Year 2 Blog Friday 10th November 2023

Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 10:36am

Year 2 have had a fantastic week of learning, it has flown by! The children really enjoyed visiting the poppy shop on Wednesday and buying poppies, slap bands and key rings. An author Rachel Walmsley visited on Thursday and read her book 'Listening Ears'. It was a great story and the children got involved by acting out and reading some of the parts. It is possible to buy one of her books if your child would like to, check the newsletter for more information on this.

In English, we are continuing our work on The Diary of a Killer Cat and The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark. The children are becoming more fluent readers and their comprehension of the text is really improving. This is reflected in their writing, which includes capital letters and full stops, neat handwriting and interesting joining words. 

Reading

In Year 2, children should read for at least 15 minutes every night and discuss the book with an adult. This will help with understanding the text and learning new words.

You could write down these new words in a word book and find out what they mean using a dictionary (practise alphabetical order). It is amazing to see the list grow, something to be very proud of, especially when children realise how many more words they understand and can use!

Please sign and leave a small comment when you have read with your child and make it clear that you have finished a book, then we know we can change it.

Reading books are changed every Monday. However, if you need to change a book another time, we will change it as needed.

Reading resources:

Oxford Owl – This resource has an exciting range of carefully levelled eBooks to help children learn to read and really enjoy it.

Go to https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ and login. Explore the site and enjoy reading books from the Oxford Owl eBook library or listen to audio books.

Username: sto2

Password: 1234

Resources for questioning your child while they are reading - https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks1_reading_vipers.pdf

In addition to this, reading a good bed time story to your child is so worthwhile and really helps towards a lifelong love of reading.

Spelling

Please practise these spellings for your quiz on Wednesday. A sheet will go home every Wednesday with the spelling list on. This is for home practise only and can be kept with you.

It is useful to write the words down on the spelling sheet, but also to call the words out and spell them out loud using the letter sounds or names. Other ideas include breaking the words up and writing them down in different colours (beautiful). You could look for words within words (father) or think of your own ways to remember the word for example, spell it aloud using a tune or song.

You will have a Sumdog challenge on these words to complete by next Wednesday.

This week’s spellings are (08.11.23 – 15.11.23):

fast                       grass

last                        plant 

past                       after

class                      father

pass                       beautiful

In Maths, the children have finished our work on 2-D and 3-D shape. We have started our multiplication topic and the children have been learning about repeated addition and doubling to help introduce multiplication. They have worked very hard and have a good understanding of repeated addition. 

Maths

At home, count forwards and backwards in 2s to 24. Start at different numbers each time. For example, start counting forwards from 12 or backwards from 16. Look at how this relates to the 2x table.

Practise 2-, 5-, 10- and 3-times tables on a game called Hit the Button. Follow this link: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

You will have a 2-D and 3-D shape challenge on Sumdog to complete by next Friday.

Sumdog

Log in at www.sumdog.com

In RE, it has been Judaism week. Year 2 have learned about Shabbat, we watched a video clip of a family preparing for Shabbat and listed all the things they needed to do. The children wrote all about what they had learned and drew a detailed picture of all the things included in a Shabbat meal. We designed our own Havdalah candles and some of us made Havdalah spice boxes.

In History, we learned all about Remembrance Day. The children made poppies using pipe cleaners and tissue paper. We thoroughly enjoyed making them and they looked so effective. 

This week in French, we recapped how to respond to ‘Comment ҫa va?’. We listened to and joined in with the Lingobox Learning ‘French ҫa va song’. We learned how to say ‘ҫa va très bien’, ‘ҫa va bien’, ‘comme ci, comme ҫa’ and ‘ҫa va mal’. We showed how each character was feeling with our thumbs and saying the correct response. We also decided which phrase we would use for different scenarios.

In Music, we started to learn the songs for our Nativity and played the rhythms on the tambourines and tambours. We tapped the steady beat to The Innkeeper’s song, noticing the tempo getting faster. We sang Here in Pudding Lane again.

Forest School

In our first session we made popcorn. We made sure that we could remember Firey Fox's fire safety rules.

We watched as the adult made the fire and lit it using a flint and steel. We cooked the popcorn in a special pan and described the changes we could see. It was delicious!

In our second session we listened to a story called "Robin's Winter Song". It was about the changing seasons. We discussed how we can look after the birds in Winter. In our nature area we made bird feeders on skewers by threading fruit and cheerios. This activity developed our fine motor skills and our concentration. We hung them in the trees as high up as we could. 

We also had time for our own play.

Thank you for sending small cardboard boxes in for our D.T project. We still need quite a few more, so if you have any spare at home please send them in to school with your child. Many thanks.

Have a great weekend.

Year 2 Team.