MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 Happy Christmas!

I hope you all have a very good Christmas!

Firstly, thank you very much for the cards and gifts - you are very kind. 

This week the children have:

* performed their nativity - twice.
   (they did an exceptional job!)
* created some pieces of art work in the style of Nerys Levy (see photos below).
* continued with many Christmas crafts
* had Christmas dinner
* watched a Christmas film
* taken part in the Class 2 Christmas party
* been to church to sing more Christmas songs
* said goodbye to Mrs Pacitto (what will we do without her?)

... among other things. 

I have also tested your children on their common exception word spellings. I have updated the lists in their homework folders, however, not every child had their list in school with them. If that is the case, I have photocopied their school list and put that into their folder instead so you can see which words they still need to practise. 

There is no particular homework, but here are a few ideas if you'd like them for the two weeks. I'll put a copy in your children's homework folders as well. 

The children have worked very hard this term and have done a great job. 

I look forward to seeing you all in January!

Merry, merry christmas,

from

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 13: A whole lot of Christmas.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Firstly, a couple of notices:

Apologies to Year 2 parents - your children did their spelling challenges last week but I completely forgot to put their yellow books back into their folders. They will return this week. 

Reading books have all been taken in for the holidays. Please check at home for any reading books - we have a set number, and our group reading doesn't work if we don't have enough books. Thank you!

Thank you for all of your support with nativity costumes - the children look fantastic, as you will see!

Spelling cards need to be in purple folders on Monday please - we are going to be checking your children's progress with their common exception word spellings, and will update their cards accordingly. 

Aside from that...
this week has been very much about the Nativity and preparing for Thursday's Christmas Open Afternoon. I am so excited for you to see your children's Nativity - they've been working so, so hard and have done so with simles on their faces!

We've also continued to decorate the classroom and carry out Rainbow Jobs. The children completed an independent piece of writing for their purple progress books - they all did a great job and I was particularly proud of the Year 1 children who have not done independent writing like this before. 

Next week will be all about final end of term assessments (phonics, spelling, reading) and feeling the joys of Christmas. 

I am not setting homework this week. Next week I will set a few suggested activities for the holidays!

Below are a few photos of our beautifully decorated classroom - all the children's handiwork. 

Have a good weekend

From Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 12: Snowflakes and Paper Chains

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Water bottles. 
Water bottles should only have water in, for health and stickiness reasons (spilt squash is so much more troublesome than spilt water!). If your child has a medical reason for needing squash, please let me know.

Nativity costumes:
Please bring in the items on the list we circulated, on Monday. Thank you!

In Class 2 this week:
As you may have seen on our classroom windows, Christmas has hit with full force this week. The children have had a great time decorating the classroom and watching the Panto and it feels like Christmas is rolling around rapidly

Nativity rehearsals have taken up quite a bit of time. The children are doing a good job. Continual practice with loud voices is required though please!  Thank you for all your help with your children's lines. 

In between Christmas, we have managed to fit:

Maths: Finishing off work on fact families and starting work on place value to 100 (representing 2-digit numbers as 10s and 1s). 

Phonics: learning about vowels (short and long vowel sounds) and starting to collect all the different graphemes we have been learning. Also adding 'ey' to our 'ee' collection. 

Spellings:  words with 'u' spelt 'o' (mother, other, brother). Their words are here - please feel free to practise them, though with the dress rehearsal next week I'm not completely sure we will fit in the spelling challenge. We will do our best!

Ernest Shackleton: The children wrapped up their history learning with a quiz on Ernest Shackleton. They've learnt a lot!

Our story: After a break from our story, we got back to it. Following their own instructions, the children relocated the lost penguin to Antarctica. It went well, and the penguin waddled happily off with its colony. 

To the children's surprise, on the way back on the boat we saw a small iceburg floating in the water with a.... polar bear on it. This was surprising, because the children know that polar bears belong in the Arctic, no where near Antarctica! It looked very thin and weak so the children decided that it needed help. 

We did a bit of research about polar bears and their features - the children made some fantastic polar bear posters and we'll be thinking about how to help the polar bear next week. 

Christmas:
See below for a couple of photos of the children making paper chains and snow flakes - they had a lovely time. 

HOMEWORK:

* Year 2 spellings (see above)

* Everyone please practise your nativity lines, slowly and clearly. Narrators, practice holding your booklets in front of you but not covering your face!

* Everyone please practice your common exception word spellings (on the cards in your homework folders) as we will be doing our end-of-term check of these soon. 

Have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 11: More nativity and more Ernest Shackleton

Hello Class 2 Parents,

This term is going by incredibly quickly. It's not all that long until the Christmas holidays and there is so much to fit in still!

This week:

 * We have continued to practise the Nativity. Thank you for all of the work you've been doing helping your children to learn their words. 

* The children have continued to learn about Ernest Shackleton. They learnt that he earned himself The Polar Medal and that he is famous because of what people said about his leadership. 

* We did a little bit of a science investigation (to be continued) about water in balloons on a frozen day. 

In Phonics the children have learnt the graphemes  ph, ea and y  (as in phonics, cream and funny).  We are onto Phase 5 now - new learning for Year 1 rather than revisiting/consolidating. 

In Spellings the Year 2 children have looked at the spelling pattern 'all' (all tall small fall) as well as al (altogether, always). Spellings are here - mostly very straightforward this week. If you/your child wants and extra challenge, see if you can find other words that fit these spelling patterns!

In Maths we have been looking at fact families (3 numbers in a family together, such as 10/8/2). 

Year 1 homework is here and will be in their folders. 

Year 2 homework is here and will be in their folders. 

Please continue to help your children to learn their nativity words - next week we'll be practising without scripts! (Narrators not included). 

Have a good weekend :)

From Mrs Simpson

Autumn Term Week 10: Ernest Shackleton, and Christmas begins

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas in Class 2, with the snowy day, the frosty days and the start of our Nativity. 

You will have seen that I sent home your child's nativity words along with a note about costumes. 

Costumes - important note.
There is no need to buy full costumes this year - please don't go out and spend money on onesies, animal costumes, king costumes etc. The school is providing camel/sheep ears and tails, crowns and cloaks for kings (etc), so that all costumes will be of the same sort of theme.  Please only provide the simple tops and bottoms listed on the letter. 

Please come and talk to me if you have difficulty in sourcing the listed items and I will endeavour to help - I really want to make it as easy as possible for you all.

Please provide tops and bottoms in a named bag on Monday 9th December. Thank you!

Ernest Shackleton.
The children have continued to learn about Ernest Shackleton's failed attempt to cross Antarctica. They are very interested in the story and have been raising some interesting questions, as true historians do. 

Maths.
The children started their unit on subtraction this week, subtracting by taking away objects, crossing out pictures or jumping back along a number line. 

Phonics.
The children learnt two new graphemes this week: wh (as in whisk, when, whisper) and a_e (as in cake, make, same).  Look out for these as you read together!

Spellings. 
The Year 2 children have been learning that the 'o' sound is often spelt with the letter 'a' after w or qu. Their spellings are here. 

There is no maths homework this week! Please focus on learning nativity lines and reading with your children. 

Thank you for your support with costumes and words!

From

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Term Week 9: Choose Respect

Hello Class 2 Parents,

This week has been all about respect.  The Class 4 Anti-Bullying Ambassadors 
have led the school in a week focussed on respecting differences and treating everyone with kindness. 

The children have:
* made a handprint rainbow
* dressed up in different colours
* decorated cupcakes in rainbow colours
* made a class poster about being unique and treating each other with kindness
* taking part in a kindness challenge

It's been a very busy but very good week. 

We have defined respect as treating everyone as you would like to be treated and treating everybody as equally important. 

Aside from that...

In writing the children finished writing their set of instructions for 'How to Relocate a Penguin'. At some point, we will be carrying out these instructions in our story to see if they work. 

In maths the children have looked at near doubles (such as 4 + 5) and also at adding three numbers. The Year 2 children focussed on adding the three numbers in a logical order, for example, the numbers  4   3 and 6 are best added as 4+6 (10) then add 3. 

Year 1 maths homework is here and will be in their folders. 
You will need three dice for this homework. If you don't have any, you can use the interactive ones here. Click on the settings cog to increase the number of dice. 

Year 2 maths homework is here and will be in their folders. 

In phonics the children have been reading longer words with consonant blends - such as trunk, twist, drink. 

In spellings the Year 2 children have been learning that while some words end in -le, other words end in -el. 

The Year 2 spellings are here. 

We also started a two-week history topic on Ernest Shackleton. So far, the children have heard the story of the failed expedition aboard the Endurance and have also compared modern-day expedition equipment with equipment from the early 1900s. 

Here are the children listening to some of the Anti-Bullying Ambassadors lead a discussion about the meaning of 'respect'. 

Have a good weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Term Week 8: welcome back!

Hello Class 2 Parents and welcome back!

EDITED to add a few photos below!

I hope you all had a good week. It was lovely to see the children's smiling faces on Tuesday morning - they seem re-energised after their week off!

First - a polite request. 
Please could book bags and back packs only have one smallish keyring on? The bunches of exciting keyrings are proving to be quite noisy and distracting at the end of the day during story time. Thank you!

It's been a shorter week, but we've packed a lot in. 

In our story the children have been doing a lot of geography. They needed to relocate the penguin colony (where the adelie penguin has come from). They used a map of Antarctica and some very simple co-ordinates to plot some recent sightings of adelie penguin colonies and they have started writing some instructions for how to relocate the penguin in their writing lessons. 

In phonics the Year 1 children have been looking words with initial consonant blends, such as  sp, fr, dr, st.  These are particularly challenging when writing words - children need to learn to stretch the word right out so that they don't miss the second sound in the blend. 

In spellings the Year 2 children have been looking at words ending in -le. Their spellings can be found here. 

In Maths we have been looking at doubles. 

Year 1 homework is here and will be in their folders. 
Year 2 homework is here and will be in their folders. 

The children have settled quickly back into the routine of Rainbow Jobs. I've introduced one compulsory job each week - this week, every child made a moving picture of a penguin using a sliding mechanism. 

I hope you all have a good weekend!

From 

Mrs Simpson