To infinity and beyond!

British science week has been a huge success and the children have been so inquisitive about this year’s theme ‘Our Diverse Planet’. On Monday we introduced the theme and children investigated which materials would make as a good insulator for a coat for polar explorers. On Tuesday we were so lucky to have three actual scientists come and visit us to do another experiment using materials. The children looked at putting first on different materials and how well water washes it off. We were introduced to a lotus leaf and how it have self-cleaning properties. We were so amazed to see the water form droplets on the lead which could slide straight off! Wow! On Wednesday we took part in the whole school ‘Physics day!’ The children moved around to each classroom to participate in a different physics activity from sinking and floating, static, air resistance to magnet forces. On Thursday and Friday we rounded science week off with our year 2 space camp!

On Thursday the children designed and made space pizzas after exploring different cheeses and toppings. Astronauts need to be healthy in space and need a balanced diet to keep them strong. The children loved making their pizzas and arranged their toppings to look attractive to eat. We then look part in astronaut circuit training where we had fifteen stations to move around to keep our muscles and bones strong. On the evening children arrived back at school and settled their belongings into their space pods. From then we started our missions which included designing astronaut patches, solving puzzles with astronaut gloves on, navigating mazes blindfolded and making star constellations. These missions all encouraged team work and communication! We finished the evening by watching a space film and eating our space pizzas!

On Friday morning we got ourselves ready to have our well-earned breakfast and a space walk outside! We continued our astronaut training by participating in space yoga, a memory mission (memorising codes) and a translation mission (translating Russian words).

Space camp was a huge success and we hope it will be a unforgettable experience! Thank you parents and guardians for all of your support.

Earlier on in the week in English we planned and wrote an information text about Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield which we peer edited. In Maths we looked at finding fractions of amounts and the properties of 2D shapes.

Our week was very very packed so I hope you all have a relaxing weekend to recharge!

What another super week in year 2!

A big thank you to all the parents and guardians who attended parents evening. It was so lovely to share all of the amazing progress your children have made so far this year.

World book day was also huge success! The costumes were brilliant as well as year 2’s love of reading. We tried our hand at becoming cartoonists and drew step by step some characters from the Beano. The children’s growth mind set and perseverance was brilliant and really paid off in the end!

This week in guided reading we have continued looking at the book ‘The Darkest Dark’ written by astronaut Chris Hadfield. We made some brilliant character inferences by asking questions at different moments in the book and then answering them as Chris. To children had a really good understanding of his character to be able to answer the questions appropriately.

In English we discovered that our letters to President Lunar were successful and Bob has his job back! President Lunar has asked for our help with other things too so we have been busy at work already. We have been given the challenge to write an information text about Chris Hadfield so we have discussed appropriate adjectives to describe and used a range of conjunctions within our sentences. We have watched some amazing videos of Chris Hadfield on the international space station along the way and have been wowed with what we’ve seen!

In Maths we have focused on fractions this week. We have explored equal parts and been able to read and identify fractions of shape. We have also explored time and recapped prior knowledge of o’clock and half past the hour and been introduced to quarter past and quarter to. The children have picked this up really well with help from a few rhymes!

In Art the children have finished their paper sculptures based on Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Explosion’. In RE we have explored the idea of ‘salvation’ based on the Easter story.

Thank you for returning space camp slips and contributions so promptly. We have a very exciting week coming up building up to this special experience!

The year 2 blog post is coming to you in a different way this week (in the post- thank you FOTS for providing the stamps!)! As part of our geography we answered the question ‘where do I live?’ and to do this we looked at what an address is. We looked at each line and practiced writing our own to then write it on our envelopes. The children were so excited and started to compare were they live with their friends. Included in this letter is a little bit of their writing explaining what they enjoyed most this week.

This week we have written a recount of our half term holidays and shared with each other what we got up to! We then received some shocking news! Bob the man on the moon has been sacked by President Lunar. We decided that the best way for us to help was to write a letter to President Lunar and persuade him to give Bob his job back! We are waiting to hear back.

In guided reading we started to look at our new whole class text called ‘The darkest dark’. We first looked at an illustration from the book to make inferences about what it could be about. We were then introduced to the text by looking at the front cover and reading the blurb. The book is written by a real like astronaut! How exciting!

In maths we have been using money to make amounts and then find different ways to make it! Very tricky but the children have really persevered.

In RE we were introduced to our new big question ‘Why is the Easter story important to Christians?’ We shared ideas and then explored the Easter story through video and drama!

Your child should of received a space camp letter on Thursday. Please return the slip so your child can attend this very exciting experience!

We have had a brilliant first week back and I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday for parents evening.

What a brilliant last week before half term!

In maths we have done lots of work on fluency and how quickly we can answer facts as well as our KIRFS. We also continued our work on length and height by moving onto measuring in centimetres. For the rest of the week we recalled multiplication and division facts and continued work on subtracting with renaming.

In English we planned out setting description of space including expanded noun phrases, words with suffixes and sentence with conjunctions. The children wrote their descriptions and edited their work by themselves and with peers to check their work is coherent. We ended the week by writing up our descriptions focusing on our handwriting. The children have produced some wonderful descriptions!

In Science the children had so much fun looking at their dental hygiene and setting up their bacteria ‘observation over time’. They also observed our plant experiment looking at what plants need to grow. We found that the plant with everything it needs grew as well as the plant with no fresh air and the plant without light but they were not as healthy. Very interesting results!

We now have spelling shed logins with lots of lists recapping the spellings we have looked at so far this year. We also have timetable rock stars logins which is really exciting! I have set the 10 times table over half term for children to have ago at and get use to the game.

I hope you all have a wonderful and restful have term!!

Good evening everyone!

This week children have finished their pictogram (picture graphs) chapter of learning. The pictograms became even trickier to infer this week as the pictures started to represent different amounts. Children needed to apply their counting of 2s, 5s and 10s. They then needed to read and answer questions looking for the greatest, smallest and the difference between amounts in the graph. Towards the end of the week we started our new learning measuring length in metres! We will continue this next week by measuring in centimetres and then comparing lengths. A super effort year 2!

In English we have started to explore space by researching and gathering information. Based on this new knowledge we were able to write some fantastic expanded noun phrases to describe space and our solar system. Our adjectives included those with suffixes on (-ful, -less, -ness, -ly, -ment). Towards the end of the week we began to plan a setting description which we will continue onto next week.

In guided reading we have done whole class comprehension and book comparisons. We finished Man on the moon (a day in the life of Bob) and started to compare it to ‘Away back home’.

In computing children continued to use their research skills and begin to judge the information they find. Some children found that there are 9 planets but others found there are 8!

In art children began to put their explosion sculptures together which are beginning to look very effective!

The main event of the week was that our classroom turned into a polling station! We explored ow we felt watching only ‘rich men’ vote and compared it to when everyone had the right to vote. We ensured we had our polling cards to show before we could vote to our candidates to become our class meeters and greeters. We took the voting very seriously but had a brilliant time!

On Monday of next week the children will be working scientifically as part of our healthy animal’s topic. The first investigation is around oral health. The children will brush their teeth, chew on a disclosing tablet, make observations and then brush the colour off. We’ve been given 30 new Colgate toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes to be used so the children will not need to bring their own. The children will bring their new toothbrush and toothpaste home. How exciting!! Any questions or queries please do not hesitate to let us know.

Home reader books will be available on Monday for children to bring home. We are so excited to have so many amazing new books!!

Have a brilliant weekend!

Due to technical difficulties I was unable to post the blog last week so will include last weeks and this week’s entry in this post.

Week ending 24.01.2020

What another brilliant week in year 2.

This week we have finished out work on division by finding a family of facts to a calculation for example, if I know 14 ÷ 2 = 7 then I also know 14 ÷ 7 = 2 and 2 x 7 = 14 and 7 x 2 = 14. We also spent time completing word problems based on division and how odd and equal numbers are related to division and multiplication problems.

In English we have identified the features of a story by reverse planning and using this to inform our own stories. We explored the plot of ‘How to catch a star’ to innovate our own story with different characters and things they want to catch.

In daily dashboard we set up an investigation over time. We completed the TASC wheel to inform our investigation by recording what we know about plants and what we want to find out. We are going to investigate ‘what do plants need to grow?’ and each table came up with their own ideas. We have a plant with everything it needs, a plant without water, another without light, another in an air tight container and another in the freezer so it doesn’t have a suitable temperature. We look forward to recording our observations soon.

In art we explored line shape and pattern in the style of Roy Lichtenstein. We found his work very interesting. In computing we evaluated the game we have tested by explaining which games we thought were the easiest or the hardest and then completed an hour of code. In History we learnt a bit more about Emmeline Pankhurst and in RE we explored how Christians put the Gospel into practice in their own lives.

From Mrs Medlicott

Happy New Year to you all!

In science we have moved onto our topic Healthy Animals (Including Humans). We have started by looking at life cycles of animals, where the children researched and produced a life cycle of their chosen animal. I think you'll agree that they produced some lovely designs. The next few sessions we will be looking closely at a human life cycle. I think the humans we will observe, the children know quite well, so they will find them very interesting! The next section of the topic is what animals need to survive and stay healthy, where we will look at staying healthy ourselves and what animals need to survive and be healthy.

Science Bag- Thank you to everyone who has completed an experiment and returned the science bag to year 2. The children really enjoy sharing their experiments with their peers in the classroom. The science bag was introduced during your child's Year 1 year, so as a class we have decided it’s only fair that everyone gets a chance to take the bag home either in Year 1 or Year 2. The children have been honest with me and each other and I think we have a system to ensure everyone, at some point over these two years, gets to bring the science bag home!

Have a brilliant week everyone!!

Week ending 31.01.2020

This week in maths we started by solving more complex missing number problems. This was definitely a challenge but the children were brilliant and really persevered with it! We recapped subtracting with renaming and then moved onto measuring temperature using a thermometer. After completing that we moved onto finding out information in picture graphs or ‘pictograms’.

In English this week we have written out stories we planned so carefully last week. The children have produced such quality pieces of writing with lots of year 2 skills. We even helped each other edit out work and checked our sentences made sense.

In art this week we began getting things ready for us to make an explosion sculpture next week inspired by Roy Lichtenstein. We practised our cutting skills, made our ‘sparks’ and printed using bubble wrap to resemble Lichtenstein’s ben day dots. In History we made an Emmeline Pankhurst fact file and considered ‘Why is she significant?’ In computing we started our new topic of ‘we are researchers’. We discussed what researching is, where we get information from and how to use the internet safely. For the next couple of weeks we are going to research the topic ‘space’ and find out facts to share and present at a later date. In RE we considered if the Gospel is only important to Christians and in Heartsmart watched the Pixar clip ‘Boundin’ to consider how we can change our attitudes to things by being thankful.

Thank you everyone for all the reading you are doing at home, it is greatly appreciated and really makes a big difference to your child’s confidence, fluency and understanding. It can take a child up to 7 times to read a book before they can read it fluently and truly understand what they are reading. As well as encouraging your child to read to you, it’s also just as beneficial for you to read to your child at bed time. "Reading a regular bedtime story to children is a simple activity that encourages children to enjoy reading and gets them into good reading habits that will set them up for the future," says Judith Parke from the National Literacy Trust (NLT).

"When parents encourage their children to read at home, it can make a big difference to their wellbeing and how successful they are at school, and beyond."

On Monday we will be collecting all guided reading books and home readers so that we can audit all books. We will give children the chance to choose new home reading books once they are all checked but as you can appreciate it is going to be a big job!

I wish you all a wonderful weekend.

We have had another brilliant week in year 2.

In guided reading groups we have started to have follow up tasks to work on and retrieve information from the books we are reading. The children are showing a good understanding of what they are reading! In whole class guided reading we have continued to read ‘Man on the moon’ (which we are really enjoying) and been able to sequence his morning routine. We started to look at inference by imagining how Bob would feel cleaning up the moon and what he would be thinking.

In English, the children began the week understanding how to use an apostrophe for belonging (e.g Miss Cooke’s leg). We labelled our body parts using the apostrophe to show who they belong to. It was great fun sticking post it notes to each other! Once we were secure we then began to write sentences including apostrophes to show belonging and contractions (it’s, won’t, couldn’t etc). We recapped writing different types of sentences, cracked the code of a story spotting the skills we’ve recently covered and practiced topic words in handwriting.

In Maths we started our new unit of division. We have explored that in division we can divide into groups or divide by equally sharing. Sometimes it can be tricky to notice the difference but it is something we are having a growth mind set about and will keep trying to get that secure understanding.

In science the children were introduced to their new topic of ‘animals including humans’ by looking at life cycles. They have paired up to research the lifecycle on an animal to then present later on. In art this week we looked at primary colours (red, yellow, blue) and mixed them to create secondary colours (orange, green, purple). From this we added black to colours a little bit at a time to create shades. In history we ordered events on a timeline and asked lots of questions about Emmeline Pankhurst. In computing we continued to test games and notice the rules and in RE we reflected on which part of the gospel we think is most important.

Keep reading at home as much as possible as it really does make a huge difference at this stage!

Have a lovely, restful weekend!

Happy New Year to you all - it sounds like you have all had a wonderful Christmas break. The children have settled back into year 2 without any problems and have had a brilliant first week back. 

We have introduced our new topic this term called 'Little people, big dreams' by asking ourselves what our big dreams are. We created art work and have started to read our new class chapter book, 'The BFG'. 

In maths we have recapped partitioning a 2 digit number into tens and ones and also different combinations. We have also completed from place value reasoning and problem solving tasks. We then recapped addition of two 2 digit numbers including renaming using a partitioning method. We add the tens first, then the ones and add out answers back together to find our whole. 

eg. 

45+37 =

40+30 = 70

5+7 = 12

70+12 = 82

We then recapped subtraction by using a pictorial method of drawing the first number (the whole number) to represent the tens and ones and then crossing out the part to find out our other part. We finally put everything into practise by solving missing number problems. We firstly decided if we were adding (part + part = whole) or subtracting (whole - part = part) and then use the correct method. 

In English we started the week writing recounts of our Christmas holidays to share what we had done. On Tuesday we started exploring our new text type of stories. We read some, discussed what features a story has and read some more to find these features. We agreed that stories are fiction, have characters, settings, illustrations and a plot. From reading 'How to catch a star' we spent time creating descriptive expanded noun phrases to describe the moon, Earth, stars, aliens and rockets. We were also introduced to a new type of word: adverb. An adverb describes the verb (action word) and we spend some time identifying them and including them in sentences. 

In computing we continued our work be games testers and were able to successfully log onto our laptops, find and open documents and right click to open links. I was very impressed! We tested games and worked out the rules in them. In heart smart we discussed what we love and why and who loves us and why. We always need to remember to let love in to be heart smart. In RE we recapped our new question 'What is the good news that Jesus brings?' We remembered he brings friendship because he welcomes everyone and forgiveness. We explored how Jesus also brings piece to us and thought about what makes us feel peace. 

Homework for this term is maths and reading as usual but now we will send home reading comprehension. 

Year 2 have had a very successful last term learning all about Materials in science. They have worked with great enthusiasm during each session to predict, conduct and evaluate experiments on diffetent materials, their properties and the suitability of materials for purpose.  We then moved onto working scientifically , which involved alot of group work and independent work. Everyone enjoyed this session very much - myself and Mrs Friday included! I love coming into Year 2 and observing them as they are maturing through the school.  Next term we will be looking at animals, including humans in science on Monday afternoons.   Mrs Medlicott

I hope you all have a brilliant weekend! See you on Monday!

 

Wow! What a week it has been!

We kicked off the week with our Christmas play dress rehearsal in front of the school and the children performed so brilliantly. Some were a little nervous as many of year two had speaking parts, a dance or singing parts but they really did shine. On Tuesday, we performed in front of you and oh my goodness it was the best performance the children had done. The speaking, singing, dancing and of course the acting was just brilliant from absolutely everyone. A big thank you to all for the costumes that you provided and for coming to see the performance if you were able to!

For the rest of the week we have been very festive making beautiful Christmas cards and in general just having a festive spirit. In maths we have continued our work on multiplication of 2, 5 and 10s. We now have a good understanding what the multiplication sign means (groups of) and are becoming more confident in recalling multiplication facts. In English we wrote recounts of the Christmas play ensure the events were in order and used time connectives to help our work flow. In spellings we have been introduced to more homophones (hear/here, sun/son, one/won) and practised the different spellings in very silly sentences! In our ‘Light it up’ topic work we explored historical sources to find our more information about the past and present to the rest of the class. We were also introduced to the term ‘eyewitness’ and learnt about Samuel Pepys’ diary. We sadly had our last jump rope session which the children have looked forward to each week! Our skipping had definitely improved!

Have a brilliant and restful weekend everyone!

It’s definitely starting to feel a lot like Christmas in year 2 (especially with a naughty elf roaming around!). The children made their decorations to go on our Tardebigge Christmas tree located in Worcester cathedral with the theme of the three wise men. We made very regal looking crowns which are definitely fit for kings! Our Christmas play rehearsals are also in full swing with all children performing brilliantly! We are looking forward to performing in front of the school in our dress rehearsal on Monday and in front of you all on Tuesday morning.

In maths we have continued our new multiplication chapter by understanding, learning and recalling the 2 times table. We will continue with the 5 and 10 times table next week.

In English we finished writing our diary entries of either Vlad or Boxton and then edited them to check they make sense and to include all of our skills from year 2. All the children had the opportunity to read their work to an adult and to then make effective revisions. After all the editing we wrote our diaries up focusing on a cursive style of handwriting. We have been exploring different spelling patterns including the ‘j’ sound spelt either j, g, dge or ge and the ‘s’ sound spent either c or s. We have been using the ‘does it look right’ spelling strategy to help us.

I would just like to say how amazed I am by all of the children’s fantastic efforts with their homework to build a 17th century house. They are all so so amazing! All children have been awarded 5 team points for their brilliant creativity and attention to detail. Homework for this weekend is for children to practise for our play next week.

I hope to see many of you at the Christmas fayre on Saturday!