Ho ho ho... handwriting!

From all of the Year two team, a very Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year!
Thank you for all of the lovely cards and treats we have received too. Enjoy your holidays everyone!

If you would like to offer your child an activity such as handwriting then this link will take you to a page where you can print off cursive handwriting sheet. Click on 'create tracing paper' and let your child practice the entry and exit lines. Make it an ART activity, use different colour pens, copy out Christmas words. Put it to practice in writing 'Thank you' notes!
http://www.mymoondrops.com/spelling.html#

Parent Information session

Year Two's parent information session will be held on Wednesday 14th January at 9am in the school hall. We hope you can join us.

Year 2 Christmas performances

We are incredibly proud of how well the class stepped up to the challenge of learning their lines and all the song words. They definitely helped support the younger children in the performances through rehearsals and the actual performances themselves. As well as singing we added some instrument playing, picking out chords of the pieces to play along to and the chime tree being played by Archie during the 6 snowflakes song.
They have all certainly progressed even since their last class assembly with speaking out aloud and performing with ease - super effort Year 2!

Year 2 party day info!

In Year 2 the class has a marble jar in which the teachers place marbles into when the whole class have done really well with an aspect of learning, or displaying citizenship qualities from our seven caterpillars.

Year 2 last week filled up their marble jar so are now planning a party!

We have decided to have this on Thursday 18^th December which is the party day; we will therefore incorporate a film (U choices allowed in) and popcorn amongst some party games.

The children have stated that they would like to bring in a teddy or pillow to relax with whilst watching the film so please do send in, named please!

Maths Learning - Week Beginning 1st December

This week we have been working with Money. 
From recognising coins, using the correct notation
and adding up with coins. 
Why not get the piggy bank out and see how
much is there?

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 1st December

The children have been working in writing partnerships to create a brochure for Santa Claus!  They have become experts in writing information brochures and are using these skills to create their new "North Pole" leaflets.  When these are finished they will be sent to Santa to see if he likes them.  (I think he will - as I was really impressed!)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The year 2 classroom is looking amazing thanks to the hard work of Santa's little helpers!  We have decked the walls with boughs of Holly in attempt to set the scene for our Victorians topic.  We will be having a jolly old Victorian Christmas until the end of term, but our topic will stretch further into the Spring term.
Reminder: To help the children understand how the Victorians celebrated Christmas we are off to the Priest House Museum on Tuesday 9th December.  Your child will need to wear their Victorian Costume and wear something warm underneath!  Many thanks to all of you who have offered your support on this trip - we will see you on the 9th. 

Spellings this week...

The children's spelling list for this week all have suffix's on the ends of words.

'ly'   'ful'   'ment'  and   'ness'

The words given in the lists do not involve any of the original root word staying as it is and simply adding the suffix on the end.

We have been talking to the children about learning their spellings, coming up with strategies to help learn the whole word, such as breaking the word down into smaller steps (syllables or sounds).

i.e. beautiful       - learn it as     b   eau    ti    ful

Learning lines...

The children have now been given their lines which they will be reading out during the Key Stage One Christmas performance of 'Whoopsa-daisy - angel'. We have been practising already, all the children need to read the lines out clearly pronouncing every sound correctly. Also projecting our voice so we can be heard!! Do practice at home, the more relaxed the children are due to knowing their words, the better they will be!

Pulse or rhythm?

Year 2 have started listening to music and finding the pulse/beat. We have been moving to some fantastic music which has been fun to explore. The last piece being by Vaughn Williams called 'Dance of the utensils!' which the children thought was very funny indeed!

2014 DT Christmas competition has begun!

Design Technology Christmas Competition! This year the DT competition is based around making a tree decoration and all classes are welcome to take part! ·       Your decoration must be able to hang from a tree
·       It must be made from as many recycled materials as possible
·       You must have your name and class on a label clearly displayed.
·       What type of decoration can you create which make it unique from other decorations before?!

The closing date for this competition is Thursday 11^th December. Please take the decorations to the hall; we will be hanging them ready for judges and assembly!  Good luck!  Finally, we do accept parent help will be needed for this but it should be clear that the child has been involved too!

Thank you so much for your generosity!

Thank you so much to everyone that came to the Bring and Buy Sale on Wednesday. We were very grateful that so many of you donated some fantastic items that were no longer wanted.

 

Due to everyone's generosity on Wednesday and on the non school uniform day on the 14th of November we have raised over £340 for Children in Need!

 

I would like to say a big thank you to all of the staff and children that helped on the day. Well done!

 

Mrs Thorpe

Super Sandwiches

The children have enjoyed designing sandwiches over the past few weeks and today they have made them, complete with a box listing the calorie and fat content and the price.  We hope you enjoyed them!  Please could you help your child fill in their evaluation form, bringing it back to Mrs Webb by the end of the week.  Superhero points for all those returned.

 

Super end to the week...

Super heroes were everywhere in Year Two on Friday, ready for the class assembly. Many thanks for sorting out some fantastic costumes, the children looked marvellous. A lot was packed into the class assembly on Friday and the children did well remembering their lines with not a lot of practice. For Christmas we will all be working on projecting our voices!!

The class completed their literacy work on writing instructions for a royal visit and turning a school child into a super hero! They all appear to have grasped the instructional writing element, have a look at with your child as to where they might also see instructions. Do they have 'bossy' verbs, are they numbered in steps?



Spellings are being learnt really well now by some of the class. The group who had the most children getting them right this week was Apostrophes, well done! Let's see who will win this challenge next week?!

Bring and Buy Sale- items needed please

This Wednesday (26th) the Children's Voice have arranged a Bring and Buy Sale to help fundraise some more money for Children In Need.

 

We are hoping that you have been able to have a sort out of any unused, unwanted; toys, clothes, books etc ready for Wednesday.

 

Please bring any items for the Bring and Buy Sale to Mrs Thorpe in Year 1.

 

The hall will be open to parents from 3pm on Wednesday afternoon so that you can have a look around without your children! Then the sale will carry on until around 4.30pm (unless we have sold everything!)

 

Items will be reasonably priced from 20p- £2.

 

We hope to have lots to sell and raise as much as we possibly can for children who need our help.

 

Mrs Thorpe and The Children's Voice

Handwriting

We have been really impressed at how much hard work the children in year 2 have put into their handwriting since the beginning of the year.  You only have to look in their books to see the vast improvement.  We will be continuing this focus over the next few weeks and will continue to look at joining handwriting at all times and the size of our writing.  I will be sending home some of the line guides we use for handwriting to help get the children writing letters the right size.  Please encourage your child to have a go at home and show you how much they have improved.

Maths Learning - Week Beginning 17th November

We have started looking at time in our Maths lessons this week.  We have been extending our understanding of telling the time as well as reading numerical dates and finding out when everybody's birthdays are in the class!  When telling the time at home always encourage your child to look at the hour hand first.  It is amazing how much you can tell about the time just using one hand of the clock!  You could ask questions about the hour hand such as...
Is it just before or after 8 o'clock?
Can you tell me when the hour hand is half way between the 2 and 3? 
What time is it when the hour hand is half way between two numbers?

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 17th November

We have completed our unit of work on instruction writing this week.  Many of the children have mastered the "bossy verbs" used in instruction writing and towards the end of the week were able to write a set of instructions to follow if you ever have a Royal Visitor!

A Royal Visit

We all really enjoyed HRH The Prince of Wales Visit to our school on Monday, and a really big well done to all of the school council representatives and those children who performed in front of the many cameras and HRH (they were amazing)!  In year 2 we have followed up the royal visit with writing instructions for others to follow if they should ever have a royal guest!

Class Assembly - 21st November 2014

Please come along to our class assembly at 9:20 in the school hall on Friday 21st of November.  We would like the children to wear a superhero costume for this assembly if possible.  The costume doesn't have to be the full superhero suit, a cape, a mask, some leggings and a t-shirt would be fine.  Please bring the costume into school next week in a named carrier bag.  We do have a few spare capes and masks if you get stuck.

Maths Learning - Week Beginning 10th November

We have been measuring length, weight and capacity this week.  The children have experienced using a range of measuring equipment, choosing the right tool for the job.  They are learning about the units of measurement that we use and how they can remember these.  If you have a chance at home get the tape measure, scales or measuring jug out, or even look for measures on the sides of packets.

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 10th November

This week year 2 have been turning into superheroes!  Using bossy verbs and their wonderful imaginations to write instructions they have invented, described, planned and written ways in which an ordinary school child can be made into a SUPERHERO.  If you find any instructions at home (eg recipes or game instructions, etc)  please draw your child's attention to how they are written. 

The Great PoW Poetry Competition

The Great PoW Poetry Competition.........

Roll up, Roll up, Roll up..................don't forget the Great PoW Poetry Competition is in town!!!!!!! A reminder that the closing date is this Friday, so you still have a week to get your creative master pieces in to your class teacher.

Check back on the last blog for details, remember the theme is Autumn/Winter, there are no limits, only to say - be as creative as I know you can be!!!!!!!!

I can't wait to read them all and choose a winner from each class!!!!

Good Luck!!!!!

Get writing if you haven't already!!!!!

A VERY excited Mrs. Johnson

Chokito Recipe

Many children (and adults) enjoyed the sweets we made for India Day, so here is the recipe.

Chokito

To make about 40 sweets.

250g of Dried Stoned Dates

100g of Butter

75g of Caster Sugar

2 tbsp Milk

100g of Puffed Rice

50g Drinking Chocolate

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Desiccated Coconut or Hundreds and Thousands to coat.

1.  Chop the dates and dice the butter.  Place in the saucepan with the sugar and milk and warm gently stirring for a few minutes until the butter melts and the dates start to soften.

2.  Place the remaining ingredients except for the coatings in the mixing bowl and then pour in the date mixture.

3.  When cool enough use your hands to shape the mixture into about 40 small balls, placing them on a tray as you make them.

4.  Sprinkle the desiccated coconut or hundreds and thousands over the balls, then roll each one carefully until it is thoroughly coated.

Inspiring India Day

We had a wonderful day on Tuesday celebrating the end of our India topic.  Many thanks to all of the parents that were involved in making the day go so smoothly and of course to Mrs Webb and the children for their excellent cooking skills and Mrs Brooker and team who painted many hands with beautiful Mehndi patterns! 
Our action packed day began with a talk from firefighter John where the children learned about fire safety at home and also got to see the special "how to train your dragon family" fire engine, they even got the opportunity to use the hose!  Firefighter John also linked his talk to our India Day giving us a fun activity sheet showing how to be safe during Diwali celebrations.  Thank you John.
After break we began to prepare for our celebrations in the afternoon, Mrs Mistry-Dyer brought in some amazing artefacts and hands on activities that the children really enjoyed, Mehndi patterns were drawn on hands, Rangoli designs were chalked on paper, Dances were practiced and Sweets were made!
The cafe opened with a buzz at 3:20pm and was a huge success, so thank you to everyone who took time to come and join in, have a taste and enjoy their children's learning with them.  Please look out for our display in the entrance hall, near the hall for photos, menus for the cafe, recipes and descriptions of  the day.  More to be posted on blogger soon.

POWSA AGM

Just a quick reminder that the POWSA AGM is happening this Thursday 23rd October 19.45 in the school staffroom.
This is a great opportunity to meet the current POWSA Committee, find out what we do for the school and enjoy home made goodies! We are a committed, friendly but small band of parents and we are always looking for new members. the level of your involvement in planning, implementing and running POWSA events is entirely up to you. We don't expect you to be at every meeting and at every event from start to finish but with more members and if we all do a little bit then there is plenty of time for us all to enjoy each event with our families as well as helping out.
It is a lot of fun and in return you receive a huge amount of satisfaction and feeling of pride that you have raised funds which are used to help all our children and our fantastic school.
Please consider coming along and finding out a bit more. Hope to see you there, POWSA.

The Great PoW Poetry Competition!!!!! Get Writing!!!!!!

What a wonderful, exciting and inspiring time of year we are immersed in - beautiful autumnal colours, leaves floating to the ground and flooding the pavements, conkers peppering the streets, crackling fires, Diwali, Halloween, Bonfire Night, moving towards winter and all the excitement of Christmas............so let's fire up our creativity and use it to compose a poem!

I am thrilled to announce The Great PoW Poetry Competition!

The theme is Autumn/Winter.

BE AS CREATIVE AS YOU LIKE! Your poem can be as long or as short as you like, it can rhyme or not, you can use any particular style (Acrostic, Haiku, Tanka, rhyming couplets........) However you choose to construct your poem make sure it conveys the theme, remember the presentation of you poem is important too and why not illustrate it as well!!!!!

For Reception ONLY: if writing your own poem is a bit tricky, why not find a favourite poem about this theme and try to copy it, get an adult to help you write one, use a computer or even record yourself reciting one!

There will be one winner per class so, PUT YOUR NAME AND CLASS ON YOUR ENTRY AND HAND IT IN TO YOUR CLASS TEACHER BY FRIDAY 7th NOVEMBER.

The winners will also be displayed on the New Golden Writing Wall!!!!!

We are a very creative school with a bubbling and overflowing imagination so I would love to see as many of you as possible having a go...........then we can have more competitions like this!!!!!

Get writing!!!!!!!

Good Luck - Mrs. Johnson (Literacy Coordinator)

Farm visit

We had a lovely energetic morning visiting Maiden Castle Farm on Thursday. Hazel Hoskin was taken aback with the level of questions from the children and they were genuinely interested and excited by the big forage harvester and the combine! Luckily the children managed to see the Forage harvester in action which was exciting to see from the front! A few children collected left over maize (which we all thought looked exactly like corn on the cob!) and then saw the process of milling to make the maize ready for animal food. The walk to and from the farm was as enjoyable for the children especially with the muddy puddles! If your wellies are still in bags then do give them a good wash to get rid of the farm smells!
There was some super listening and the children represented the school well. Thank you also to the the three parent helpers who came along too, much appreciated. 

Maths Learning - Week Beginning 13th October 2014

This week we have been looking at different methods for subtraction.  We have counted back in 10s from a range of starting points and begun to apply this to subtraction on a number line.  Counting back over numbers like 100 or 80 is often a challenge for this age group, but the key is lots of practice.  To practice at home, pick a two digit number such as 54 and count back in 10s: 44, 34, 24, 14, 4.  If your child finds this hard try counting forwards first and then try again backwards until they can do it.  On the other hand if it is easy try counting back in 10s from a three or four digit number especially where it crosses a hundreds boundary, for example: 1046, 1036, 1026, 1016, 1006, 996, etc.
The other skills we have been looking at is how to add or subtract quickly and efficiently over 10s boundaries.  For example:  Can the children work out 7+9 without counting on their fingers?  The next step will be to transfer this skill to harder questions such as 36+8 or 97+9 or even 678+25.

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 13th October 2014

This week we have been looking at our sentences and how they are formed.  We have revised our CAPITAL LETTERS and are aware of the need for full stops.  We have also begun to look at the type of words a sentence needs to make sense.  We will be continuing to learn about Nouns and Verbs over the coming weeks. 
The children have also been challenged to write compound sentences, using connectives (but, and, so, because, etc) to join two simple sentences together in order to make their writing more interesting for the reader.  It is very pleasing to see how much more confident the children are now with their writing and how much their handwriting has improved since the beginning of the year.  Please continue to remind your child about their capital letters and full stops if they do some writing at home.

Off to the Farm - 16.10.14

Hopefully the weather will be a bit better tomorrow as year 2 head off to the farm.  Wellies, waterproofs and long warm trousers are a must.  The children will return to school in time for lunch.  Many thanks to those of you who have volunteered to come along.

'Vegtastic' end to the week!

We hope those of you that could join us this morning for our Harvest celebrations enjoyed yourselves and felt that the essence of Harvest was captured? The children really enjoyed learning the song 'Let's Harvest' as well as signing the entire song! A well done to the class, a real achievement doing both and to an audience!

Spellings - learning is going well, please come and ask about your child's scores. We will make sure that the books are out for parent consultations. Please try to find a few ways to practice the spellings. Some children learn by writing them out but others do need to break words down and learn them in segments. Try writing out words on stickies, then a quick check up on one word whilst serving up breakfast or putting bowls in the sink! Frequency is best to help spellings to sink in. Also, this provides super practice of home learning, ready for future work and years ahead.

Finally, if you haven't already, please sign up for a parent consultation, forms are just inside the classroom door. We would endeavour to see every child's parents so please do contact us if you need an additional time.

Farm to Fork Week - Week Beginning 6th October.

We have had a wonderful time this week busily preparing for our harvest celebrations on Friday.  The children have been learning about Fairtrade Chocolate production, tasting Indian Food, creating beautiful works of art and practicing their Harvest Songs.  The children have been really enthusiastic learners throughout the week.  Well done Year 2.

Maiden Castle Farm Trip Cancelled

The trip to Maiden Castle Farm due to take place on Tuesday 14th October is now cancelled.  We will be doing our best to reschedule this trip to support our learning about food, farming and harvest.

Tasting Indian Food

This morning Year 2 enjoyed tasting a variety of Indian food with Mr Farrington. We tried lots of fruit, five different curries (home made!), rice and a range of tasty snacks such as samosas, pakoras and onion bhajis with lime pickle! Mr Farrington showed the class lots of photos of his time in India, including cafes, street markets, school lunches and lovely nutritious meals. We even watched a coconut being smashed open and some of the children had pomegranate juice squeezed into their mouths! We all have a right to nutritious food!

Can anybody help?

On the 20th of October we will be having a Rights Respecting Week to celebrate 25 years of the UNCRC. 

The Children's Voice have decided that they would like to see some of the UNICEF articles of the Rights of the Child displayed in our school entrance. Each year group will be designing and making a flag portraying one of the articles. 

This is where we need your help! We are looking for some plain white flat sheets usually used for bedding that we could have please. As an Eco School we encourage recycling old unwanted items so was wondering if anyone has any old sheets that we could have for our project please. If so please can you either give them to your child's class teacher or pass them on to Mrs Thorpe in Year 1. 

Many thanks 

Home school home learning

Whole school home learning

This week all children will be bringing home a whole school home learning project. We are really proud to be a Rights Respecting School and will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the UNCRC in the week beginning 20th October (more information to follow soon). 

Article 8 of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child:

‘We have a right to an identity’

We are going to be designing a school flag to be displayed at The Thomas Hardye School as part of our DASP Rights Week Project (starting on the 20^th October). 

We would like the children to design something we can add on our flag linked to our theme. One design from each class will be chosen by the 'Children’s Voice'. It could be a picture or suitable quote/words or both, keeping it simple is key to ensuring it is eye catching.. 

Why are the children proud to be them? What makes them special? All entries to be given to class teachers by the 10^th of October.

India Day Invitation

On Tuesday 21st October Year 2 will be having an "India Day" where the children will be taking part in 4 fun activities relating to our India topic.  We would like the children to dress up for this occasion and a letter will be coming home next week with some ideas about what they could wear.  At the end of the day we would like to invite you all to the classroom early to watch an Indian Dance and to sample some of the food that the children have made.  Come along from 3:20pm onwards and see for yourself what fun we've had learning about India! 

Maths Learning - Week Beginning 29th September

We have continued to work on making our addition and subtraction methods quick and efficient this week.  Children working independently in the classroom have been choosing their own methods for adding and taking away and have impressed us with what they can do! 
Mathletics is starting to take off and is an ideal place to practice those addition and subtraction skills.  We have had 3 certificates so far where the children have earned 1000 points within the space of a week.  Well done Noah, Megan and Holly! 

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 29th September

The children have had great fun this week making up their own versions of Little Red Riding Hood.  There has been lots of wonderful creative thinking about how they can change the characters and setting of the story to make it their own.  The children have also demonstrated their ability to use punctuation, adjectives and connectives to make their writing even better.  We have also been really pleased to see lots of children beginning to use their neatest joined handwriting at all times!  At home you could try describing some of your favourite book characters to each other to encourage your child to use exciting descriptive words.

Whole school home learning

This week all children will be bringing home a whole school home learning project. We are really proud to be a Rights Respecting School and will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the UNCRC in the week beginning 20th October (more information to follow soon).

Article 8 of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child:

‘We have a right to an identity’

We are going to be designing a school flag to be displayed at The Thomas Hardye School as part of our DASP Rights Week Project (starting on the 20^th October). We would like the children to design something we can add on our flag linked to our theme. One design from each class will be chosen by the Children’s Voice. It could be a picture they draw or suitable quote/words. Why are the children proud to be them? What makes them special? All entries to be given to class teachers by the 10^th of October.

A hard working Year 2 classroom!

We have been really impressed by the way the children are involved in their own learning; plenty of children doing extra pieces of home learning that they have been enjoying also a feeling in the classroom of all children trying their best. I hear we've even been singing and sharing our harvest song at home!
Today in literacy the children were completing sequencing the story of Little Red Riding Hood and practising the skills of using speech marks correctly which has been the focus this week.
In maths, practice of inverse machines, writing numbers as words, adding and subtracting numbers have been skills we've been honing this week.
Most children did manage a library change today unless they were reading with an adult. If your child is 'ploughing' through books and once a week change is not enough then please do come in in the morning to change books. We have also clarified today what colour your child should be on, any questions then please ask a member of the team.
Spellings have gone out today, sound focus this week is 'er' sound, which can be spelt; er, ir, or ear. We are also going to focus on a day of the week per weekly spellings, this week the day is 'Monday'. The children will be tested next Friday, if they use and fill in the 'Look, cover and write sheet' then they will also be rewarded in class for their home learning which is key at the beginning of getting 'homework'.
Please do feel free to come in and ask about any part of the learning process in Year 2!

POWSA AGM Thursday 23rd October 7.45pm

We know AGMs are not terribly exciting but POWSA does fantastic work raising funds for the school and developing our sense of community. We need new ideas and new faces and new enthusiasm to join our friendly committee of committed parents. We welcome especially parents of new Reception children. Our AGM is on Thursday 23rd October in the staffroom at 7.45pm. Please come along, meet new friends, help the school!

India Day - 21st October 2014

We have plans brewing for a wonderful day packed with fun activities for the children and parents in year 2.  If you are available to help on this day, please come and see a member of the team!

Maths Learning - Week Beginning 22nd September 2014

We have dusted off our addition and subtraction skills this week and begun to recall number bonds for one, two and some three digit numbers.  Being able to break numbers down is useful when adding and subtracting larger quantities so is a skill that the children need to master.  We have also been thinking about what else we know if we know a certain fact and have begun to look at the inverse operation and how we can use it to check our answers.  For example:
If I know that 5+3=8, I also know that 8-3=5. 
Why not encourage your child to have a go at Mathletics "Play Live" at home to practice their addition and subtraction facts?

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 22nd September

This week's literacy lessons have been based around Traditional Tales.  We have enjoyed creating still scenes from the story of Little Red Riding Hood and we have also been retelling the story in our own words.  Next week we will be making up our own alternative versions of Little Red Riding Hood by swapping characters and other elements within the story, so who knows what wonderful tales we'll have to tell you!  At home you could think about all of the other Traditional Tales and Fairy Tales that you like.

Drama, super hero poetry...

The class enjoyed a fun afternoon of drama yesterday as we rein-acted the story of Rama and Sita around the school grounds. Harry B was Rama, Hannah was Sita and Harry D was Lakshman, the rest of the class acted out parts of the baddies and discovered the king of Monkeys Hanuman (Mrs Brooker and Eddie!) and the evil ten headed monster the king of demons, Ravana (Mrs Webb!). The class had great fun recalling the story, a story where good wins over evil. We are studying this story as we start to look at the festival Divali through our Hinduism topic.

Today the class have been asked to put all their learning about poetry and rhyming words into place by writing their own Super Hero poem, 'If I were a super hero I would....' Some great choices of language, attempts at rhyming words and good attempts at spellings words and sounds. The spelling test also produced good results, please feel free on a Friday morning to ask us to look at your child's book to see how they are doing!

Ukulele with Mrs Thorpe

Every Wednesday lunch time I (Mrs Thorpe) will be teaching a beginners Ukulele club from 12.30-1pm. If you went to the beginners Ukulele club last year with Lucy feel free to come along. If you would like to start Ukulele then please come and see me before hand. We have a few Ukuleles in school if you do not have one. If you want to practice at home and have a tuner then the strong notes should be G, C, E, A starting from the top string. 

Looking forward to seeing you all next week! 

Year 2 Scientists

We began our Science work on Electricity this afternoon in year 2.  The children were learning about how we use electricity to help us; the dangers of electricity; the difference between battery powered and mains powered electrical products and how to build simple circuits.  If anyone has a child's electricity kit at home, now would be a great time to get it out and have a play!  Please remind children about the dangers of mains electricity at home.

Parent's Information Session

Thank you to all of you who came along this morning to find out more about Year 2's Autumn Term's learning.  A newsletter will follow shortly giving similar information and dates for trips, assemblies, our India Day and other themed weeks.

Maths Learning - Week Beginning 15th September

This week we have continued looking at the size of numbers.  The children have really impressed me with their ability to read big numbers!  There has even been mention of googles, googleplexes and Graham's number!  WOW!  I think even the children have been surprised at their own learning.  When reading numbers at home please concentrate on 3, 4 or 5 digit numbers...  see what your child can do.  Next week we are going to move into + and - and find out a bit more about Mathletics.

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 15th September

We have continued with our Poetry theme this week.  The children have been making improvements and completing work they started last week as well as putting together ideas for a poem they will be writing about Superheroes on Friday.  The children were extremely creative in imagining what superpowers they would like to have if they were a superhero.  This is a poem that we have been sharing in class:

If I was a superhero
If I was a superhero
I'd definitely fly
Arms outstretched racing birds in the sky.

If I was a superhero
I'd have special powers
Like extra strong legs, for jumping across towers.

If I was a superhero
I'd save all the oceans
With my secret and magical cleaning-up potions.

If I was a superhero
I'd save all the trees
And the mountains and rivers; the birds and the bees.

If I was a superhero
I'd help all the poor
Give them food, and make them hungry no more.

If I was a superhero
I'm sure you'll agree
The world would be better because of me!

by Sally Gray

Why not see if you can come up with an extra verse at home?  We'd love to know about your special powers!

end of the first week!

Well done to all the children, they have certainly stepped up to the mark this week. Promptness in mornings, super home learning coming in as well as the 'Look,cover,write' spelling sheets, good attitude to their own learning and taking responsibility for finding out what they can do to make their work even better.... super start!

In music we have been working on listening and singing songs and discussing duration, also learning a lovely harvest song ready for the festival in early October.
In RE we watched a film, an introduction to Hinduism which taught the children (through the story of Rama and Sita ) about the festival Divali (New beginnings).
The first spelling test went well, please check with your child or with us and reward them for good efforts, this will all help in making their first experience of homework positive!
The children will be continuing looking at poetry this week, so lots of experience is appreciated.
Lastly, on Wednesday 17th September is the Year 2 parent information session in the school hall at 9am. This session will offer more information on what your child will be learning about this term.

A super start for superheroes

We have a bit of a superhero theme threading through our learning this term!  Our superhero wall is displayed in the classroom, the children are moved up the wall when they are demonstrating good learning behaviour and setting a good example to the rest of the class.  When the children reach the top of the wall they are given a certificate and start the journey again!  It is great to see so many children returning this year with a super attitude to their learning having climbed some way towards the top already!  Let's climb the skyscraper!

India Topic

We will beginning the year with a brief return to India building on the children's knowledge and understanding from last year's India week.  We will be having an India day later in the term where the children will be invited to dress up in Indian costume if they wish.  More details to follow...

Learning Resources to use at home

As part of our learning across the curriculum there are at the moment three computer based learning resources that are accessible to children at home.  The children are beginning to use these at school and I'm sure will be keen to use them at home too.  The passwords and usernames for each will be written in your child's home learning diary for your information.  The learning resources currently available are:
Mathletics - www.mathletics.com
Reading Eggs - readingeggs.co.uk
Purple Mash - www.purplemash.com
Please remind your child to be SMART when using the computers and always supervise them when using the internet.

Parent's Information Session

An information session for Parent's of year 2 children will be held in the school hall at 9am on Wednesday 17th September, please come along for more information about this terms learning in year 2.

Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 8th September

This week in Literacy we have been enjoying poetry and sharing what we think makes a good poem.  We have enjoyed some of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes, Nonsense poems, Riddles, Poems with word play and poems about our favourite things.  The children will be learning the skills needed to write their own Superhero poems at the end of next week.  Why not share your favourite poem with your children?

Maths Learning - Week beginning 8th September

This week in Maths the children have been learning about the size of number, using the greater or less than signs to show which number is greater.  We have taught this to the children with the sign being represented by a crocodile - who likes to eat large numbers!  Your child will be bringing their crocodile home this week, so why not have a go.

First day back news!

The children were super excited this morning, lovely to see such eager and inquisitive faces ready for their year in Year Two!
Some very good writing occurred first thing all about an event from their holidays. Plenty of chat beforehand from all finding out what everyone had been up to! A really good effort from everyone. The children are working on securing capital letters and full stops in their writing without prompting.
Energetic children in music too, singing and signing as well as listening for long and short sounds and reading notation!

The children did have time to go to the library today and so should have a non fiction and two fiction books in their book bags. From Monday Group Reading books will also be coming home.

Spellings - now your child is in Year Two they will be receiving weekly spellings to learn. They will be handed out on a Friday on a 'Look, cover, write' worksheet to complete at home ready for a spelling test the next Friday. Please encourage  practice in different ways, making it fun will help!

The Reading and Home Learning diary has been simplified to make it easier to work with. Please do write in this when your child has read to you at home or to ask any questions regarding their reading as this will be picked up in the Group Reading slot. You will see that the spellings are copied in here as well by your child.

Finally, it was lovely seeing Reading Challenge medals around necks today. Also great to have photos in from our class's summer challenge too. We do plan to make display of these so please send in or email the office to pass onto us if you do not have a printer of any photos you still have at home.

Many thanks,

Mrs Mewett and the Year 2 team

Reading Challenge!

We are all so looking forward to seeing your children on Thursday, we are ready for a stimulating, packed year of learning, we hope they are ready too?!

If you have any photos of your child tackling any aspects of the summer Reading Challenge could we please ask you to send them in on the first day as we will be discussing these on Thursday and Friday?

Many thanks!

Miss Johnson and Mrs Mewett

A big thank you and goodbye from Mrs Thorpe!

I just wanted to say a MASSIVE thank you to all of the parents and my wonderful Year 2 class for this year.

 

I have loved seeing all of the children progress in their learning and want to say a HUGE

THANK YOU

 to all of the children for making my first year of teaching one to remember!

 

I think the special book that you made was fantastic and I will cherish it forever.

 

I want to say a big thank you to my team that have worked so hard all year to help all of the children and me! So thank you Mrs Webb, Mrs Hibberd, Mrs Creed, Miss Reeves, Mrs Cornell and Miss Hancock.

 

That's it from me, I hope you have a exciting summer and see you around the school in September.

 

Mrs Thorpe

Mythical Maze summer reading challenge

Mythical Maze reading challenge!

This is a free competition for all children to get involved in. Last years summer reading challenge was a big hit in Year 2. I hope that many of you will again take part in the reading challenge to support our local library and of course enthuse and excite your child as a reader. During the summer the children will need to read at least 6 books (or be read to). There will be many incentives to keep on reading such as bookmarks and stickers. 

Once they have completed the challenge and read six books they will get a special certificate and medal. 

More information can be found at: http://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk.

The last week in Year 2!

The last week is in full swing! This week we are ending our fantastic topic on Roald Dahl by looking at the story of 'The Enormous Crocodile'. The children have started a small project with a partner where they are decorating their own crocodiles and explaining the many tricks that he played so that he could catch some children to eat!

As you may have noticed the children have all returned their library and group reading books. If your child does have a school book at home still please can you make sure that it comes back this week.

All of the children's colourful art work will be coming home with them on Thursday.

 If you find that your child has misplaced a piece of clothing we will keep the spares in the classroom until the end of the week and then they will be put in to lost property.

We will be mastering the game of Rounder's this week and hope to have a whole class match on Wednesday.

Friday afternoon we will be celebrating the amazing efforts of all the children this year and playing lots of fun games before we empty all of their trays ready for the summer!

What a busy week!

Well, Year 2 have had an extremely busy start to the week!

It was fantastic seeing so many people on the sidelines cheering on the children at sports day. They all tried their hardest and showed courage and perseverance. WELL DONE EVERYONE!
Also we must mention the parents race, thank you all involved it was great for the children to watch you all taking part.

On Tuesday we walked to Tesco and looked around backstage at how they store the food that is going out on the shelves. We had a look at the meat and fish counter and were lucky enough to pick our Haddock for our fish cakes which Tesco kindly donated to us. Then we went upstairs and tried lots of different vegetables, fruit, bread and cheese. After our interesting time at Tesco we came back to school and learnt all about how to safe when using the internet.

Today has been another exciting day. We started off the day by learning all about 'Le Tour de France' and the competition was judged. A massive well done to everyone that took part in the competition, the T shirt designs were very creative and colourful! It was an extremely hard decision to make but in the end we had Jay winning for the boys, Eleanor for the girls and as reserve was Fraser.  The prizes that were handed out were a puncture repair kit, bike lock, badges and a Sustrans bug. I will post some pictures of the winning T shirts tomorrow.

After break all the children were involved in making fishcakes using vegetables from our garden including potatoes, carrots and onions. These will be consumed tomorrow along with our sorbet!
Finally we ended the day cheering on the Staff V Year 4 Netball and football.

We will be ending this week with a dance session from a dance teacher and then our skipathon on Friday pm.

20th Anniversary Book

If anyone would like to sign the 20th Anniversary Book it is outside the Office, please come and add a comment or memory to share.

We also have a few items of lost property from Saturday night, please check the boxes in the foyer.

Open afternoon on Monday 14th July

On Monday 14th July from 2pm are you welcome to come into Year 2 and have a look at your children's books and see all of their work from this year. We will have some activities that you can complete with your child and then at 3.30pm you are invited to go and look at the Year 3 classroom and meet Mr MacBean and Mrs Bernard.

Healthy me week!

This week we will be focussing on what makes us healthy. We will be gathering lots of the food that we have grown to make some delicious dishes and also buying some locally caught fish to sample.

Monday at 11am is our Sports morning. Can I please remind everyone to bring WATER to school in their drinks bottles and all children will need plimsolls or trainers as well as a sun hat.

On Tuesday 8th we will be walking to TESCO to have a look at how our food is processed in supermarkets and to taste some healthy snacks. Thank you to everyone that offered to help. We were going to be making two trips (splitting the class) but we are now only available to go on the Tuesday.

Throughout the week we will be learning about hygiene, healthy food choices, Tour de France and also looking at how to stay safe on line.

On Friday 11th we will be having our whole school skip and long distance run in the afternoon.

Well done to musicians...

I just wanted to say well done to all musicians who have performed over the last two weeks; they have shown true skills in developing their confidence in performing, showing good progress over the school year and enjoyment in learning! Thank you also to parents for all the support; it truly makes a huge difference.

Mrs Mewett

20th Birthday Party POWSA Message

Your Country Fair needs YOU!!!

I hope you are all looking forward to this weekend.  Planning is well underway, and we here at party HQ are all ready.  There is still time to prebook your tickets and food, so dig out that booking form, fill it out and hand it in to the school office.We are still looking for volunteers to help on the day, so please consider signing up for just one hour.  If we all do a little bit we all get to enjoy the party with our friends and families as well as helping out our fantastic school.  The sign up sheet is in the staff  room, so if you wish to volunteer please ask at the school office.Fingers crossed for lovely weather!  See you on Saturday.Kate and the POWSA team

NEW SCHOOL YEAR - Thursday 4th September

Just to clarify that the new school year commences on Thursday 4th September for all children and staff. Apologies for an error on the school calendar which specified another date.

This week...

This week we will be looking at another brilliant Roald Dahl story; Matilda. We will be looking at the characters and making comparisons with Charlie and the chocolate factory.

We will be doing more sports day practice and getting ready for our Year 2 morning on Monday 7th at 11am.

During that week we will be learning all about being healthy as it is our themed week. We will be looking at and researching the Tour De France and we will also be taking a trip to Tesco to see where our local food comes from. We will be making healthy snacks and finding out what can we do to make sure we are looking after our bodies and ourselves, especially e safety.