Year 2
Welcome to Owls Class!
We hope you had a lovely break and are looking forward to meeting you all.
You will find our September Newsletter under the heading to the right. You will also find this terms Topic web and optional home learning grid under Home Learning. For your information, PE days will be on a Monday and Thursday.
Week beginning 1st December
Spelling
Our spelling patterns for next week are oo spelt o, h spelt wh and ai spelt ea. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: move, improve, who, whole, great and break.
Computing
This week the children were very excited to try and use their new logins for TT rockstars. This is a website that helps the children to practise their times tables. Next term we will be learning about multiplication so this will be helpful for them next term. The year 6 children came down to help them get logged on and set up so they should be able to have a go at this at home. See photos in the gallery. We encourage them to focus on the 2, 10 and 5 times tables. Their individual login has been stuck inside their yellow reading books.
RE
As it was the 1st December on Monday we learnt all about Advent and what this means. We also started our own class Advent Calendar. We learnt about an Advent wreath and what the 4 candles represent.
Maths
This week we have started to learn all about 3 D shapes. We identified names of a range of common 3D shapes. See if you can spot any of these at home this week. Next week we will be looking at how many faces, edges and vertices they have.
Week beginning 24th November
What a busy week this has been! The Christmas build up has definitely started. The children thoroughly enjoyed the pantomime, Christmas disco and we also made our Christmas decorations for the tree in the church.
Spelling
Our spelling patterns for next week are u sound spelt o, zh spelt s or si and r spelt wr. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: Monday, month, vision, measure, wrap, write.
English
The children have been working so hard on their reading assessments this week. They have shown how resilient they are by not giving up when they have to read tricky words.
Maths
We finished off our maths assessments and started to learn all about 2D shapes. We are getting better at identifying all the names of 2D shapes and how many sides and vertices they have.
Science
This week we explored magnets. We learnt about how they work and key vocabulary such as: attract, repel, magnetism and magnetic field. We designed our own maze to guide a magnet through and we made a fishing game. Have a look in our gallery for some photos!
Week beginning 17th November
Spelling
Our spelling patterns for next week are j spelt ge, n spelt kn and ee spelt ey . Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: range, exchange, known, knight, trolley, donkey.
English
We have been thinking of interesting adjectives to describe different characters from our story. We wrote expanded noun phrases - using two adjectives to describe a noun eg The dragon's strong, powerful tail.
Music
We have been using the glockenspiels to practice making a clear sound using increasing control. We had to follow the beat and follow simple rhythms in time with a song. See Gallery.
Topic
We learnt about Florence Nightingale and why she was called 'The lady with the lamp'. We compared her work with Mary Seacole and found out that they both did such important work helping others.
Road Safety Week
We talked about the safest places to cross roads, including using zebra and pelican crossings. We also talked about how we should cross the road – always looking left and right when crossing and holding on to an adult's hand. Finally, we talked about how to be safe in the dark.
Week beginning 10th November
Spelling
Our spelling patterns for next week are j spelt g, n spelt gn and s spelt c . Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: huge, gentle, signed, align, cycle, rice.
English
This week we have been learning our new story map 'George and the Dragon'. We are getting really good at recalling and performing it. I will put the story map in the gallery in case any of the children want to practise at home.
Maths
We have been consolidating addition. Making sure that we record clearly and accurately when adding two 2 digit numbers. We realised that if our tens and ones are not drawn clearly we could get muddled up and make mistakes when adding.
PE
We began our unit on dance this week. Over the next few weeks we are creating a dance based on 'The Great Fire of London'. This week in small groups we put together our first part when Thomas Fariner is baking his bread but goes to bed without checking the oven.
Science
This term in science we are continuing to learn about everyday materials. Last week, we identified if materials are man-made or natural. We learnt how paper is made from wood and how glass is made from sand. We were fascinated to find out how silk is made from the cocoons of silk worms!
This week, we identified the suitability of metal and plastic for a variety of purposes, by carefully considering their properties.
Wk beginning 3rd November
What a great first week back the Owls have had! We have made some firework Art and learnt all about Remembrance day. See the Gallery.
Spelling
Our spelling pattern focus for next week is ur spelt or and or spelt ar. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: world, worst, warmer, award. We will also look at some homophones, eg pair, pear, two and to.
English
On our first day back we found out that over half term Mr Chalis had been kidnapped and taken to Forest School by a Witch. He had managed to escape and we had to write a story about how he had got away. We used our imaginations to think of some great ideas about how he might have escaped.
Maths
We are learning how to add two 2 digit numbers this week. We had to carefully draw out the tens and ones so that we could add them together.
Topic
We learnt about a significant person from the past-Mary Seacole. We found out that a long time ago she lived in Jamaica and travelled all the way to Crimea to be a nurse and help soldiers who had been hurt.
Reading
We have started our new Chapter book 'George's Marvellous Medicine' and the children are really enjoying the story. We have been predicting what George might do next. Ask the children what he has started to put in his marvellous medicine already!
Wk beginning 20th October
It's been a lovely end to the term. We hope you all have a lovely rest and enjoy the week off.
Diwali
We enjoyed learning all about the HIndu Festival of Light. Then carefully coloured in patterns on our Rangoli designs. We also listened to some music and talked about how the music made us feel.
English
We wrote our information texts this week all about Owls. We wrote facts about their appearance, diet and habitat. Ask us what we can remember - We are experts now!
Topic
We learnt all about what happened after The Great Fire of London ended. How they made the streets wider, built the houses out of bricks, tried to make it easier to get water from the River Thames and began to develop their first fire brigade.
Wk beginning 13th October
Spelling
Our spelling pattern focus for next week is alternative spellings for u, o and or. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: glove, London, wash, watch, ball and tall.
English
This week we have been looking at non-fiction texts and we have been trying to identify some common features. We decided they had to include:
- Facts and information
- Headings
- Photographs with captions underneath
- Questions
- Books often had a contents page and a glossary
Maths
We have been continuing to add and subtract numbers using our number bonds to 10 to help. We have also been using number lines to count forwards and backwards when adding and subtracting. Finally we looked at adding and subtracting 10s - we found that a 100 square helped us to do this.
Reading
This week we finished our book Meerkat Mail. Ask us what it was all about because we had to summarise what happened in the book, decide if we enjoyed the book and who we might recommend it to.
Art
This week we were investigating shading by drawing light and dark lines using a pencil.
Wk beginning 6th October
Spelling
Our spelling pattern focus for next week is common exception words. Words that don't follow a spelling pattern. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: door, floor, because, most, climb, child, with, some.
English
This week we have just started to look at information texts. We did a cold write - We had to write an information text about an animal of our own choice. The children knew a lot of facts about a wide range of animals!
Maths
We have just started our addition and subtraction unit. We have focused mainly on number bonds to 10 and then we looked at number bonds to 100 and the discussed the patterns that we noticed. See if you can ask us questions on our number bonds this week.
Topic
We looked at all the reasons the Great Fire of London spread so quickly. We decided the main reasons were:
- The houses were made of wood.
- The houses were so close together
- They didn't have fire engines like we do now. They only had buckets and water squirters.
- It was a hot and dry summer.
- There was a strong wind that blew.
Science
This week, we have been exploring how materials are made waterproof. We were given a range of different fabrics. On one half of the material, we put a layer of wax crayon and then left the other side. Using pipettes, we put a droplet of water on each side. The side without wax crayon absorbed the water, whereas the side with wax crayon did not. This is because the wax doesn't have holes large enough for water droplets to go through, creating a waterproof layer.
Wk beginning 29th September
This week we had an exciting visit from Nicholas' dad. He is an on-call firefighter, and he told us all about what he has to do for his job. He also compared fire safety now to what it was like in 1666. A lot has changed! The Owls had some superb questions to ask.
Spelling
Our spelling pattern focus for next week are: ey, c and il. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are: key, valley, face, place, pencil, fossil, city and there.
English
We have all been completing our Hot writes this week – our own recount about The Great Fire of London. We had to try and remember all the things we have been practising to make our writing better. What a great job the Owls did! We also looked a variety of poems on National Poetry day and decided which ones we liked the best.
PE
We have been practising our ball skills this term. How to catch and throw accurately, using an appropriate catching shape. Controlling the ball's force and aiming for targets.
Library
The children have been enjoying visiting the KS1 library on a Thursday afternoon and choosing a book to take home and share. If they can remember to bring their books back on a Thursday that would be really helpful.
Nest
We enjoyed making (and tasting!) apple crumble this week in the Nest, being careful with using the knife to cut apples up, and mixing oats and flour to make a crunchy topping. See the class gallery for some photos!
Languages day - Friday 26th September
In Owls class we learnt about Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines. We found out where the Philippines is located, what their climate is like and what the flag looks like. Did you know the Philippines consists of 7,641 islands? We learnt how to count to 10 in Tagalog and how to say some fruits.
Week beginning 22nd September
Spelling
Our spelling pattern focus for next week are silent letters: kn, g and wr. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are:
knee, know, sign, design, wrist, write, what and undo.
English
This week we have been pretending to be Samuel Pepys. We have innovated our model text to create a recount of what Samuel Pepys did and saw. The children have really been working hard on forming their letters correctly and trying to make sure they are sitting on the line. We also had a go at trying to start our sentences in different ways: eg Later, After that, On the way, Finally.
Maths
We have continued with our place value unit and this week we have been identifying missing numbers on a number line. We also had to estimate where numbers might go on a blank number line. Our top tip is to always look at what number is at the start of the number line.
Art
This week we were learning about a famous artist who also enjoyed painting portraits. We looked at some of Picasso's famous art work and discussed which ones we liked or disliked. We then tried to recreate some of his art work in our sketch books. See our gallery for some photos.
Week beginning 15th September
Spelling
Every Friday I will put on the website our weekly spelling pattern that we are learning the following week. We will also be practising some 'harder to read and spell' words each week too. There will be no spelling test. We are just practising these words in lessons.
Our spelling pattern focus for next week is g, ge and dge. Some of the words that we will be practising in our lessons are:
page, giant, charge, large, edge, fridge, was and they.
English
We have been trying to form our letters clearly when writing this week, really trying to improve our handwriting. We have also been looking at how using interesting adjectives can really impact our sentences.
Art
Over the last 2 weeks we have been trying to draw portraits. When doing our self portraits we had to really think about where to draw all of our features. Using our drawing skills to carefully sketch our eyes, nose, lips, ears and hair. The Owls self portraits were amazing - we definitely have some future artists in the class!
Topic
This week we were looking more closely at London. Where it is and what you might see if you went to visit. We then compared it to London in 1666 and looked at how jobs, clothes, transport and buildings have changed.
We have also enjoyed a couple of trips to Forest School. We had a challenge - To work in small groups using team work to create homes for creatures and bugs who live there. See our gallery for some photos.
Week beginning 8th September
The Owls have made a great start to Term 1. It has been lovely to see them settle into new routines with enthusiasm, kindness and a positive attitude to their learning! We came up with our Classroom Charter and decided together what was important to help us have a happy classroom where everyone can learn together.
English
We all showed resilience this week when we wrote our cold writes - a recount about how someone escaped from The Great Fire of London. We have also just started to learn our new story map - we hope to share this with some of the other classes as we get better at remembering the actions.
Maths
We have been learning about place value this week. Identifying how many tens and ones are in a number and how to partition numbers to 100. Using a part, part whole model has really helped us.
Topic
We began our Great Fire of London topic this week. We came up with some interesting questions about what we would like to learn about. Here are some of the questions we thought of:
- When did it start?
- How did it start?
- How did they stop the fire?
- What happened after?
Computers
We had a great coding session this week. We learnt how to set a background for a game and then create our own sprite. We worked together to edit and change our backgrounds and sprites.