Year 2 - Welcome Back - 31st October 2017

Welcome back!  We hope you have had a super week of Autumn fun.  We have lots planned this half term, not to mention the C word!  A quick reminder that it is our class assembly on Friday.  Please can the children wear their India costumes to school on Friday and bring their school uniforms in a bag to change into afterwards.  We hope to see you there!

Y2 - Autumn 1st Half Term Awards - 21st October 2017

What an amazing first half term we have had in year 2.  We have had an extremely strong start to the year, everyone without exception has made great progress towards their own targets.  Behaviour, effort and attitudes to learning have been exemplary.  Learning powers have helped us all succeed.  A special well done goes to: Phillippa, Kurtis, Alyce, Imogen, Tilly, Harlan, Jacob and Jasmine for achieving this half term's awards.

Y2 - Amazing India - 21st October 2017

A few more photos that I couldn't resist posting of our amazing India day.  Thank you everyone for your help on the day!

Y2 - Half Term Spellings - 20th October 2017

Spellings – Friday 20^th October 2017 to learn for Friday 3^rd November

Half-term spelling challenge.  This week I have made a list of words that we often use in our writing and that we sometimes get wrong.  These common words are sometimes difficult to remember how to spell, so coming up with simple rhymes, spotting patterns or even just reading the word over and over again can help.  From this list I would like you to learn at least 5 spellings, but you may like to try more…  Lots of superhero points on offer for learning these and getting them right!

Look	Write and Check	Write and Check	Write and Check
he
we
she
one
two
when
what
went
how
who
why
there
they
have
said
because
where
were
should
would
could
children
your
you
use
don’t
didn’t

Year 2 - Holiday Homelearning - 20th October 2017

Home Learning – 20^th October 2017

The Great Mathletics Challenge!  During the holidays you will have the chance to earn up to three Mathletics certificates! 

Challenge 1: Log on at home and start earning points.

Challenge 2: The Certificate Challenge, how many can you earn?

Challenge 3: The highest number of points – who will earn the most in one week.

Challenge 4: How many certificates can the class earn altogether?

Superhero points are available for each challenge and Miss Johnson will put one marble into the jar for each certificate awarded between 21^st October and 30^th October.  Can we fill the jar?

You will find your log in at the front of your reading record.

Year 2 - A fantastic couple of days - 20th October 2017

What a wonderful couple of days we have had in year 2.  Mr Farrington visited us on Wednesday, he led a whole school assembly telling a story of an Indian boy who traveled far and wide showing a caring attitude where ever he went.  We also learned about farming in India and food!  During the afternoon the children enjoyed trying and tasting some new flavours including all kinds of exotic fruit, rice, curry, chutney, pickle and Indian breads.  Thank you Mr and Mrs Farrington for leading such an interesting and tasty day!

Today was our India day in year 2 and the start of the Hindu festival Diwali.  The children have enjoyed making curries with Mrs Webb during the week and with a lot of help from Mrs Mistry-Dyer and Mrs Mathew we had a real banquet ready for the parents this afternoon when they came to visit our Indian restaurant!  The food was delicious and everyone enjoyed our Bollywood Bop dancing.  Well done year 2 and thank you so much to all of the adults who have made these inspiring days possible.
Happy Diwali Everyone.
Please remember that we would like your child to wear their costume from today in our class assembly on Friday 3rd November.  Please bring it to school in a named bag in the week after half term. 

Y2 - India Day - 13th October for 19th October 2017

Year 2 – India Day

Our India topic will be coming to an end next week.  To celebrate this we will be inviting Mr Farrington in to share his interest and expertise about India, Indian Farming and Indian Food.  We will also be having an India Day.  On this day we invite the children to come into school dressed in Indian Clothes.  During the day the children will be taking part in a range of fun activities and the day will culminate in a pop up Indian Restaurant to which you are all invited!  There will be some wonderful food to taste that the children have made and some entertainment - Bollywood style!  Please put Thursday 19th October in your diary.  You are invited to join us from 2:30pm to come and taste our wonderful food. 
If you are stuck for costume ideas for your child please come and see us as we have quite a few costumes that they could borrow.  Many thanks to the parents who have offered to help on the day, we couldn't do it without you.

Also, we would like the children to wear their costumes again for our class assembly on Friday 3^rd November.

Many Thanks

The Year2 Team

Year 2 - Spelling - 13th October 2017

This week's spellings are as follows:
Red Spelling Group: "ful" and "ment" suffixes.
joyful, useful, tearful, hurtful, pavement, enjoyment, useless
Orange Spelling Group: revising the ue sound.
blue, true, tissue, value, flute, glue
Green and Yellow Spelling Group: ur and common words.
fur, turn, burn, hurt, the, went
Next week we will be giving a list of common words that we often spell incorrectly to learn over the holidays.

Year 2 - A special writing challenge - 13th October 2017

In order to inspire our young learners and to enable them to understand how their literacy skills are so important, we are launching a "What's the point" project! It's simple - please could you send a photograph of yourself or a family member using literacy skills in the work place (writing as well as reading). Your child's class teacher will aim to show a different one before literacy lessons to spark discussion and to contextualise writing as well as inspiring them to foster a love for writing. We would also like to display these picture as well as use them on blogs and on the school Facebook page, so please make the teacher aware if you do not wish this to happen with your photograph.

Thank you in advance for your support in this fun project - the children will really enjoy seeing your pictures!!!!! 

Mrs. Johnson - Literacy coordinator

Year 2 - Maths Learning - Week Beginning 9th October 2017

This week we have been working on addition and subtraction.  We have used our number bonds, number lines and vertical addition so that we can add increasingly large numbers with greater accuracy.  Our knowledge of Place Value has come in really handy to help us add tens and ones separately and then recombine.  At home try adding on:
Firstly by collecting objects to represent amounts and then counting all that you have.  Use blocks, bricks, counters or pasta to help you count.
Then, try counting on.  Start at the biggest number that you are adding and count on the smaller amount.
Next, try adding on tens and then ones.  Using a number line can help.
Lastly try laying out your addition questions so that one number is written under the other.  Add the ones and then the 10s.  What do you notice when the ones add up to more than 10?
Next week we will begin to look at subtraction and continue to look at the connection between addition and subtraction.

Year 2 - Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 9th October 2017

This week we have been building towards our big write.  We have investigated the characters in The Jungle Book further and thought about what they might say in our stories.  The children have really impressed us with their home learning and it really helped when they were writing today, thank you for your support.  The Big Write has produced some amazing work, all of the children are so proud of what they have managed to produce and everyone worked very hard.  Miss Johnson has lots of wonderful stories to read this weekend!  The children showed enormous resilience in their writing, in particular special praise goes to Beau, Erin and Robyn who simply didn't want to stop writing and wrote for nearly 2 hours today! Wow!

Year 2 - The Great Toy Debate - 12th October 2017

Today in year 2 the children discussed the issue of toys in school.  The children were amazingly mature in talking about the issues that bringing toys into school create.  They came up with the following:
Toys get lost.

Toys distract people.
It is not fair if you aren't allowed to bring toys in and your friends are.
It is not fair if you haven't got the toys that your friend has.
Other people pick toys up if they are dropped and you might not get them back.
Toys get broken.
Swapping things can cause arguments.
The children came to the conclusion themselves that it would be fairer and better if toys were left at home and played with out of school.  They talked about other things that they can do at playtime and were even keen to show this in our afternoon fit break where we had lots of running around and happy children playing lots of active games in the playground. 
So, the children have spoken, from this day forth toys will be kept to play with at home and after school with your friends rather than in school and at playtime.  Well done year 2 for being so grown up and understanding how we can make our class and school a fair and fun place to be!

Year 2 - Praise Assembly - 13th October 2017

Today year 2 children were praised for their resilience in working to achieve awards and certificates through their online learning.  Lexie, Jason, Oscar, Able, Kurtis, Beau and Isla all achieved certificates.  Well done, keep up the hard work!
We have also had some excellent writing and planning at home in preparation for our BIG WRITE tomorrow.  Well done Jason, Florence, Jasmine, Oscar and Andreas for bringing in your writing and planning so far.  I look forward to seeing more tomorrow, I've heard talk of a puppet theatre... can't wait!
We also had to show our Diwa lamps which we have made for our India day next week and in response to our learning about Hinduism in RE.  The children were very focused in their approach to using clay and carved some super detail into the surface using clay tools.  The Taj Mahal group and The Jungle group were praised for their work so far...
Don't forget our India Day next Thursday, a blog will follow inviting you all to our Indian Restaurant.

Year 2 - Praise Assembly - 6th October 2017

Well done to the following children who were praised today for their amazing maths, writing, musicianship or artwork.
Abel, Alyce, Ella, Emilie, Erin, Harlan, Indi-Rose, Imogen, Jacob, Jasmine, Joey, Kurtis, Lexie, Lily, Phillippa and Sam.

Year 2 - Wonderful Wacky Hair - 6th October 2017

Well done to all of the amazing hair dos we saw at school today.  The children really enjoyed showing off their out of the ordinary wacky hair and we raised lots of money for Weldmar.  Photos will follow on Monday.

Year 2 - Maths Learning - Week Beginning 2nd October 2017

This week we have been looking at simple addition and subtraction.  We have added many small numbers by adding pairs of numbers that total 10.  This makes us much quicker at adding small amounts together.  We have also added and subtracted multiples of 10 and explored how if we know 3+4 =7 we also know 30+40=70 and 300+400=700.  We have practiced counting on from the biggest number using number lines and hundred squares.  Why not carry on practicing on Mathletics - addition and subtraction activities?

Year 2 - Literacy Learning - Week Beginning 2nd October 2017

This week we have been looking at adjectives to describe characters and scenes from The Jungle Book.  We have used our VCOP superheroes to help us improve our writing.  We have continued to look at full stops and capital letters and have also introduced the comma for when we write lists as Captain connective doesn't like using lots of "and".  So for example when we write a list we use a comma except with the last two terms:
Instead of writing: In the hot and calm and beautiful jungle...
Captain connective would write: In the hot, calm and beautiful jungle...
The children have also begun to write their own version of the Jungle Book which they will continue with next week in our BIG WRITE.  Please see the home learning blog.

Y2 - Spelling - 6th October 2017

Spellings for this week to learn for next Friday 13th October:
Red Phonics Group: (Looking at plurals)
dishes, matches, crashes, babies, loaves, leaves
Orange Phonics Group: (Revising oy/oi)
enjoy, loyal, royal, annoy, noise, choice
Green and Yellow: (or as in fork)
for, fork, cork, fort, short

Y2 - Home Learning - 6th October 2017

Year 2 Home Learning – Friday 6^th October 2017

Next week year 2 will be taking part in their first Big Write of year 2.  This time we plan to write stories.  We have used the Jungle book story to help us describe the scene and characters in our own story.  The children have written the beginning of the story, but need help at home this weekend to think about what might happen next! 

At home you could help by trying one of the following:

1.  Talk about the story and watch the film. (Disney 1967 version)

2.  Use the pictures below as puppets to act out the children’s ideas

3.  Help them to write ideas down. 

4.  Make a cartoon strip of what happens next.

We will be doing the Big Write on Friday, so that you have got plenty of time to think of ideas.

Here is what we have already done in class as well as some of the characters you could cutout and use as puppets:

Year 2 - Wacky Hair Day - THIS FRIDAY

Just a quick reminder that the Children's Voice have decided to support the Weldmar Hospicecare in Dorchester by taking part in their Wacky Hair Day this Friday for a suggested donation of £1. 

We can't wait to see some of your wacky hair and look forward to putting some on the blog for you to see!