Year 2 w/b 14th March
Date: 20th Mar 2022 @ 5:32pm
As it has been assessment time in school, much of our week has been dedicated to ‘proving what we know’ in English, maths, reading, spelling and grammar to identify what the children can do well and ways we can help them to improve. The children have worked incredibly hard and have impressed me with their enthusiasm, determination and careful work. In addition to our test papers and independent story writing, we continued with some of our shape work in maths as we learnt to sort 2D shapes based on their properties and make patterns with 2D shapes. Making patterns was slightly more of a challenge so this is something we will continue to revisit. Therefore, in Forest School this week, the children enjoyed a free choice session in the sunshine – well-deserved in this busy week!
Our spelling rule this week has been: the ‘j’ sound spelt ‘g’ (e.g. magic, giant), ‘ge’ (e.g. large, charge) and ‘dge’ (e.g. edge, bridge).
In history, we used our prior learning to help us to deepen our understanding of the Victorians and Queen Victoria. It was particularly interesting to find out how she used and changed Buckingham Palace. We were also able to draw lots of parallels between the improvements that Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth I made.
In art, we continued to work towards our Hannah Dunnett inspired pieces as we finished painting our landscapes, using our prior knowledge of colour mixing to lighten and darken a colour. We can’t wait to start printing on these backgrounds. We also enjoyed some additional art with Mrs Taylor to create Mothering Sunday cards.
In PE, we continued to work on our Fundamental Movement Skills, focusing on our dodging skills. We were learning to travel around the space being aware of others sharing the space by staying focused and keeping our heads up when moving around. We demonstrated this agility, balance and coordination through a variety of activities, with the highlights being Spiderman Tag and dodgeball!
Our HeartSmart lesson was entitled ‘Traffic Lights’ as we learnt about different ways to handle hurt or disappointment. When we are hurt by people or are disappointed by things that have happened, we don’t have to stay stuck thinking about it and ‘rubbing it in’, we can always find a way to move forward and ‘rub it out’. This helped us to create our own traffic lights, as we suggested examples of:
- GREEN - Can I solve this problem myself?
- AMBER - Do I need time out?
- RED - Do I need an adult to help me?
This week has been British Science Week. As such, we have focused on additional science sessions in school. The children waited eagerly all week for a slime investigation, an exciting way to spend a sunny Friday afternoon. Having made our own slime, we investigated how far we could stretch the slime before it would break. This was an excellent opportunity to apply lots of mathematical measuring skills. We were also very lucky to welcome some parents into school this week. We enjoyed a fantastic presentation from Mr Canning about being a pilot as we were taken on a flight and looked at the inside of a passenger aeroplane cockpit. Both children and adults were fascinated to look at a flight from the pilot’s perspective and all that goes on ‘behind the scenes’! We have also been delighted to have welcomed Mrs Williams into school to share with us her life as a dairy farmer and vet. The children were fascinated by the equipment and pictures Mrs Williams shared with us and were bountiful in their questions.
I hope that you are all enjoying this lovely, sunny weekend. I look forward to discussing your child’s progress and achievements in our telephone calls next Tuesday or Thursday. We will also be holding a Mothering Sunday service at Church next Friday at 2pm which you are welcome to attend. This will be a simple service led by Revd Sandi with some modern worship hymns, prayers and Bible readings.
Miss Witham
