Year 2 w/b 6th March

Date: 9th Mar 2023 @ 5:39pm

What an enjoyable week it has been in Year Two! On Monday, we were introduced to our model text and text map as we discovered that we would be writing our own circular narratives. Using synonyms to help clarify our understanding of new vocabulary, we explored the following words and phrases from the model text: emerald, squint, snaked, edge, prized possession, towards the horizon, overlooked, explore, bustling city, peered, cruise, seemed familiar. On Tuesday, we analysed our model text to identify the key features of a circular narrative. We collected examples of: adverbials of time, expanded noun phrases, conjunctions, questions, similes and repeated phrases. Across Wednesday and Thursday, we planned our own circular narrative; we planned a new route for our own characters to follow. I am looking forward to watching these stories come to life as we write next week.

Our spelling rule this week has once again involved adding the suffix ‘ed’. This week, we learnt to ‘drop the e before adding ed’ (e.g. ‘like’ becomes ‘liked’ and ‘tickle’ becomes ‘tickled’). We also revised our two other rules for adding ‘ed’: doubling the final consonant before adding ed (e.g. ‘hug’ becomes ‘hugged’) and swapping the y for an i before adding ed (e.g. ‘try’ becomes ‘tried’).

In history, we were introduced to our ‘Famous Queens’ unit and discovered that we will be focusing on three queens: Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. It was wonderful to hear the children share their existing knowledge of these monarchs and begin to make comparisons already. This lesson involved: defining the terms ‘monarch’ and ‘palace’; looking at the dates when the three queens ruled and how they fit into a British history timeline. We can’t wait to learn about each queen in more depth.

In computing this week, the children focused on planning algorithms that will solve problems. On Monday, we were introduced to the idea of ‘loops’ to make the algorithms more efficient i.e. instead of: ‘move forward’, ‘move forward’, ‘move forward’, you could instead have: ‘repeat three times: move forward’. Finally, the children played ‘Google – Coding for carrots’ game to program a bunny character to navigate around a map. What an enjoyable lesson we had! On Friday with Mrs Taylor, we began to understand what 'abstraction' means. First, we focussed on Google Earth and found it rather interesting. We then managed to zoom right in to our school and compared it to our capital city London. Finally, we drew a map of our classroom, making sure we only labelled key features. 

On Tuesday, we completed our end of unit quiz for our topic ‘Plants’. I am so impressed with how much children have remembered, what fantastic scientists we have in Year Two! We are looking forward to moving on to our next topic ‘Living things and habitats’ next week.

In maths this week we have come to the end of our topic ‘Multiplication and division’. We have been looking at:

• Learning the 5 times-table in a number of contexts. We have been working out 5 times-table multiplication sentences using arrays, number lines and pictorial representations.
• Dividing numbers by 5 by grouping and on a number line. We have been linking division facts to times-tables.

Later in the week, we moved on to our new topic ‘Length and height’. We have been looking at:

• Using rulers to measure simple objects to the nearest centimetre.
• Estimating and measuring a range of objects, such as: the length of the school hall, the height of the table and the length of the benches, using metres as a unit of measurement.
• Comparing lengths measured in centimetres and metres.

In PSHE this week, we were very excited to welcome back My Happy Mind for our new unit 'Relate'. In this lesson, we learned what relate means and which different people they can relate to. We also talked about how we relate to different people in different ways and that different people relate differently too. After this, we learned how our character strengths help us to get along with others. We know that we have different strengths and that we all relate differently and that is ok. Just because someone reaction is different to ours, doesn’t mean it is wrong.

In RE, we have been recording the events of the Easter story from when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, when Judas betrayed him, through to when he rose again.

Thank you for your continued support, It is great to see so many children reading at home. Please can I remind you to record all reading in your child's diary.

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Roxburgh and Mrs Taylor