Year 2

Friday 21st July

I first want to thank the children of Class 2 for being such a joy to work with since January. Each and every one of you are unique, special and wonderful and I can't wait to watch you all grow and thrive as you move up the school.

Thank you parents for all of your encouragement, support, patience and care this year. The children are settled and happy and much of that is due to your love and dedication. It has been a busy busy term, culminating in the wonderful Wizard of Oz last night. I was so proud of my lions. They learnt the dance and the song quickly and were always willing to have another practice and I think that showed in their confidence and smiling faces yesterday. They also happily (mostly!) wore rather fabulous face paints (a huge thank you to Katie Jackson and Bell her daughter for coming in for both shows to do this for us) - apologies for the slightly yellow faces today! 

We are sad to say goodbye to Oscar today. He has been an integral part of this class since Reception and will be missed. He kindly donated 2 lovely books for this class to enjoy in Year 3. No doubt we will still see you around, good luck!

Over the holidays I suggest that if you can keep some times tables going, in a fun way, please do and if you wanted to have a list of the common exception words for year 1/2 to make sure the children are secure with these to read and spell this will help in Year 3. The Summer Reading Challenge is a great way to keep reading over the holidays, choose books the children can easily access as I always find the 6 weeks tend to fly by! The online reading books are still available if you want to re-read some of the books from earlier in the year. Writing postcards or holiday journals is a good way to keep the writing up but most of all they need a rest and have deserved a holiday as they have worked so hard. The KS1 CGP 10 minute weekly workout books are good for revision if you wanted to, I would do Year 2 books rather than starting on Year 3.

I found this poem for the class on Twinkl (of all places!) but I think it sums it up, especially the last line:

"Time is flying quickly and you are growing fast,

I can't believe this year has gone and now is in the past.

We've had so many lovely times: with fun along the way,

Your smile has always cheered me up on each and every day.

So remember you're fantastic; a little shining star,

Go forward and just be yourself, just perfect as you are!

Have a happy, safe, restful Summer.

I'm signing off now but will see you as a parent in Year 3 ..... but you can still call me Mrs Cheshire!! 

Helen x

Friday 14th July

There might only be one week to go but we are still working hard in Year 2! Sorry for all the info on this page.....

In English We have revised the year 2 common exception words, playing games and writing them in sentences. We have also revisited Adverbs, learning that they do not only describe verbs but also adjectives or other adverbs - although we have focused on adverbs ending in 'ly'. They are like the roving reporters in a sentence, telling us how, when, where or why something happened. I've attached a rather fun little song we watched.

Today we had fun trying to quickly read some tongue twisters as part of our work on alliteration. 

In maths we have recapped money and giving change, always a tricky concept. Any practical support with real money at home would be great to help cement this learning. I think most of you managed to get onto and use the Mathletics programme, the trial is now over but it was useful and might be something the school looks into next year. Well done for having a go!

We have most of the children's costumes in their named bags, if yours is not in please send in on Monday. We are having a dress run on Wednesday.

We do plan on using some child friendly face paints on the actual day, if your child has very sensitive skin please let the office know.

Please bring in a sturdy, named, plastic bag on Monday so that the children can take home books at the end of term. The bags for life are good for this job.

The children had great fun today using Scratchjr coding programme today in computing. I'll attach a link to the website. This programme is used throughout the school and it might be fun for the class to play with it at home, it is free.

I have sent home the maths and comprehension books. These are for you to keep. There are still a few comprehensions not completed so I'd suggest your child has a go at these in the holidays so they don't forget everything! But of course this is optional and the books do not need to come back to school.  There is no reading book allocated this week. If you have any reading books at home please can they be returned to school next week.

We have also done some more recorder lessons, learning 'G' and the beginnings of actual tunes! 

PHOTOS FOR THIS WEEK HAVE ACCIDENTALLY BEEN SAVED UNDER YEAR 4 SO PLEASE LOOK THERE IF YOU WANT TO SEE THEM! WE WILL MOVE THEM TO THE CORRECT PLACE NEXT WEEK.

Have a lovely weekend and we look forward to performing to you on Thursday.

Mrs Cheshire 

Friday 7th July

We have had a lovely week, starting with a fantastic drum workshop led by Sally Layne. The children learnt about the origins of the African drum, how they are made and then learnt different ways to play them. The class did call and response rhythms and learnt a simple rhythm based on two of the ways you can play a drum depending on where you beat it (base/tone). We also made balloon drums which you might have seen at open evening. 

In the afternoon we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at Mrs Braid's house. The weather just about held and we had a super walk there followed by swim and fun games. Particular thanks to Mrs Heath and Mrs Chapman for organising and running those activities. The children all behaved beautifully and despite a few, 'are we nearly there yet' comments on the walk, seemed to have a great time. Thank you to all parent helpers and Mrs Tapp for arranging the snacks.

We also released our 5 class butterflies who seem to have grown very quickly (a bit like the class.) We walked to the churchyard to release them in the long meadow grass. We keep (thinking) we are seeing 'Bob' one of our butterflies so keep an eye out for Painted Ladies fluttering by - they might be ours!

I forgot to mention last week how proud I was of the children at Sports Day. They all participated enthusiastically and congratulated those who had won races and if they did not win were able to still be supportive and happy and see the day as a house team event. Well done!

Thank you for coming to open evening last night. It is always a lovely way to round off the year and celebrate the amazing achievements of all the children and the school. I hope you were able to get an idea of all the things we have been up to and I'm sure you are as proud of the children as I am. It was lovely to speak to many of you, thank you for your encouraging words and support.

Rehearsals are well under way for The Wizard of Oz and our class has been busy learning our song and dance, 'If I only Have the nerve.' I will attach the lyrics, homework is to learn them please.

Also, please can the yellow T-shirts and black leggings/tracksuit bottoms be brought into school in a NAMED plastic bag by the end of next week, please bring in sooner if you have. IF it is a crazy hot afternoon/evening when we do the performance we might change to shorts but I will make that call nearer the time.

So we don't completely lose momentum please can the children do the comprehension titled 'Slippers at School.' We seem to be at different stages in the book but I dont think anyone has done that one. Bring in by next Friday please. I don't have many of the books in school so assume they are in bags or at home? If you have misplaced yours I can photocopy and send home next week, get your child to ask me.

Group 3 reading: Beetles around the world

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire 

Friday 30th June

This week we have continued with our learning about healthy eating and staying well. The children completed a science experiment with oil and soap to see how effective using soap and water was. They seemed surprised that soap actually worked!

We have also been having fun with our mini-project 'Beat, Band, Boogie,' learning marching songs with Mrs Braid and listening to the traditional fairy story 'The Little Tin Sodler' by Hans Christian Andersen. It has quite a sad ending so today we re-wrote it in a way we preferred! We also read the story using percussion instruments to accompany as sound effects which was fun. On Monday we are very lucky that Sally Layne (the piano and singing teacher) is going to do a drumming workshop with the class as part of the topic. This should be fun and noisy! In Forest School the class have been making instruments using natural materials as part of this topic too.

Earlier this week we designed a plate which included 3 or more of the food groups and today we made them using clay. These will be painted next week and hopefully on show for the open evening on Thursday. We look forward to seeing many of you there and to celebrate the hard work the children have done this year.

In PSHE today we labelled the parts of a girl and boy's body including the 'privates.' The class were very sensible and we had some 'giggle stops' throughout to let all the giggles out so we could really focus on the learning.

On Monday it is our swimming treat at Mrs Braid's house. I appreciate that this is probably causing a few logistical headaches but hopefully it will all be worth it. If you are have any issues please let the office know on Monday. A reminder for children to come into school in home clothes, comfy shoes to walk in, with a red hat and bag of swimming things (goggles/towel). Hopefully the weather will be decent for us, even if not the pool will be warm! Please sign the consent if you have not yet. I think food is being sorted on the watsapp, please bring in on Monday.

It's such a busy time of term and the children are all quite tired so no spelling or reading or maths homework this week! hurray I hear you say! If you are very disappointed and want to have homework then making sure your child is confident with the Common Exception words for Year 1 and 2 and times tables/division facts for 2, 5 and 10 is a good place to start.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire  

Friday 23rd June

This week we have continued to think about healthy eating and the food groups. We went through magazines to find foods from each group and will put them onto a big display next week. In maths we have been revising times tables and the children had a great afternoon playing times table themed maths games on the ipads - I'd never seen them so motivated and quiet!! Topmarks is great for a big range of games. In English we have spent the week focusing on the beautiful book 'The Tear Thief' and identifying similes. We created Wanted! posters which included lots of descriptive language. You will be able to see them at the open evening on Thursday 6th July.

Today was our whole school STEM day and the class has enjoyed all the activities we have done. We started with lots of construction sets, jenga, blocks, mobilo, magnetic tiles and others and the children were very creative in what they built. We then had a STEM Act of Worship by Mr Rowland all about imagining the future and how ideas that might seem crazy now can become reality - we had a taste of this earlier in the week when we had the chance to watch a little plastic hippo being created using a 3-D printer which was amazing. We had a very fun (and sticky) time trying to make the tallest towers we could using only spaghetti and marshmallows. The team work was wonderful and I was impressed with the effort and creativity - some future architects and engineers in this class. This afternoon Mr Rowland came in to teach some logic maths and then went on a bee-bot programme on ipads.

Thank you very much to Mrs Hankey for coming in to speak to us about her fascinating job in equine management! It was so interesting to hear more about a horses physiology and all the amazing things they can do. 

Homework: please return the completed food diaries next week (by Tuesday if possible).

NO MATHS OR COMPREHENSION but please do continue to work on times tables/division facts (2, 5, 10) and hear your child read.

Group 3 reading: Taro and the stag beetle.

Spelling: the 'o' sound spelt with 'a' after w and qu.

want, watch, wander, quantity, squash, quality, squad, quad, 

CEW: path, bath

School summer production:

This year the summer production is The Wizard of Oz. Year 2 are Lions. For this the children will need a yellow t-shirt. Chestnut you lucky lot are therefore sorted as can use your Sports Day ones. I'm afraid everyone else will need to find/borrow or buy one (short sleeved and no design on it please.) I checked today and you can buy them for less than £3 on Amazon (Fruit of the Loom.) The children will also wear black PE shorts or trousers and black school shoes. We will probably have face paints of some variety so if this is a forte of yours please let me know! If your child can not have face paints please let me know.

Thank you for those volunteering for the swim and play at Mrs Braid's house. We have enough people and are now hoping for a sunny day! Please consent on arbor and let school know if your child is a non or weak swimmer. I will liaise with reps for some nice tea time treats.

Have a lovely hot weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 16th June 2023

What a hot start to the new term! The children have coped well with this heat as it does get quite stuffy in the classroom by the afternoons. They have regular water breaks, wear hats and are encouraged to stay in the shade.

We have hit the road running with our new topic on Human Survival. We have thought about what human's need to thrive and survive and Mrs Silander did a lovely afternoon of health and well being (see pics) which the children all enjoyed and got a lot from. Today we started to think about the 5 food groups (fruits/vegetables, carbohydrates, proteins, dairy and alternatives, fats/oils and spreads. We thought about how many portions of each is recommended and discussed drinking water to hydrate and how we can enjoy sweet treats too but in moderation. Their homework is to fill in a food journal for the week (you can start on saturday or wait until monday) please return when they have been completed and as I said before - there is no judgement! It is just a good excercise for the children to think about what they eat and the choices they make. 

If you have any old food/recipe magazines of pictures you do not want any more please send in next week. Thank you!

Today we had the Pentacost Prayer Stations. This was a lovely chance to think about what Pentecost is and means and our school values as well as doing some fun (and tasty) crafts. See photos.

We made top secret father's day cards today - they are keeping safe in the comprehenion books. Children DO NOT need to do the next comprehension. 

We have been revisiting fractions in maths and counting on and back in 10s. In English the children wrote lovely recounts about their half term holidays, what a lot of fun everyone seemed to have!

This term I will be spending more time on handwriting as it is an area of weakness for some of us and it would be great to head to Year 3 with a consistent approach. This does not mean joining necessarily at this stage although many are, but I am wanting letters to be of uniform size and I really want to see capital letters bigger than lower case. 

I have some really fun things planned for this term as the children have all worked so hard and have been such a delight! Keep an eye out for emails which will have more details.

Reading: Group 3: The Knight Who could knit

Please continue to record in yellow books as I do check them. It is very important that now many children are off  the Little Wandle reading scheme they continue to read to an adult regularly.

Spellings: The sound -ee spelt with -ey:

key, donkey, monkey, chimney, valley, hockey, journey,

CEW: move, prove, improve

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 26th May

We have reached the end of another busy term and the children have all worked so hard. I am delighted with how they all go on in the 'biscuit' tests and they have continued to try their hardest with their reading, writing and maths. 

We had a lovely treat today with the Wiggly Wild Show who came to the school as a great way to end our topic on Animal and Plant survival. We were treated to a very interesting presentation on food chains and got to touch and hold some very exotic animals including a snake, scorpion, millipede, bearded lizard, hermit crab and spider. We found out about what they eat and how they survive. The children were very well behaved and asked some super questions. I will attach some photos.

Homework:

No spellings

No online reading books - enjoy reading some lovely books together at home.

I have sent home the maths and comprehension books BUT only to stop the loose sheets inside getting crushed! Please can your child do the maths sheet (a revision of much of our work this year) there is no need to make notes on this as they do it. Please return the sheet (in books but loose - not stuck in) on Monday after the holidays.

For English I would like your child to write a simple book review. The sheet is in the comprehension books. They can choose any book, it can be one you have read to them. Again please can this be on Monday next term.

I hope that you all have a wonderful half term holiday. I am very much looking forward to a fun filled and sunny Term 6. Our topics are Human Survival, remarkable recipes and a music focused topic called Beat, Band, Boogie! (parent info taken from Curriculum Maestro below)

Mrs Cheshire

In the Human Survival project, your child will revisit learning about humans, such as how humans are living things and a type of animal, called a mammal, that grows and changes. They will learn about the human life cycle and think about what humans need to survive, including food, water and shelter. They will learn about the four things we need to stay healthy: a balanced diet, plenty of water, exercise and enough sleep. As part of this learning, they will evaluate their diet and other people's diets. They will learn about the importance of exercise and take part in an exercise challenge over time to observe firsthand the benefits of exercise to their health. They will learn about hygiene practices, such as washing hands and brushing teeth. They will investigate why we should use soap to wash our hands and bodies, learning that washing hands with soap and clean running water helps humans avoid getting ill and spreading germs to others. They will complete their learning by investigating how easily germs can spread from person to person.

Remarkable recipes: This project teaches children about sources of food and tools used for food preparation. They also discover why some foods are cooked and learn to read a simple recipe. The children choose and make a new school meal that fulfils specific design criteria.

Beat band Boogie: This half term, we’ll be stepping in time to the beat and learning all about music. We’ll listen to a music ensemble, identify pulse, rhythm and pitch, and move in time to the music. Leading and following instructions will help us make percussion instruments and we’ll also design our own. We’ll learn nursery rhymes including The Grand Old Duke of York and read the story of The Little Tin Soldier. Our bodies will turn into instruments as we try to master the art of body percussion. We’ll learn lots of new songs and write lyrics and tunes of our own. We’ll listen carefully to different sounds outdoors, test our sense of hearing and find out how far different sounds can travel.

You will be invited to our special music and movement event at the end of our project. Practice will hopefully make perfect when we perform our songs and dances with confidence.

Friday 19th May

What a joyful afternoon we had at the Maypole dancing! The sun shone as did your children. I was very proud of them as, due to our SATs, we have not had a huge amount of time to practise and infact today was the first chance we had to practise with Mrs Braid. Well done Year 2! You've done yourselves proud again.

They have been little super starts with their 'biscuit' tests this week. We have completed the two maths papers and the first reading paper. Next Tuesday we will do the second reading paper and then after half term the GPS paper (this is optional so has no time specification on when we do it.)

In between SATs we have been writing question sentences with correct punctuation and have planned our rather disgusting marvellous medicines instructions based on George's Marvellous Medicine. 

Our Tadpoles/Froglets have left the class and Mrs Skinner has rehomed them in the pond just by the bridge leading out of the highstreet. It has been lovely watching them grow from tiny tadpoles into teeny frogs.

We didn't have a formal spelling test today but we have talked about the months of the year.

There is NO maths homework this week.

Comprehension: Please do the 'Habitats' comprehension this week and return on TUESDAY (I know this is less time than usual but it would be helpful to have in by then if possible.)

Spellings this week:

who, why, what, how, which, where, when,

CEW: because, beautiful, eye

Group 3 reading book: The Great Fire of London

Yesterday the children brought home their lovely grass heads, thank you Mrs Fletcher for helping them with these. Please keep them in a sunny spot and water regularly. We had been learning about what grass needs to survive so let's see how they get on. Hopefully they will grow lovely long green grass 'hair,' and if they do, in a few weeks perhaps you could send in photos so we can see how they are getting along.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 12th May

This week we have been doing lots of revision to get ready for our 'biscuit' tests next week. In maths this involved looking at 2D and 3D shape properties, adding and subtracting 10 from any number and using our reliable chips and peas method to calculate addition and subtraction facts. Please do also make sure your child is secure with number bonds to 10/20/100 e.g. 40+60 and can count in steps of 2, 5 and 10 (I think they all can.)

In English we did some fun work on Homophones and these were reflected in our spellings. Look out for them in books.

There is a fun BBC bitesize Key Stage 1 SATs revision website I will attach the link. If you want to have a look with your child it has some fun games and revision clips for English and Maths.

We will start the tests on Tuesday and they will run over the next couple of weeks. We spread it all out and have lots of breaks so it is not difficult for the children to manage.  We make it as 'fun' as possible and there is no need for any anxiety from children or parents. The results only form a part of my end of year analysis of how they are doing and help me to see the areas I need to keep practising with them. The class have all worked so hard and I am really proud of them. I hope you don't mind that I will be giving them biscuits after each test!? Please let me know if this is the case.

In Topic we have been thinking about different types of seeds and how they germinate and grow in the right conditions. We started a cress experiment, one with water and one without to see what happens.

I attach a photo of our Topic display board and our pet tadpoles which are now definitely teenage tadpoles sprouting legs, arms and an attitude! They might not be with us for long as we don't want an infestation of little frogs in the classroom so our resident Tadpole mummy (Mrs Skinner) will relocate them to her pond when the time is right. They have been fascinating to watch develop.

Spellings this week: 

Months of the year: Please also make sure your child can recite them in order, starting from any month. e.g. which month comes before/after March, and that there are 12 months.

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

English:

Next 2 comprehensions in the books please. These are such good practice for the SATs reading papers. It is helpful if the children underline where they find the answers. Please bring in on Thursday.

Reading Group 3: Just one book this week, please do go back over any unread ones. The Shy Monster.

Just a reminder that today's early birds maths group was the last one. They have all been super stars and can feel confident going forwards with their maths. We did 'sharing/dividing' with haribo today which went down well!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 5th May

I have just come in from being in the hall with the children for their very special and colourful coronation lunch. What a memorable meal and day for them. We have made Union Jack flags using finger paints, learnt abit more about the coronation and been singing our coronation song (which I will upload to instagram next week.) I have attached the song we learnt so you can hear it.

This week has also been about revising some maths knowledge including clockwise/anti clockwise, left and right, ensuring we use the correct operation ie. do not add if it asks to subtract and fractions. In English the children have written fantastic acrostic poems about animals which are now all on display in the classroom.

Homework:

English - please do the next 2 comprehensions in the books. They are The United Kingdom (p13) and Our Solar System. Some of the children seem to have started these, if they have please just complete, if they have been done already please do not go on the any more as I want them at the same stage please.

Reading: Group 3, The Hide and Seek Squirrels, Crocks and Rocks.

Spellings:

Homophones and near homophones:

there, their, they're, here, hear, see, sea, to, too, two

It would be helpful if when practising these you could put them into context eg. It is their puppy.

Maths: In books. Please return on Tuesday. After the SATs the homework will be much lighter!

Please keep practising the children's number bonds to 20, doubles and halving to double 10 and times tables as they really help in working out. My Early birds maths group have come with some work that we started in class, it is optional but if they do complete it and bring in next Friday I have said they can have 5 house points! Next Friday will be our last Early Birds group. 

Have a wonderful long weekend, no doubt many of us will see each other at various local events. 

Mrs Cheshire 

Friday 28th April

This week we have focused on writing a non-chronological report about a chosen habitat either ocean, arctic, rainforest or desert. The children worked in groups to find out information from books and then planned and wrote a fabulous non-fiction piece which they edited today. The standard was very high and I am so pleased with them all.

We are now the proud parents of a group of tadpoles (which will still hopefully be tadpoles when we come back after the bank holiday!!) These will be a great addition to our learning about life cycles.

In maths we revisited money and spent time adding, counting and recognising coins and notes up to £50. I will attach a couple of great games the children can play at home to practise this. We did not do calculating change this week but will later in the term but many of the class do know that to find change they need to use taking away. e.g. Bob buys two sweets, each costs 10p. He pays with £1. How much change will he get? (this is a 2 step question) 1st work out he spends 20p. £1 = 100p. 100-20=80p. 

Please practise counting money at home and finding different amounts, e.g. how many ways can you make 57p (making sure they do not say 3p or 7p). We also revised time which is an ongoing area to again please practise at home, especially quarter to.

Reading:

Groups 1 and 2 readers please continue to read their class reading books to you and record in yellow books which MUST COME IN ON FRIDAYS! If you have lost the book please let me know. They also choose a sharing book which is a picture book style.

Group 3: Around the world in 72 days and How not to be eaten.

A reading comprehension was sent home yesterday. This is in the style of Paper 2 in the SATs and is a much harder layout for the children as the reading is separate to the answer booklet. You will probably want to take out the staple and separate the 2 parts. Please do not worry if your child finds it hard, go through it with them in stages. Encourage your child to look for key words e.g. if the question asks " What does Bill like to eat" look for the words Bill and eat. Underline where they find the answers. You can read parts with them and support them throughout. 

Spellings: the sound or spelt 'a' before l/ll

all, ball, call, walk, talk, always, small, altogether

CEW: wild, climb

Have a lovely long weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 21st April

This week we started our new topic: Animal and Plant survival. This began with a look into habitats and the animals that live in them, including us! We found out about the non-living (sun, water, air etc) and living (plants, animals) features of habitats. In Forest School the children learnt about mirco-habitats and did a lovely recount about it afterwards. As always, this class has been engaged and enthusiastic with some excellent poems, stories, art and show and tells from home being brought it.  Many house points have been awarded!

This afternoon we learnt some very clever words to do with the classification of invertebrates and ended the day with some highly skilled watercolour painting of mini-beasts (completing half pictures) which will be on display. Is there anything this class can't do!?

In maths we have focused on volume, measuring L and ml. This is great one to support at home. Please show your child containers and look at the capacity/volume of them, measure some amounts, look at the scales on the side of a measuring jug and think about how different shapes hold different volumes. We also continued with our reasoning and arithmetic learning and times tables. Thank you for your support with the home work, I know it seems to be quite a lot but I think it is really benefiting the children. I am always pleased to see workings out, this does not necessarily mean pictures but rather the calculation that has been done in their heads to get to the answer. As always please do comment if needed with information about how your child has found it.

In English we have been revising word classes: noun, verb, adjective and adverb. Please look out for these in their reading books and keep reinforcing what these words do and mean.

I have sent home the Year 1 Common Exception Words spelling list with your child's test attached. This week I tested the class on all the Yr 1 and Yr 2 CEW. I know we have not yet learnt all of the Year 2 words but it was a good opportunity for me to see how the class is getting on. I had hoped to send home the Year 2 test but the photocopier was not behaving so I will send that on Monday. If your child has got all or most of the words correct, fab, I now want to see these words written neatly and in their writing. If there are many incorrect words, please focus on learning the Year 1 words first, maybe a few a week alongside the weekly spellings. With the Year 2 spellings again, just take a few a week, I do not expect them to be learning them all but it is a useful guide to see how your child is getting on with these spellings when they have not had a week to practise them.

Reading:

Group 1: choose a reading book from the classroom. Guided reading continues with a focus on inference, text comparisons and prediction.

Group 2: have now completed the Little Wandle programme and are no longer being set the Collins Online Books. The books are still available for you to revisit if you like but the children now choose a book from the class. This is to be read by them, to you or independently. Please record in the yellow books. I supervised their choices today and am encouraging them not to choose the biggest, fattest, longest books with no pictures but the more manageable ones which can be completed in a week or two.

Group 3: Witney and Boscoe's Lost and Found and A helping hand - very appropriate after our learning about invertebrates! We are trying to build up the children's stamina so it would be great if they could complete these books in one sitting (I know this can be hard!)

Spellings:

adding -ing to a word ending in -y with a consonant before it:

copying, crying, replying, flying, trying, drying, marrying,

CEW: sure, sugar, busy

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 31st March

This term seems to have flown by! One child asked me if after the holidays it was Year 3...thankfully for me the answer is no and I still get to enjoy this wonderful class for 2 more terms.

We had a wonderful trip to Hastings on Monday and were so so lucky with the weather! As the photos show we managed to fit a lot in and I think the children had a great time. They all behaved brilliantly and the lady who was in charge at the RNLI emailed me to say what a wonderful group of children we have! I agree. After this topic I hope that the children feel inspired by the coastline and the amazing work of the RNLI.

This week has been all about DT! We started on Tuesday designing our beach huts and with the help of some willing parents (thank you) started by making a box frame. This involved measuring, sawing, gluing and patience! Then we completed the box frames and designed the outside of the huts. The children worked very well in groups, designing, talking, working together and then evaluating their finished huts at the end. You can see from the photos that they are a great success with each group building a sturdy, colourful and recognisable beach hut.

We have not had much time for maths this week but did look at 3D shapes.Please continue to practise time at home and times tables and the inverse 2, 5 and 10.

In English the main focus was on writing a recount of our trip, using sentence openers such as first, then, next, after and finally. I was so impressed with the amount of writing produced.

I'm afraid we ran out of time today to do our spelling test! Apologies for those who have tried very hard learning them. We have talked through the spellings and have been looking out for them in our reading so it is not wasted.

I am not setting spellings for the holidays but will attach a list of Common Exception Words. Please work through these with your child ensuring they can read and write them. I would like to see them being included in their writing. I might test them on some of these but not in a formal way.

Homework:

Please do the next 3 comprehensions from the book and hand in by Thursday.

Maths sheets in red book. I have attached the link to a great online game you might want to do with your children. It is a great way of demonstrating the meaning of the equals sign (as a weighing scale). You can adjust the level.

Reading: Group 1 please continue to read and record each day when you have read with a sentence about what you have read in their yellow books e.g. my favourite character, what might happen next, what did i enjoy/not enjoy, any difficult vocabulary, something I have learnt (if a non-fiction book.) Please do encourage your child to read a range of texts and not just fiction.

3 online books for the holidays:

Group 2: These are the final books from Phase 5 and so after Easter I will be assessing the children to see if they can move on to free reading. Therefore please do ensure these 3 books have been read and understood - record in yellow books.

Poles Apart, Robot Space Explorers, Watch out this troll shouts.

Group 3: We are also racing through the books now! Please read and record in books: 

Jazz and Pop's adventure, Legends of Land and Sky, Oodles of Noodles.

Our topics next term are Science based, these are the parent notes from Curriculum Maestro: 

Animal Survival: in project, your child will revisit prior learning about habitats. They will learn about invertebrates and their characteristics. They will learn about microhabitats and go outside to identify and observe living things in various microhabitats. They will identify and research what an observed animal needs to survive and will construct simple food chains, learning the terms ‘producer’ and ‘consumer.' They will explore how humans can harm and help animals’ habitats and visit the school grounds to look at ways habitats are already being supported and potential improvements. Children will learn about the offspring of different animal groups, matching parents to their offspring. They will order the stages in animals’ life cycles and investigate the life cycle of an insect, observing it over time. They will revisit learning about the four seasons and explore how animals’ behaviour changes across the seasons and how this links to their life cycles. Children will plan and make habitat improvements within the school grounds, evaluating the success of their habitat improvements by collecting firsthand data.

In the Plant Survival project, your child will learn the names of the different parts of a plant and how they grows. They observe how the seasonal changes affect how plants grow. They will learn how new plants can grow from seeds and bulbs and what they need to germinate. They will use their observational skills to find out where plants like to grow and investigate what plants need to grow and stay healthy. Your child will then use their research skills to find out about some unusual plants.

As always, thank you for all of your support this term. It has been very busy and we have done a lot but it was also fun!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter and that the sun shines! I look forward to seeing the class back for Term 5 when we will be thinking abit more about the upcoming SATs and preparing the children for these, but it's not something to worry about!

Mrs Cheshire x

Friday 24th March

The sun has shone, the rain has come, the wind has blown as we enter the final week of this term! We started the week revising suffixes from last week and looking at the new ones this week. Please do look out for them in any reading books. We have also been looking at features of non-fiction texts: photos, maps, diagrams, contents page, glossary, index, headings/subheadings, interesting facts etc. We talked about how you can start a non-fiction text from any where, whereas with a story/fiction it makes more sense to start at the beginning. The text is organised to allow the reader to easily find as much information as they can so it is grouped in ways to support this. 

In maths we have been exploring 2D and 3D shape as well as symmetry (which is a complex thing!) I will attach an excellent little learning video we watched which explains 3D shapes very clearly with the correct language. We have learnt that 2D shapes are flat, they can not be picked up and we learnt the fancy vocabulary attached to shapes: polygon, quadrilateral, vertex (vertices -where 2 sides meet), sides and the names of the shapes e.g. octagon. Look out for 3D shapes around the house, the children should be able to recognise and describe: sphere, cylinder, cuboid, cube, triangular/square based prism and cone. 

In preparation for our trip to Hastings we have learnt about the RNLI, what they do and the daring rescue of the SS Rohilla off the coast of Whitby in 1914. We are all very excited about the trip on monday. Do please make sure you are in school in good time so we can get going. It is looking sunny but I think it might be abit chilly so please check the weather and ensure your child is dressed appropriately. 

We also started our recorder lessons which the children are loving! They sound surprisingly harmonious! 

Spellings:

Words ending in -tion

station, fiction, motion, national, section, addition, subtraction, 

CEW: water, pretty, kind

Reading: Group 1 - choose from class. Please can these children record in their yellow books how they are getting on with their reading. Even just once a week, a sentence to discuss what they have read, what they enjoyed or not, favourite character etc.

Group 2: Legends of Land and Sky - a fun introduction into ancient legends so lots of opportunity for discussion, Reptiles Break the rules. Both non-fiction this week so the learning can be revised as they identify the features in the texts.

Group 3: Welcome to my home and Disaster Duck (a very amusing story with lots of opportunity for varied expression.)

I look forward to seeing you at the Easter Service on Friday. Mrs Frederick is excited for Wednesday's egg rolling and (optional) Easter Garden display. I will definitely try to pop along for for some of this, although will be teaching other classes at the time. I hope it goes well. It is a long standing Chidd tradition!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Cheshire 

Friday 17th March

This week we have been learning how to tell the time to 5 minutes. We first spent some time counting in 5s, as a secure knowledge of the 5x table is key to quick reading and writing of time. We revised telling the time to o'clock, half past and quarter past/to, many of the children are still unsure of these times so we did lots of practice with little clocks, moving the minute and hour hand to the correct times and thinking about what we do at different times of the day. We talked about 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day (12 in half a day.)  Having spent the past few weeks looking at fractions it was good to see how the clock face can be viewed in 4 quarters or 2 halves. Telling the time to 'past' e.g. 10 minutes past 4, quarter past 12 was easier than telling the time 'to' the next hour. At the end of the week they looked at how long something will take e.g. if I started the cartoon at twenty five minutes past 4 and it finished at quarter to 5 how long was it? Time is one of those areas that parents can play a key role in at home so please do practise it at home with your children on analogue clocks (rather than digital.)

In English we started the week looking at suffixes -ment, -ness and -ful. We talked about what a suffix is (a group of letters added to the end of a 'root' word which will change or add to its meaning.)  This week's spellings will continue with suffixes.  We also wrote Pyramid poems which the children loved. These poems only had 15 words so they had to think carefully about which words they chose. They are written in the shape of a triangle with 1 word on the first line, 2 on the second, 3 on the 3rd and so on.

In Topic we thought about Seaside resorts in the past and how they have changed, focusing on Whitby.

Thank you Mrs Silander for taking the class at the end of the week. I look forward to hearing how it all went - especially on Friday with back-to-front day!

Reading books:

Group 1: Should change their books from the selection of class readers.

Group 2: The Dragon King's Daughter (a nice possessive apostrophe in the title to notice!), The Great Fire of London (this may have been read in Year  so your child can hopefully read it very fluently and with excellent prosidy and understanding.) As always, please focus on the comprehension elements after reading using the questions at the back to support this.  

Group 3: Be a cave explorer, How to Draw Car and Dog.

Spellings:

The suffixes - less and -ly

badly, slowly, lovely, happily, quickly, careless, hopeless, penniless, 

CEW: any, many

Maths homework in red books to be returned on Tuesday and the comprehensions for Mrs Haysom by Thursday. Please do the next 2 comprehensions.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire 

Friday 10th March

I am sure the brains of Year 2 have grown this week as we have been working so hard! In Maths we have continued to look at fractions, but fractions of a number, for example 1/2 of 18, 1/3 of 15, 3/4 of 28. We have been looking at different ways to work this out, using bar models and 'chips and peas' (10s and 1s.) Using half and half again to work out quarters and using doubling and the inverse of halving. As always times tables come into play so please continue to work on these and the division facts too.

Perhaps you could ask your child to show you how we have been working out fractions. We will be focusing alot of how numbers are made up (10s and 1s) as well as partitioning in different ways e.g. 15 = 7 + 8, 11 + 4 etc. It is important that the children can see the patterns within a number, using their number bonds knowledge. Next week we will be embarking on time! 

In English we have been focusing on conjunctions: and, so, but, or, because (I have attached a catchy video we watched about them.) I have been pleased to see the children using these in their writing. We will continue with this and look at subordinating conjunctions later in the term. 

In Topic we looked at Captain James Cook and his adventures on the seas and discovered that he lived in Whitby where there is a statue in his memory. We have been investigating Whitby as a coastal resort and today thought about the pros and cons of tourism. This linked beautifully into our book 'Katie Morag and the new Pier.' We discussed whether the new pier was a good or bad thing for the Isle of Struay and wrote a post card to Granny Mainland all about it. 

We used ipads and google maps to zoom in on Whitby and looked at the infrastructure for the tourists that visit. 

The spellings this week proved quite a challenge for many of the children this week, if you have a chance please go over them again this week. The new spellings are:

The suffixes -ment, -ness, and, -ful

enjoyment, sadness, careful, playful, cheerful, argument, happiness, 

every, everybody, shore (as in sea shore)

Reading: (I hope you haven't read these before, if you have please let me know!)

Group 2: Crocs and Rocks, The Knight Who Could Knit

Group 3: Don't blame me, This is our planet

Comprehension:

Please do the next 2 papers: No teacher and Get Well soon

I am afraid that I will not be in on Thursday and Friday but cover has been arranged.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Wednesday 8.3.2023

Morning year 2, 

I am SO sad to be missing you on our day together but I hope you have lots of fun in the snow! As per our usual Wednesday mornings, please find some maths, handwriting and RE activities to complete if you can. 

Mrs Frederick

Maths:

We've been practising our 2, 5 and 10 times tables and our arithmetic skills in our maths lessons so I would like you to have a go doing this at home today. If you have access to a computer, you can practise on these games:

Paint the squares - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/paint-the-squares

On paint the squares, select the 1-100 square and then have a go at adding ten and taking away ten to a number. 

Daily ten - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10 

On daily ten you can practise all of your arithmetic skills. Choose level 2 and then a skill you'd like to practise such as addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. 

Mental maths train - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/mental-maths-train

For arithmetic practise.

Hit the button - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

For times table practise.

If you don't have access to a computer, you can practise your times tables by grouping your toys, pencils or lego etc into groups of 2s, 5s or 10s. Then count up how many you have using your times tables. Remember to count up in either 2s, 5s or 10s! You can let me know next week how many pieces of lego you counted!! I have also attached an arithmetic sheet if you would prefer to do some practise not on the computer. 

Handwriting 

Year 2 have been working so hard on their handwriting in class and it is definitely showing! Can you practise joining your letters by writing them out in the snow? Try and write out your spelling words in the snow but remember to not take your finger out of the snow like we don't take our pencil off the page when we're joining!! Alternatively on some paper, write some sentences with your spellings words in. Remember to really focus on how you're forming your letters. 

flies, tries, replies, copies, babies, carries, families

CEW: beach, lighthouse, people

RE

In RE, we are focusing on the Easter Story. Last week, we ordered the events of the Easter story and talked all about the lovely things we notice in Spring - daffodils, snowdrops and lambs - certainly not snow!!

I would like you to create your own Easter garden for a class competition. The children will need to create an Easter garden at home and bring it in on Wednesday 29th March. You can be as creative as you like but it needs to include:

-Three crosses out of sticks (or similar)

- A tomb and stone.

- Some flowering plants

- Moss/soil/ bedding plants

Please see attached some instructions. This is an optional activity and you by no means have to complete it today (you could start designing it today if you would like to join in!). The year 6 Leading Lights will judge these on the last Wednesday of term (29.3.2023). 

Friday 3rd March

It has been lovely to be back with the class this week.

The children all looked fabulous in their World Book Day costumes. It was a fun day and thank you parents readers for coming in throughout the day, it was such a treat for them all. 

We have continued with our geography topic 'coastline.' At the start of the week we spent time looking at human and physical features of a seaside resort and today we had great fun learning about coastal erosion and how it changes the shape of the coastline. As you can see from the uploaded pictures, we set up an experiment to find out if sea defences do their job and protect the coast line from erosion. We set up a coast using sand and water and built duplo houses. I made waves and saw how fast it took for the houses to collapse - not long...then we added our sea wall using pebbles and re-did the test, this time the houses remained on the sand. Do ask your child what they have learnt about coastal erosion! 

In maths we have been learning about fractions. This is a tricky concept and it is so important to understand the basics of what fractions are before moving on to more complex ideas so we have been taking it slowly.

Definition: A fraction represents equal parts of a whole, by dividing it up into equal partitions. Each fraction has a numerator and denominator. The denominator represents the total number of parts the whole has been divided into. 

We talked about how fractions are equal parts of a whole, halves being 2 equal parts, thirds being 3 and quarters being 4. We saw that 2/4 is the same as 1/2 and counted on a fractions number line. If you have 3/4 how many more quarters to make a whole? How much of the shape is shaded?

Any help with this concept will help them - you can use food to demonstrate (pizza is a useful one!) 

This little clip explains it well. If you have time show it to your child as we did not watch it in school.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z9sycdm/articles/zhmjy9q 

in English we started the week reading 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch' which fitted well into our topic and also my teaching on the possessive apostrophe. The children worked well on this, please look out for them (and contraction apostrophes e.g. don't) in their reading. I will attach the video we watched in class at it explains them clearly.

Homework:

Reading books: two books unloaded, please read both over the week and go through the comprehension questions at the back.

Group 2: The secret of Loch Ness, Around the world

Group 3: Iris's wild ride (a nice possessive apostrophe in the title!) Wild Homes

Spellings:

Following on from this week's -y- sound at the end. Adding -ies to nouns and verbs ending in -y.

flies, tries, replies, copies, babies, carries, families

CEW: beach, lighthouse, people

Comprehension to be in on Thursday for Mrs Haysom. Please do 2 for this week: p2 and 3.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 24th February

How lovely to have had the chance to spend some more time with you this week, Year 2. I have been so impressed by the progress you have made over the last term.  Keep up the hard work!

We have worked on our inference skills in our English lessons. Making inferences is a valuable skill, as it will help you to pick apart texts and uncover meanings, themes and character motivations. We have also done a little work on verbs and reminded ourselves that verbs are words which show action, such as laugh, skipped, juggled. 

In maths, we are tackling money - identifying coins and notes and writing amounts of money.  Any practice you could do of this at home would be really valuable. Maybe pop to a shop at the weekend with some coins?

Our new topic, Coastlines is geography based and so  we started the week with some map work. The project also inspired some rather lovely 'sea' artwork, which is displayed in the classroom  - thank you to Mrs Wetz for coming in and helping us with this.

Mrs Haysom

Homework

Reading

Please continue to enjoy plenty of sharing texts with someone at home and record what you are reading in your yellow diaries. Whilst someone is reading a book with you, point out a few verbs to them if you can. The more you discuss what you are reading, the more your comprehension skills will progress. For a house point, you might also want to make a note of one or two verbs you spot in your diaries. No Little Wandle books have been allocated this week; a new title will be allocated next week.

New Comprehension Books 

In your bags on today, you should have a Comprehension book. You are going to be completing one or two reading comprehensions each week at home. The book needs to be handed in every Thursday (or earlier in the week) and we will mark it together when I am in class with you on a Thursday afternoon. The readings are quite short, but they are good practice for answering more formal papers. This week there is only one to tackle: How to Grow a Seed. 

Tables: Mr Rowland has asked you keep practising your recall of 2x, 5x, and 10x. Can you do the inverse operation too? E.g. How many 5s make 40?

Spellings

The spelling words to be tested next week are:

The sound igh spelt with a y at the end of words:

cry, fly, dry, try, reply, shy, multiply,

CEW: find, mind, behind.

10th February 2023

It was lovely to see so many of you yesterday at our mini art exhibition/end of topic celebration. I was very proud of the class who are all complete experts on our six Magnificent Monarchs and are also rather fabulous artists! Thank you for coming along and supporting us, the children loved it. 

This term seems to have flown by and I have thoroughly enjoyed being the Class 2 teaching since January. 

After half term I will be sending home weekly reading comprehension homework as well as some maths activities although I don't want to over burden them as we do all work so hard during the day as well so this might not be every week.

We had a maths assessment today which the children tried very hard with. Something I noticed was that children are struggling to add and take away 10 from any number. Please could you practise this at home; have a 100 square and point to any number, then ask them what 10 more/less is. This can then move to 20/30 more or less etc. A good online game for this is splat square 

Paint the Squares - Interactive Number Charts (topmarks.co.uk)

Our topic next term is Geography focused and is called Coastlines. This is what Curriculum Maestro says about this topic:

In the Coastline project, your child will use maps to learn about the location of the world’s seas and oceans and keys to learn about map symbols. They will also find out about the directions on a compass. They will learn about the human and physical features of a coastline, including the effects of erosion and how to stay safe when visiting the coast. They will have the opportunity to learn about the work of the RNLI, what happened to the SS Rohilla and about the coastal town of Whitby, including how Captain Cook is linked to the town. They will research the tourism industry and consider what features make a place a successful tourist destination.

Our sub topic is Beach Hut which is a Design and Technology project - hopefully we have some keen parents who can support this!!

If you have any books, resources or stories which might fit into this topic please do bring them in.

Reading: I had very few yellow reading books in today. Do please send them in on Fridays as I like to look through them.

Group 1: Take a book from class - please continue to hear your children read out loud. When I read with this group I often found there were words they did not understand (but could decode,) they did not ask what the words meant. I encourage them to ask an adult the meaning of words that they do not know if they can't work this out from the context.

Group 2: Disaster Duck - we wrote newspaper articles about what the duck had been up to. This is a good story to really practise prosidy (expression, giving meaning to words to keep listeners engaged.)

Group 3: Blackcurrant Jam - we wrote our own instructions for how to make this jam. A good book to find command sentences - can you find any?

Spellings: I've been really impressed with the good spelling test results, well done! Next term's:

The sound L spelt with il and al at the end of words:

pencil, fossil, nostril, metal, pedal, capital, hospital, animal, because, wild

I hope you all have a lovely half term and stay well - there has been a lot of sickness this week sadly.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 3rd February 

The weeks are speeding past and soon it will be half term! We have been busy in maths; reading, interpreting, analysing and constructing our own picture graphs and tally charts. We started on 1:1 scales, then 1:5 and today looked at 1:10 scales. In literacy we have enjoyed reading 'Katie in London' by James Mayhew and using it as the basis of our work on the 4 sentence types: statement (a sentence which tells you something and ends with a full stop), question (a sentence that asks you something and ends with a question mark), command (a sentence that tells you to do something) and an exclamation (a sentence that starts with What or How and ends with an exclamation mark). Perhaps your children can identify some of these in home texts (recipe books are full of commands!) We culminated our week by making 'Visit London' posters including the sentence types. 

Our Magnificent Monarchs topic ended today with Queen Elizabeth 2nd. The children obviously already know a lot about her but we did mini presentations to the class to show more knowledge. The class have really enjoyed this topic and we look forward to sharing some of the work we have done next Thursday.

Spellings: The sound 'J' often spelt with g before e, i and y and the sound 'J' always spelt with a j before a, o and u.  (i've done an extra one, sorry! 11 this week)

gem, giant, magic, adjust, giraffe, jacket, jar, join, jog, both, only 

Reading groups:

Group 1: Choose a book from the class collection. Please do ensure that you record in the yellow books how your child is getting on with this book and change them when finished (this doesn't have to be on Friday if finished before.)

Group 2: Jazz and Pop's adventure - lots of good opportunities to talk about hearing dogs and guide dogs, perhaps find out more information about how they help people. Please record in yellow books how they are getting on.

Group 3: Sticking Power - amazing pictures and descriptions in this book. Perhaps go on youtube and find wildlife videos which show these creatures doing their amazing tricks with stickiness! Please record in yellow books how they are getting on.

On Monday morning we will have our art workshop with Larraine Shamwana which will be brilliant and we will be spending the week thinking about Portraits and Poses and (hopefully) using technology to do some photo/picture editing! See many of you on Thursday afternoon. If anyone artistic wants to pop in from 11-12 to help us can you let the office know. 

Have a great weekend. Enjoy the quiz if you are going.

Mrs Cheshire 

Friday 27th January

Hopefully the children have come home excited by the royal visitor who graced us with her presence this afternoon. Queen Elizabeth 1st arrived and answered questions the children had prepared such as; why did you not marry, were you a good queen, did you like your father Henry 8th, why were you so ugly (rude!) and why did you put lead on your face? We also talked about the Spanish Armada and the discovery of potatoes. It is a really fun topic which all the class are engaging with. 

In Maths we have looked at measuring temperature with thermometers in degrees celsius. Today we recorded the temperature inside and outside the classroom 3 times and compared them. If you have a garden thermometer outside perhaps your child could record some temperatures throughout the weekend and bring it in on Monday (this is an optional homework.) If you happen to be watching the weather forecast you could point out the temperatures when they are shown. Photos below.

In English we have been very clever and have been learning to identify and write expanded noun phrases. A noun phrase would be, The balloon. An expanded noun phrase might be; The big balloon or if we're feeling very clever we might add 2 adjectives (or more) plus commas; The big, red, shiny balloon. I will be looking out for these in their writing. If you come across any in their reading books point them out or ask the children to. Using them will make their writing more exciting and engaging.

Spellings for the week are: The sound j spelt with -dge and -ge at the end of words.

badge, edge, bridge, fudge, age, huge, change, charge, village, most

Reading books:

Group 1: Choose from class reading selection in addition to a sharing book. 

Group 2: How to draw cat and dog The children loved following the instructions and drawing the animals. Perhaps they could write their own instructions for how to draw a simple picture. (Rob Biddulph does great youtube tutorials like this.)

Group 3: Sharks. Lots of interest in this non-fiction book with some interesting vocabulary.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 20th January

We are all relieved that assessment week is done! The children did so well with the GPS, reading and spelling papers. We still managed to have some fun, especially in our history lessons when we acted out the feudal system - with some disgruntled peasants at the bottom of the pile! The children seem very engaged with this topic and many have brought in some lovely show and tells relating to the topic. We have also learnt a bit about William the Conquerer, the battle of Hastings, Bayeux Tapestry and the Domesday book! 

We have been measuring in maths using g and kg which has been very hands on. If you are doing any weighing at home or have scales do show your children and compare weights e.g. the rice is heavier than the bread. We have started reading simple scales. We have used the greater and less than symbols to compare. Please keep practising times tables as well.

Reading books:

Group 1: choose from classroom

Group 2: Look out Nebit! - this story encourages lots of expression when being read out loud.

Group 3: The Elf and the Cobbler - lots of good comprehension questions at the end of this book.

Spellings: The sound s spelt 'c' before e, i and y

race, ice, cell, city, fancy, face, space, circle, parents, chronological

(I know chronological is a long word (!) but it's a word we are using regularly for our topic so is useful to know the meaning of to read and spell.)

I am on a Year 6 school trip next Thursday but Mrs Haysom will be in all day with the class.

I've uploaded some photos.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 13th January

We have covered so much this week that it feels as if we have been at school for much longer than 1.5 weeks! In English we read the story "Paddington at the Palace." We then wrote diary entries in the past tense as if we were Paddington Bear. We sequenced the events from the story first to help us. There was some super writing which is in the process of being displayed in the classroom. I will take a photo when it is all up for you to see. We have been thinking about making sure that Capital letters are bigger than lower case and that they sit on the line. 

In Maths we have had a week of measuring using m and cm. This has been a very practical week and the children can now all accurately measure lines using rulers and we had a go at estimating (a sensible guess.) 

In Topic we continue to enjoy learning about Magnificent Monarchs. We have found out who our Famous 6 monarchs are - Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Henry 8th, Elizabeth 1st, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth 2nd. We even have a voice for each of them! (ask your child - my particular favourite is Henry as a bingo caller!!) We have ordered them historically and thought about the power the royal families have had over the years, from absolute power to limited power. 

Reading books: Groups 2 and 3 Please continue to read the E-Books at home as this supports out teaching of reading in school.

Group 1: Have brought home a book from the classroom for them to read to you as they are no longer using the E Collines e books. 

Group 2: The Stone Shadows (this may have been read before, but please re-read, they should be experts now!)

Group 3: Not in Otter's Pocket

All the children should have come home with a class sharing book. We have given out some new Yellow Reading Records to those who had lost them, please do use these to communicate how the children are engaging with books. I take them in and look at them each Friday.

We started our new award today, the Kind Heart Award. This supports our only class rule - Be Kind. Each week the staff in Class 2 are looking for children who do that little bit more in terms of being kind to others and themselves, looking out for others, being helpful etc.

Spellings for next week: Spelling rule, the r sound spelt 'wr' at the beginning of a word.

write, written, wrote, wrong, wrap, wrist, wreck, again, children, castle

Next week is assessment week. This involves some reading comprehensions, GPS papers as well as writing. I will make sure that this is broken down into manageable chunks with lots of fun times in between. The children do not need to know about this and it will all seem like normal to them! Just a heads up in case they talk about it at home.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire

Friday 1st January

Happy New Year and welcome back Year 2! What a busy first few days we have had. It has been so lovely getting to know the children even better and hopefully they found out some things about me too. The children have all adapted so well to having a new teacher and slightly new ways of doing things. They are a terrific bunch and I really look forward to teaching them for the rest of this year. Most things will remain the same with Wednesday still being Mrs Frederick and Mrs Haysom as I teach RE in the rest of the school. We will have a lovely new Teaching Assistant on Mondays and Tuesdays, Mrs Lisa Silander who some of you may know as a parent at this school.

Apologies for this long website entry, it wont always be this much!

We have started thinking about our new topic which is Magnificent Monarchs. This topic will look at English and British monarchs from AD 871 to the present day. We will consider how the power of the monarchy has changed over time. They will study  in more detail six significant sovereigns and will choose which of the sovereigns that they have studied is the most significant. We started today by thinking about what we would do if we were Queen or King for a day. This was a free writing exercise allowing me to really see their abilities and areas to work on. There were some wonderful ideas including building a tree house on a palace, chocolate bedrooms, no more school, children in charge of adults and some exotic places to visit.

We finished the Maths No Problem topic they had been doing for much of last term which was focused on both the multiplication and division of 2, 5 and 10. The class have looked at different ways of sharing, including sharing and grouping before covering division by 2, 5 and 10. They also investigated links between multiplication and division and odd and even numbers. We will continue to work on these areas as they are tricky for some and will be starting a weekly times table test (not next week). Mrs Pearson teaches them a times table lesson on Wednesday afternoons and will do a small, informal test with them then. 

Spellings: We will continue with a weekly spelling test and dictation on Fridays. I will put the spellings on the website on Friday but will teach the spelling rule on the following Monday, so there is no pressure to try and practise them over the weekend but obviously you can if you like! We will go through the spellings throughout the week in games, handwriting and reading so by Friday they are confident with these. Please do continue to support this at home. There will be 10 spellings each week, if that is too many for your child please just do the highlighted 5, I will test all 10. There will be spellings with a rule, a topic word as well as common exception words.

The Spellings for next Friday are: the n spelt as kn and gn at the beginning of words.

knock, know, knee, knife, gnat, gnaw, gnome, door, floor, monarch.

There will be no E Library reading books allocated this week. The books will be uploaded at the end of next week.

Friday sharing book: By Friday please can your child return their class sharing book (a picture book to be enjoyed together, not read by your child to you - although if they want to they can.)  At school they will write the date and title of the book in their yellow reading journals. We have some lovely new picture books, fiction and non-fiction for them to enjoy with you. If you have lost your yellow books please let me know as I will be looking in them each week.

That's enough of me for now, have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire 

End of Term 2     16/12/22

Well, what excellent fun we have had over the past few days - in spite of being stuck inside due to the frozen playground.

Thank you very much to the parents who came in to assist with the Christmas biscuit baking - we really couldn't have managed without you! I had a nibble of a bit of baked left-over dough and it was very tasty! 

There won't be any spelling homework to allow you the chance to recharge and recuperate, but do please keep reading and enjoying texts. The library is running a Winter Reading Challenge, which you might enjoy participating in. It is to read three books over the break - so not quite as demanding as the summer one.

Here are the details:

https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/

Here are the class texts, which have been allocated to you on Big Cat Collins:

Group 1: Robot Space Explorers

Group 2: Wild Homes

Group 3: Dragon Keeper's Handbook.

As you know, we haven't had as much time in class this week, due to the snowy weather, so for some of you this may be your first read of the text. Do ask someone at home to read a word if it is tricky, or explain a meaning if you don't know it.

Wishing you a very happy Christmas from Mrs Haysom and Mrs Ralph.

MONDAY 12TH DECEMBER - SNOW DAY ACTIVITIES 

Good morning children! I am so sad not to be seeing you today for my penultimate day of teaching in Class 2. However, I hope you are staying safe and warm inside your home. 

There are a few activities you can do which I have explained below and attached relevant documents to. Please choose as much or as little as you would like to do. The Literacy activity would be very helpful to do for our Literacy lesson on Tuesday. One activity you must do is.....build a snowman! So please build one and send a picture of it to me, through the office email. 

Maths

- complete the winter counting in 2s maze. 

- have a go at the challenge cards, there are two types:- 

Twinkl winter themed maths cards (Addition/subtraction)

Recognising equal groups and being able to reason (harder) 

- fancy a problem solving activity? Please see the Mystery of a snowman activity.

Literacy

- Read some of the winter poems. Which one is your favourite and your second favourite? Look at them both and highlight or write down the rhyming words in different sounds. e.g. 'u' sound: brunch, lunch, crunch. 'ear' sound: here, fear, hear. Bring your list of rhyming words into school tomorrow as that will help us write a poem altogether. 

Topic

Two options depending which topic you'd like to do:

- Uses of Materials: sheet of questions to answer about materials.

- Let's Explore the World: exploring hot/cold/temperate places. Complete world map, using sorting cards. 

Some science fun: 

- make a volcano out of snow. Follow this link: https://www.science-sparks.com/snow-volcano/ or I have attached the method to this class page. 

I think that is more than enough to keep you busy.

Please do bring in any work you do tomorrow. 

Have fun!

Mrs Ralph 

Friday 9th December

A huge well done to all of the class for their wonderful Nativity on Wednesday. It is not an easy task to stand, act, sing and dance at the front of a packed church so well done, Year 2! Thank you for your support in preparing costumes, learning lines and songs at home. It has really helped with all the rehearsals. I have got A LOT of photos, below, for you to peruse!

This week has been rather busy with the Nativity taking precedent. That said, the children have enjoyed doing:-

Literacy - writing letters to Father Christmas AND even posting them. I have requested that replies are sent back to the school. The Post Office says that if letters are posted by Friday 9th, then a reply is more likely....so watch this space! The children had to use commas in a list and understand the features of a letter to be successful in this task. Lots of them explained how they deserved to have the list of presents as they have been kind to their sibling or helped out at home. I'll let you as parents be the judge of that! Do have a look at some of the photos, including us posting it at the Post Office!

Numeracy - we have been exploring division through the use of arrays and moving from pictorial representations to abstract. Remind your children to use fact families to help them: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/number-facts/number-fact-families

This link above may help them. 

Topic - We have enjoyed exploring how different materials can/cannot bend, stretch or twist. The children developed their science understanding by writing out a method of their experiment, using time connectives to order what they did. Do have a look at the photos below. We have also completed our sewing project. Thank you so much to Mrs Moore and Mrs Watson, who came in and gave up their time to assist.

Finally, we ended the week by telling a few jokes in the last couple of minutes before home time today. Bodie's particularly amused us: I got stung by a bee yesterday - he charged me £50 for some honey! If anyone wants to learn a joke for next Friday to share with the class then have a practice before then.

Homework

Spellings: In contractions, the apostrophe shows where a letter or letters would be if the words were written in full cannot- can’t,  did not - didn’t,  has -hasn’t, could - couldn’t,  it is - it’s, I will - I’ll.  Look out for contractions in your books as you read and talk about what the words would have been in full as well as which letters are missing.

There is a game that you may like to play with your child, attached below. 

Reading books to read on the e-collins site this week: 

Group 1 - Taro and the Stag Beetle

Group 2 - This is our Planet

Group 3 - From the Top (This one may have been read previously, but we wanted to revisit it as it fitted so well with our Let's Explore the World topic). Look out for the ... Please have a go at explaining to someone at home what it's for.

Have a super weekend - one week to go!

Mrs Ralph and Mrs Haysom 

Friday 2/12/22 

We have continued to improve our performances in the Nativity and can't wait to perform for an audience next week. Let's hope those horrid cold and flu germs will have passed on by then.

In maths, we have continued to develop our understanding that when we divide amounts we are sharing them into equal groups.  We have used Dienes or drawn dots to help us understand this concept. Any consolidation of this that could be done at home, would be so valuable. For instance, if there were 12 apples to share between 2 people how many apples would they get each. We have then written the number sentence to express our calculation as 12 divided by 2 = 6. We are also attempting to link this with our tables knowledge: 6 x 2 = 12, so 12 divided by 2 = 6.

In English, we have compared two stories - The Hare and the Tortoise and a lovely animated tale from Nigeria called the Strongest Man in the World, the link for which I am including here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/english-ks1-the-strongest-man-in-the-world/zmk3cqt#:~:text=A%20beautifully%20animated%20tale%20from,arrogance%20almost%20gets%20him%20killed.

We talked about their similarities and differences. Both included proud and boastful characters, who ended up looking rather foolish! Perhaps you could explain the stories to someone at home. If you liked the Strongest Man in the World, there are a few more in the series that you may enjoy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/english-ks1-tales-from-around-the-world/zmybnrd

Maybe some of these other stories may remind you of tales you already know?

Mrs Haysom and Mrs Ralph

Homework

Reading Texts:

Group 1: Watch Out for This Troll

Group 2: Jake and Jen in the Balloon of Doom

Group 3: How the Ear Can Hear

Spellings: The /l/ or /əl/ sound spelt –el at the end of words The –el spelling is much less common than –le. The –el spelling is used after m, n, r, s, v, w and more often than not after s:  camel, tunnel, squirrel, travel, towel, tinsel. Also common exception words: old, cold, gold, told.

After our dictation on Friday, we will stick any words that need more revision in the reading diaries, so please look out for them to go over again at home. Thank you.

Friday 25th November 2022

Well done, Year 2, you have reached the halfway point in the term! It seems to be flying by and as you can imagine, we are doing a lot rehearsals for the Nativity. Thank you so much for the support you have given your children to learn their lines at home. It has been great to have the children all on the ball for the practices. Well done!

It was lovely to see you on Wednesday, either virtually or in person, to discuss your child(ren) at the parent consultations. Thank you for taking the time (and patience when running on the late side!) to speak with me. I do hope you found it helpful. 

A summary of this week's learning:-

English:-  We have been continuing with our non-fiction work, this time putting it into practice. The children created fact files on different foods from around the world. Our class book, The World Came to my Place Today, has been great for this. It is a fiction story with non-fiction elements to it. The children chose a food, e.g. banana, lemon, coffee beans, baked beans and researched how they are made, where they came from and what they are used for. The best ones were put on our topic board just in time for the prospective parent morning. 

Maths:- The children have been finishing off their multiplication learning by answering word problems. We have also really focused on the language of x. i.e. lots of or groups of. It would be great if you mirrored this at home when practising with them. e.g. What are 2 lots of 5 cookies? etc. Remember that it is important to learn X tables both quickly, using mental maths skills, and also using pictorial methods. e.g. Draw three plates and put ten smarties on each one. How many in total? We will move onto the division facts for each x table next week. It really helps children if they can understand that division is the inverse of multiplication. 

Topic:- As the nativity has taken over a bit this week(!) we have had limited time with regards to topic work. The children did learn about the different parts of the United Kingdom. Working in table groups, they looked at the population, human features and physical features of England, Wales, Scotland and NI. 

HOMEWORK

Reading:

Group 1: Jazz and Pop's Adventure 

Group 2: Let's Pretend

Group 3: Good Things from Farms

Thank you for all the useful comments in the diaries about progress.

Spellings: 

The –le spelling is the most common spelling for this sound at the end of words table, apple, bottle, little, middle, pebble, poodle, wobble. 

Tricky words: hour and many.

When practising at home, could you please put them into sentences as we do in class.

Please note, that we are now sticking any incorrectly spelt words into the reading diaries on a post-it for revisiting at home. Thank you.

Many thanks for all your support, 

Mrs Ralph and Mrs Haysom 

Friday 18th November - Week 2

Maths - The children enjoyed doing counting practice as a starter in Maths lessons this week. Please do have a look at the pictures and video! We have progressed with our multiplication skills - working on our 2x, 5x and 10x tables.

Topic - We have two topics running alongside each other, Let's Explore the World and Uses of Materials. This week, we have got stuck into the latter and enjoyed grouping objects into their different materials. We had planned a lovely learning walk in and outside the school but typically this was on the wettest day of the week, so an indoor sorting activity is what is was. Please do take a look at the photos of children working in their table groups. 

We are well into the new class text The Hodgeheg by Dick King Smith. Max the hedgehog lives across the road from the park. The busy road is dangerous, but he is determined to cross. With this in mind, we did a traffic survey in Chiddingstone to determine how dangerous it would be for a hedgehog to cross here (see photos). 

Mrs Haysom and Mrs Ralph

Homework

Please find attached the Nativity script to this webpage, including the parts (in case anyone has forgotten!) and the lyrics to the songs we will be singing. Please could I ask that the children learn their lines off by heart for Monday. We are starting to rehearse in the church next week! I will be in touch regarding costumes in due course.  

Reading :

Group 1: Disaster Duck

Group 2: Welcome to My Home

Group 3: Zebra Tent

In English, we have worked on placing commas in lists with and before the final two items. When you are looking at your reading book or sharing book at home, see if you can spot any commas in a list. If you do, copy the list out in your reading record for a house point. 

Spellings: usual, treasure, bridge, dodge, gym, myth, large, change, move, shoe.

TERM 2 ~ WEEK 1

Friday 11th November

Welcome back to school, Class 2! What a busy and fun week we have had already. The children seemed to have settled back into the school routine and were all very eager to tell me about their holidays!

Literacy: This week we have thought about our experiences of Bonfire Night and using adjectives to describe them. How does this event make us feel? What can we see and hear? We watched some fireworks displays to get us thinking about this. The children then created some super firework poems using these adjectives. It was also a helpful exercise in understanding rhyming words. We also created 'wanted' Guy Fawkes posters, again using adjectives and I was very impressed with how many children knew the story of the Gunpowder plot. Many budding historians in Class 2!

Maths: We explored how to add three numbers quickly and cleverly, using number bond facts and place value facts to help us. The children then completed a super challenge exploring how many ways there are to make 10, using three numbers. Harder than you might think! Diennes helped us put the numbers into three groups and really suited those who like to visualise their maths. We have now moved onto a new chapter in MNP - all on multiplication and division.  

Topic: Our new topic for the term is Let's explore the World. The children will be using a lot of geography skills in this topic and have had the atlases open, exploring the different continents and countries in the world. We talked about how reading a map is easier nowadays with smartphones! The children have used a key on a map and next week will start to look at compass points. 

We had a very messy art lesson on Monday, using salt, PVA glue and watercolour paints to make 3D firework pictures. The children got totally on board and created some very vibrant firework displays (even if the cleaners weren't very happy with the salty floor by the end!!) The pictures of them creating them and the finished piece are below for you to enjoy! 

Homework

Spellings:- 

Revision of some tricky words this week:

two, though, any, many, their, your, were, here, friend, once.

Times Tables: - recap of 2x for this week

Have a great weekend, 

Mrs Ralph and Mrs Haysom 

Friday 21/10/22 Half Term

Well, what a long term, Year 2! You have all worked so hard that you deserve a good rest.

We have now completed our Movers and Shakers topic and are looking forward to moving on to to Let's Explore the World. Here we will learn about atlases, maps and cardinal compass points. You can also learn about the characteristics of the four countries of the United Kingdom and find out why there are hot, temperate and cold places around the world. We will also compare England to Somalia.

This week, we have talked about and completed quite a bit of art. We have studied 'Still Life' and compared themes, colours, objects and textures. Some of you were excited to discover that a few of the paintings (Still Life with Water Jug -Paul Cezanne, Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh) we looked at can be found in the National Gallery in London - only a short train ride away. Perhaps you might have a visit in half term? I might see you there.

At Forest School, we made  our own still life pictures with twigs, sticks and leaves.

In Literacy, we have worked on our editing skills and enjoyed making improvements with our purple pens, whilst in maths, we continued to develop of understanding of subtraction. 

Recharge over the break and come back raring to go in Term 2.

Mrs Haysom and Mrs Ralph

P.S. Please see the 'Sing' audio file above for the Sevenoaks singing event last week.

Homework

Reading  - please continue to enjoy a variety of texts - not just your ebook, but also your sharing book and any other books from home or the library.  Just to remind some of you again that the sharing book that you choose in school isn't for you to read yourself but for someone to read and discuss with you. I am seeing a few comments in the diaries that you are often attempting to read them and struggling - this is why. The Collins elibrary book has been carefully matched to your current phonic knowledge, so stick to that for now please. Thank you for the comments in your diaries about how you have been managing the Collins ebooks as well as what you enjoyed being read to you - we find them very useful. Lastly, if anyone has any sharing books at home that are finished with, please would you return them as we are missing quite a few. Thank you.

Over half term, you may want to get a head start on our new topic and choose some geography books from the non-fiction section at your local library.

Reading texts on Collins elibrary:

Group 1: Wild Homes

Group 2: The Elves and the Cobbler

Group 3: Extinct Monsters

Holiday homework - Design a t-shirt inspired by one of your favourite texts activity - please think about a book that you have enjoyed and then use this to inspire you to design a t-shirt (there is a template attached that you may want to use if it's helpful). For example, if you are thinking of Fantastic Mr Fox your design could include a fox/chickens/cider etc, but it's totally up to you. You can draw, paint or stick - again, the choice is yours. Please remember to include which book you have used as your inspiration and also remember to add your name. We shall make a display with your work so presentation is important. Raffle tickets will be given in exchange for your designs with a small prize for the winner. Have fun!

Spellings: /f/ph phone, dolphin, /w/wh  white, when, /ee/ie field, shriek, /j/g giant, magic. Tricky words: friend, once.

Friday 14th October

Year 2 enjoyed a musical start to their week, joining seven other schools to sing in a Joint Schools Singing Event, at the Stag Theatre in Sevenoaks. There was a total of 300 children who came along to sing altogether – doing joint singing warm ups, learning two new songs and singing in different parts. The children also bravely took to the stage to perform their own Harvest song, being the youngest children there and the only school to sing with percussion instruments. Well done, Year 2! Please do take a look at the photos below (which had to be strategically taken without getting the other schools in shot!) Huge thanks to the parents that came to help out. 

Literacy 

This week we have enjoyed exploring characters and the way they feel through a story. It has helped us understand our own emotions. The children will be using this to help them with diary writing next week! The children have looked at time connectives this week and used them to write a recount of our trip on Monday. It was great to see many children trying to use exclammation marks in their writing as well. The children also created a super 'Wanted' poster for Fantastic Mr Fox. They had to use carefully considered description. 

Numeracy

We started a new chapter this week.....subtraction! The children have been focusing on using a numberline to count back. They seem to be grasping it well. If you would like to practise at home, give them an equation, such as, 38 - 5 = , and get them to show you how they worked it out using a numberline. Here is a link that may help: https://apps.mathlearningcenter.org/number-line/

The children have also enjoyed using this site as a maths starter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/ks1-maths-counting-with-john-farnworth/zbct8xs

Topic

This week we have been historians! We have looked at the life of Emmeline Pankhurst and how statements can be fact or opinion. It gave children an insight into the very narrow-minded opinions of those people at the time. Here is a link, with a quiz, that we did in class but the children are welcome to have a go at again: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zd8fv9q/articles/zh7kdxs

The children have also looked at and discussed the significance of other modern day movers and shakers, such as, Malala Yousafzai, Elon Musk, JK Rowling and Tim Berners-Lee.

Homework

Spellings: - mind, child, later, baking, show, grow, music unit. Tircky words: two and through.

Times Tables: please can the children practise their 2x table. You may like to do this visually with putting socks into pairs, putting toys into pairs, getting the children to draw a picture showing 2x table. Many of you may know already but topmarks has a super times tables game: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

Have a super weekend - just one week to go!

Mrs Ralph and Mrs Haysom 

Friday 7th October (Week 5) 

Thank you for your support this week at Harvest, the children sang beautifully and we were so proud of them. The children have been keeping busy with many of their lessons this week. Here is a little summary below:- 

Literacy - the children were very excited to get the chance to edit their work with 'perfect purple' pens this week. After their super predictions last week, the children used our marking codes to understand what areas they needed to improve on. For some, it was spelling, for others they needed to put in capital letters. The children loved the responsibility of using purple pens and felt very grown up! Do take a look at the photos. The children also explored how a character feels at different points in a story and started to create a 'feelings map', using different adjectives. 

Maths - this week we have been continuing our understanding of addition, especially adding two digit numbers. The children have used a fun starter to practise their counting before then using diennes and place value mats. If you want to do any practice at home, please ensure the children add the ones and then the tens. 

Topic - we have finished off our super Rosa Parks posters which are now displayed on our topic board. This seems very appropriate as it is Black History Month. We have enjoyed making our own shades of different colours in the arty topic, Mix It. Please do see the photos of them using primary colours and mixing palettes to then make their own colours. We have also found out about the inspirational story of Walter Tull, a black professional footballer in the early 1900s, who went on to fight in the First World War. Walter was only the second black player in football league history when he played for Tottenham Hotspur in 1909. During his time in the army, Walter progressed into the officer ranks, but was sadly killed in France in 1918. Perhaps you can tell your families a little about him and why he was so inspirational? Finally, this afternoon we enjoyed reading Oscar's book all about Nelson Mandela.

REMEMBER....

MONDAY 10TH OCTOBER  - Y2 Sevenoaks Singing Event.

• Could the children please have a listen to this song which we will be learning at the event:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lac2gMrgsw It is Sing - by Gary Barlow & Andrew Lloyd-Webber. 
• Please can all the children bring in an extra snack to have in the afternoon, as well as a named water bottle. Singing is thirsty work!
• Please remember to pick the children up at 4pm, from the Stag Theatre. 

Looking forward to a musical afternoon!

Homework

Reading: There are three texts that have been allocated to the Collins elibrary according to which reading group you are in: Sharks, Sticking Power, Snug in a Tent. You also have the sharing book you selected this morning in your bag to enjoy with an adult. This can be changed on Tuesday if you wish. Please do make any comments that you think would be useful in the reading diary, which I check every Friday.

Spellings - bread, thread, bird, girl, sound, out, joy, annoy. Tricky words: any many. These will be tested on Friday. Sorry for the confusion this week.

Have a super weekend! 

Mrs Ralph and Mrs Haysom

Date for the diary

Monday 10th October - Sevenoaks Joint Singing Event, at the Stag theatre. 1pm - 4pm (please note, all children to be picked up from theatre 4pm). 

Friday 30/9/22

What fun we had recreating the significant moment (can you remember what 'significant' means?) when two American astronauts (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) landed on the moon and became the first humans to walk on the lunar surface! We used our role play to help us write up this important event in history. We also considered the vital role played by Michael Collins, who flew the Apollo 11 command module, Columbia, round the Moon, while the other two investigated the surface and took photographs. This led us on to a good discussion about the importance of friendship and teamwork. Do share all of your newfound knowledge with people at home - or perhaps do further research of your own.

In Mrs Ralph's Literacy lesson, you came up with alternative endings for The Chocolate Touch. There were some splendid predictions about what happened to John Midas after eating the chocolate ball. You also finished your Rosa Parks posters.

In maths, we have continued to add two digit numbers together, but as of yet, haven't crossed the tens barrier. We shall move on to this next week. We have also recapped the 5x and 10x multiplication facts and drawn pictures to help us.

Remember it is Harvest Festival next Wednesday. Every child has been given an envelop to name and decorate, so they can bring in a donation on the day. Smart winter uniform and school shoes should be worn please. You should bring your Forest School clothes in a bag to change into after the service.

Mrs Haysom and Mrs Ralph

Homework 

Reading A book will be have been allocated to you on the Collins elibrary. Apologies, I have accidentally loaded next week's at the same time. You should be looking out for one of the following for this weekend: Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Not in Otter's Pocket or The Monster on the Train - depending on which book you have read in school this week. You also have your sharing book in your bag. Please do make notes in the reading diary if you think it would be useful.

Spellings to be tested on Friday through individual words and dictated sentences. Please practise using sentences at home so they are used to this. Sounds /oo/ /yoo/ ue, ew, u-e and /or/ aw.

blue, true, new, flew, use, rule, saw, straw.

Tricky words: their, your.

HARVEST HOMEWORK!

Please could the children ensure they learn and know the lyrics to their Harvest song (see attached). There are two groups and they should(!) know which part they sing. A reminder that the children will have brought home an envelope to decorate for the Harvest service next week. Please can these be brought in with the donation inside next Tuesday 4th October. The children will be giving them in the actual service. Also, please can they remember their non-perishable food item on Wednesday to support our local foodbank, in Edenbridge. 

Friday 23rd September

Thank you for all the efforts that the children put in with creating their own timeline at the weekend. I was hugely impressed and know it must have taken a long time so thank you for your support. We have put them on our topic display for all to see. Well done, Class 2! 

Thank you to those that came along to our Curriculum meeting on Wednesday, we appreciate it was right in the middle of an afternoon but hope you found it helpful. Please find below the handout attached to this webpage which has all the information you will need. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Literacy The children enjoyed getting into character by hot seating as the doctor in our class text, The Chocolate Touch. The children thought about what they would say as the doctor to John Midas, for eating so much candy. There were some excellent letters, a couple examples and photos are below for your perusal. With Mrs Haysom, they have written letters as if they were Henry VIII, asking the Pope for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. 

Maths:  We have started a new chapter in the MNP books, on addition. The children have been using diennes equipement to help them add on correctly. Place value charts have also helped them understand the value of each digit i.e. 34 has 3 tens and 4 ones. If you want to do any practice of this at home, please help your child count on with their adding. E.g. 54 + 5 = Ensure the children have 54 in their head and then count on 5 steps. 

Topic: We had a chance to compare and talk about our own timelines that the children made at home. We then had a good class discussion about activists and what they did. The children looked at what each of the activists did to make an impact and it provoked some good discussion. We also shared our Henry VIII knowledge with Year 5, who are studying the Tudors. Please see pics below.

Homework

Little Wandle

Having had the chance to get to know the children and review their phonics and reading, we have found that a little revision of some of the GPCs would be of benefit - no point in rushing them on and discovering further down the line that they had gaps that we should have filled! In the meantime, if you find that your child is finding it hard to read a word in this week's set text, please read it to them rather than let them struggle with sounds they aren't yet confident with. They should have their reading diaries now, so please note down any comments you think would be useful. Thank you. 

Spellings: we have focused on the oa, igh and ie sound this week. The spellings that the children will be tested on next Thursday are: 

lie

cried

time

like

both

over

home

note

were

here

Times Tables: As mentioned in the curriculum meeting, we don't start this until Term 2. However, if you have some keen beans then do get them to play hit the button https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button Remember for Y2, they are only expected to know the 2x 5x 10x table. 

Finally, please use this link to find recommended books list suitable for your child(ren) https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/reading-lists-for-ks1-school-pupils/suggested-reading-list-year-2-pupils-ks1-age-6-7/

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!

Mrs Ralph and Mrs Haysom