Autumn Week 10: Nativity and polar bears.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

This week has been largely about the Nativity and about polar bears. 

Nativity words have gone home in book bags along with costume requirements, which are hopefully minimal. If you have any problems with the costume requirements, please let me know. 

Polar bear rescue! The children learnt of a polar bear in trouble - it was stuck on some ice and looked very hungry. They learnt more about polar bears and their adaptations to decide whether the bear could come to our sanctuary. Unfortunately, it could not - it needed lots of ice and snow, and would probably be far too dangerous to have in our sanctuary. Instead, the children looked at where the Arctic is on the globe and some of the countries polar bears come from. They decided to relocate it to Svalbard. The rescue was hard work, but successful. 

There is a child friendly website all about polar bears here, if you would like to spend time finding out more with your child. 

In maths:

Year 1 children have continued their work on numbers to 20. They have been counting backwards from 20, which is quite tricky. Lots and lots of practice will help! There are various Youtube videos if you want to use one of those, or you can make number cards, have your child line them up and hop down them, counting backwards. 

Year 2 children have been adding by making 10 first, for example:  7 + 6 = 10 + 3. It involves recognsing how to partition the second number so that they can make 10 with the first number. There is a good interactive tool here to practise that skill. This is quite a tricky skill so lots of practice would be beneficial. 

Also - ensuring your child is practising the number bonds to 10 regularly will help. 

In phonics the children have learnt the graphemes: ay, oy (as in day, play, boy, toy) and y (making ee - such as funny, happy, grumpy) . All of these graphemes are usually found at the end of words. 

In spellings the children looked at 'c' making the 'ess' sound before i,e and y, such as cycle, spicy, face, race.... I have added these spellings to The Spelling Shed so please help your child to practise them. 

At Forest School the children toasted a marshmallow for their marble jar treat!

I hope you all have a good weekend,

From Mrs Simpson

Welcome back!

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Welcome to Autumn Term part 2 - it really won't be long until Christmas now!

First - reading books. 
I must start with an apology - due to an admin error today the children *may* come home with the incorrect reading book. I think it's sorted, but if your child has the wrong book please let me know (they will tell you if it's wrong). I also did not manage to write their books down in their reading records. However, they all have new reading books and new free choice books. 

We've had a busy few days in Class 2...

The bear keepers found a large crate outside the Bear Sanctuary containing a bear. It had a label on it, asking them to identify it. Whilst it looked a little like a black bear and a little like a sun bear, the team decided it was neither. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a moon bear (also called an Asiatic black bear). Interestingly, moon bears have a thick mane of hair around their necks to keep warm. The children set about creating a habitat so that this (our seventh bear) could join the sanctuary. 

In maths:
The Year 1 children have been counting forwards and backwards within 20. Backwards is always more of a challenge! Any practice you can do of this would be beneficial. Additionally, any practice of writing numbers to 20 the correct way round would help. 

The Year 2 children have been working on addition within 20. This week the focus has been on adding 3 small numbers efficiently - for example, if they are adding 3 + 5 + 7, adding 7 and 3 together makes sense first because it's a known number bond to 10. Similarly, for 2 + 4 + 4  you can either start with doubling 4, or by knowing that 4 + 2 = 6 and 6 + 4 = 10. There is a game here that the children can use to practice with - it has different game formats on the right hand side to choose from. 

In phonics: we have been looking at reading compound words, such as raincoat, sandpit, starlight, carpark. The best way to tackle these is to read one word at a time, then blend the whole at the end. eg  c-ar 'car', p-ar-k, 'park' - 'carpark'. There is a quick game here to practice this - although there are a couple of American spellings to look out for! 

In spellings: the children have revisited verbs and how to change their meaning by adding the suffixes -ed or -er (eg  help - helped - helper/ walk - walked - walker). 

At Forest School - 

We had our first fire of the academic year! The Year 2 children demonstrated fire safety to the Year 1 children, such as sitting in the 'respect' position (see whether your child can show you this, and explain why it is important). The children also learnt how to 'stop, drop, and roll' if they ever find their clothes on fire (we did also, of course, go over how to prevent this happening). The children were all very sensible and safe around the fire and enjoyed watching it. 

All being well, we will toast some marshmallows next week for their latest marble jar treat. 

I hope you have a good weekend - enjoy the fireworks if you go!

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 8: Happy half term!

Hello Class 2 Parents,

Just like that, we have completed the first half term! I hope you and the children are able to relax this weekend. They have worked hard and had a busy few weeks!

Firstly - After half term. 

Forest School is moving to Friday afternoons, every week. That means your child needs to come into school wearing their Forest School clothing with trainers, and carrying their waterproofs and wellies. They will come home in their Forest School clothes so no longer need to bring in their school uniforms. 

Bookbags will now be needed on a Friday as we are moving some reading groups to Friday morning.  Please ensure your child's books are always in their bags, as well as their common exception word spelling cards (I will be testing your child on these in the week after half term). 

In Class 2 this week:

In maths the Year 1 children have been looking at number lines; ordering numbers, identifying missing numbers and writing numbers (surprisingly tricky - 3, 5 and 7 are the ones most commonly written backwards! 

Over half term, please help your child to practice writing numbers 0 to 9 correctly. 

The Year 2 children have been working on fact families - identifying related addition and subtraction facts within 10. 

Autumn Week 7: Redesigning the bear sanctuary.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

I hope you have been having a good week so far. It was good to catch up with you at parents' evening this week - hopefully you received a copy of the useful info booklet, but in case you didn't, here they are:

Year 1

Year 2

Harvest was a great success - the children performed their poem magnificently! Thank you for all of your donations. 

In Class 2 this week...

The children redesigned their bear sanctuary following the realisation that the bear species needed to have their own enclosures. They also heard about a sloth bear that has escaped its wildlife park and are deciding how they can help - did you know that sloth bears have a long snout with no front teeth, to enable them to suck up ants and termites like a vacuum cleaner?!

In writing the children have completed an independent piece of writing this week - we started with lots of practice on whiteboards before the children wrote their own. 

In maths the Year 2 children have finished their unit on place value and have started work on addition. So far, they have been representing simple additions within ten, using counters, which will help them to visualise these number bonds as they start to do more complex additions. The Year 1 children have been using the terms 'greater than', 'less than' and 'equal to' to compare quantities - learning how to line up objects to compare them. 

In phonics the children looked at the trigraphs air and ear. it is very common to confuse these two. To help this week, play Obb and Bob on Phonics Play. Select 'phase 3' and then either 'ear' or 'air' to play with and help your child to sound out and blend the words. 

In spellings this week's spelling pattern is 'wr'. The word list has been added to The Spelling Shed for you. 

Forest school was great, with none of the rain the morning saw! We had a happy hour or so building dens, making a racecar from the loose parts and planting some conkers (we are hoping for some conker trees at Forest School in a few years' time!)

Apologies for the lack of photos - it's been a bit of a busy week!

Have a good weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 6: Open morning and other things.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Firstly, it was lovely to see so many of you on Wednesday morning for our open maths morning. I hope you enjoyed spending time with your children at school and seeing the sort of thing we get up to. Please don't worry if you couldn't make it - all of the children had a great time and there were plenty of adults to go around!

This week in Class 2...

In Maths:
The Year 1 children have been comparing numbers using 'more than', 'fewer than' and 'equal to'. The best way to practise this is in everyday language - particularly the phras 'fewer than' which is correct mathematically but that we rarely use. Encourage your child to use whole sentences eg 'I've got fewer sweets than my brother'. You could also play a card game, where two people draw a card, your child says eg 'I have fewer than you' or 'I have more than you' and the player with more gets to keep the two cards. 

The Year 2 children have continued their work on number lines. In class they have enjoyed using a large number line with 10 intervals, and guessing where different numbers go. You could do this at home, using a large piece of paper, or chalking a number line on a pavement somewhere. The aim is for children to identify which two multiples of 10 a number comes between (eg 43 comes between 40 and 50) and also whether it is in the middle, or nearer the smaller or larger multiple of 10. You can also play last week's game again.  A couple of you mentioned having a prompt to log in to it - using it on a laptop you should not need to, just click on the link and scroll down to this image of the game to play it, or scan the QR code to play it on a mobile device - again just scroll down to the image of the game. If you continue to have problems, please pop in to see me after school one day and I'll see whether I can help. 

In phonics we have revisited ow, oi and ur and learnt to spell the word 'said'. 

In spellings we have been looking at words beginning with 'kn' and 'gn'. The list has been added to The Spelling Shed!

In our story the children received a reply from Ernest, saying that while he had accepted that Bruno was a bear and not a dog, he really wanted to keep him. The bear keepers helped out by outlining the bear's needs (such as how much water he would need, what sort of food, and the habitat he was used to). Unfortunately, Ernest decided following this that he was unable to care for Bruno in the way that a sun bear needed, so Bruno has joined our bear sanctuary. This brings our total number of bears to five. The children carried out some health checks on the bears (checking teeth, vaccinations, weighing) and unfortunatley discovered that one bear had some serious injuries, suggesting they had been fighting. A decision was made to separate the bears, as it turns out bears are generally solitary creatures, so our Bear Santuary is in the process of being redesigned to ensure there are suitable enclosures for each of the bears based upon their different needs. 

Forest School...
was blustery! We had a really lovely, sunny and blustery autumnal morning. Some of the children made some bird kites and enjoyed running around in the wind with them! Other children particularly enjoyed the barrels this week, standing and balancing on them, listening to the sounds they made when hit with different sticks, and spotting things from high up. 

Have a very good weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 5: A sun bear and our first V.I.Ps.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Most importantly: our first V.I.Ps! 
Congratulations to Ophelia and Phoebe, Class 2's first V.I.Ps!

Forest School Clothing. 
Going forwards, please can you ensure your child has waterproofs with them on Forest School days. Even when it's a dry day, we are getting to the time of year when Forest School is soggy from the night before. You can either send your child in lined waterproofs, or thin waterproofs over the top of their other clothes. Similarly, they are going to need wellies from next week onwards. 

This week in Class 2:

In our story the children received a letter from Ernest, who had brought a puppy a while ago but wasn't sure it really was a puppy. The photos suggested it might in fact be a bear, so the children drew some diagrams for Ernest outlining the features of a bear. They looked at features such as small ears, a small tail, large powerful legs, enormous claws for digging and climbing, and a large, stocky body. 

In Maths:

The Year 1 children continued with their work on numbers to 10 by finding '1 more' and '1 less'. They recognised how to add or remove one item, and also how to use a number line to find the next or previous number. A good way to practice this is by making a giant number line from 0 to 10 and having your child run to a given number, eg 'run to the number that is one less than 8' or 'run to the number that is one less than 6'. You can also use practical objects to help your child physically to remove one item. 

The Year 2 children have been looking at number lines. They have been placing numbers in the correct places on number lines by looking at how many tens and ones the number has.  They can play this game -   click on the game, select '0 to 100', press 'play' then choose 'show divisions'. Help your child to decide where the number should go by finding the relevant  multiples of 10 and then deciding whether it should go exactly in between (i.e. if it ends in a 5) or more towards one or the other multiple of 10. 

In Phonics the children have revisited ar, or, ow and oi reading and spelling words with these digraphs in. 

In Spellings the children looked at words where the letter g makes a /j/sound, before the letters e, i or y. I have added these words to The Spelling Shed. 

Forest School this week:
We had a short but lovely session on Friday afternoon:

Have a good weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 4: A(nother) bear problem

Hello Class 2 Parents,

This week in Class 2...

The police contacted the Bear Keepers to let the know there had been a suspicious break-in at a local supermarket. They sent a photograph: the berry aisle was in carnage and several large, muddy paws covered the floor. The children were quick to decide this was probably a bear (not a tiger, because tigers are carnivores) and, using a map the police provided, they went to investigate various other clues. They found more paw prints, a half-eaten fish by a river, a large patch of flattened grass and some brown fur stuck in a prickly bush. Finally, following these clues, they found... a brown bear. Unlike the other bears they've found, this one was fast asleep. We returned to our classroom to discuss this and talked about hibernation and the fact that the bear had to eat all those berries to prepare for winter. The children are making a plan: should they somehow transport a sleeping bear to the Bear Sanctuary, or should they simply build a den around it?

In maths:
Year 1 have continued their number work, learning how to complete a simple worksheet involving representing numbers and counting on. Again, lots of practice of counting is important and any games you play involving counting will help. 

Year 2 continued their work on two-digit numbers by learning how to partition them flexibly - for example, 56 can be partitioned into 50/6,  40/16,  30/26... and so on. To practice this, you could create a pairs game, with one set of cards showing the 2-digit numbers, (eg 39, 45, 28...) and the other set of cards showing the parts - eg  20 + 19,  20 + 25,  10 + 18). 

In phonics the children spent time revisiting the digraphs ai, ee, igh and oa, remembering how to read words containing them but also how to use them to spell words. Magnetic letters containing digraphs such as these ones are very useful to have around - it's easier to practice spelling with digraphs without the addition burden of writing the sounds. 

In spellings the children looked at when the -ge digraph is used at the end of words (last week it was -dge, which comes after a short vowel, this week the -ge digraph comes after the other sounds!). I have added both sets of spellings to The Spelling Shed (logins are glued in the front of your child's reading record and more information is here) - please do encourage your child to play these games, as they will help with their spelling. 

Forest School was shorter than usual, but lovely. It continues to be warm and try. I didn't take any photos but the children were busy in the mud kitchen, making birds' nests from the recently cut grass, building dens with sticks and looking for minibeasts. 

Have a good weekend!

Mrs Simpson