06.12.19

Only two weeks left at school! Can you believe it?

The week started with a new visitor. We’ve welcomed Alvin the good elf into our classroom. He has been keeping an eye on the children and noticing all of their super behaviour and learning.

In maths, we have continued our work on measure. On Monday, we were using metres and centimetres to measure the height of each other. Using this information, we were able to write our own comparative sentences using ‘taller than’ and ‘shorter than’, as well as using the correct mathematical symbols < > =.

Every Tuesday, we visit the school library where we change our ‘Bonus Book’. We love this time to sit and read quietly in this peaceful environment.

We have also been practising our Christmas Nativity performance ready to show you all next week. We can’t wait to see you on Monday and Tuesday at 9:30.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Kane

29.11.19

I can’t believe we are at the end of week 4 already. Well done on a great week Year 2.

In English, we have been using drama to retell the story of the Pirate Cruncher by Jonny Duddle. We will be getting ready to write our own journey stories next week.

In maths, we have moved onto length. We have been using rulers to measure the length of different classroom objects. Who can remember what unit of measurement we use to measure small objects?

In science, we have continued our work on everyday materials and their properties. This week we explored how objects can change shape through bending, squashing, twisting and pulling. We had to make a prediction about whether an object could be changed through these methods, and then check whether our prediction was correct or not.

This week in PE, we have started our new badminton unit. We had great fun using the fluffy balls and the nets to catch them!

Friday was a very exciting day! We had a visit from the author and illustrator, Liz Million. Liz worked with us and Year 1 for an illustration workshop. She showed us how we can draw eyes and mouths in lots of different ways to represent how a character is feeling and what kind of character they are in the story. Liz was really impressed with the children’s behaviour and effort during the workshop. Well done Year 2!

On Friday, we also changed our liturgical cloth to purple to celebrate the start of advent. I hope you all enjoy opening your advent calendars on Sunday!

Have a great weekend!

Miss Kane

22.11.19

We had a special visitor in Year 2 this week. Father Bill came to see us on Monday to find out what we have been learning about this year. We were able to tell him everything we learned about the beginning of the world and share our knowledge of the Sacrament of Baptism. We asked Father Bill lots of wondering questions which he tried his best to answer.

In computing this week, we have been continuing to develop our typing skills on Microsoft Word, as well as learning to use some of the features, like changing the text colour, font and size.

In English, we have just finished our unit on instructional writing and I have been blown away by the children’s standard of writing – well done Year Two. Next week, we will be beginning our work on Journey Stories.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Kane

15.11.19

Well done on a fantastic week Year 2! We’ve been super busy but you have been amazing.

Our new English genre is instructional writing. We started the week by following a set of instructions to make an origami elephant. We then looked at some other examples of instructions, identifying the features. Who can remember some?

In maths, we have started to learn how to use the multiplication sign. On Monday, we used practical equipment to make equal groups, before moving on to drawing arrays and writing repeated addition number sentences.

We have continued our geography work, learning about the continents and oceans of the world. We created some fantastic watercolour maps with labels.

On Thursday, we went on our second school trip of the year to Sacred Heart High School. During this session, we were able to consolidate our learning from our previous topic, ‘Living Things and Their Habitats’. I was really impressed with the children’s bravery; trying to touch or hold as many of the animals as they were comfortable with. Sacred Heart were super impressed with our excellent behaviour – well done Year Two!

Our science work continued back at school when we went on a walk to explore different materials being used in our environment. What materials did we see? What were they being used for?

We also had a very exciting afternoon on Wednesday, evaluating lots of different dippers as part of our DT unit. Some were spicy, others crunchy, some dry. What was your favourite dipper and why?

On Friday, we were super comfy in our pyjamas for Children in Need. We got a bit hot and sweaty during our Japanese Dance for our ‘Strictly Come St Charles’ performance. Thank you for all of your sponsorship money; we raised over £1000 for Children in Need!

Have a fantastic weekend.

Miss Kane

08.11.19

Welcome back everybody! I hope you all had a wonderful half-term break.

This week we have jumped straight back into our learning with our new humanities topic, ‘Land Ahoy’. We started this topic by watching some clips from the new David Attenborough documentary series, ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet’, exploring how the 7 continents came to be. We then used our new atlases to find and name the 7 continents and 5 oceans. Can anyone remember them?

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This half-term, we will be swapping art for design and technology, with a particular focus on food technology. We started our unit by evaluating a range of different dips including; sour cream and chive, houmus, salsa, guacamole, onion and garlic and tzatziki. We wrote down what we thought each one smelled like, looked like and tasted like.

In English, we have been writing our very own Pirate Poetry. Who can remember what a rhyming couplet is?

I have also been very impressed with the children’s maths homework. Thank you for your support with this. If you have any problems or concerns, please don’t hesitate to pop in and see me.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Kane

24.10.19

I can’t believe we’ve reached the end of our first half-term in Year 2 and what a fantastic half-term we’ve had.

We’ve had a great last week during MAD week where we have been doing lots of art and DT work about our endangered animal; the sea turtle. The children were very surprised to see myself and Mrs Bickle dressed as Turtle 1 and Turtle 2 on Monday.

We started the week by looking at some of the ways in which turtles are becoming endangered and the affects that humans are having on our planet.

This formed the basis for all of our work over the last 4 days. We learned new sketching techniques by sketching patterns on a turtle shell; we developed our resilience and concentration when mixing colours to do our dot painting; we practised new watercolour techniques and created some silhouette artwork as well as some watercolour camouflage artwork. We swapped classes on Monday and Tuesday and completed some clay turtles with Mrs Bickle, trying to stick carefully to our design criteria. It was a bit tricky joining the parts together though! We also created some fantastic turtle collages.

Thank you to everyone who came to our art exhibition on Wednesday and helping us to raise money for more art and DT resources. The children were so proud of their work, as they should be, they have worked exceptionally hard!

On Wednesday with Mrs Damti, we wrote some fantastic non-fiction reports about turtles. In the afternoon, we then did some geography work naming the world’s 5 oceans and identifying where Green Sea Turtles can be found.

On Thursday, we had our class liturgy to celebrate the end of our Baptism topic. Thank you to Aarnav, Amelie and Holly for helping me to plan this lovely reflection.

Well done on a fantastic half-term Year 2! Have a wonderful holiday and I look forward to seeing you back in school on Monday 4th November.

Thank you to all of your grown-ups for their continued support at home!

Miss Kane

18.10.19

Only one week left of this half-term!

The children have spent their English lessons this week writing their alternative version of Little Red Riding Hood, told from the wolf’s perspective. Their imagination has really impressed me and we’ve had some great stories.

In maths, we’ve continued learning how to add and subtract but it got a bit tricky this week with exchanging and regrouping.

During art, the children worked in pairs to create their own stencils to design and produce a repeated print.

In our final gymnastics lesson for this half-term, we included our balances, both paired and independent, into our movements.

Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you all next week ready for MAD week!

Miss Kane

11.10.19

Year 2 have had another great week and have been super busy!

In English, we have been thinking about traditional tales with a twist, especially looking at other characters’ perspectives. Who can remember what perspective means? We started the week by comparing The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and the traditional story.

On Thursday, we created an alternative character profile for Goldilocks, as a kind, caring little girl who was simple lost in the woods. I was really impressed with the children’s imaginations.

In science, we have been learning about food chains. We used drama to show how energy is passed along the food chain, starting with the producer, then the primary consumer, secondary consumer and ending with the top predator.

Once the energy had been passed along the food chain, that meant they had been eaten and were now dead!

Thank you for all of your donations on Friday. The children really did brighten up the harvest!

Have a great weekend,

Miss Kane

04.10.19

What a fantastic end to the week with our exciting trip to Beamish! Even the soggy weather didn’t dampen our spirits. The children were superstars from start to finish and really made me the proudest teacher!

When we arrived, we walked down to the Pit Village and went into the school playground.

After playtime, we went into the Victorian classroom in silence and sat down at our desks ready for our first lesson, English. We then had a maths lessons, followed by an art lesson. Luckily, nobody got sent to the cold corner for misbehaving!

We then ventured off to explore different areas of the museum, including the town and the farm, with a stop off at the sweet shop!

Thank you all for a wonderful day and a special thank you to our parents helpers for coming along!

Have a great weekend,

Miss Kane

27.09.19

We are already half way through our first half-term in Year 2! Time is just flying by!

This week in English, we watched the video, “The Ugly Sharkling” and we began to profile the characters. We worked in pairs to retrieve information that we knew for sure about the characters but we were also able to use our inference skills to determine how the characters were feeling at different points.

In RE, we came together to celebrate the end of our unit, “Beginnings”. We had a class liturgy with some excellent singing and some very thoughtful reflections about this unit as well as some excellent ‘I wonder…’ statements.

Have a lovely weekend Year 2!

Miss Kane