Year 2 w/b 4th October
Date: 8th Oct 2021 @ 4:01pm
Week 6 of super learning in Year Two began with another unusual discovery. We had been sent a letter! Some of the children read this aloud to us as we discovered together that the ‘Save Our Bog Babies Society’ had written to us. Enclosed in this letter was a sample of a set of instructions for creating a suitable habitat for a Bog Baby. The S.O.B.B Society requested that we write a similar set of instructions for our own unusual creatures. Our learning over the last weeks of half term will support us to do this. We then began to learn our text map for the set of instructions which we will film next week so that the children can share this with you at home. As part of this learning, we explored new vocabulary in the instructions, such as: tranquil, murky, odour, succulent, thoroughly. We worked in groups to discuss and clarify the definitions of these words. On Wednesday, we used our comprehension skills to further analyse the set of instructions, referring to the text to answer some questions. To end the week, we learnt all about commands. The children very much enjoyed ‘being bossy’ to verbally rehearse some commands, which then helped them to write some of their own. We discussed the importance of commands when writing instructions. I am sure that the children would love to give some ‘bossy’ commands at home!
Our English learning continued into Forest School where the children enjoyed using nature to build habitats for an unusual creature. As the photos show, this involved lots of super teamwork! This activity will help us to write our own instructions over the next two weeks.
This week in maths, we have continued to consolidate our recap of writing addition and subtraction number sentences from a part-whole model to create ‘fact families’. We particularly focused on the equals sign and the concept that a number sentence, such as ‘3 + 4 = 7’ can also be written as ‘7 = 3 + 4’. This is something that we will continue to reinforce throughout the year and it would be super to also reinforce this at home. Thank you for your support with the maths homework over the past few weeks. If anybody is having any issues with MyMaths, please do not hesitate to get in touch so I can get this sorted for you.
Our big question in science this week was: ‘What would happen if we only ate crisps?’; the children completed activities to show their understanding of a healthy diet for both humans and animals. This linked to our PSHE HeartSmart lesson, as we were thinking about making healthy choices to contribute to a healthy diet. The children enjoyed looking at the ‘Eat Well’ plate and discussing the different sections and the significance of their size. The children then created their own ‘Eat Well’ plates, choosing foods from each section that they enjoy eating.
In RE, we revisited the Bible story, ‘Healing of the ten lepers’. The children had remembered this story in such a lot of detail and demonstrated a deeper understanding through discussion and questioning during a ‘hot seating’ task. As the photos below show, we asked questions to Jesus, the grateful man, and one of the other nine lepers. We asked questions such as: Why didn’t you go back to thank Jesus? How did you feel after you were healed? What did you want to do after you were healed? Why did you do what Jesus said and go to the priests even though you’d tried this already? How did you know that you could heal them? Did you ask for forgiveness for not being grateful? In our written task, we first imagined that we were one of the other nine lepers. We wrote about why we were healed, how it felt to be healed, and why we needed to ask for forgiveness. This helped us to then consider our own experiences and write about a time when we were healed or forgiven.
In DT, we enjoyed another afternoon working through our ‘make’ process. We applied our running stitch expertise in order to join our fabric together. I was so impressed with the children’s skill, determination and concentration as they worked hard to perfect these stitches. These puppets are looking wonderful and the children are now ready to add details next week. I apologise for the lack of photographs; all adults were (quite literally!) tied-up with re-threading needles! Next week, I will make sure to take lots of photographs of the process and, of course, photographs of the wonderful finished puppets.
Throughout the week, we have also dedicated time to practising for our Harvest service. It was absolutely wonderful to walk down to church together this morning (see photos below) and then enjoy an excellent service. The children represented the school beautifully and were simply superb singers! I thoroughly enjoyed watching the ‘Harvest Samba’ and listening to our Year Two prayers. I was extremely proud of each and every one of them. There will be a video to follow.
I hope that you have a wonderful and restful weekend.
Miss Witham
