Taster afternoon was a great success!

A huge thank you to everyone that came to our taster afternoon. The children worked really hard to design their own tables and make their signs and food. I think you would all agree that the tables looked great!

The children were not given spellings this week but will get them on Monday.

Hope you all have a brilliant weekend.

Mrs Thorpe

Reminder about tomorrow and an introduction to Hatch!

Just a reminder to everyone that tomorrow we are having a taster session in Year 2 at 3pm. You will be able to sample the tasty food that everyone has been making this week with Mrs Webb. The children will also be making some stalls which they will display their home learning on. Whilst in Year 2 it would give you a chance to have a look at your childs work in their writing book.

This week the children have been using the information that they found out at the S
ealife centre to help them to plan a story. Everyone in Year 2 will write their own stories but they all have some key features the same; the main character will be a Sea Turtle, it will meet 4 different animals in 4 different countries. The children are really enjoying planning their own story thinking about what makes an interesting story and why!

In Maths we are looking at division this week. Today we were dividing (or 'sharing') using money.  If the children have piggy banks it would be great for them to have the experience of sorting out real money and then sharing it between two people (coins must be equal amounts).

Also I thought I better introduce Hatch!(picture not an exact match with our Hatch) Hatch is a young Sea turtle that really wants some adventures of his own. Each day he will go home with a child in Year 2 and spend the evening with them. Hatch comes with his very own adventure book which the children can write in. They can write on the computer or straight in the book. The space at the top of the page can be for a drawing or a photograph. Already it is great to see the excitement the children are getting from taking Hatch home. Please do encourage your child to write in the book/on the computer themselves as I would like to see what they can do.

I hope to see you tomorrow at 3pm. I will put the parents evening sheets on the whiteboard in the morning. If you can not make those days or times please let me know.

Mrs Thorpe

Green Sea Turtles and an invitation for Friday!

We have had a brilliant trip today! We all saw so many creatures who live in the oceans around the world.

 

We went to the Sealife Centre to collect as much information as we could about different animals. We defiantly learnt lots today, which we will be using in our story writing.

Of course the most anticipated animals which we all really wanted to see were the Green Sea Turtles. There were four of them at the centre. Unfortunately they had all been in collisions with speed boats out in Florida. The Sealife Centre rescued them and they are all doing really great!

The abnormalities in their shells are from air bubbles between their skin and the shell, which happened when they were hit by the boats. The keepers at the centre answered all of our questions that we had.

 

I hope that your child will have lots of other things to tell you about our trip including touching star fish, clapping seals, huge sharks lots and lots of beautiful multi-coloured fish!

 

Just a quick reminder about the home learning task that we set last week. Thank you so much for the pieces that we have had in already today. I look forward to seeing the rest of them tomorrow/Wednesday. On Friday (31st) everyone is welcome in to our class at 3pm to taste the culinary delights that the children will be cooking with Mrs Webb. The children will be making authentic dishes from Mexico, Canada, China and Italy. I hope that you can make it in. It will also give your child a chance to show you all the exciting things we have been doing to do with Sea Turtles.

 

 

Home learning has been set!

We have set the children some home learning today. Each child has a slip in their book bags explaining what we would like them to do. Over the next few weeks we will be looking at four countries; Mexico, Canada, Italy and China. Each child has been asked to research something to do with one of these countries. Please think as creatively as possible we would love to see a range of work bought in! Please also just focus on the area that we have set as the other children in the class will be looking at different areas. Any questions then just ask! Please can we have all work bought in to school by Tuesday 28th January.

Thank you for everyone that has offered to help with the trip. We have limited space and are only taking a couple of parent helpers, thank you anyway. Just to confirm, the children are to wear their normal school clothes and please make sure that if they are bringing a packed lunch that everything is disposable and put in a named plastic bag.

POWSA Meeting

The next POWSA meeting will be held at the Poet Laureate on Tuesday 28th January at 7.45pm. All welcome.

What we are learning about this week ...

This week we will be carrying on with learning new ways to learn multiplication. The children will be making arrays and grouping to allow them to divide as division is the inverse of multiplication.

In Literacy we will be finishing off our posters for the tourists and writing back to the scientist in Florida. In Science we are recapping on recycling, why we do it and how we sort different rubbish.

Tomorrow I will be setting some home learning, your child will bring home a piece of paper to explain what we would like them to do.

A busy week...

It was great to see lots of you at the Parent information/Maths session this morning. I hope that it was helpful for you all. If you were unable to make it then there is a newsletter going home today explaining what we are learning about today. On the Year 2 pupil links there is a link for the DASP 'How to make your child a maths star'.

This is a great document as it shows you in simple steps how to help your child. 

This week the children have been making a leaflet to tourists in florida to warn them about the turtles on the beach. You will be able to see these in our classroom next week. 

Year 2 have worked really hard this week and have got all the crystals in our class reward jar. As a treat  we watched some of:

'Finding Nemo' as the children said they would like to watch the section about the turtles. We also had ice cream! 

Spellings went home today. When we looked at the children's spelling tests today lots of the children were getting below half correct. Although we practice the sounds during phonics it is really important that they all practice at home. So please encourage your child this week to practice, practice, practice! 

Have a restful weekend and we will see you all on Monday

Year 2 Team 

A Terrapin pays a visit!

We were very lucky to have another visitor in top Year 2 this morning, Zeb and his Dad bought in their pet Terrapin. He was very eager to have a look around our classroom! The children could look at Michealangelo and compare his features with Cooper (the tortoise). Michaelangelo had webbed feet so that he could swim in water and very long nails that help him to grab on to rocks.

Year 2 also received a very special letter today from a Scientist at the Sea Turtle Conservation Society. He asked for their help with designing and making up a leaflet to warn tourists about sea turtles on the beach. Year 2 are loving this topic and seem very enthusiastic to make sure that the sea turtles are being looked after. They all found out today about the problems that sea turtles are facing and why only 1 in 1000 survives to become an adult!

We couldn't bring in a turtle so here is the next best thing!

Today we have had a visitor....

COOPER!

Cooper is Mrs Thorpe's 3 year old tortoise. I wonder if any of the children could explain to you what other animals we were looking at and why?

There is a newsletter coming out very soon but I thought I would tell you that the topic we are learning about this term across Literacy, Science and Geography is 'Sea Turtles'. We will be looking at the life cycle of a sea turtle, writing an information text in the form of a leaflet, letter writing and writing stories. The children have loved learning lots of new and exciting information about continents, oceans and sea turtles this week. 

Next week spellings will be back and we will also be setting some home learning. 

Please keep on reading lots of books at home with your child they are all really improving and WELL DONE to Zeb, Eva, Dolly, Freya and Victoria for your home learning this week. 

Welcome to Spring term 2014!

Welcome back! I hope that you had a great Christmas break. The children have told me all of the wonderful things that they have been getting up to. This morning we all thought about something that we could get better at doing and a new skill that we would like to learn.

This term we will not be having the normal parent information session like usual, instead this will be mixed with a Numeracy workshop that I will be running on the four operations in calculating.

In this workshop I will be demonstrating how I teach the children how to use each of the operations when calculating. I will go through the methods in a progression and show and suggest ways in which you can help your children at home. I look forward to seeing many of you next Friday (17th Jan), just after 9am in the school hall. If you have any questions about this session then please do not hesitate to ask.