Spring Week 7: A witan, a giant and some other things.

 

Hello Class 2 Parents,

Welcome to the second half of the spring term! It's a relatively short half term so we will have a lot to fit in!

This week...

Our story:
Having learnt about the four countries of the United Kingdom, the children met Queen Matilda for a witan under the old oak tree. Together, they decided that they should head to Wales to find a good location to build a castle. The Queen and the serfs set off but soon came to a creepy road: dark, with twisty trees either side and rough rocks and holes on the ground. They headed down the road but soon heard an ominous sound in the distance. They hid just before a giant came stomping down the road. They stayed still for hours until they were sure the giant had passed by.

Descriptive writing.
The children drew some fantastic pictures of the giant they had seen. They have started to write some descriptions of him. 

Maths.

Year 1 children have been looking at place value to 100. They've been learning how to identify how many tens and how many ones are in a number. 

Their homework is here. and will be in their folders. 

Year 2 children have continued their work on division. They've been dividing by two and ten and learning that division is the inverse of multiplication. 

Their homework is here and will be in their folders. 

Phonics.
The children have looked at three graphemes this week:
y making 'ee' at the end of a word (as in happy, jolly, grumpy)
ea making the 'e' sound (as in head, bread, instead)
wh making the 'wh' sound (the h is lazy)

Blue group spellings are here. 
Green group spellings are here. 

Spellings.
The Year 2 children have looked at the spelling patterns 'all' and 'al'. Usually, 'all' is found at the end of root word such as tall, small and fall. 

Their spellings are here.

P.E. Kits
I am sorry I didn't send the children's P.E. kits home before the holidays! I will send them home this weekend.

Finally: Spanish Club.

We have had some interest in the Spanish Club that has been offered to the school. It should be a really good club - the children had a great time at the taster session! Please do sign up if your child is interested: we need some more interest in order for the club to go ahead. 

It's been a very good week!

From Mrs Simpson

Spring Week 6: Super writing the the United Kingdom

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

This week the children did some incredible writing. We've spent a few weeks writing Jack and the Beanstalk together, and then this week the children independently wrote their own versions. Here are some of them looking at their stories and feeling proud of their progress over time:

In our story the children have been learning all about the United Kingdom. Queen Matilda wants to know which country would be the best one in which to build her new castle and kingdom. The children learnt the names of the four countries, their capitals and what their flags look like. They also looked at some other geograpical features of each country. 

In maths the children have continued to work on division - this time, by grouping. For example, 'A farmer had 15 cows. He needed to put 3 cows in each field. How many fields would he need?. Any practice of this using counters at home would be very useful. 

I haven't set any homework this half term. However, the children have a new reading book (a one-off book they've chosen, instead of a group reading book) and a new badger book. I have also updated their spelling cards to show which words they spelled correctly when tested this week. Please continue to work on the non-highlighted words, a few at a time!

We've had a very good half term in Class 2. Have a good week and I look forward to seeing the children soon!

Mrs Simpson.

Spring Week 5: Becoming serfs.

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

We've had another good week in Class 2.

In our story the children continued in their roles as serfs. They set out their own small plot of land, complete with wattle-and-daub cottage, cows for milking, chickens for eggs, apple and pear trees and vegetable crops. They helped out their neighbour Hannah, who had been told by the lord of the manor that she had to leave her cottage because she was too old to work on the land any more. 

In writing lessons the children finished writing their guided Jack and the Beanstalk stories, which they are very proud of. Next, they will be making up their own version and writing it independently. 

In maths the children finished off their unit of work on multiplication. They continued to practise making arrays and solved problems involving multiplication. The Year 1 children continued with their work on repeated additions while the Year 2 children continued to learn about multiplication. Both year groups have been practising the 2, 5 and 10x table (Year 1 mainly counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and Year 2 working out the related multiplication facts). 

Year 1 maths homework is here.

Year 2 maths homework is here. 

In phonics Year 1 children have been revisiting ways to spell the sound 'oo' :  u_e, ue and ew. 

In spellings Year 2 children contined their work on suffixes, this time learning to drop-the-y-and-add-an-i when putting a verb into the past tense; for example,  cried, spied, fried, supplied. 

* Spelling homework this week is to work on your child's own individual spelling cards with them; they will be tested on their spelling of these high frequency/tricky words next week. *

I am looking forward to catching up with you all at parents' evenings next week!

Have a good weekend,

Mrs Simpson

Spring Week 4: Medieval people and a whole lot of writing.

 Greetings Class 2 Parents, and welcome to February!

Firstly, here is the Heather Galler folk art mentioned last week:

This week the main theme has been our medieval village. 

Having learnt about some of the features of medieval villages last week, the focus this week was on the people in the villages. The children learnt about some of the jobs people may have had, such as wheelwrights, carpenters, farriers and millers. 

Next, the children stepped into the story and became serfs; very poor peasants who had to work on the land of the Lord of the Manor in exchange for living in a small cottage and having their own small strip of land. The children discovered that life was hard, but still quite enjoyed clearing animal poo of the roads!

The children have continued to write their own versions of Jack and the Beanstalk - they are really enjoying their story writing and doing a good job!

In maths both year groups continued to look at making equal groups and moved on to adding equal groups and writing repeated addition number sentences (e.g.  3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 12). 

They went on to make arrays showing rows and columns, like this one:

(5 columns of 3,  or 3 rows of 5)

Year 2 children started to look at the X symbol and what it means, e.g.

3 x 5 = 15

means 3 groups of 5 = 15 or 3 lots of 5 = 15

Year 1 maths homework is here and will be in folders.

Year 2 maths homework is here and will also be in folders.

In phonics the Year 1 children have been revisiting 'oa' graphemes - oa, o_e and o. 

Green group spellings are here

Blue group spellings are here

The Year 2 children have been learning how to change the meaning of an adjective by adding the suffixes -er or -est. To make it even trickier, they've been adding these suffixes to words ending in 'y' with the rule:
drop the y and add in i

So:     happy  becomes  happier  or happiest  by dropping the 'y', adding an 'i', then adding teh suffix too. 

Year 2 spellings are here 

Have a good weekend!

Mrs Simpson

Spring Week 3: Jack and the Beanstalk and other things

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Firstly, thank you for all of the wonderful poetry videos you sent in this week! They were a joy to watch and I will be sharing them all with the class tomorrow. 

Secondly, we had a lovely time on Wednesday at the Reading Cafe. It will be happening every Wednesday from 3.20 until 4pm for the spring term (and longer if it proves to be useful!) and there are biscuits. 

In other news:

The children finished their Heather Galler-inspired art work and it is stunning. It will be displayed in the classroom, and when that display is done I'll put a photo up for you on a blog. 

We took the first little steps into our new story. The children remembered the different geographical features of Little Houghton, then we thought about what a village might have been like 1000 years ago. We created a village for our new story, with features such as a manor house, a church, a farm, a blacksmith's forge, a windmill and a cartwright's. 

In maths:

The Year 2 children continued to subtract a 2-digit from a 2-digit numbers.

The Year 1 children practised forming their numbers correctly. 

Then both year groups started a new unit of work on multiplcation. They learn to recognise and make equal groups, and to say, for example, that there were:
4 groups of 5
6 groups of 3

Year 1 homework is here. 

Year 2 homework is here. 

Both year groups have been counting in fives, and starting to learn the 5x table. Any extra practice will help!

In spellings the Year 2 children have been learning how to replace 'y' with 'ie' to change the meaning of verbs and nouns (eg baby - babies or try - tries). Their spellings are here. 

In phonics the Year 1 children have been revisiting 'igh' alternatives: igh, ie, i_e and i)

Blue group spellings are here and green group spellings are here. 

Have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

Spring Week 2: poetry and pastels

 Hello Class 2 Parents,

Much has been achieved in Class 2 this week. 

But first: 

The Reading Cafe. 
We had a few merry people turn up for the first reading cafe. I would encourage anyone to come along, particularly if you find reading at home with your child a challenge. It is intended to be:

* a space to enjoy books with your child
* a place where your child might be more willing to read their books to you
* a place where I can be on hand to help or offer advice. 

While it is for C1 and C2 children primarily, please do bring siblings if this means you are able to come.  You can read reading books or badger books, and I'll also have other badger books on hand if you wish. 

Now to the week. 

The children have been artists this week and last week, looking at the art of Paul Klee. This week they continued work on their final pieces, using oil pastels to colour in their castles. 

Last Friday we went on a walk around Little Houghton to look at some of the geographical features of a village. This week the children had a go at making a map of Little Houghton, using symbols instead of photographs. 

They have also been poets. We have been studying the poem '10 Things Found in a Wizard's Pocket' by Ian MacMillan. The children wrote their own poems entitled '10 Things Found in a Teacher's Drawer'.  They started work on performing their poems this week. If I can sort out the technology, a video will appear here soon showing their performance of Ian MacMillan's poem...

Homework (instead of maths) is to practise reading and putting actions to their own poems (in their folders) and, if possible, send me a recording! My plan is for you to upload the videos here. Let me know if you have trouble doing that and I'll find another way!

Maths.
Both year groups have continued with subtraction. 

Year 1 children have been solving subtraction number stories, for example, 'There were 16 ducks on a pond. 12 floated away. how many were left?' they used a variety of resources to to this. 

Year 2 children have been subtracting 2-digit numbers crossing a multiple of 1o, such as  44 - 26. To do this, they have been learning how to exchange one ten rod for ten ones. This will continue next week. 

Both year groups also looked at 'finding the difference', talking about 'how many more' or 'how many fewer' there were. For example, what is the difference between 8 and 5? Or 26 and 32?

In Phonics the Year 1 children have been revisiting 'ee' alternatives:  ea, ie and y. 

Blue group spellings are here. 
Green group spellings are here. 

In Spellings the Year 2 children have some fairly straightforward words to learn - with 'y' making the 'igh' sound at the end of the word. Next week we will be using these words to make plurals and past tense (so this week, for example, they will learn 'cry' and next week we will look at the rules around turning that into 'cries'). 

Their spellings are here.

That's all for now - have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson.

Welcome to the Spring Term! Week 1

 

Hello Class 2 Parents and welcome to the spring term!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. 

It was so lovely to see all of your children on the first day back. They came in with huge smiles and lots of excited chatter about their various Christmases. 

We've spent this past week or so getting back into the swing of things and doing a lot of art! The children have learnt about Paul Klee's 'Castle and Sun' and have been experiementing with creating pictures in the same style (cubism). They've had a great time drawing pictures using 2D shapes and learning how to layer and blend oil pastels. 

Tomorrow (Friday) we will be going for a walk around the village to identify some features of villages. 

Reading Cafe
Following the survey I sent around, I will be trialling a Wednesday afternoon Reading Cafe from 3.20 to 4pm. You are all welcome to come along and read with your child in the classroom, with some squash or water and a biscuit. I'm hoping it will be particularly beneficial for less confident readers, or if you find reading at home a challenge. 

Reading Books

The twice-weekly reading groups have been working very well in class. Children and adults alike are enjoying them and your feedback in reading diaries suggests that pre-reading a book in school a couple of times before taking it home is beneficial. 

At the end of last term I did some phonics and reading assessments, and have re-grouped the children accordingly. This means that your child might bring home books they have already read. Please don’t worry about this - it simply means they need to be at a certain level for a little bit longer, and taking home a familiar book will only help with their confidence and fluency.

I will continue to send home Badger books as well of course. 

If you find your child would like an extra reading book each week, please let me know and I will arrange this. 

Please read with your child as often as possible - just a couple of pages per day makes the difference!

Maths

The children have all been working on subtraction. Year 1 have been subtracting using counters, a part-whole model and a number line. Their homework is here and will be in book bags. 

Year 2 children have been subtracting crossing a multiple of 10. Their homework is here and will be in their bags. 

Year 1 phonics
This half term the children will be revisiting some of the digraphs learnt last half term, but with an added spelling challenge! They will have some spellings to try and learn each week. More information is in their book bags - they will either be in Blue group or Green group for spellings (following my assessments of their phonics before half term). 

Year 2 spellings
The children looked at the 'le' ending this week. Their spellings are here and will be in book bags. 

I think that's all for now. An overview of the half term's learning will be with you shortly via email. 

From Mrs Simpson