Year 2 w/b 7th February
Date: 11th Feb 2022 @ 7:42pm
It has been a thoroughly enjoyable week in Year Two, with lots of wonderful effort, collaboration and proud moments.
Our week began with the introduction of a new model text and text map – the traditional tale, Jack and the Beanstalk. We enjoyed a vocabulary lesson, focusing on words from the model text such as, dilapidated, penniless, bronze, entirely, mysterious, launched, peeked, peered, bellowed, lumbered, ear-splitting, eventually. After some whole-class discussions and collaborative use of dictionaries and thesauri, the children were able to confidently define this new vocabulary. They even used these words in sentences to further demonstrate their understanding. Next it was time to analyse our model text to identify the structures and features of a narrative text. This was a good opportunity to recap our SPaG knowledge as we worked both collaboratively and individually to highlight exclamation sentences, expanded noun phrases, verbs, adverbs, alliteration, repetition, time adverbials and paragraphs. What a lot of wonderful work! On Thursday, the children were very excited to plan their own version of a twisted narrative, changing the traditional tale of Jack and the Beanstalk to create a twisted narrative like Jack and the Baked Beanstalk. First, we planned the events and characters of the story, allowing us to focus all of our attention on ‘what happens’. Then, we added lots of story features and vocabulary to our plans, planning for paragraph openers, expanded noun phrases, similes, exclamation sentences and ambitious vocabulary. After reading these excellent plans, I can’t wait to see the writing that the children produce next week.
Our spelling rule has had a silent letter focus, as we focused on words that began with ‘kn’ (such as knight, knee, know, knife) and ‘gn’ (gnaw, gnash, gnat, gnome). We know that ‘kn’ words are much more common. We were surprised to discover that, in the past, people would actually pronounce the ‘k’ and ‘g’. We also focused on the red words: through, Monday, any, break, above, sure.
On Monday, we finished our division unit as we applied our knowledge to word problems. We will, of course, reinforce these multiplication and division concepts throughout the year. I am already noticing improvement in the children’s ability to recall multiplication and division facts since introducing Times Tables Rock Stars – thank you for your support with this. We then began our work with fractions. On Tuesday, we focused on identifying equal parts of a whole in different contexts including shape, quantity, volume and money. We enjoyed looking at some chopped up fruit to contextualise this concept. On Wednesday, we identified objects that had been split into 2 parts as we were introduced to ½ as a written fraction with a numerator and a denominator. On Thursday, we were able to find one half of different amounts of objects, shapes and numbers. On Friday, the children were recognising shapes that had been split into four equal parts, seeing ¼ as part of a distance around a whole track and drawing what a whole looks like from ¼. Quarters are trickier, so we will look at this some more next week.
In geography, we were finding out about ways in which the weather during each season in equatorial and polar regions differs from the weather in the United Kingdom. We looked at the weather during March within the United Kingdom, Northern Alaska and Kenya. We discussed how the location of these countries (Northern Alaska close to the North Pole and Kenya close to the Equator) affected their weather. This activity demonstrated that the children have a very secure understanding of this concept. Well done Year Two geographers.
In music, our focus was rhythms and representing them using stick notation. First, we practised clapping some rhythms, using our Goldilocks phrases to help. We then played the human bar game. Four children stood at the front of the class to represent the four beats. For words which last one beat (crotchets) pupils stood with their hands clasped together in front of them, e.g. 'who’s' and 'my'; for word(s) lasting half a beat (quavers) pupils stood with hands help apart, in fists, out in front of them to show whole beat has been split in half, e.g. for 'eat-en' and 'por-ridge'. So, 'Who’s eat-en my por-ridge?' = clasped, folded, clasped, folded. We then progressed to writing the rhythms using stick notation – crochets and quavers. The children enjoyed creating different human bar rhythms and representing these using stick notation.
In RE, we developed our understanding of the Kingdom of God. Our discussion helped us to conclude that the Kingdom of God is not something you can necessarily see; it is inside our hearts and everywhere that we go. To be in the Kingdom of God means living a life of goodness and peace. The Parable of the Mustard Seed helped us to understand that the Kingdom of God starts off small, like a seed and blossoms as our actions help to grow the kingdom. We thought that these actions may involve using kind words, spreading the word of God, worshipping through song and prayer, giving our time to help others and looking after friends and family.
It was lovely to enjoy the fresh air as we continued to focus on invasion game skills in PE. This week, we were looking at simultaneous attacking and defending. A warm up game where we had to ‘steal the bib’ helped us to understand this concept as we were protecting our own bibs whilst simultaneously trying to steal somebody else’s bib! We then enjoyed a group ‘Piggy in the middle’ style task. We worked in teams of 4 attackers, with one defender in the middle, helping us to practise our agile movements, dummy throws, accurate throws and intercepting of the ball. Finally, we applied our skills to a whole class game, trying to get the ball from one end of the court to another. We were paired up with someone from the opposite team but we were not allowed to leave our square. This made us think carefully about using the space effectively and was also a great opportunity to practise marking. There was some wonderful skill, teamwork and sportsmanship demonstrated within this session.
In science, the children learnt about carnivorous plants. Watching a Venus flytrap digest a fly produced a mixture of reactions, from disgust to excitement! The children enjoyed imagining, drawing and labelling their own carnivorous plant.
This week has been Children’s Mental Health Week and the theme has been ‘Growing Together’. We have been looking at the Five Ways to Wellbeing are and how we can use these to help us to grow. They are to: learn, notice, connect, be active and give. Our week began with an assembly and we then engaged in lots of discussions and activities around this. On Wednesday, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We thought about the changes the caterpillar went through and then reflected on changes we have been through ourselves. We talked about what we would like to be able to do when we are older and who might help us to do these things. We recognized that we all develop and are able to do things at different ages – we all develop at our own pace. To conclude, we celebrated all of the amazing things we have learnt to do so far in our lives! On Friday, we enjoyed a ‘Dress to Express’ day. It was wonderful to see all of these smiling faces as the children participated in running a mile; we know that being active is one of the five ways to wellbeing. In our Forest School session we focused on another way to wellbeing – connect. The children worked in two teams – hiders and seekers. The difference was that the seekers had to stay connected together as a ‘dragon’ as they searched for the ‘tigers’. This helped us to reflect on our understanding of Chinese New Year.
This week we have been lucky enough to have explored the knitted Bible scenes on loan from St George’s United Reform Church in Hartlepool. These comprised 34 scenes, 14 from the Old Testament starting with creation and 20 from the New Testament finishing with Jesus’ resurrection and breakfast on the beach with his disciples. Year Two impressed me with their recall of stories from the Bible and their reflective comments on what Christians can learn from these stories. It was wonderful to see these stories brought to life so creatively; the detailed scenes produced much awe and wonder.
On Tuesday, it was Safer Internet Day. This was a good opportunity to talk about being safe online with a particular focus on protecting passwords and not entering a password to ‘spend coins’ etc. without parental permission. This may be a good opportunity to reinforce this message at home.
Year Two, you are making wonderful progress and I am very proud of you all. I hope that you all enjoy a wonderful weekend.
Miss Witham
