Year 2 w/b 13th June
Date: 19th Jun 2022 @ 8:28pm
The highlight of our week was most certainly the arrival of a very special envelope…a reply from Buckingham Palace! How absolutely thrilling this was! Inside the posh envelope was a commemorative Platinum Jubilee card containing a message of thanks for our well wishes. We loved the two pictures of Queen Elizabeth on this card. There was also a letter from one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting. This was a delivery to be treasured forever and we will always remember the Platinum Jubilee.
Our week of English also began with a special delivery: a box containing pedals, a pan lid, a fan, a switch, a safety belt and a scroll. What could these be used for? After suggesting our ideas, we opened the scroll to reveal our model text – an explanation text entitled ‘The Fantastic Flying Machine’. We explored some of the vocabulary from the model text (strike, holders, propeller, ground-breaking, take-off, release, old rusty motor, rev the engine, spark the old motor into action, breath-taking views, generates the wind power, lift off the ground, capture the wind, engine will take over). We then used our comprehension skills to draw and label the machine based on the explanation text alone. Finally, we were introduced to the corresponding text map. On Tuesday, we became grammar detectives, completing three short grammar-based challenges – using conjunctions in sentences, fixing SPaG mistakes and writing questions. Across Thursday and Friday, we completed our ‘analyse’ task. In the model text, we identified structures (introductory paragraph, a list of the different parts of the machine, bullet-pointed sentences and a conclusion) and language features (imperative verbs, simile, conjunctions, noun phrases for detail and positive language). We then considered the purpose of each feature – what is their effect on the reader? Next week, we will design our own machines and plan our own explanation texts.
Our spelling rule this week has once again involved adding the suffixes ‘er’ and ‘est’ to compare. This time, we were adding the suffixes to words with a short vowel sound followed by a consonant (e.g. big, sad, hot). This allowed us to revisit a familiar rule: double the final consonant before adding the suffix (e.g. bigger, sadder, hotter). Our red words of the week were: does, parent, sure, were, beautiful, other.
Our focus text in our whole class guided reading sessions this week was: ‘Grandpa’s Garden’ by Stella Fry. We enjoyed experiencing the progression of the seasons along with Billy and Grandpa as we worked through the story throughout the week. Some of the language in this text was very tricky and required us to make some very sophisticated inferences – what superstar Year 2 readers we are!
In maths, we have been building on our work with telling the time to 5 minutes as we began to apply our understanding to problems. On Monday, we used our understanding of how many minutes are in an hour (60 minutes) to help convert between minutes and hours and minutes (e.g. 75 minutes = 1 hour and 15 minutes). A part-whole model was a very helpful tool in this process. On Tuesday, we began finding durations of time, as we found the difference between a start and end time. It was helpful to think of a clock as ‘bendy number line’ so that we could jump in 5s from the start time to the end time. On Thursday, we worked on comparing durations of time, using our learning from Monday and Tuesday to support us in finding the longest/shortest times. On Friday, we were able to calculate end times. E.g. ‘I put a cake in the oven at 5 past 3. It needs to bake for 35 minutes. What time should I take it out?’ Your support at home with telling the time continues to support children in school so many thanks for your help with this. This week’s maths homework is to continue to practise telling the time to 5 minutes. Next week, we will finish our work with time and move onto our ‘weight, volume and temperature’ unit.
In Forest School, we began to make our inventions, thinking especially about wheels. Mr Simmons was impressed by the wonderful teamwork shown by Year 2 in this session.
In science, we began our ‘materials’ unit. As the photos show, this first lesson involved grouping materials according to their properties.
This week, after completing a history quiz to prove the knowledge we had retained about the great fires of London and Nantwich, we began our geography learning. This unit will enable us to understand geographical similarities and differences through studying the human and physical geography of a small area of the United Kingdom (Manchester and Tattenhall), and of a small area in a contrasting non-European country (Kenya – Nairobi and Njoro). This first lesson focused on understanding the similarities and differences between a city and a village, as well as recapping our understanding of human and physical features from Year 1.
In our Multiflex session, we continued to build our athletics skills – we will be experts by Sports Day! On Friday, we enjoyed our final session with Harry from Cheshire Cricket. This was a great opportunity to showcase all of the skills we have refined over the last few weeks (although this was a slightly shorter session due to the heat!). We therefore returned inside to cool down and enjoy a Spanish lesson.
Building on our introduction to ‘My Happy Mind’ last week we have found out more about how to make our brains grow! We have been thinking more about the different roles of team H-A-P who make up three key parts of your brain: the hippocampus, amygdala and prefrontal cortex and how, if we keep working on learning that we find tricky, we can grow our brains through neuroplasticity. We had many examples to share, from learning our times tables to riding our bikes without stabilisers!
I hope that you have enjoyed a wonderful weekend! We look forward to a fun filled sports week in school when we return on Monday (in PE kits).
Miss Witham
