. We looked at lots of different newspapers and learnt all the features. We are looking forward to writing our own newspapers next week. Look out for the work which will be displayed in the corridor. 

In history this week we produced our own news broadcasts on The Great Fire of London. We have some very talented reporters in the class. Watch this space for the reports.

In Maths we explored counting forward and backwards on the hundred square and learnt how to partition numbers into tens and ones. 

Please make sure you fill the smarties tubes up for the PTA.

Shabbat Shalom

Mrs Benedick and Mrs Garfen 

Week Beginning 17.9.18

Maths

This week we have been focusing on learning new maths strategies for addition and subtraction. The strategies the children have learnt are 'think 10' for addition and 'think 10' for subtraction (see below for an example). A great way to help your child embed these strategies is to ask them to be the 'teacher' and teach you how to use the strategy to solve a calculation.

English

We have started a 2 week unit on traditional tales, focusing on Jack and the Beanstalk. The children have learnt the features of traditional tales through a reading comprehension, and have enjoyed acting out the story. See below for a simple 'story map' that the children have used to help learn the story before they write their own versions next week.

PSHE

This week the children have started their new PSHE unit 'New Beginnings'. We have discussed the types of behaviours we would have in an ideal classroom, linked to our school rules.

We have also introduced the children to a variety of yoga and breathing exercises to develop  their ability to manage their emotions. These will continue as part of our everyday classroom learning. 

The class had a brilliant time in London today, they all behaved excellently and were a credit to the school. They went on a cruise down the River Thames followed by a trip on the London Eye and a 4D experience. The class learnt the names of lots of the London landmarks and they really enjoyed spending the day in London. This trip will form the start of our geographical study of London and history topic on The Great Fire of London.

 We would like to thank our fantastic parent helpers and our security helper. We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. 

Welcome to Year 2!

We hope you all had a lovely summer break. It was wonderful to welcome back all the children. They all had big smiles on their faces and settled back in very quickly.

We are very excited for our outing next week. Depending on the weather, the children will need hats, water bottles and sun cream applied. We will send out a reminder of the times of the trip. A packed lunch will be provided. 

We look forward to seeing you all at the curriculum evening next Thursday where we will fill you in on the year.

Have a lovely week

Mrs Benedick & Mrs Garfen