Keeping safe and fit
John, from White Rose Martial Arts, demonstrated in the assembly today some of the skills that can be learnt at the karate after-school club, running again this term.
Pupils who have already attended the club confidently showed their karate techniques alongside some key messages about self-defence from John.
There was a lot of interest from the children so please contact John directly to secure a place for your child. Information can be obtained from the office or your child’s teacher. There is a free taster session on Tuesday 05 May but places are limited.
Welcome back!
I hope everybody’s had a great Easter holiday and are ready to return to school fresh-faced! This half term darkness will descend on Year 2 as we take a look at night time. We’ll delve into the depths of space to look at the planets, moon and stars before plummeting back to Earth to think about the jobs people do at night and animals that have become adapted to night time.
This week (20.04.15)…
Maths
This week, we’re exploring number by looking at rounding to the nearest ten, doubling and halving, place value (hundreds, tens, units) and knowing inverse operations (add-subtract, multiply-divide). Our tables focus will be 2s so lots of counting in 2s at home, walking to school, going up stairs will be very helpful. We’ll then think about how knowing our 2 times tables means we know our 20 and 200 times table, too.
I got 7 Easter eggs but my friend got double that amount. How many eggs did my friend get?
English
English will be very closely linked to our night time topic as we learn how to write information texts. Organising our writing using a title, introduction, subtitles and matching information will be important this week so, when reading at home, choose a non-fiction book and discuss how it is organised and why this is useful.
Topic
Night time will kick off with a trip into space to explore what it is we see in the night sky. We’ll learn about our solar system and its planets as well as what stars are and the Greek legends that tell the story behind the constellations of stars we see at night. At home, stay up late and do some star gazing. See what questions the children have and ask them to write them down (using the correct punctuation) and bring them in for us to discuss.
Our new SEAL theme for this half term is…
…relationships.
This theme explores feelings within the context of our important relationships including family and friends.
It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of learning: self-awareness, managing feelings and empathy.
There is a focus throughout the theme on helping children understand the feelings associated with an experience that we all need to cope with at some time: that of loss – whether of a favourite possession, a friend, a family home, or a loved one. Although relatively few children are bereaved, most will experience losses of other kinds during their childhood; losing a home, losing friends because of moving house or changing schools, or losing a pet are examples.
We would therefore ask for parents / carers to alert us to any experiences your child has had that might make this area particularly difficult for them – for example, a bereavement.
Variety is the spice of life!
If you ask your child what they’ve done today, you may be surprised! From learning Mandarin to finding out about geysers, it was all going on. All the children were mixed up for the morning and took part in four different lessons – there are eight different lessons altogether so there will be some more mixing up going on tomorrow. These lessons have been part of our Enrichment Week where children have thought about a variety of subjects in lots of different ways. Here are some photos to give you a taste of what has been happening: learning Urdu or Mandarin, art work, music, PE, geography, programming and DT.
Science Day
There’s been a robbery in Year 2!
Poor Ziggy the Zebra was stolen from Year 2 on Monday night and all that was left was a ransom note. Don’t worry though – it turns out Year 2 are super-detectives and they used all of their forensic skills to get him back.
The suspects
Mr Wilks Miss Valentine Mrs Weekes
We used chromatography to work out which of our suspects pens had written the ransom note. It needed a lot of accuracy, careful handling and great listening skills.
We had the evidence ink on filter paper already. Then, we added the pens of our three suspects. Once placed in water, it travelled up the filter paper and spread the ink out so we could see what different colours each one was made up of. Each pen changed in a different way and we could see which of our suspect’s pens matched the evidence.
It was Mrs Weekes!
Maths Day
As well as working with the Happy Puzzle Company, we’ve been doing lots of different maths in the classroom too.
The day started with lots of resilience to try and make our way through the maze.
We then looked at problems across lots of different areas of maths.
The day finished by looking at how musicians need to use mathematical knowledge to be able to keep a beat and read musical notes. We practised clapping in time before clapping to different musical notes. Finally, we all had an instrument and played different beats at the same time. Unfortunately, I was so busy being a composer that we don’t have any pictures but you can take my word for it – it was great!
Themed week
Today, we have been mathematicians which involved team-work, reasoning skills, adopting a systematic approach and lots of patience in order to solve some logic puzzles.
Sharing homework.
This will be the first of many homework sharing posts that gives the children chance to share their good work beyond the classroom and will (hopefully) become a useful source of ideas if you’re stuck with a creative homework.
Last week’s homework was to show what you have learnt about a period in history. I had information from Celts, Vikings, Romans, Victorians and even the Industrial Revolution. Lots of interesting stuff and here’s but a few…
Ben’s model of a Celt house. 
which came with some information too.
Filip's picture of a Tudor house with some information. 
A quiz from Humairah. 
Some well-written information from Isaac. And there were many more. Keep posted when we have our next creative homework.
What’s going on this week?
Some parents have mentioned that it would be helpful to know what we’re learning each week to allow you to know how to help at home. In response to this, there’ll be a short post each Sunday/Monday about the main areas for learning in the following week.
Maths
This week, we’ve returned to division in Maths and have started by sharing objects into groups and recognising this as a division calculation. This then leads to understanding how we can use our tables to solve division (eg 15 divided by 3 can be solved by counting in 3s until you reach 15). Once we’re confident using this skill, we can start thinking about division in real life particularly when things don’t share equally.
How many egg boxes do I need to hold my 23 eggs? Each box holds 6 eggs.
English
We’re entering the weird and wonderful world of poetry in English. Lots of reading of poetry helps us to hear the patterns, rhythm and understand the poets choice for how to structure it. Through poems by Tony Mitton (Old Noah’s Dance Hall Ship, Elegant Elephant Delicatessen, Instructions for Growing Poetry and My Hat) we will also explore techniques like rhyming and alliteration before attempting to write a poem of our own about our favourite piece of clothing.
Topic
It’s the final week of Time Travel which means we’ll be reflecting on what we’ve learnt over the last eight weeks. Here are some things you could ask at home…
- What have you learnt?
- What did you enjoy most?
- What would you still like to find out?
- What did you fin the most challenging?
Sorting 3D shapes
We explored all things 3D this week and a great way of showing whether you are confident with you edges, faces and vertices is to try sorting shapes.
…or a Carroll diagram. It’s interesting to see how the shapes move around when you change the criteria you’re sorting with.
Can you spot any mistakes we made?
It was quite tricky sometimes, especially when you’re trying to think about four things at once!
