24.01.20

We are half-way through this half-term already and this week we’ve been developing our understanding of halves, quarters and thirds! If we’ve just finished week 3, how many weeks do we have left of this half-term?

On Monday, we began to look at explanation texts. We worked together to find some of the key features. Who can remember some of them?

On Tuesday, we had our first tennis lesson with Charlie. First, we were shown how to hold the tennis racket correctly and then we had to try to balance the ball on the racket, trying really hard to keep it in the centre. Once we mastered this, we began to travel with the ball and then we practised flicking the ball up and catching it on our rackets.

On Thursday, in music, we continued to learn more about the woodwind family. This week, we all got to practise playing the recorder. We learned how to hold it correctly and the names of the three parts of the recorder (the mouth piece, the body and the footjoint. We learned how to play the note of B by holding our finger over the first hole.

On Friday, we spent some time in our house groups to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Have a great weekend,

Miss Kane.

17.01.20

This week we have been developing our understanding of fractions. We started the week by using cubes to find fractions of sets. Over the course of the week, we have learned how to find 1/2, 1/4 and 1/3 of shapes, sets and numbers. We now know that when we are finding a unit fraction, we have to divide by the denominator! What a long word to learn!

In English, we have been reading ‘The Tunnel’ by Anthony Browne. This week, we have been working on adventurous vocabulary choices and up-levelling sentences, ready to write our diary entry in the role of Jack.

On Thursday, we had a visit from Ms Owens, who came to show us the flute and she also played us some different tunes. She explained to us that the flute plays the tune in an orchestra.

On Friday, we had a visit from Father Bill who came to show us a selection of special books that are used by the Church and the Parish during services.

We also had a visit from Yvonne who came to talk to us about road safety and how we can keep ourselves safe when we are walking, scooting or cycling out and about. She also talked to us about the importance of staying safe while we are in the car and ensuring we have the correct seat so our seatbelt fastens safely. If we are less than 1m 35cm, we must, by law, still have a booster seat.

Have a lovely weekend Year 2!

Miss Kane

10.01.20

Happy New Year everybody!

We’ve had an excellent start to the new term in Year 2.

This week we have had a visit from Charlie from NUFC. Charlie will be with us every week for Spring term and this half-term we will be developing our racket skills through tennis.

We have also started our new art unit, where we will be exploring the work of Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. In our first lesson, we looked at some of their most famous work, discussed similarities and differences between their techniques, and then chose our favourite, giving reasons. Once we did this, we created a class tally chart to find out which was the class favourite – it was Starry Night by Van Gogh!

On Wednesday, we had a fantastic trip to the Centre of Life to kick-start our new history topic. We will be learning about the first moon landings and how space travel has changed and developed over the past 40 years, comparing Neil Armstrong and Tim Peake.

First, we listened to a story about a mouse travelling to space. We learned about the first woman astronaut and then we tried launching our own mouse onto the moon.

Next, we had some time exploring the Brain Zone before we watched some live experiments. Which one was your favourite?

Next, we went into the exploration area. Before lunch, we had a visit to the planetarium where we watched what happens in our sky as the sun sets and the moon rises.

After lunch, we had our space workshop. We watched a video from Tim Peake and then we investigated different materials to see which one would make the best space suit. We had to test its strength and its weight. We then learned about how people live on the International Space Station, including how they re-cycle their wee to avoid taking too much water with them and even how they go for a poo!

Well done on a great first week Year 2!

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Kane

20.12.19

Happy Christmas everyone!!

We’ve had a great week filled with lots of exciting learning as well as lots of festivities.

On Monday and Tuesday, we used the John Lewis advert to write apology letters as Excitable Edgar to the villagers, apologising for the damage we had caused.

We have spent some time in our house groups making Christmas cards.

On Monday afternoon, we also enjoyed a live concert from a rock band! It was very loud but we loved singing along to all the songs we knew!

On Wednesday, we had our Christmas Party Day. We watched a magic show by the one and only Mr Merlin! My favourite part was when the rabbit magically appeared! What was yours?

We also had a Christmas Disco with party games, including Musical Bumps and Musical Statues!

I hope you all loved the Christmas calendars that the children made! I was so impressed with them and thought they looked amazing. Children showed excellent concentration throughout. Well done Year Two!

On Thursday, we had a DT day. We designed our own dip, selecting the ingredients we wanted to use. Then we worked in groups to make our dips, and finally we evaluated them against our design criteria; good taste, good smell, good appearance, healthy ingredients and right consistency. Amazing team work shown by all and some delicious dips produced. We made guacamole, raita and thousand island dip.

A third of the way through the school year! I can’t believe it! You have all been superstars!

I hope you have the most magical time with your families and enjoy a well-deserved break. I can’t wait to see you all again in 2020 ready for another great term.

Miss Kane

13.12.19

What an amazing week we’ve had this week!

Well done on two fantastic nativity performances! You made me so proud and I’m sure all of your parents were super proud too!

Thank you to all parents who were able to join us for this special event.

Our Christmas celebrations continued on Tuesday afternoon. Thank you to our three children who helped to prepare a wonderful class liturgy to end our advent work in RE. We had some wonderful readings and reflections.

On Thursday, we had our final Mandarin lesson of 2019. Mrs Birkett taught us how to say Merry Christmas and we created some Chinese Christmas cards.

Thank you for all of the donations for Save the Children. I loved seeing all of the children in their Christmas jumpers on Friday.

On Friday, we enjoyed our Christmas dinner, served to us by the teachers of school.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Kane

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.