School photos tomorrow!

Just a quick reminder that it is the individual school photos tomorrow.

This week will be focussing on Harvest. The children will learn all about why we celebrate harvest. They will be cooking bread with Mrs Webb as well as creating some fantastic art to be displayed in the hall on Friday during our harvest celebration.

All of this work on Harvest will help us when we visit Maiden Castle Farm (Friday 11th Oct).

 

Please check out our display on one of the boards as you go into the hall, the children worked really hard to make sure that they had very neat writing!

Autumn Fest......"Read all about it!!!!"

Come and spend quality family time, wrapped up warm and cosy, enjoying wonderful stories, warming yourselves by a bonfire, listening to music, eating scrumptious jacket potatoes........if you want to bob for apples, enter a carved pumpkin into a competition or take part in some Autumn art then why not have a go too!!!!!!! There's lots of family fun to be had at POWSA's Brand New Autumn Fundraising event - "AUTUMN FEST"...........Look out for posters around the school, letters will follow with options to buy tickets and food attached! We would love to see you all there......... "Celebrating Autumn, celebrating Families and Supporting the School."

Brilliant leaflets everyone!

A massive well done to everyone that was praised in Fridays assembly. The children this week got to show the rest of the school their amazing leaflets about themselves and Dorset. Those children were: Elian, Megan, Genevieve, Amelie, Finley, Sam, Sophie and Oakley. I would just like to praise everyone in Year 2 as you all worked so hard on these leaflets. I will be sending them to our link school in India next week. You will be able to see copies of the leaflets on our display very soon.

Spellings were issued yesterday. This week we will be focussing on the gaps in the children's sounds. They will be in different groups that are tailored to the sounds that they need to learn. All of the children did very well in their spelling tests yesterday, but it did show which children had practised at home. 

I hope you all have a great weekend and bring us some fantastic home learning of your own on Monday!

The Year 2 Team 

Hand whisk or Electric Whisk?

First of all I would like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone that emailed me or gave me a USB stick with your fantastic pictures of your favourite pictures of Dorset. The children are still finishing off their leaflets which we will be sending to India next week!

In Numeracy this week the children are working really hard to solve number patterns using a 100 square.

 

I hope that all of the mathletics passwords are now working and that your child is building up their points.

 

In Science we are looking at Electricity. One of the jobs this week was to see if the children could work together to make a circuit. I then added in the challenge of using a switch. Every group was able to add a switch by themselves!

 

Our science investigation has also finished this week. The children were working with Mrs Webb to decide which was better to whisk eggs;

 

After a lengthily discussion the children decided although it would be quicker using an electric whisk, it is also helpful to have a hand whisk in your house just in case there is a power cut!

Using power point

All of the children now have spellings in their home school diaries. They are stuck in this weeks pages. We will be having spelling checks on friday. 

I would like to say a massive well done to the children that were praised in assembly today. So well done to: Oliver for his fantastic book review on 'Tiger Hunt', Sam for his impressive Numeracy work and Megan for her absolutely brilliant home learning where she made a puppet theatre on the story of Rama and Sita!

I would also like to praise Genevieve, Fenella, Victoria and Megan for reaching the 'castle' in class. 

Today also saw the completion of our information text on India. 

All of the children made their own power point presentations. It was great to see how their skills have developed in ICT. They are learning skills such as copy and paste, changing font size and colour and also adding text and pictures to a slide. You will be able to see some of these on display very soon. 

Hope you all have a fun filled weekend

Mrs Thorpe 

Home Learning Time!

It was great to see so many of you in the talk this morning, thank you for coming along and I hope that I answered the questions that you had. If there is anything else then just grab me for a chat at some point.

Just a few points raised this morning;
-Mathletics levels will be set over the next week. The children get a chance to go on to mathletics on a Monday and so are getting to know how to use this. I have had a number of children come in and tell me about their point scores already which is great!
-Reading Eggs is a completely new resource to the children and myself, this will be used increasingly in our timetable so the children will be able to explore and get used to using it. With regards to slowing down some of the games, the honest answer is that I am not sure that it can be adjusted but I will find out!

Today in Science I was very impressed with the children's knowledge of electricity and how easily they worked in pairs to make circuits (some with even a switch!). Mrs Webb will be cooking some scrumptious carrot and mixed spice squares with the children this week. We have also been practising our Harvest Song which is really upbeat!

Home learning time:

I would like the children to take a picture(s) of places in Dorset that they might like to put in an information text. We are going to be sending some children in India a leaflet on Dorset, so we need some great places that the children can talk about. What makes our county so special? Where do does your child like to visit? I would like a range of pictures so that the children can choose some for their own leaflet.

How to get the pictures to me:
-The best way to collect these pictures would be off of a USB stick, so the picture could be taken on a camera, ipad, tablet or phone and then downloaded on to a computer and placed on a USB. By doing this I have a electronic copy of the photos.
-Emailing the photo(s) to me would also be ok, I could then download them on to a stick.
-Or if you are unable to take an actual picture then a downloaded one off of the internet would also be fine.

Although it would be great to see the children at their favourite spots in Dorset, if you could possible take two pictures (one with the children in and one without) then other children can use the pictures in their work.

I cannot wait to see some of the great places that everyone likes to visit or that you think of when you think of our picturesque county. If you could get all pictures to me by Tuesday 24th September that would be great.

Using the ipads, place value and reading!

Year 2 have all worked really hard last week and are enjoying new challenges. 

We made some information videos/clips in Literacy this week. All of the children are getting used to using the ipads. 

They worked in groups and had to take either take pictures of Indian artefacts using an app called 'screen chomp'. 

Having imported the picture into screen chomp they could then record their voice. They had to describe what the objects were and what they could be used for. If they were not using screen chomp then they were filming with the Ipads. 

They had to work as part of a team to decide on who was going to film and speak. After the groups made two videos we watched them all using our apple tv. We all enjoyed watching or listening to the clips and the children learnt about Indian artefacts that they have not come across. 

In Numeracy last week we recapped on number lines and place value and will carry on with this using lots of resources to help us, including polystyrene cups! (pictures to follow this week)

This week we will be using our reading journals and so we will be keeping them in school during the week. 

The parent information session is Wednesday morning, I look forward to seeing you there. If you cannot make it then do not worry there will be a newsletter coming home soon. 

Year 2 team 

Indian Art work

This week in our art lesson the children learn't all about the National Bird of India `The Peacock' we learn't that the spots on the Peacock's tail symbolize the eyes of the gods. We used a techneque called wax resist (wax crayons and ink) and a sketch using pencils, a picture of a Peacock feather. Keep an eye out for our India display they look fantastic.

Week 2 starts with India, Hinduism and Orienteering!

This week we have started to look at our India topic. The children wrote facts about India that they already knew from year 1. This week we will also be using the ipads to film fact files about Indian artefacts. Throughout the topic we will be looking at some of the towns and villages that Mr Farrington has visited. At the moment we are focusing on the village of Silvepura near Bangalore.

As well as writing about India in Literacy it will also be our focus in Geography. We made a cracking start with this today! The children all agreed that there are both similarities and differences between Silvepura and Dorset.

In RE we started looking at Hinduism. The children had to make small groups that all believe in the same cause. They had to think of a group name, something that they all believed in and then design a badge. This was fantastic and showed how well all children in Year 2 work so well together. Well done!

In Numeracy over the next couple of weeks we are looking at addition, subtraction, multiplication and place value. We will be using money, counters, 100 squares and number lines.

PE is now taken by Mrs Hibberd. This week the children have had great fun trying to read maps!

 Thank you so much for making sure your child has decorated their reading journals, we have enjoyed sharing them in class. Starting from next week the children will be using the journals in their guided reading sessions so they will be kept in school during the week and then they can go home at the weekend. In Year 2 we try and encourage more independence and so with this in mind the children will be changing their own reading books during a guided reading session. If they can not wait for their slot then they can ask an adult and go and change it at some point in the day. It is really important that if your child is on a specific colour that they read a range of books in that colour.

One last thing, we are looking for a few adults that could dedicate an hour or so once a week to do some 1:1 reading to the children in Year 2, if you think that you may be able to do this then please come and see me.

Many thanks

Mrs Thorpe

The Autumn term begins!

We have all had a fantastic day! Everyone was excited to get back to school, which is great to see.

The children shared their summer holiday news with their friends and then wrote about their holidays in more detail in Literacy.

It was great to hear about so many brilliant places that you have all been to over the summer. We still have many show and tell items for this week!

The children will be bringing back there new 'home learning journals' this week. In there Mrs Webb and I will be writing which colour book your child will now be reading and the book that they have chosen for this week. I really encourage you to write, or get your child to write any clubs or extra curricular activities that they do after school in the days of the week part of the journal. This also includes reading at home. When spellings are introduced these will also be written in there. We will read these weekly in our group reading sessions. The journal also has some other great pages in it that can help the children with a range of things. 

If your child is being picked up by someone different to yourselves please speak to an adult in Year 2 and then they can write it on the tiles by the interactive whiteboard. 

Finally please remember lots of water and sun hats in the warm weather but also a rain coat when the weather changes. Any medicines can be given to an adult in Year 2 but a new medical form will need to be filled in (pink form).

Thank you all for your warm welcome wishes this morning 

Mrs Thorpe