Autumn Week 8: Happy half term!

Hello Class 2 Parents,

Just like that, we have completed the first half term! I hope you and the children are able to relax this weekend. They have worked hard and had a busy few weeks!

Firstly - After half term. 

Forest School is moving to Friday afternoons, every week. That means your child needs to come into school wearing their Forest School clothing with trainers, and carrying their waterproofs and wellies. They will come home in their Forest School clothes so no longer need to bring in their school uniforms. 

Bookbags will now be needed on a Friday as we are moving some reading groups to Friday morning.  Please ensure your child's books are always in their bags, as well as their common exception word spelling cards (I will be testing your child on these in the week after half term). 

In Class 2 this week:

In maths the Year 1 children have been looking at number lines; ordering numbers, identifying missing numbers and writing numbers (surprisingly tricky - 3, 5 and 7 are the ones most commonly written backwards! 

Over half term, please help your child to practice writing numbers 0 to 9 correctly. 

The Year 2 children have been working on fact families - identifying related addition and subtraction facts within 10. 

Autumn Week 7: Redesigning the bear sanctuary.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

I hope you have been having a good week so far. It was good to catch up with you at parents' evening this week - hopefully you received a copy of the useful info booklet, but in case you didn't, here they are:

Year 1

Year 2

Harvest was a great success - the children performed their poem magnificently! Thank you for all of your donations. 

In Class 2 this week...

The children redesigned their bear sanctuary following the realisation that the bear species needed to have their own enclosures. They also heard about a sloth bear that has escaped its wildlife park and are deciding how they can help - did you know that sloth bears have a long snout with no front teeth, to enable them to suck up ants and termites like a vacuum cleaner?!

In writing the children have completed an independent piece of writing this week - we started with lots of practice on whiteboards before the children wrote their own. 

In maths the Year 2 children have finished their unit on place value and have started work on addition. So far, they have been representing simple additions within ten, using counters, which will help them to visualise these number bonds as they start to do more complex additions. The Year 1 children have been using the terms 'greater than', 'less than' and 'equal to' to compare quantities - learning how to line up objects to compare them. 

In phonics the children looked at the trigraphs air and ear. it is very common to confuse these two. To help this week, play Obb and Bob on Phonics Play. Select 'phase 3' and then either 'ear' or 'air' to play with and help your child to sound out and blend the words. 

In spellings this week's spelling pattern is 'wr'. The word list has been added to The Spelling Shed for you. 

Forest school was great, with none of the rain the morning saw! We had a happy hour or so building dens, making a racecar from the loose parts and planting some conkers (we are hoping for some conker trees at Forest School in a few years' time!)

Apologies for the lack of photos - it's been a bit of a busy week!

Have a good weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 6: Open morning and other things.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Firstly, it was lovely to see so many of you on Wednesday morning for our open maths morning. I hope you enjoyed spending time with your children at school and seeing the sort of thing we get up to. Please don't worry if you couldn't make it - all of the children had a great time and there were plenty of adults to go around!

This week in Class 2...

In Maths:
The Year 1 children have been comparing numbers using 'more than', 'fewer than' and 'equal to'. The best way to practise this is in everyday language - particularly the phras 'fewer than' which is correct mathematically but that we rarely use. Encourage your child to use whole sentences eg 'I've got fewer sweets than my brother'. You could also play a card game, where two people draw a card, your child says eg 'I have fewer than you' or 'I have more than you' and the player with more gets to keep the two cards. 

The Year 2 children have continued their work on number lines. In class they have enjoyed using a large number line with 10 intervals, and guessing where different numbers go. You could do this at home, using a large piece of paper, or chalking a number line on a pavement somewhere. The aim is for children to identify which two multiples of 10 a number comes between (eg 43 comes between 40 and 50) and also whether it is in the middle, or nearer the smaller or larger multiple of 10. You can also play last week's game again.  A couple of you mentioned having a prompt to log in to it - using it on a laptop you should not need to, just click on the link and scroll down to this image of the game to play it, or scan the QR code to play it on a mobile device - again just scroll down to the image of the game. If you continue to have problems, please pop in to see me after school one day and I'll see whether I can help. 

In phonics we have revisited ow, oi and ur and learnt to spell the word 'said'. 

In spellings we have been looking at words beginning with 'kn' and 'gn'. The list has been added to The Spelling Shed!

In our story the children received a reply from Ernest, saying that while he had accepted that Bruno was a bear and not a dog, he really wanted to keep him. The bear keepers helped out by outlining the bear's needs (such as how much water he would need, what sort of food, and the habitat he was used to). Unfortunately, Ernest decided following this that he was unable to care for Bruno in the way that a sun bear needed, so Bruno has joined our bear sanctuary. This brings our total number of bears to five. The children carried out some health checks on the bears (checking teeth, vaccinations, weighing) and unfortunatley discovered that one bear had some serious injuries, suggesting they had been fighting. A decision was made to separate the bears, as it turns out bears are generally solitary creatures, so our Bear Santuary is in the process of being redesigned to ensure there are suitable enclosures for each of the bears based upon their different needs. 

Forest School...
was blustery! We had a really lovely, sunny and blustery autumnal morning. Some of the children made some bird kites and enjoyed running around in the wind with them! Other children particularly enjoyed the barrels this week, standing and balancing on them, listening to the sounds they made when hit with different sticks, and spotting things from high up. 

Have a very good weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Autumn Week 5: A sun bear and our first V.I.Ps.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Most importantly: our first V.I.Ps! 
Congratulations to Ophelia and Phoebe, Class 2's first V.I.Ps!

Forest School Clothing. 
Going forwards, please can you ensure your child has waterproofs with them on Forest School days. Even when it's a dry day, we are getting to the time of year when Forest School is soggy from the night before. You can either send your child in lined waterproofs, or thin waterproofs over the top of their other clothes. Similarly, they are going to need wellies from next week onwards. 

This week in Class 2:

In our story the children received a letter from Ernest, who had brought a puppy a while ago but wasn't sure it really was a puppy. The photos suggested it might in fact be a bear, so the children drew some diagrams for Ernest outlining the features of a bear. They looked at features such as small ears, a small tail, large powerful legs, enormous claws for digging and climbing, and a large, stocky body. 

In Maths:

The Year 1 children continued with their work on numbers to 10 by finding '1 more' and '1 less'. They recognised how to add or remove one item, and also how to use a number line to find the next or previous number. A good way to practice this is by making a giant number line from 0 to 10 and having your child run to a given number, eg 'run to the number that is one less than 8' or 'run to the number that is one less than 6'. You can also use practical objects to help your child physically to remove one item. 

The Year 2 children have been looking at number lines. They have been placing numbers in the correct places on number lines by looking at how many tens and ones the number has.  They can play this game -   click on the game, select '0 to 100', press 'play' then choose 'show divisions'. Help your child to decide where the number should go by finding the relevant  multiples of 10 and then deciding whether it should go exactly in between (i.e. if it ends in a 5) or more towards one or the other multiple of 10. 

In Phonics the children have revisited ar, or, ow and oi reading and spelling words with these digraphs in. 

In Spellings the children looked at words where the letter g makes a /j/sound, before the letters e, i or y. I have added these words to The Spelling Shed. 

Forest School this week:
We had a short but lovely session on Friday afternoon:

Have a good weekend!

Mrs Simpson