Owls 2023 - 2024

Welcome to Owls 2023-24

Welcome to our class page. Here you will find all the documents you need for the Owls class this year as well as lots of updates about our learning each week. Our class page will normally be updated every Friday. Please enjoy reading about what we are doing in class and remember to email us if you have any questions.

Email address: owls@watlington.oxon.sch.uk

Key Documents and Information-Terms 1 and 2

PE days for Owls are Mondays and Thursdays. Please come to school in your PE kit.

Useful Web Links for Learning at Home

Week 3

Computing

This week we used the IPADs to practise our 2x and 10 x tables. We are also looking at IT around us this term and keeping ourselves safe online.

Topic

We are really enjoying finding out all about The Great Fire of London. This week we looked at all of the events and the order in which they happened. We made a large timeline of events into a display and then used this to help us order the events in our books.

Library

We enjoyed our visit to the KS1 library. We got the chance to take a new book out to take home and enjoy with our families. We also had some time to enjoy new books with our friends.

Maths

This week we have looked at how we can use a number line accurately to support our understanding of tens and ones. We learned that number lines do NOT always start at 0. We now remember to think about these strategies to help us use number lines and especially ones with missing numbers:

1. Check the starting number

2. Check the end number

3. Decide what the intervals are (jumps).

We also extended this learning to using bead strings to 100 to partition numbers, count the tens and ones and EVEN work out the missing number in sentences like this: 11 + ___ = 100 (well done Max on that one!)

RE

We started our new topic on beliefs and values in Islam today. The children asked lots of interesting questions and were really observant looking at photos too. Some new words we have discussed: Islam, Muslim, Quran, Mosque, Shahadah.

Reading

Miss Watts brought in her copies of Samuel Pepys' diaries (all 1 million + words!) and we enjoyed reading some extracts from the Great Fire of London. What a fantastic source of primary evidence!

Week 2

English

It's been another busy week in the Owls class. In English we have been learning our new story map - Vlad and the Great Fire of London. We have really enjoyed making up actions to retell the story, ask us to tell you all about it.

Maths

This week we have been continuing to look at place value. How many tens and ones are in a 2 digit number. We also used the part part whole model to partition numbers into tens and ones up to 100.

PE

This term one of our units of PE is dance. We are going to recreate The Great Fire of London using movement and dance. We started by linking movements together to make a sequence about how the fire started in the bakery.

Music

Owls started learning a new song today in our music lesson called 'Music in my Soul'. The children listened and responded to the music by thinking about the beat, instruments and how it made them feel. Here are some of their responses:

Calm

Shocked

Happy

Weird

Want to dance

Sleepy

Didn't like it

We all danced and enjoyed keeping to the beat of the music and we began to learn the song too. Watch out for a performance coming soon...

Science

We started our now topic about 'Everyday Materials'. The Owls loved exploring a range of objects, thinking about the materials and their properties- some fantastic language! The children have thought more deeply about what a material might look like under a microscope and tried to guess what objects are from VERY close up photos! A huge well done to Olivia who spotted a sponge immediately.

Maths Journalling

We had our first go at maths journalling today (showing our understanding and learning in lots of different ways). The children really got to grips with it and loved the independence it gave them to explain ideas in their own words and diagrams. 

Week 1

Wow!

What a fantastic start to year 2 for the Owls. They have really impressed us with their polite, kind and resilient attitude to school life. We may be biased, but we know we are going to have a year ahead filled with very WISE owls...we can't wait for all the adventures to come.

Maths: we have started our place value topic by recalling how we can use a range of concrete resources to support our understanding of tens and ones. Try asking your child at home to complete this sentence for a two-digit number:

There are ___ groups of tens and ___ ones. The number is ___.

English: We have started our first unit of work on a recount of the Great Fire of London from a rat's perspective. We have imagined life as a rat escaping from the bakery where the fire started by creating our own mini puppet shows. Hopefully the children have brought the puppets home and are impressing you with the story! 

Art: The Owls have started our unit on sketching by demonstrating the skills they already have in looking closely at images from real life and sketching them in a realistic way. Can you work out what types of owls they have drawn from the pictures below?

We can't wait to get stuck into learning again on Monday...well done Owls on a great start...