Reading
We are using our class novel, Here We Are (Notes for Living on Planet Earth) by Oliver Jeffers to inspire our reading and writing over the next few weeks. This week, we have enjoyed reading and discussing the book and picking out the main themes and messages.
Each day, this week, we have looked at a new reading skill. We have been using our retrieval skills to read the text and find answers to questions from within the text.
Most children were also able to write their own retrieval question.
Another skill we have explored more this week, is being able to infer the meaning of new words or vocabulary in a text. We learnt how to read around the word to make sense of the unknown word.
We will link the book to our geography learning about our local area too.
Help at home
- read the book again and talking about the key messages
- talk about our local area – particularly what you like and dislike about it
- help your child learn their address
- read other books by Oliver Jeffers
There is a link to listen to it here. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
Have a happy and healthy Christmas break
Well done to the cast of Whoops a daisy angel! It was great to welcome you into school to watch performances this week.
We hope you agree that the children did a fantastic job and we are very proud of them all.
Mrs Taylor, Mrs Lake, Mrs Roth and Mrs Maqbool would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing all the children in 2025!
Whoops a daisy angel
Rehearsals are going well for our Reception, Year 1 and 2 Christmas production of Whoops a daisy angel.
Following our dress rehearsal to the rest of the school on Monday, we will welcoming you to come and watch us on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon at 2:15pm.
If your child has brought a note home about their costume, please could you send this into school in a named bag by Friday. Thank you for your support.
We hope you enjoy the show!
Science: we are chemists
This half term, we have been learning all about materials and their properties (chemistry).
Here’s our vocabulary for this learning.
Actions help us to remember the definitions of these words. Which words are being shown here?
We’ve been exploring materials around us.
The object is a chair. The material is plastic. Plastic is a man made material and it can sometimes be recycled.
Then, we were scientists and we investigated the most suitable material for an umbrella. It needed to be waterproof, light and strong.
Then, we used our playdough to investigate how some materials are flexible and can change shape. How has the playdough changed shape?
Help at home: have a look at home to find different things that are flexible, rigid, brittle, transparent and opaque.
Topic – Art
This half term, we are learning about art – both practically and some art history too.
We are learning about Georges Seurat, who used pointillism (dots), and Bridget Riley, who is an optical artist (uses shapes, pattern and colour to create illusions).
We have created dots using cotton buds and bubble wrap.
Help at home by talking about your preferences for certain artists or colours and shapes.
Design & Technology: food preparation
This week, Year 2 have been using their food preparation skills to create their latest product, fruit smoothies.
This forms part of our Design and Technology food learning which involves following a recipe to create a product each term.
The recipe, taken from this healthy eating website, is our reading fluency text of the week so we’ve had chance to read and understand the instructions before we made our smoothies.
First, we got ready to cook by washing our hands, rolling up jumpers, putting on our aprons and tying long hair back.
We used lots of different food preparation skills including peeling, fork hold to help with claw grip (for chopping), measuring liquids and using measuring spoons.
Then, the children got to enjoy their smoothies.
We always evaluate our product afterwards to see how it could be changed next time. In a link to our learning about adjectives (words that add information about a noun), there were plenty of adjectives used to describe the smoothies – extraordinary, bubbly, fizzy, tasty, yummy, creamy and delicious.
Well done to all the children who worked safely and sensibly with Mrs Roth.
Help at home: your child has taken this recipe home. Can they demonstrate some of their food preparation skills by making this again at home.
English – Little Red
We are linking it to learning about nouns and adjectives in our writing. We are also using our retrieval and inference skills in reading and thinking about the author’s choice or words and phrases.
Help at home by discussing the text with your child. How is Little Red different to the traditional tale Little Red Riding Hood?
Living and Learning: mental health
For the next three weeks, mental health is our new theme in our Living and Learning lessons.
Talking about feelings and knowing where and how to seek help for yourself or others is very important.
People can help you if you tell them how you feel.
If something is wrong and you don’t tell an adult, it might get bigger.
Start telling other people so you can feel better.
This week, Year 2, with the help of some of the characters from the Beano, have been learning about a range of emotions.
Emotions are feelings. They can change all the time.
We all experience a whole range of emotions, from anger to happiness to fear.
Looking at someone’s face and their body language can help us to understand how others might be feeling.
How might Dennis be feeling? What clues tell you this?
We discussed why it is important to recognise and talk about our emotions and how to seek help with our feelings or if we notice a friend might need help.
Next week, we will be thinking about self care techniques that can help us to look after our own mental health. Mindfulness is one example of a self care technique. We do lots of mindfulness techniques in class – ask your child to share them with you. Also, look out for the wellbeing bingo for you to try at home.
Help at home: We’ve talked about how people’s faces and body language can help us to understand how others are feeling. What emotions are the children showing here? Maybe try some other emotions at home too.
Living and Learning: online safety
This week, our Living and Learning focus has been about online safety and in particular spotting adverts online.
First of all, we thought about what an advert is and what a pop up is.
Then, we read a story about Smartie who had a dilemma with a pop up while he was online.
Pop ups, including online adverts, if clicked on, may take us away from the page we’re looking at so we learnt this key message to help keep us safe online.
Help at home: reinforce this key message of telling an adult if an advert pops up on screen.
Assembly stars
Well done to all the children who performed so well in our class assembly. The children have worked hard to rehearse and they have enjoyed being able to share their learning with you.
Assemblies give the children a chance to practice their oracy skills in particular to project their voice and we hope you’d agree they did that well.
Thank you for your support to help the children to learn their lines and for coming to watch on day. We hope you enjoyed it.
