Author: Tara Oughton

Remember remember the 5th November, gunpowder, treason and plot. In class, we enjoyed learning about why some people attend bonfire or firework nights on the 5th November. We learnt the story of Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot, using our history skills to find evidence and prove certain statements. If you’re attending a bonfire night, adults may find the following useful: https://www.dwfire.org.uk/news/reminder-to-take-care-with-fireworks/ 

We’ve been reading the book ‘Here We Are’ by Oliver Jeffers, celebrating the diversity of our planet. 

In maths, we’ve continued to think about addition, using numberlines and column methods to helps us solve simple challenges. 

Thank you for sharing the children’s Victorian learning with us so far; the Victorian project will span several weeks so please don’t feel rushed to get something in! We’re looking forward to celebrating the children’s work with them once it’s in. 

We’ve continued thinking about different materials in science. The children are bringing home a challenge that can be adapted, looking at making a boat using tin foil. 

The end of our final full week before half term has arrived with a distinctly autumnal feel. Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Parent/Teacher evenings, it is lovely to hear how settled your children are and how much they are loving the learning in Year 2.

Last week we enjoyed a visit from King Kimba, poet and Hip Hop artist. He performed some poetry and rap for the children which they all really loved. Kimba inspired us and taught us about alliteration. We had a go at thinking of our own ideas using alliteration in a funny way: “Cool cats cleverly crept”, “Amazing ants attacked an angry alligator” 

In literacy we have been writing up a version of Baba Yaga. We have focussed on using and editing adjectives to help us describe the characters and the setting. We have learnt the story really well and have started to retell it to our friends, adding expression in places where appropriate.

We’ve been adding using different methods in maths. 

We’ve looked at how we can solve these questions mentally, using a number line, partitioning (using a part part whole model, and with the column method). Here are some examples of how we could add 18 +38 to solve this challenge:

A four day week this week due to Monday’s historic events! 

We’ve been finishing our writing about The Story Machine; we’ve really been thinking about how the main character, Elliot, might have been feeling at different points in the story. We’ve also been using adjectives to describe objects that Elliot found in the book. For example, instead of just saying “Inside the box, I can see a trumpet.”, we thought of words to describe the nouns. So the ‘dusty, brown box’ or the ‘yellow, metal trumpet”.

This week in PE we have learnt some hockey skills with Mr Senior and talked about balancing and ‘points of contact’ when using apparatus in the hall. 

The children have been enjoying going to the school library on Thursdays and today (Friday) are bringing home an additional reading book with a colour band or phonics band on the side. Please return these the following Monday.

In maths, we’re thinking about how we can compare numbers. We’ve used base 10 materials to ‘build’ numbers, order them from smallest to biggest (or biggest to smallest) and will be learning how to use the more than > and less than < symbols. 

A reminder that we’re inviting parents and carers to our Meet and Greet session on Tuesday 27th September at 2:30PM. If you’re able to make it, please arrive at the school office a few minutes before. 

Over the past week we have been looking at the book ‘The Story Machine’ by Tom McLaughlin. We have really enjoyed exploring the book

If you would like to listen and share the story at home, you can listen to the author, Tom, read it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXVqCCeCPAU (adults, please check the video first as there may be external comments or enabled links to other videos/ adverts etc.).

In maths we have been partitioning and exploring different ways we can make a two digit number using different resources such as dienes (base 10 blocks made up of tens and ones) to physically form these numbers and partition them to form equations. For example, we explored how the number 64 has 6 tens and 4 ones but we could also partition this number into 4 tens, 2 tens and 4 ones. You could use this website to make your own number using tens and ones: https://www.coolmath4kids.com/manipulatives/base-ten-blocks 

We’ve also thought of different ways to show numbers, including the part part whole model and place value chart.

Part part whole model.

 Place value chart.

Parents and carers, we’re looking forward to welcoming you into school for our Meet and Greet session on Tuesday 27th September at 2:30. Please see the newsletter or email from Mrs Smith for full details.

A warm welcome to Year 2! We hope you’ve had an enjoyable, restful and happy summer break. We’re very excited to be welcoming the children into their new Year 2 classes. 

In our first week, we were thinking about bubbles! We described them, wrote poems about them and imagined we had a magic bubble that could take us anywhere we wished! We watched this video to give us some ideas and talked about how the different characters might be feeling too: https://www.literacyshed.com/bubbles.html 

We’ve been enjoying some sketching in art too!