This week, we have started a new text in English. We have been focusing on the story ‘Dr Xargle’s Book of Earth Hounds’, an alien’s guide to dogs. Even though we thought the book was a little strange to start with, we look forward to returning to the story after half term.
In Maths, we have started looking at using the column method for subtraction. We have just started to focus on using regrouping within the written method, which has been a little tricky. Yet, with some hard work and patience, we will soon be experts at it!
To round off our PE learning this half term, we staged a small five a side tournament to put all the skills we had learnt into practice. We really enjoyed the matches and were very competitive! Yet, it’s the taking part that counts.
In History, we used the Chromebooks to research Skara Brae. Skara Brae, on Scotland’s Orkney Islands, is one of the best kept examples of a Stone Age village. It was only discovered by a big storm hitting the coast and revealing the homes underneath mounds of sand. We really enjoyed having the opportunity to use technology to research this special Stone Age monument.
We have had a brilliant half term and look forward to concluding the rest of the term after the half term break. Have a very happy and peaceful break.
The children have settled beautifully in Year 2 and it was wonderful to meet with all the parents this week during our socially distanced consultations.
We have had a very busy half term, focusing especially on English and maths, but also a whole host of other areas of learning too.
Year 2
The children have been very excited by the planting that they have done outside and we are halfway through an investigation to find out what happens when plants are grown without heat (we’ve left a pansy plant in the fridge!), light (another plant is in the cupboard) and without water. The children have a number of predictions and we will find out more after the holiday.
Our pumpkin raffle was a great success and £67 was raised for the class. We will use this money to fund other planting projects as we go through the year, so thank you very much for your generosity everyone!
As part of our history learning, we are finding out about the life of Walter Tull. Our learning will culminate in a focus on Remembrance Day and how we remember our servicemen and women. This topic gives the children a great opportunity to develop a sense of time as well as promoting their enquiry skills.
As part of their Design Technology learning, the children have also been enjoying developing their sewing skills and they have created a wonderful banner to welcome everyone to the class every day.
Next half term will include many exciting new activities and I look forward to sharing them with the children.
Have a well earned break this week. The children certainly deserve it.
This week the children brought home a learning pack developed by Herts for Learning.
The packs include fun activities and ideas for parents/carers to enjoy with their child. The activity ideas, alongside the time you spend with your child, will help develop many skills your child needs to prepare them for the next step in their education.
Today, with much excitement, the children received a library sticker specially created to link in with the Time to Read book, The Runaway Pea, which your child brought home a couple of weeks ago. You will find a leaflet inside your child’s book bag promoting the benefits of using the library. All Hertfordshire libraries, except the smaller community libraries, are now open.
Below is a short video produced by Hertfordshire Library Service providing tips on how you can help your child develop a love of reading.
Now that the children have settled into Reception, I plan to hold a ‘curriculum information’ session after half term to provide you with more information on what you child will be learning over this next academic year. This session will be via Zoom – more details to follow.
Many thanks for supporting your children and helping them to settle into Reception.
In our English lessons this week, we have been planning to write a story based on another character’s point of view. Instead of seeing things from the princess’ point of view, we will be writing it from the dragon’s perspective of the story, The Paper Bag Princess.
In Maths this week, we used our learning of formal column addition to support us with subtraction. We have also learned a couple of tricky mental methods to support us with this more formal method
In PE this week, we have developing our shooting skills by playing dribbling and shooting relay games. We also played ‘hot seat’, where players had to take it in turns to shoot and score a goal. If they didn’t score, they entered the hot seat. If the player after them scored a goal, the player in the hot seat was out!
In our History lesson last week, we focused on what Stone Age people ate and their way of life. We turned into archaeologists and studied some poo (Miss Battams had made by hand), dissecting to see if it would reveal clues to Stone Age people’s eating and living habits. It was a great lesson, if not a little yucky!
Have a restful weekend and I look forward to seeing parents next week for parents evening.
In our English lessons, we have enjoyed looking more closely at the Paper Bag Princess. We have been looking closely at sentence structure, focusing on coordinating conjunctions and multi clause sentences, using sentences from the story to support us.
Even though Maths has been tricky this week, we have relished the challenge. We have been focusing on using the column method for addition and using regrouping to ‘carry over’ ones to the tens column, and tens to the hundreds column.
In our Science lesson this week, we worked in groups to create a simple magnetic game. We used craft materials such as cereal boxes and tissue paper to make a ‘go fish’ style game. We also used paper clips in some of the hand cut fish to attract to the magnet, secured at the end of our homemade rods, to pull up the fish. We look forward to playing each other’s ‘go fish’ games when they are finished.
We also voted for our school council representatives this week too. Well done to everyone who bravely shared their speeches with us. A big congratulations to Isabella, Jessica and Alex for being our voted Year 3 reps.
Have a restful weekend and don’t forget to check our Google classroom for this week’s homework.
Today is my birthday and, unbeknownst to me, the children were aware of this and organised some lovely presents (Prosecco, Cake and a very up-market washbag from Osprey) as well as cards.
I would just like to say thank you so much for generosity – the surprise made it especially touching.
Today I collected your child’s Letters and Sounds book. I will collect the books every Thursday and return them on Friday with our new Letters and Sounds learning and sounds added.
I hope you are finding the books useful at home. This week we have started using magnetic letters to begin to read and spell simple words eg. as, it, is, an, at, map, pat, tap, tip, pip, sat, sit. All words that use the sounds we have learnt so far. Thank you for all your support helping your child learn to read at home, I was so impressed at the children’s progress.
For those children who may already be aware of our new sounds, please concentrate on learning to form the letter using the school cursive script. We call it our ‘whoosh’ writing. Details are in the Letters and Sounds book. This will really support your child’s future writing skills.
If your child is not quite ready to hold a pen and write yet, concentrate on lots of hand/ finger skills to develop the small muscles in your child’s hands and fingers. For example, cooking, gardening, getting dressed/undressed (especially buttons) or doing up their coat zip.
This week I introduced a game on a website called Phonics Play www.phonicsplay.co.uk
The Phonics Play website has some fantastic phonics games. Whilst there is a subscription charge, this is currently being halved and some games are free. Reception children are currently working on Phase 2 so just click on the Phase 2 games.
Precautionary note: Remember e-safety supervision. St. Adrian’s website includes a useful e-safety advice link.
Here is another game we have played in class today. You may wish to have a go at home.
Which One?
Lay out a selection of familiar objects with names that contain three sounds (e.g. bus, pig, pen, cup, dog).
Check your child can recognise each object.
Ask your child to listen carefully while you sound talk the name of one of the objects, leaving a short gap between each sound eg. b-u-s
Help your child to put the sounds together and say the word and identify the object.
Once your child can confidently listen to your ‘sound talking’ and blend the sounds together, perhaps your child may like to have a go at ‘sound talking’ each object. This will help your child learn to spell words using their knowledge of phonics.
I am currently organising my routine to set a weekly ‘changing reading books’ day. Next week I will change the reading books and words strips on Monday. Books and other reading materials will then be changed on Tuesdays. Please do let me know if you feel your child needs new books at any other time. However, ensure you read each book with your child at least three times before requesting a new book This will help build confidence, fluency and comprehension. Spend 10 minutes each day if possible, frequent and short is best.
Some of the children were fascinated by insects we discovered in the garden. This generated many enquiries about all the different types of bugs, what they eat, where they live etc. The children played with our ‘big bug’ set and we used a bug chart to find out the name of each bug. This was a good opportunity for the children to make comparisons and look at differences and similarities.
We have been exploring many messy play opportunities such as ‘gloop’ (cornflour, water and food colouring). This inspired the children’s inquisitive minds and they decided to add bubbly water and recreate a volcano. Watch this space for more scientific experiments!
Our creativity table has been very popular and the children have been learning many basic techniques such as joining, sticking and decorating. We have been encouraging the children to plan with a purpose in mind. Treasure boxes being a popular choice this week.
Today the children experienced a fun rainy day. We used powder paints and washing up liquid in the puddles to mix bubbly colours. A good opportunity to develop the children’s fine motor skills (small muscles in hands and fingers). Not to mention the finger skills required when changing into dry clothes.
May I take this opportunity to remind parents to send in a pair of named wellington boots that we can keep at school.
This week, we finished our learning on the story ‘Journey’ and moved onto a new unit. Our new topic is fairy tales, with a focus on book ‘The Paper Bag Princess’ by Robert Munsch. We have started by looking at the ‘ingredients’ to make a traditional fairy tale e.g. a pretty, young princess, a handsome prince. However, our key text is an alternative fairy tale with a twist!
We have now reached the end of our topic of ‘Homes’ in RE. Our next unit is called ‘Promises’, focusing on the different promises made in a Catholics’ life. Make sure you check out our latest RE blog with more information about our new topic.
In PE, we have been learning how to shoot and defend in football. We have also been using our dribbling skills to help us with our shooting and defending skills. By the end of the topic, we hope to hold a tournament of matches to consolidate our skills.
Have a restful week and don’t forget to check our Goggle classroom for this week’s homework,
