Summer Week 10: SUN

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

It finally feels like summer (for now, at least)! We have been taking ourselves out under the trees to learn whenever possible and the children have been reminded to wear hats and drink lots. 

Turtle Watch's mission to get turtles back to Honu Island is going well. They spent some time preparing the mini island for turtles: clearning the beaches, planting seagrass meadows in the sea and putting up signs. They took Kanoa (Honu Island's Chief Environmental Officer) to visit the island and she agreed it looked like a suitable habitat. The children have decided that visitors should be aloud, but only a few at a time. They have started to make some posters to advertise 'turtle tours' at £5 per ticket. 

In writing the children continue to compose their own versions of 'The Storm Whale'. The Year 2 children have also continued their independent writing in the mornings. 

Year 2 spellings will be words that have cropped up during their writing this week - lists are in their homework folders. 

Year 1 spellings have once again been focussed on suffixes; this time adding -er or -est to an adjective to change its meaning. Their spellings are some root adjectives - please help them to learn these root words and then they will be asked to write them with either an -er or -est suffix (it would be worth practising this at home). 

Maths this week has involved money! 

Year 1 children simply need to recognise coins and notes. There is no particular homework for this, but any opportunity for them to see, handle and use real money over the next couple of weeks (and going forwards) will be very beneficial to them. 

Year 2 children have been learning how to work out how much money there is, by adding the coins. They have also been learning how to make different amounts of money.  Their homework challenge is to use some real money over the next week to pay for something - if there is photo evidence of this, email it in and we can talk about it with the class!

Enjoy the sun!

Mrs Simpson

Summer Week 9: Story writing, sunflowers and the ongoing turtle problem.

 

Hello Class 2 Parents,

Firstly, all being well I will be sending home your child's sunflower with them! They have grown so well and need either planting out into the garden, or putting into a bigger pot. they will also need staking. I would love to receive photos of any sunflowers when they come out!

The children also recently planted a mini wildflower bed outside the classroom and we are starting to see signs of good growth. The aim is to be bee-friendly as the children learnt all about the importance of bees. 

In their learning this week:

The children have been authors, writing their own versions of The Storm Whale. They're writing the story slowly, trying out different sentences for each part of the story. Then, when they've finished their author booklets they will choose their favourite sentences to copy up into their final story. 

In phonics/spellings the Year 1 children have been learning how to change a verb by adding the suffixes -ing, -ed, or -er (e.g. jumping, jumped, jumper). For their spellings, I have set them a number of verbs. Their challenge is to learn to spell the verbs and then next week I will give them different versions of them to spell. For example, they will learn to spell 'jump' and I might give them 'jumping' or 'jumped' to spell. 

Here are the words - it would be worth practising adding suffixes to them in readiness!

The Year 2 children don't have spellings this week! During each 25 minute spelling session this week they have instead been doing some extended writing, retelling the story of The Enormous Crodocodile that they loved learning about last academic year. It's a chance for them just to write freely and to use all of the skills they've been learning. 

Please spend some time this week practising their common exception word spellings instead, ready for the final challenge in a few weeks. 

In Maths the children have continued their work on time.

Year 1 children have been reciting the days of the week and the months of the year. All I'd like you to do for homework is to talk to them about days and months over the next week or so - use a calendar maybe to look at what is coming up, talk about different birthdays, when you are going on holiday and so on. 

There is a days of the week song here, and a months of the year song here if you would like to do some singing!

Year 2 children have been learning to tell the time to five minute intervals - a skill that takes considerable practice! homework is here and will be in their folders. 

A few children have started wearing simple analogue watches to school, which has really been helping their time telling. If your child has one that they could wear to school please start to encourage them to do so. However, if you are worried about it getting lost, no problem at all as we can use the class clock!

In our story the children have found a suitable mini island to try and turn into a green turtle haven. They visited the island and found many turtle-friend features (such as beaches, seagrass meadows, rocks and coral). However, they also found a lot of litter. In response, they used some good D.T. skills to make some cardboard grabbers in order to do some litter picking. They also learnt about the negative impact that single use plastic is having on the oceans, and produced some leaflets to distribute around Honu Island. 

Have a lovely, sunny weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Summer Week 8: Non fiction books and disgruntled Islanders

 

Hello Class 2 Parents,

Edited to add: a note about father's day cards!
The children did these almost entirely independently, so I apologise for any back-to-front cards that have occurred! 

This week in Class 2...

In our story, the children started making Honu Island into a more turtle-friendly island. Unfortunatly, the local people were not very happy about having their  hotels, restaurants and beach huts moved so they demanded a meeting. The meeting was very vocal (some children represented Turtle Watch while others represented the Islanders). Following the meeting, Turtle Watch have deicded to see whether the turtles could maybe be enticed to a tiny island just off the coast of Honu Island. There is a lot of work still to be done by Turtle Watch!

The children have finally finished making their green turtle non fiction books. They've done a fantastic job and enjoyed sharing their books with each other this week. They decided (it was their idea) to put their books into the library for other children to enjoy!

We have started a new writing unit now - in contrast to our last one, the children will be writing some fiction.

In maths Miss Pratt has been teaching the children how to tell the time. They have looked at 'o'clock' and 'half past' times, and Year 2 have also looked at 'quarter to' and 'quarter past'. Their work on fractions has come in handy for this!

Homework this week is to practise telling the time. There is a very useful teaching clock here teaching clock here - use it to help your child to practise telling the time.   Chose 'random' and 'in steps of' (30 minutes Y1, 15 minutes Y2) and then each time you click 'random' a different time will appear. 

If your child wants a challenge, see how many clock faces they can correctly read in 1 minute!

In phonics the Year 1 children sat their Phonics Screening Check with me. Their end of year reports will indicate whether they have reached the expected level or  not (the pass mark has not been released yet). If they have not reached the expected level, they will have some more phonics support in Year 2 and reteake the check in Year 2. They all did a great job and approached the alien and real words with confidence!

The children have also been learning how to add -s or -es to turn a noun into a plural. Their spellings are here and will be in their bookbags. 

In their spelling lessons the Year 2 children have been learning how to use a possessive apostrophe. Their homework is here and will be in their folders. 

The children's lovely turtle posters have been on display in our classroom. I've sent them home now to be displayed proudly at home!

Have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

Summer Week 7: Turtles continued.

 Hello Class 2 Parents and welcome to the final half term of the year. 

The children came in smiling happily on Monday. 

Firstly, thank you for all the fabulous turtle posters I received - the children had a great time showing them to each other their work.  A lot of effort clearly went into them. Don't worry if you didn't do one (it was optional) but if your child has done one/is in the middle of one and wants to show it, there is still time to send it in. 

Our turtle story has been moving rapidly on this week. The children have continued to track their turtles. They met a lady from Honu Island (our fictional Polynesian island) whose name is Kanoa. She is the chief Environmental Officer for Honu Island and had come seeking the advice of Turtle Watch. She told the team that while Honu Island used to be a popular habitat for sea turtles, not a single turtle has been seen there for ten years. 

The team are working on why this might be. As part of their work, they found out that some of the human geographical features on Honu Island might be disturbing the turtles (such as the hotels, beach furniture and artificial lighting). They are in the middle of redesigning Honu Island to allow for some turtle-friendly areas. 

The children have also continued with their non-fiction writing. The aim is to publish their green turtle information books next week. 

In maths the children have finished their work on fractions. 

Their homework is here. The first side is for everyone, the second side is for Year 2. 

In spellings the Year 2 children have been looking at words ending in -tion. Their are some tricky spellings this week, but just have a go at learning them! I have indicated which parts of the words are the trickiest. They can be found here. 

In phonics the Year 1 children have been practising their alien and real word reading. The Phonics Screening Check is due to take place next week. The children have no idea they are sitting a 'test'  and it will not be a big event - they will just spend 5-10 minutes with me on a 1:1 basis some time next week taking the test. 

Their homework is to play buried treasure. Select the 'phase 5' sounds. Choose a digraph your child finds trickier and play the game. Then go back and practise another one or two!

I think that's everything. Have a good weekend!

From 

Mrs Simpson