Summer Week 2: Visitors.

Hello Class 2 Parents,

As you know, the main event in school this week was that Ofsted paid us a visit. They came in to lessons and talked to children. Class 2 did a fantastic job - they showed off their learning and really impressed the visitors. One man was particularly impressed with their knowledge of The Battle of Hastings - he said he was amazed by how much they knew! Well done Class 2. 

We have finished our short topic on The Battle of Hastings now - we finished it off by looking at William the Conqueror's legacy of castle-building. The children designed one motte-and-bailey and one stone keep castle for the new king. 

In writing the children have been writing diaries based on 'The Storm Whale.' The aim this week has been to add more detail to make the writing really interesting. For example, 'I put the whale into the bath. He wriggled happily.' It's been a fun and creative week of writing!

In maths we have been looking at sorting 2D shapes and saying how they have been sorted. Then we started to look at naming 3D solids - the Year 2 children remembered a bit from last year.  

Thank you for the 2D shape homework you've sent me. As the homework was to use 15 lolly sticks/pens etc, one child asked what a 15-sided shape would be called: if you're interested, it's a pentadecagon.  

In spellings, Year 2 looked at the 'o' sound spelt 'a' after w and qu. We worked out that most of the words are actually decodeble, but the two words with double letters are a bit harder to remember. Their spellings are here. 

In phonics Year 1 have continued to revisit sounds and look at alien words ready for the phonics screening check. For homework, please go through some or all of the words on this powerpoint. At school, we usually spot the digraphs together first then sound out and blend the words. Some of the children will be quite speedy with the real words - just make sure that when they read the alien words they take their time to check! 

There is no maths homework this week. Instead, if you would like something extra to do, spend a bit of time online looking up some of the castles that William the Conqueror built!

Have a good weekend, 

From Mrs Simpson