We had a lovely start to the week with the launch of our new topic ‘Street Detectives’ by going on a walk around the village. The children had a map and drew symbols to make a key showing the main features of Mulbarton including the Church, Co-Op, The Common, etc.

In English, we have started our new Power of Reading book (the title of which will be kept a secret for now). We began by looking at the first picture in the book, which was a city scene. We then read the first 9 pages which introduced us to the characters Claude, Sir Bobblysock, and Mr and Mrs Shinyshoes. The children completed a character profile with all the information that they already knew about Claude along with questions regarding things they would like to find out. Later in the week, we wrote predictions of the adventure that Claude and Sir Bobblysock might have.

At the end of the week, we began writing poetry about a city. We will be continuing this next week.

In Art, we made collages to show our predicted adventures. These included; space, beach, under the sea, Paris, and city scenes.

In Spanish, we learnt the names of animals. The children acted as different animals and we guessed what they were using our new Spanish words.

In Maths this week, we have been learning about the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. We used this understanding to solve missing number problems, for example ? + 20 = 70 we solved by doing 70-20 = 50. This is an area that some children find quite challenging and would benefit from practising missing number problems at home.

Weekly news

Weekly news 8.3.19

This week in school, we have finished our ‘Power of Reading book project by writing our own chapters in our best handwriting.  The storybooks look amazing; please have a look in your child’s classroom.

We have been practising SATS papers this week and the children have responded really well to their ‘Special Work’ and ‘Secret spaces’.  They have all worked hard and have enjoyed the quiet, focussed atmosphere in the classroom. 

We have finished off our ‘Towers, Tunnels and Turrets ’topic with an ‘Innovate Day’.  The children read the story of the three little pigs as inspiration.  Then they were challenged to design and build a safe fortress for the three little pigs based on their knowledge of castles.  Once complete they labelled their design and made a list of the resources they would need.  They then went on to collaboratively build their design using the available resources.  The children worked in groups all day long and have designed some amazing fortresses. 

We had lots of fun on world book day exploring the children’s characters and books.  We all moved into our circle time groups to hear different stories in the afternoon. 

Please let us know if you are able to help on Monday for our walk around the village; we will be setting off from school around 9.30am and back in time for lunch.

Have a great weekend – Year 2 team

World Book Day in Whales

We had a wonderful day in Whales celebrating World Book Day yesterday. Thank you so much to all the parents for helping with some fabulous costumes. We enjoyed taking part in a circle time to share who we had dressed up as and why, designing new book covers for our Power of Reading book, World Book Day wordsearches and also making some amazing origami bookmarks. The children are now experts at these and I'm sure they would love to share them with you at home.
At the end of the day we went in our house circle time groups to listen to a story read by an adult in different places around the school. We had a really lovely day!

Weekly news

We have had a lovely week in Year 2 and have been very busy.

In English this week we have been story mapping our Power of Reading story ‘The Princess and the White Bear King’. We divided the story into chapters and began to plan our own chapters to write. We have used our story maps to write our own chapter with adjectives and adverbial phrases to say when and where things happened. We have edited and improved our work ready to write up in best next week to make our own collaborative versions of the book.

In Maths this week we have been focussing on money. We have learnt about the values of different coins and worked on making different amounts using the coins. We have also focussed on adding amounts of money and finding totals.

In Science this week we have been out on a ‘I wonder…’ walk and thought about questions that we could investigate later in the year about plants and nature. The teachers will use these questions later in the year to plan some exciting science investigations.

We have continued our work on Judaism this week and learnt about the festival of Shabbat. We learnt about why Jewish people celebrate Shabbat and how they do this. We also had our own Shabbat meal with bread and grape juice (blackcurrant squash).

Next week we will be taking part in an exciting innovate challenge to finish off our ‘Towers, Tunnels and Turrets’ topic. We would appreciate any donations of junk for junk modelling that you may have.

In the week beginning 11^th March we will be launching our new topic ‘Street Detectives’ with a walk around Mulbarton to explore our local community.  We would appreciate any volunteers that are able to assist us with a walk on Monday morning, we will be leaving school at 9.30am and aiming to return before lunch.  Please let your child’s teacher know if you are available to help.

Weekly news

This week in school, we have been exploring the end of our story and began by attempting to predict the end of the story.  We did some role-play about the wedding and re-enacted the final scene with the troll Queen being turned into stone.  We went on to write questions for the troll queen and then interviewed her to ask her about her thoughts and feelings on the fairness of the ending.  We then wrote a letter of complaint on her behalf, complaining about how unfair it was that she did not get a happy ending.

In maths, we have continued our work on fractions and learnt about 1/3 of shapes, numbers and objects.  We have then learnt about identifying the different fractions, comparing them and then looking at the relationship between ½ and 2/4.

In topic this week, we have made paper bridges and explored the properties of the paper and how we could make it stronger.  This was fun and the children were expert bridge builders.  During our history topic this week, we have learnt about the great escape and re-enacted this using bowls and spoons to dig tunnels and try to escape the guards.  We went on to write a recount of the events during the great escape in 1944.  The children were fascinated and amused by the names of the three tunnels ‘Tom, Dick and Harry!’

Please spend some time over half term having a look at Bug Club and Education city.

FYI – our next learning café will be on Tuesday 26^th March.

Have a great half term holiday – The year 2 team.

Weekly news - 8th February 2019

This week at school, we have been doing some more drama around our story and re-enacted the princesses climb up the mountain.  We went on to write a diary about how the princess felt during her climb thinking carefully about our adjectives and CFFS.  The children enjoyed bringing in their ‘precious items’ and talking about them to the class group.  They went on to write a description of their item, edit their work and then write it up in their neatest handwriting using a pen!

In maths this week, we have been re-capping 3D shape knowledge and their properties.  We had lots of fun using marshmallows and cocktail sticks to build a 3D shape.  The children have now begun to learn about fractions and we have started with ½ and ¼.  We have looked at half of numbers, shapes, length and quantities.

During our topic work, we have learnt about tunnelling animals, finding information and recording this in a chart.  We also used charcoal and white paint to draw a winter scene thinking about form, line, shape and space.  The children did a fabulous job and were very creative.

Have a great weekend

Year 2 team.

Weekly news - 1.2.19

We started off the week by writing a setting description about the castle books that we made last week. The children described the inside, who lived there and the defensive features. Later in the week we had a class debate about the Princess’s dilemma. The White Bear had told her not to listen to her Mother’s advice and she promised that she wouldn’t. We made a ‘conscience alley’ which is a drama technique where the children make two lines and someone walks down the middle in role as the princess. As they walked through the alley children on either side gave reasons why she should listen to Mum or why she should listen to the Bear. We concluded that you should always listen to your Mum because ‘Mum’s know best’.

In Maths this week we have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We learnt the names, number of sides, vertices, edges and faces. At the end of the week we looked at finding symmetry in shapes.

In Topic, we revised food chains by looking at what polar bears ear. We focussed on the vocabulary: ‘producer’, ‘consumer’, ‘predator’ and ‘prey’.

We have noticed that some children do not have as many comments in their reading record as we would ideally like. Please could you read with your children at home as much as possible and make a comment in their reading record. Reading at home has such a positive impact on progress and would benefit all children.

We will be having a spelling test next Friday on a selection of the words we have sent home.

The Dance Showcase went amazingly well. We are SO proud of all the children! Not only did they perform with confidence and enjoyment, but we also had many comments from other school about how well-behaved they were throughout the evening.