Year 2 w/b 23rd May
Date: 27th May 2022 @ 5:41pm
Year Two, what a wonderful half term it has been! The half term ended on a high, full of fantastic Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
On Monday, we completed our final two booklets to prove what we know in maths (reasoning) and SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar). The children were so proud to have completed all six booklets after proving their knowledge and skills so beautifully. Therefore, we thought that we certainly deserved a treat! On Tuesday afternoon, we enjoyed an afternoon in the park to play altogether and, of course, enjoy an ice pop!
Our spelling rule of the week was: adding the suffixes ‘er’ and ‘est’. We recognised that these suffixes are useful for making comparisons (e.g. small, smaller, smallest). We were able to add the suffixes without making any changes to some root words (e.g. soft, loud, quick) but, if the root word ended in e (e.g. large, nice, rude), we needed to drop the e before adding the suffixes.
Next half term, we will further explore ‘time’. It would be very beneficial if the children could be exploring time at home over the next few afternoons and over the half term break. It would be great to talk about o’clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past times as a recap. Children could also begin to explore time to 5 minutes. This would really help them to ‘hit the ground running’ after the break as telling time is such an important life skill. Children would also benefit from beginning to wear an analogue watch so that they can read the time - wherever and whenever!
This week, we thoroughly enjoyed our No Outsiders lesson for the half term. The stimulus for this lesson was the book ‘The First Slodge’ by Jeanne Willis. At the end of the story, the slodges realise that the world doesn’t belong to anyone. It belongs to everyone. It is there to share. This prompted a discussion about the fact that there are people who are different from us. We can share the world with different people and we can get along with different people. To celebrate this, we each were given a pompom. As we walked around the room, we stopped to talk to a partner to celebrate a difference and then swap our pompoms. E.g. ‘I have brown hair and you have blonde hair; we can still share’. The conversations that ensued were wonderfully thoughtful, mature and kind and it was so lovely to listen in. Well done Year Two!
Within our busy Friday, Mr Cotton ensured that the children also enjoyed exciting science and Spanish lessons. This week, the children looked at how different animals are suited to their habitats. They looked at animals that live in and around a pond and considered how ducks keep warm when they come out of the water. Using a wax crayon and some paper feathers, Year Two tested whether the wax protected the feathers from the water.
The rest of our week has been full of fabulous jubilee celebrations. On Monday afternoon, we created some wonderful portraits of Queen Elizabeth. First, looking at the same photograph, we each sketched our portraits. We then ripped some newspaper articles about the Queen’s coronation and used them to create a collage to which we added splashes of red and blue watercolour paint. Finally, we ripped around our sketches to compliment the collage effect. Once assembled, these looked simply marvellous. Can you spot any of our portraits? You may want to look around the school fence, on our Year Two classroom window and on the windows in the hall.
We have been absolutely delighted to write our own letters to Queen Elizabeth. Each letter is unique in its questions and the information that each child wanted to share about themselves. These letters contained lots of super Year Two language features as well as all of the structural features of letters that we identified last week. On Friday, the letters were posted to Buckingham Palace in the Brereton post box! This was so exciting and we cannot wait to find out if we get a reply. We know that the Queen is receiving an incredible amount of post at the moment so we may need to wait a while!
Our Forest School session for the week was also jubilee themed. Mr Simmons helped us to create ‘jubilee sticks’. This was a good opportunity to practise our knot tying skills that Mr Simmons has been teaching us.
On Thursday afternoon, we enjoyed a unique opportunity to participate in a ‘dance through the decades’ session with Multiflex. Year Two (especially Miss Witham) were delighted to discover that we were dancing through the 70s to ‘Dancing Queen’! I was amazed by the amount of choreography that the children were able to learn so well in just an hour. After a whole-school rehearsal of our performance on Thursday afternoon, Friday morning arrived and it was time to perform in our wonderful red, white and blue attire. Year Two danced beautifully with beaming smiles on their faces. This performance was certainly one to remember and can be found on our Brereton Facebook page. On this page, you will also find a whole-school jubilee photograph taken by a drone – thank you Mr Millward! Finally, we filmed our contribution to ‘Choir for the Queen’ as we sang the national anthem loudly and proudly. What an amazing day it was!
Year Two, I hope that you all enjoy a safe and joyful break. You are certainly ready to head into our final half term in Year Two together with confidence. I can’t wait to see you all back again on Tuesday 7th June.
Miss Witham
