Summer Term Week 10 - Zog!

 

Hello Class 2 Parents,

We've had a bit of a science focus this week. In our story, the children discovered last week that there were a lot of Nile crocodiles in the Maasai Mara, and that those crocodiles were not sticking to their habitats. They'd also found a lot of eggs, left unattended. 

They talked to the Maasai chief they met, and he wondered if they could investigate as they have a lot of expertise in Nile crocodiles. First, the children learnt about the life cycle of a Nile crocodile. They discovered that, normally, female crocodiles guard their nests... so  why were all those eggs abandoned? Next, they learnt about crocodile food chains and played a food chain game, with different numbers of crocodiles, hippos, and river grasses, to show what happens when there are too many hippos or too many crocodiles. They decided that the reason the crocodiles are abandoning their habitats is because they've run out of food.  The children have yet to decide what to do about this - that's next week's job!

We also, of course, going to see Zog at the theatre today  - the children have been talking about it all week! In literacy this week, we read the story of Zog and then the children created their own dragon (we had popcorn dragons, space dragons and horrifying dragons among others) and wrote some non-fiction texts about them. This was their half-termly independent writing task and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all of their different ideas!

Maths:
We have started a whole-class unit on measurement - starting with measuring mass this week. Homework is a little different. Find a recipe to follow, and bake something. Measure the ingredients in grams or, if you don't have scales, in cups Please send me photos of anything you make!

Spellings and Phonics:

The phonics group has been looking at plurals this week. Their spellings are  here

The spellings group has been learning to write numbers to 100 in words. Their spellings are here.

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

Hello Class 2 parents,

We've had a brilliant week in Class 2. 

In our story:

As they travelled around the Maasai Mara looking for the Enormous Crocodile, the team came across what appeared to be an abandoned village. There were round houses made of large sticks, mud and dried grasses - but no one was there. It was quite eerie. Finally the children found that one hut was occupied by an elderly man wearing a red blanket around him. He welcomed them to his kraal (hut) and introduced himself as a Maasai Chief. The man explained that his whole tribe had fled following an invasion of Nile crocodiles - the crocodiles had eaten the cattle and goats and left them with nothing. 

The team, of course, offered to help. They helped the Chief to rebuild the strong 'accacia' fence around his boma (village) to protect it from crocodiles. 

The team worked very hard to represent the village and fence - you can see the finished boma in the picture. 

The children also learnt that the official languages of Kenya are Swahili and English. They started to learn to count in Swahili. 

The children do not have any maths homework this week. Instead, they have a challenge:

Learn to count to 10 in Swahili. If they manage this challenge, they need to come and count to 10 for me and I will award house points! As usual, this is an optional, but educational, homework!

Here is a video to help.

Maths.

Year 2 have been doing a bit of data handling, collecting information on the class's favourite safari animals and representing the information in a block graph and a pictogram. 

Year 1 have been working on the first steps of 'division', by sharing objects into equal groups (for example, sharing 20 counters into groups of 5, and understanding that 20 counters shared into groups of 5 gives us 4 groups). 

There is no maths homework (see above). 

Phonics and Spellings.

The phonics children  has learnt the word endings:  le, al and ve (as in little, metal and love). Their spellings are here

The spellings children have been learning to spell the months of the year. Their spellings homework is here. 

I think that's everything for this week. Have a good week end!
From Mrs Simpson

Hello Class 2 parents,

This week has been... sunny. So sunny! It seems a long time since those cold, rainy winter months. The children are doing a good job of putting hats on and drinking plenty of water.

This week we have, among other things:

* realised that we forgot to look after our bean plants.
* talked about why the bean plants died, and what they needed.
* planted some new bean plants and decided how to make sure they don't die.
* learnt what a key is when it comes to map-making, and created a key for our map of the Maasai Mara (see photo - the children created it together). We're going to need the map to help us find the Enormous Crocodile. 
* finished planning our non-fiction books about Nile crocodiles, and started putting the books together.

In addition...

Maths:

The Year 1 children have continued to work on equal groups and repeated addition. They moved on to creating arrays, which have equal rows and equal columns. Their homework is here

The Year 2 children have spent the week revisiting all of the learning they have done so far this year. Their maths homework is a puzzle this week and it's here.

Phonics and spellings:

The spelling group have continued to work on the homophones: their spellings for next week are here.

The phonics group has been learning some alternative pronunciations: that 'or' can make the 'ur' sound (as in worm and work) and that 'u' and 'oul' can make the 'oo' sound (as in put, push, could and would). Their homework is here.

Have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

The Final Half Term Begins!

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

The final half term has begun!

It has started very well. The children have started some non-fiction reports on crocodiles, to help us to identify the Enormous Crocodile if we do find him in Kenya. They've done some maths and spellings as well as observing the changes that have been happening to the beans they planted before half term. 

The highlight of the week was, of course, our trip to Salcey Forest on Thursday. We had a really lovely day. It started with a one-and-a-half mile walk to spot trees and minibeasts. The children were incredibly observant, spotting many minibeasts - in particular caterpillars! Next we found somewhere to have lunch and build dens. There was a lot of excellent team work on show and some fantastic dens were made. After lunch we walked to another part of the woods where the children created some animal homes including squirrel dreys, fox dens and owl nests. There was also an unexpected gruffalo that needed a home. 

The children were all fantastic - they did the school proud with their behaviour and enthusiasm. 

In other learning this week:

Maths:
The year one children have continued their work on multiplication by making and adding equal groups. They learnt how to write a repeated addition number sentence to find out 'how many altogether.' 

The year two children have continued their work on time, revisiting 'quarter to' and 'quarter past' and learning how to read the time in five minute intervals. For this, we created a human clock on the playground! It's quite a tricky skill to learn, but they did a good job!

The Year 1 homework is here.

The Year 2 homework is to use this interactive clock to practise making and telling the time. You could:

* set your child different times to make (quarter to, quarter past, and five minute intervals, e.g:

five/ten/quarter/twenty/twenty-five to
five/ten/quarter/twenty/twenty-five past

Phonics and spellings:

The Phonics Check is next week, so the phonics group has been doing a lot of practice this week. Their homework is to do some more practise ready for next week. Just as a reminder - all children have to take part in the phonics screening check. It will not be anything for them to worry about - we have done lots of 1:1 practice and they are familiar with the format.  You can practise reading alien words and real words by playing this game: choose:

Phase 4 sounds first (to practise blends such as br, cr, bl)

Phase 5 sounds next (to practise phase 5 graphemes)

Choose all of the blends and all of the digraphs each time - we've learnt them all!

The spellings group has been learning all about homophones - words that sound the same, but are spelt differently and have different meanings, such as:

son/sun
write/right
hare/hair

There are no spellings to learn this week, instead please complete this sheet which will be in their home learning folders.

You can also, of course, continue to practise spelling the common exception words with your children :o) They've made a lot of progress with them this year!

Have a great weekend (it's supposed to be summer temperatures!) and enjoy the photos of Salcey Forest you can find here. 

From Mrs Simpson