Spring Week 7: Crayons and creativity

 

Hello Class 2 Parents,

I hope you are all well!

First, a Seesaw note!
It has come to my attention that several logins are leading you to one particular child's account. I don't know why this is, as with much technology, it's a mystery! However, please do let me know if you are having this problem and I will re-issue your login which will hopefully work!

This week Class 2 have been very busy. We are always busy, but this week has seemed particularly so!

Our afternoons have consisted mainly of art work this week. The children learnt that one of the ways we know about The Great Fire of London is by looking at art work done at or near the time. They identified common themes in the art work: dark skies, flames, and silhouettes of houses. The children then created their own piece of art work: first, creating a collage background of hot colours, then creating silhouettes of Tudor houses using strips of black paper. The children were incredibly involved in their art work and put a lot of effort into it. See below!

Wednesday's P.E. was outdoors, as we are starting a new unit of work to revisit some games skills. Please make sure your child has suitably warm P.E. kit available for outdoor P.E - feel free to pop in one morning/after school to check or take their P.E. kit if you need to! I've found a few pieces of unnamed P.E. kit around recently, I am keeping them in the classroom because I know they belong to our class, and will try to reunite them with owners!

You may have heard that the children's felt tip pens went wandering. We had read the book 'The Day the Crayons Quit', and the next day our felt tip pens quit! They left the children a note explaining that they were just a bit tired of being left on the floor, not having their lids being put on and being thrown in the bin when finished with! The children quickly wrote some letters to apologise, and luckily the pens will be back in time for Friday afternoon free time. Having read the letter the pens wrote, the children imagined what a letter form our glue sticks might look like. They have started writing a letter about 'The Day the Gluesticks Quit.'

Maths:

Year 1 have started a new unit of work on addition within 20. This week they worked on adding by counting on (using objects and a number line), and adding by adding the 1s first (so for 14 + 5, they started by adding 4 and 5). Their homework is here and will also be in their folders. 

Year 2 have started a new unit of work on money. They have been recognising coins and notes and finding the total of a collection of coins.  I have been showing them how to add up coins by representing them with 10s and 1s - for example, if you have 50p, 20p, 10p, 2p and 2p, you would draw 5 tens, 2 tens, one 10, 2 ones and 2 ones in order to find the total. Their homework is here and will be in their folders.

Phonics and Spellings:

The phonics group revisited the graphemes or, au and aw (which all make the same sound) and learnt a new one - al. We spent the week revisiting these four graphemes. Their spellings are here and will be in their folders. 

The spellings group have learnt that the 'u' sound can be written with an 'o'. There isn't a particular rule for this - the children just need to try to learn some of the words! Their spellings are here and will be in their folders. 

Have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

Half way through the (academic) year!

 

Just like that, we are half way through the academic year!

We have had such a good half term. It was great to sit down with you all this week to catch up - thank you for your time. 

A few things:

Seesaw.
Hopefully now you all have access to Seesaw from home if you want to use it - you should have received a sheet during our parent meetings (if you didn't, let me know!). This is completely optional. Please let me know if you have trouble accessing your child's home account and I'll see what I can do!

Home learning folders
Starting this week, we are moving from home learning books to home learning folders. This is to save glue, and the time takes to glue things in! Your child will have a new cardboard folder where I shall put their weekly spelling sheet and any maths homework. I will also put in it their common exception word spelling list, on card to ensure it is durable! 

Becoming fire marshals. 
The children have taken on the role of fire marshals in our story. They spent some time comparing modern fire fighting equipment to that used in 1666. Did you know they only had leather buckets, fire hooks, ladders and hand-pulled carts? The children drew pictures of themselves with the equipment they'd need. Next, we did some work on materials - the children were given the question: 'if you had to make a fire hook to pull houses down, what material would you make it from?' This led to an interesting few  lessons about materials and their properties. After half term the children will attend their Fire Marshal training to find out how to fight fires in 1666!

Phonics and Spellings.
This week has been all about assessing the children's phonics and spellings. Their updated spelling cards will be sent home. This means there will be no spellings set over half term, but if you have some spare time please do help your children to practise their common exception words. As usual, I have highlighted the ones they can spell, so please work on the ones not yet highlighted!

At our parent meetings I mentioned the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. As mentioned, the children will not know they are being tested at all. If you want more information about the check, and to look at some past phonics checks, please see this website: https://www.phonicsbloom.com/uk/article/phonics-screening-check#past-papers.

Maths.

Year 1 children have continued to look at numbers 20 to 50, then ended the week by making a giant 100-grid together in the hall. It took a lot of team work! 

Year 2 children have been looking at the five times table this week - multiplying and dividing by five. We had a good discussion about exactly what the division symbol means and came up with 'shared equally between' or 'shared into groups of'. 

Over half term.
Please do plenty of reading with your child, and if you'd like other things to do, have a look at the maths facts booklets I gave out during parent meetings for some ideas on learning maths facts. You can also, of course, help your child to practise some common exception word spellings!

I look forward to seeing you all after half term,

From Mrs Simpson

Spring Week 5: Causes of the Great Fire

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

It's been an interesting and varied week in Class 2!

On Monday storyteller Chip Colquhoun came to school. He began with Class 2, telling us an alternative tale to St George and the Dragon. Photo to follow when I am reunited with the IPad. The children loved it - the story was funny and Chip is an incredibly engaging storyteller. We will do more work on St George on April 23rd, St George's Day. 

In our Mantle of the Expert story the children have been finding out more about the causes of the Great Fire of London. In our writing lessons they have been writing letters to King Charles II explaining what they have discovered. Excitingly, they were later summoned by the King to a meeting in the town square - he is looking for reliable Londoners to become volunteer firefighters, to ensure the Great Fire of London will never happen again. We'll keep you posted.

The children have had such a great week. This half term is flying by! They have really settled into life in Class 2 and I'm very proud of the work they have been doing. 

In maths:

Year 1 children have continued to work on place value and to look at numbers 20 to 50. They have been partitioning them into 10s and 1s, making and using number lines and talking about the relative position of numbers on the number line. Their homework is to complete this 100-grid jigsaw puzzle - it will be in their home learning books as usual!

Year 2 children have looked at odd and even numbers, and at the ten times table and related division facts. This week they have this puzzle to solve. 

The phonics children have finished off their split digraph learning with u_e (as in flute, tune, June) and have learnt that the letter 'c' can make a soft sound (as in face, ice, circle). Their spellings are here. and will be in their books. 

The spellings children have looked at words with 'all' in (all is an incredibly useful word to learn to spell; it's in so many other words) as well as the shorter 'al'. Their spellings are here and will be in their books. 


Have a good weekend. I am looking forward to catching up with you all next week!

Mrs Simpson