Summer Week 5: five whole days!

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

As much as we all like three day weekends, it's been good to get back to normal routine in Class 2 this week!

First of all, here's a photo of part of the 5 metre Nile crocodile we created last week, I could only fit its head in the photo. The children created some Nile crocodile spotting guides to help Professor Nash when she looks for the Enormous Crocodile. 

The children helped Professor Nash with her packing list for the trip; they found out about Kenyan weather and climate to help. Then they booked some tickets, deciding upon the route to take across continents and oceans. 

The children enjoyed the dodgeball tournament so much last week that we continued the dodgeball theme in our P.E. lesson this week. We had a lovely time (in the sun!) practising throwing, catching and dodging.

The phonics group has revisited ew, ou and aw this week. Their spellings are here. 

The spellings group has learnt the word ending tion. Their spellings are here. 

The Year 2 children haven't done so much maths this week, because they have been doing some of their SATS papers. They have revisited telling the time, though, so please can you practise telling the time to the hour, half past, quarter past and quarter to?

You can just practise this at home, as you are round and about, but you can also practice using this game: https://www.arcademics.com/games/giraffe-dash

We have briefly looked at digital times in relation to analogue times and this game requires children to match the two. Please help them to read the time, eg 'quarter past 5' and match it to its digital clock face. 

The Year 1 children have been counting in 2s and 10s and making groups of 2s and 10s, as the start of their new unit of work on equal groups and multiplication. 

Practise counting in 2s and 10s using Whack-A-Mole, which I think you've played before. You can set the steps (2s or 10s) and whether you want to count forwards or backwards.  If you'd rather not play an online game, play this instead:

* create cards with multiples of 2 or 10 on

* set a timer

* how quickly can you put them in order?

* try to beat your time!

* for an extra challenge, create two sets of cards and race against someone else. 

As the maths homework this week is online, there will be no maths sheets in your children's homework folders. 

I hope you are all enjoying the sun, and that you have a good weekend!

From. Mrs Simpson

Summer Week 4: Dodgeball and other things

Hello Class 2 Parents,

I hope you all enjoyed the coronation weekend. The children have just started a writing project to report on the coronation. They enjoyed being journalists, watching parts of the coronation on the screen and making notes. From there, we talked about the key events and started planning a news report which we will finish next week. 

The main event of the week, though, was a dodgeball tournament. The children filled up their marble jar last week, for the third time this academic year, and voted to have a tournament as their reward. There were four teams, and each team took part in 6 different matches against the other teams. Luckily the sun shone for us so we held the tournament outside where the children could shout and cheer as much as they wanted! There were some fantastic displays of sportsmanship, particularly from the red team who didn't win a single match but continued to play with a smile nonetheless! 

In our story, the children received an email from Professor Nash, telling them she thought the Enormous Crocodile might be a Nile crocodile. She set the children the task of finding out more about Nile crocodiles. They used ipads and books to find some facts, which they will turn into some helpful reports and spotting guides ready to go looking for the Enormous Crocodile. 

In Maths we have been telling the time! All of the children looked at o'clock and half past times, and the Year 2 children went on to look at quarter to and quarter past. Any practise you can do with this at home is very helpful!

The spelling group has been looking at yet another suffix: -ness. Their spellings are here.

The phonics group continues to revisit digraphs in preparation for the phonics screening check. This week : o (making a long oa sound) and ue. Their spellings are here. 

I have not set maths homework for Year 1, instead they have these alien and real words to practise reading by spotting the digraphs they know. 

Year 2 have some practise sats questions to have a go at. There are quite a few of them, so just try doing a few at a time. They are here. If your child works particularly hard to complete the whole thing, or most of it, write me a note on it and I will ensure house points are awarded accordingly!

Year 2 parents - you will hopefully have seen my email regarding Year 2 sats. In case you missed it, there is some information here. I am intending for the children to do their first two papers next week, and the other two the following week. If you have any other questions, please email the office or catch me after school! 

I hope you have a good weekend,

From. Mrs Simpson

Summer Week 3: A new client in our story

 Hello Class 2 parents,

It feels like the week has ended before it really started! With the bank holiday and the coronation celebrations, we had a busy three days from Tuesday to Thursday!

Our story:
The Terrific Nature Travellers were approached by an interesting client - a professor of zoology. She came to us with an interesting request. She had heard a rumour that The Enormous Crocodile (from the story) might still be alive, and living somewhere in Kenya. With a speciality in reptiles (particularly crocodiles and alligators), the professor was keen for the team to take her to Kenya to search for the crocodile. 

The children were keen to help - however, they don't have any experience travelling to Kenya. With that in mind, we came up with questions and ideas about both Kenya and crocodile - we are going to need to know more before we commit to the task. It will involve a lot of science, focussing on reptiles, their habitats and diets, as well as a lot of geography focussed on Kenya. 

The Coronation:
We had a lovely day today celebrating the coronation. The children made beautiful headwear in the morning and then performed their country dance in the afternoon. Due to some unforeseen and unforeseeable events, the dance turned into a bit of a pickle with two children on either side of the circle without a partner. However, the children were fantastic and just carried on like the professionals they are. I was very proud of them!

Maths:

Fractions continues to be the them of our mathematical learning! 

Year 1 learnt how to find a quarter of an amount. This involves sharing the amount into four groups and counting one group. 

Year 2 learnt how to find a third of a shape and an amount. 

Year 1 homework can be found here. 
Year 2 homework can be found here. 

Phonics and spelling:

The phonics group have continued to revisit digraphs in preparation for the phonics screening check: ea and ie. Their spellings are here. 

The spellings group has been looking at the suffix - ment, which changes the meaning of a word. Their spellings are here - only eight, as they are quite tricky this week!