World Book Day themed menu
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 01 March.
Living and Learning – Vampire cough and sneeze
Well done to Saahir who we spotted using this technique this morning without prompting.
Getting close to the creatures
Today, we met a variety of unusual creatures in our Meet a Creature workshop. These included a tortoise, a snake, a tarantula, bearded-dragons, a gecko and a chinchilla. Some children, and adults, were brave enough to hold or just touch the creatures. We learnt lots of facts about the animal’s habitat and how they adapt to their environment.
Did you know that bearded dragons can drink through their skin?
Living and Learning this half term
- I cover my mouth (when I yawn, cough, sneeze). Get your child to demonstrate the ‘vampire’ method to family members at home.
- I can say something good about myself. It’s important that your child can confidently talk about themselves in a positive way.
- I pay compliments in a sensible way. Try paying compliments each day to each other!
- I receive compliments in a sensible way. Some children struggle to hear positive words about themselves, but this is important for self-esteem. Try paying (and listening) to praise and compliments.
- I know the difference between being proud and showing off. We encourage compliments to be paid – but encourage your children to know the balance between being having self-esteem and showing off.
- I recognise my talents. Talk to your child about talents, whether academic, physical, social or emotional.
Change4Life healthier snacking
Have you see the recent Change4Life campaign encouraging children to have no more than two packaged snacks per day to reduce their sugar intake? Remember fruit and veg are always the best snack and count towards your child’s 5 A Day.
The campaign is launched as Public Health England reveals half the sugar children consume comes from unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks. Children in England are eating nearly three times the recommended amount of sugar. Too much sugar can lead to harmful fat building up inside and serious health problems, and also painful tooth decay.
Recently children brought home the Family Snack Challenge. Can your family complete the 7-day healthier snack challenge? Change4Life provides lots of hints and tips for healthier snacking.
Supermovers
The BBC and Premier League have launched a campaign called Super Movers to encourage children to become more active while learning. Teachers will be using the video resources to get children moving in lessons throughout the day. This physical activity can contribute to the 30 active minutes children should be doing at school.
Why not use the Super Movers video resources to support your child’s learning at home. Activities range from learning times tables to apostrophes.
Science experts in Year 2
This afternoon, two medical students from the University of Leeds visited us to teach us about the human body.
It’s great having visitors in to class to talk to us but it’s also an important part of our science curriculum to use secondary research. We often do this in school by reading books and doing internet research but talking to experts is also a great way we can learn.
How often is your child reading at home?
Daily reading, ideally with an adult, is vital to become a better reader.
We’ve had a challenge this half term to see who can read the most at home. Children needed to read, and have their reading record book signed, to earn a star on the chart. For some children with longer books, this doesn’t have to be the whole book. You can also add any extra books that you’re reading at home – don’t forget non-fiction books (maybe to do with our Life Forces topic), poetry, comics, websites or newspapers!
Well done to the children who have already reached the target and have received their prize. We’ll continue to have the challenge next half term so keep reading!
Tricky words
At the back of your child’s reading record book are the Year 2 common exception words for your child to practise reading.
One of the end of Year 2 expectations for writing is for children to spell these words, too.
Therefore after half term, we’ll be having some informal spelling checks using these words.
We’ll use the word lists in the order they are in the reading record books, starting with list 1:
- door
- floor
- poor
- because
- kind
- find
- mind
- behind
- child
- children
Living and Learning – Safer Internet Day
Year 2 started the day considering, what is the internet? We used this video to help to understand what the internet is, where it can be used and what it is used for.
We talked about the benefits of the internet and how it can help us. This could be with our learning (Lexia, Mathletics and researching information for homework or in lessons), for entertainment, shopping and communicating with friends and family across the world. We remembered a recent Skype conversation with children at Sandford International School in Addis Ababa.
We then considered how the children currently use the internet at home and at school.
The text Chicken Clicking helped us to discuss how chatting to people online, that we don’t know, could put us in danger. Using drama, we thought about the chick’s actions in the story and gave some great advice for what she should have done. Remember that not everyone online is who they say they are. Ask your child what happened in the story.
In groups, using six key safety messages we tried to sort them from most important to least important. This generated lots of discussion and the children had good reasons to justify their positioning of the messages.
We decided that all these messages are important to remember, for different reasons, when you are using the internet.
We also spent time considering emotions that people might feel as a result of using the internet. Using different scenarios, the children had to decide how they might feel if this happened to them and why.
For example, someone in an online game says something mean about one of your friends. How would you feel?
Finally, we enjoyed the Key Stage 2 performance of Team Robot v Meanies led by Splats Entertainment. This reinforced a lot of the messages we had been thinking about during the day, in a fun way.
To follow this up at home, the children took home two NSPCC/O2 parent online safety booklets and we hope you enjoy reading Digiduck’s Big Decision with your child at home to reinforce this learning.
The key message from the day is if you see anything on the internet that makes you feel uncomfortable or you are not sure about, tell an adult that you trust.
