Category: Year 2 – St Teresa of Calcutta

Year Two have had a tremendous end to their first term in the class. The children enjoyed singing along to their performances during the KS1 nativity play and were justifiably proud of the way in which they spoke their lines so clearly. They also had great fun during our Christmas party (attended by Father Christmas!), which followed a delicious Christmas lunch.

The week ended with a much more thoughtful Friday, during which the children celebrated mass with Father Francis, prayed for family and friends as they finished decorating the class Christmas tree and described what was so special about their kriskringle while exchanging gifts. A final fun experience to end the week was watching a music concert called The Night Before Christmas that has been streamed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and it was a joy to see the children soaking up this music and giggling at the antics of the Elf presenter. If you would like to rewatch the concert together, a link can be found on our Google Classroom.

Mrs Brunt and I are so very grateful for the smashing gifts and cards that we received at the end of term and would like to thank you for your continued support as we all work together to teach your wonderful children.

Have a very happy, healthy and holy Christmas and I look forward to seeing everyone again in 2021.

Year 2 RE

Our first RE topic of the spring term is based around the theme of Books.

Key words for the topic are: 

Scripture, lectern, Gospel, Bible, New Testament, Old Testament, genre, thurible, missal, Church, parish family

In particular, we will be discussing the meaning of the words thurible and missal.  If you visit church together, see if you can find the church thurible or missal to talk about with your child.

We will be considering the big question Why do we need books?

The children will also read Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 3; 13-17) to find out about the Baptism of Jesus.

RE home learning

For their RE home learning, enjoy sharing books together and bring in a book that is special to you during the first week of term. The children will talk about these favourite books together in class.

The children have been enjoying the story of ‘How to catch Santa’ this week and have worked hard on their writing as part of this teaching sequence, in particular thinking about writing sentences with conjunctions such as but, because, so, and as well as punctuating question sentences correctly. Having focussed on learning how to accurately draw the hands onto a clock face, in maths, we are learning how to subtract within 100, using manipulatives, 100 squares and place value strategies that explore how to subtract from the tens and ones.

As part of our art topic on Leaves, the children also created some beautiful artwork inspired by poinsettias. The children all worked so hard on this paper collage learning and if you sneak a (socially distanced) peak through the classroom window, you will be able to see their artwork, which is making us all smile.

Thank you for working with your children to write some lovely Advent prayers, which the children have been reading as part of our daily prayers.

The recordings for our Christmas play were completed on Monday and the final video with all the pieces edited together is wonderful. We are all looking forward to sharing this with you on Tuesday at 7pm. Further details on how to access this video will be sent to you early in the week.

To allow for the recommended quarantine period, the final ‘posting’ day for class Christmas cards is Tuesday, so that all the cards can be delivered on Friday, along with the exchange of our KK gifts, which should also be brought to school by Tuesday. We are all looking forward to our Christmas lunch on Thursday and the children are invited to wear a Christmas jumper and bring in Christmas hats on Thursday.

Once again, thank you for your continued patience and support as we ensure that everyone stays safe inside their own classroom bubble and close to their families at the start and end of the day.

Have a lovely, lovely weekend.

The children have had great fun this week, learning their lines as well as the actions and songs to lots of cracking nativity songs. We have recorded groups of children in their roles and they all look wonderful in their costumes. We look forward to sharing the completed play when it goes live during the last week of term.

In a whole school competition, the children refined their speed stacking skills and it was lovely to see how their times came down as they practised more and more. This activity was done as part of our maths topic on Time and it would be great if you could continue to help your child to tell the time using an analogue clock, reading half past, quarter to and quarter past times first and leading on to reading times to five minutes.

As part of our English learning, we have started to read the book ‘How to catch Santa’. This is a great read and the children had lots of questions to ask Father Christmas, so we used their ideas to write letters to Father Christmas. I was very impressed with how the children remembered to punctuate all their sentences beautifully when they were writing to Santa!

To mark the first week of Advent, we lit the first candle on our Advent wreath and decorated our Christmas tree. The children have set each other Advent Challenges such as ‘Share a friend’ and ‘Help Mum and Dad’ and we open one of these challenges each day as part of our school journey through Advent.

As we go through Advent, one of my favourite activities is to walk around my village each Sunday afternoon as it begins to get dark and look to see how the houses are being decorated. As the weeks go by, there are more and more lights and this is a wonderful way to see just how important Jesus’s birth is in the lives of so many people around us. I wonder what the Christmas lights are like down your street? Maybe you could take a walk and find out.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

As ever, we continue to be very busy in Year 2, combining a focus on Maths and English with many other areas of the curriculum.

As part of our topic focussing on People who Care, past and present, the children learned about Florence Nightingale and Saint Teresa of Calcutta as well as nurses who care for us so well today. Next, we will learn about other nurses, such as Mary Seacole.

The children had great fun creating a sculpture of a modern day nurse and we linked this to our Design and Technology topic on Structures. The children explored what makes a structure stable and the classroom is now filled with paper rollercoasters, 3D shapes made out of construction kits as well as playdough sphere structures. Following their investigations, the children concluded that a structure needs a flat and wide base in order to be both stable and strong. They are using this information well this week as we hold our Speed Stacking Competition along with the rest of the school.

We are all looking forward to enjoying Advent together and today, we will start making our classroom look much more Christmassy! Please do read our RE home learning page to find out more about what we are learning in RE between now and Christmas.

This week, the children have continued learning about Walter Tull, in particular thinking about how Armistice Day is commemorated on the 11th November every year. The children were particularly thoughtful and respectful during our class worship on Wednesday that included the two minutes silence.

The children all looked suitably spotty during Friday’s Children in Need fundraiser and they were very proud of their outfits. Well done to you all.

This week, we have also planted out onion sets, so, along with the spring bulbs that we have planted, we will keep an eye on them to see when they start to shoot.

Next week is an incredibly busy week. We will be learning new songs for our Christmas play, concentrating on the theme of Anti-Bullying during our Well-being sessions, learning about Sikhism in RE and building a five foot tall sculpture of a keyworker in Design Technology! Please do speak with your child as they go through the week to find out more about their learning,.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

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.

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.

It is wonderful to have all of the Year 2 children back in school. They have returned with great enthusiasm and have all been very sensible as they keep themselves and their families safe by staying in their protective bubbles in school. Well done to everyone!

Individual reading

This week, I have read with all the children and given each child reading materials in their book bag. When your child is ready to read something new, they can put their reading log in the class basket and they will be able to choose something else. We have a quarantine system for returned books, which means that they will be left for a minimum of 72 hours before they can be chosen by another child.

Home learning

We will continue to use the Google Classroom for home learning this year. Your child’s existing log-in will provide access to the Year Two Google Classroom and more details can be found on the Year 2 Home Learning Quick Link. Home learning is posted at 2pm on Friday, to be completed by 8:30am on the following Wednesday.

As ever, if there is anything that you would like to discuss, you are very welcome to speak with me at the end of the school day (socially distanced, of course!).

Information relating to home learning is posted on the Google Classroom at every Friday at 2pm. Most home learning is then due to be returned on the following Wednesday.

The children have joined the Year 2 Home Learning Google Classroom and their login details can be found in their Reading Record.

You can access Google Classroom at https://classroom.google.com/u/0/c/MTYzNTUxOTU0NTQ1

This link will only work if you are logged in to your child’s own school Google account. You will not be able to access the classroom if logged in to Google with a parent’s account or that of another family member. Further information can be found on the Year 2 Quick Link, where you will find a handy Google Classroom guide should you have difficulties logging on.