Summer Week 2: A new story.

Hello Class 2 Parents,

Firstly, I must apologise for the delay in this blog - apparently I forgot to hit 'publish'!

It's been a sunny week in Class 2, including...

The start of a new story. 
We have started our new Mantle of the Expert story. So far, the children have created an island. It's a Polynesian island, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and it has many interesting physical features so far. They learnt that, many years ago, the first humans to land on the island came due to a storm. Their boat was wrecked and they thought they were going to drown. Fortunately, a large turtle rescued them and took them to safety on the island. The island was given the name 'Honu Island' (Honu being their name for 'turtle'). The children learnt that the first people on the island created statues of the Honu to honour it, so we created a representation of Honu Beach with those statues on. 

In maths:

The Year 1 children continued their work on place value. They revisited how to represent numbers using tens and ones, and then learnt how to partition numbers by splitting up the tens and ones. 

To practice this they can play Ducky Dispatch. 
Select 'order limit' 1-99
Then choose your order and time limit. 
Children have to select the correct number of 10s and 1s to create the number ordered. 

The Year 2 children have continued their work on fractions. They have now been taught that:

a half is one out of two equal parts.
a quarter is one out of four equal parts
a third is one out of three equal parts. 

To practise this at home, they can play Firepit Fractions - select 'Year 2' or if your child needs more challenge 'Year 2 and above'.

In phonics the Year 1 children have continued to revisit some graphemes. Please do continue to practise reading alien and real words with your child using games on Phonics Play. The Phonics Screening Check takes place after half term, and the more practice they get, the merrier. 

In spellings the Year 2 children have been dropping a y to add an i when adding the suffixes -est and -er.  Their spellings have been added to The Spelling Shed. Please let me know how you are getting on with The Spelling Shed - I've not used it before so would be interested in how you are finding it. 


At Forest School:
We had another lovely morning, including:
* making clay monster heads
* extending our wildflower meadow thanks to Seth's seed donation
* watering the trees
* hunting for minibeasts in their habitats (linking to the science Mr Garbutt has been teaching the children)
* and relaxing in the hammock

I hope you have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

It's the summer term!

Hello Class 2 Parents,

Summer term is here!

As with every year, it's lovely to see the summer term but I can't quite believe how quickly the academic year is going. 

The children have had a great week back at school...

We finished off our 'castles' topic.

All of our non-core learning this week has been focussed on The Battle of Hastings. We ran out of time last term during our 'castles' story last half term (it was so short!) so we finished it off this week with a history week on The Battle of Hastings. See what your children can tell you! We mainly focussed on the three contenders to the throne, the events of the Battle of Hastings, and the fact that William became William the Conqueror and introduced castles to England. We looked at the Bayeux Tapestry as well. 

There is a great interactive version of The Bayeux Tapestry here - have a look with your children and see what they can spot. 

In maths:

The Year 1 children have started a new unit of work on place value to 50. They have learnt how to represent numbers using tens and ones, and how to talk about how many tens and ones are in a number. 

For homework, they can have a go at place value basketball. Stick to numbers within 50 or 100 for now. 

The Year 2 children have started a unit on fractions. So far, they have learnt to identify one half or one quarter of a shape or object. 

Their homework is to have a go at this practically in any way you like. They could cut a sandwich into quarters or halves, or a pizza. They could find 1/4 or 1/2 of some sweets to eat. They could fold some shapes into quarters or halves. 

In phonics the Year 1 children have revisited the digraphs and trigraphs aw, au, al, oor and ore - all which make the 'or' sound. As we are coming up to the phonics screening check (after half term)  the more practice they can have of reading real and alien words, the better. 

This week, use phonics play again (buried treasure or obb and bob) and choose 'au' or 'aw' from the options. 

In spellings the Year 2 children have looked at adding - ing to a word ending in 'e', dropping the 'e' first. I've added a new list to the Spelling Shed. 

Back at Forest School...

It was so lovely and warm at Forest School and we had a really lovely morning. Lots has changed in the past few weeks - everything is growing, including the new trees we planted a few weeks ago. The children spent the morning....

* watering and labelling the trees
* relocating some daffodils, tulips and other plants that were getting damaged
* planting some seeds Benjamin brought in for us
* digging
* building an obstacle cours
* making an animal den
* climbing the tree

... among other things. It was very good to be back!

Have a good weekend,

Mrs Simspon