The children have all had another busy and exciting week. They have most loved all the preparations for Chanukah.

English

This week in English we have been lookign in depth at the story of the three little pigs. The children know the story well from year 1 so our focus has been on adding detail to our story telling through the use of adjectives and punctuating our sentences correctly. They have written character descriptions of the wolf and the pig and even acted out the story using masks. 

Maths

This week we have been looking at the use of money. We practised identifying the coins before moving on to word problems where children needed to add and subtract in pounds and pence.  

What a busy half term we have had! I hope that you have all had a lovely restful break and I can't wait to see everyone on Monday already. 

This week the children have been working on Calligraphs. These are poems that are structured to look like what they are talking about. This half term we have been practising writing single word calligraphs while revising nouns and adjectives. In maths we have been exploring mental calculations and how to add numbers together quickly using different methods such as re-ordering and re-grouping. We enjoyed presenting our own covid designs to the rest of the class in Science and gave speechs to King Charles II in topic. 

Homework

Maths

This weeks homework is on MyMaths - not Google Classroom. Children were given a login for their reading records a few weeks ago. I know that some children did not bring their reading records in that day so I have printed and sent home letters today with their log in details  just in case their little slip didn't make it home! 

Phonics

A number of parents have been asking about how to best support their child with reading. 

This half term we have been revising the sounds children would have been learning at the end of year 1. Next week I will be moving us on to the year 2 phonics curriculum. We will still be revising those year one sounds though!

I will be posting a reading sheet on google classrooms each week. Children can practise blending with a focus on a particular sound. If you are worried that your child is struggling to recall sounds, one thing you can do is get some of the flash cards we use in class. Using these for 5 minutes a day can be really helpful. Repeating a sound they struggle with a number of times each day can make a difference. Make it active by putting the cards in an 'obstacle course' - your child has to jump from sound to sound as they say them. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Write-Inc-Phonics-Flashcards/dp/0198386818/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/258-1550710-0443441?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0198386818&pd_rd_r=6ef3d824-4125-4c2e-adf4-8bff1e78b1f2&pd_rd_w=zV56J&pd_rd_wg=S3ppt&pf_rd_p=dcf35746-0212-418b-a148-30395d107b2d&pf_rd_r=0B0MNDHD92VEQHMG9BER&psc=1&refRID=0B0MNDHD92VEQHMG9BER

This week

Maths

Children have continued to work with tens and ones. They have also looked at counting back and on through 10 to help with adding and subtracting. 

English

This week we wrote our diaries! Children have really enjoyed including lots of facts about the fire of London in a creative way. We continue to focus on full stops, capital letters and handwriting. 

Science

The children become mini-inventors. They had to design a product to help keep us safe from the corona virus. Children presented their ideas to the class with a focus on explaining what material they would use to make their invention and why. 

This week we began our Great Fire of London Topic. The children have loved getting to know all the details about the fire. In History the children ordered the main events on a timeline before creating a comic strip about the days of the fire. 

English. 

We have been learning all about diaries ready to write our own diary next week. Children will be writing  as 'Toby', the main character in the short book we have been reading. We have looked at the use of verbs when writing in the past tense and discussed the use of the first person. Children used drama to recreate what would have been happening on the streets of London as the fire burnt down the houses. They also wrote descriptive sentences in the past tense to describe the scene. 

Maths

This week we have carried on looking at tens and ones. Children have been focusing on representing the value of each digit in a two digit number. For example, the value of 6 in 68 is 60.They have been using 10p and 1p coins or rods and cubes to demonstrate this. 

English

I have been absolutley blown away by the children during English this week. After learning the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, they have been working on using adjectives and retelling the story with a few changes. The children planned some new characters and settings before creating their own slightly altered story maps. Hearing the children perform their new story maps was incredible. They have all worked so hard and they all performed so confidently. I am really looking forward to seeing them put their spoken stories into written from over the next few days. 

What a fun week we have had. The lovely weather has meant that we could get outside and explore all of the trees and flowers around school to really bring our Science week learning to life! The children have loved going on leaf and weed hunts, dissecting plants and creating their own flowers in art. 

We also had the big event of their first ever spelling test! Before we took the test we discussed that the most important thing is that they always just  try their best. It doesn't matter if they make mistakes or even if they get all of the spellings wrong so long as they worked as hard as they could.Hopefully they children understand that tests are to show us what they might need some help or practise with.  They all did brilliantly to focus well and stay silent throughout. 

The children have continues to persevere with their maths learning and it has been lovely  to see them all grow in confidence already with their writing. 

This week all of the children have settled in beautifully. We have been working hard to build resilience and persevere with tasks - just like Humpty did in the book 'After the Fall'.

Our hardest challenge was to build a tower of paper cups.  The children were not allowed to use their hands to complete the task but had to work as a team of 6 using just a rubber band and 6 pieces of string! 

We have also spent the week writing a diary entry as Humpty Dumpty and securing our place value knowledge by regrouping numbers to 20. 

It has been an absolute pleasure getting to know all of the children in year 2. I hope you all have a lovely and restful weekend. Shabbat Shalom.

Miss Grant 

Next Week...

English - Write a fairy tale.

We will be basing our writing work off of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and focusing on forming our letters correctly and using full stops and capital letters. 

Maths - Place Value

We will continue to look at regrouping numbers. We will look at how to add using 'base 10'.

Next week is science week and the topic we will be exploring is plants. We will be spending the afternoons carrying out investigations, going on tree and plant hunts on the field and drawing scientific sketches.