End of Term 2

Wishing you all an enjoyable and safe half term whatever it is you may have planned. We’re hoping for more sun in the final term of our learning!

English

Busy! Busy! Busy!

We have started recapping on our learning in year 2 and looking at all the events that have taken place. The children have been looking at past pictures and answering Who? What? Why? When? Where? and How? This is developing thinking, writing and communication skills and it has been great to look back at so many memories and smiley faces.

   The children have started lots of work on Traditional Tales, we are having great fun writing our own scripts, telling the story of Goldilocks and the ‘two’ Bears. I wonder what happened to Daddy Bear? They are working very well together and enjoying this task, showing a great understanding for the story as well as how to write a script. VERY IMPRESSED!

Maths

This month we have been continuing to develop understanding of time, we explored o'clock, quarter past and to and half past. We have discussed 5 minute intervals and the children had a go at making their own clocks using lots of different materials and resources. 

We have done lots of work on graphs- bar graphs and pictograms. The children have completed their own class investigations (and some home ones too). They have been able to present their information clearly, following the key features of graphs. They have also created a pictogram using a different scale and investigated the most popular fairy tale characters in year 2.

More recently, we have explored money. We looked at currency from around the world, compared and discussed the coins available and we have been able to add and subtract using British money. Using our knowledge of this, we have then looked at multiplication as repeated addition- Phew! Exhausting work.

Topic

Investigating our area and creating bird’s eye views of Onegino and the school playground. 

We have also done a science investigation looking at which material bowls would be most suitable to keep the Three Bears porridge warm while the go on their walk. We notices that the shape of a bowl makes a difference. We predicted using reasoning and then found out that ceramic bowls worked the best.

Homework

Spellings have been set; please practise the correct formation of the letters too, in your best handwriting. 

Goodbye snow...?

English

Over the past few weeks, we have been studying the book- The Little Polar Bear by Hans de Beer. We have loved getting to know the different characters and learning about their habitats. We finished our book with letter writing. Lars is a Little Polar Bear on a survival trip with his Dad when they get separated. Lars finds himself on a tropical island and luckily makes some friends who help him get home. The children explored and identified the key features of a letter from a letter sent to Lars from his mother. Using their own knowledge and understanding of letters, then children then wrote their own letters in response.  They are AMAZING and I am very proud of the children! Please find these displayed in our clock room.

Phonics

We have been recapping a lot of our sounds and looking at ‘wh’ as questions starters.

Maths

Great work on fractions by all! We have explored fractions of numbers and shapes. We got very hungry looking at fractions of pizza.

What’s the time??

We have been developing our understanding of time with lots of creative activities as well as written recordings. We have concentrated so far on o’clock, half past and quarter to/past. Good understanding shown by all so far and we have had lots of fun. I hope to look at 5 minute intervals of time too soon so please, if you can, question children about the time at home.

Topic

We will now be moving away from ‘The Frozen Planet’ as our class topic to, we have all learnt a lot about the world around us; The Arctic, Antarctica, Russia and other countries in the world.

This week we have been identifying the continents and oceans and looking closely at maps and our location in Onegino and Moscow. We went on a walk of Onegino and looked at the different buildings around us. We noticed that it is much quieter and greener then than the city. J

 We will be completing aerial maps of Onegino and comparing our location here to Moscow.

Other activities-

Planting sunflower seeds, they are starting to grow quite tall!

Our (fingers crossed) last fall of snow.

Homework

Spellings have been sent out as well as some time worksheets. I would like the children to identify what they do in a day. I want the children to gain a further understanding of time by relating it to themselves and the activities and tasks they complete daily. Please choose a weekday or weekend to explore what they might do and the time.

Maslenitsa

   Thank you to all for your support with the school’s celebrations of Maslenitsa and Women’s Day last week. It was great to experience this tradition and the children had great fun in preparing and celebrating. As the weather is getting warmer and the snow is starting to melt we are looking forward to the spring, finally!

English

We have been continuing to develop our understanding of the English Language through identifying the difference between ‘oi’ and ‘oy’, as well as using ‘er’ in our reading and writing.

We have been looking at different styles of writing this week. The children are familiar with the story of The Little Polar Bear and the events of the book.

    Lars is a Little Polar Bear, out on a survival trip with his Dad when he gets separated and travels to a tropical land. This is an adventure for a Polar Animal, but we are sure this is a terrible worry for his family. This week we have looked and annotated a letter that Lars’ mother sent to Lars. We recognised the different vocabulary and features of a letter and we have started planning our own response letter.

Great start, I am looking forward to the final letters.

Phonics

This week we have been concentrating on the 'er' sound. The children have matched pictures to their correct vocabulary and investigated 'er' words around the classroom.

They have been able to use their sound when writing and reading with fluency- Well done!

Maths

Busy, Busy, Busy! The children have revisited place value, concentrating on Tens and Units. Using their understanding of this, we have been able to add and subtract 2-digit numbers with growing confidence. Some of the children have also looked into multiplication and developed their understanding of what this concept is. They have been able to identify key information from worded problems and create their number sentences from this.

Topic

Food chains of the Polar Regions- we have had fun creating our food chains showing what eats what.

Homework

Spellings have been set; please practise the correct formation of the letters too, in your best handwriting.

The children are aware of this week’s task- To create their own ‘missing or lost’ poster for the Lars. A check list has been given and paper although it is up to them if they want to use a different approach or technique.

Is there life in the Polar Regions?

English

Linking in with our topic- Frozen Planets the children have been researching What they would like to find out.  They have used books, the internet and documentaries to identify different facts about the Polar Regions. We are all learning some very interesting facts about life and animals in the Arctic and Antarctica.

            Did you know…

The Arctic Bridge is 6,700 km long and links Russia and Canada.

The coldest temperature ever recorded is -89 degrees.

The Arctic caterpillar freezes over the winter and his heart stops, only to come back to life in the summer months. WOW!!

                       

Phonics

This week we played phonics bingo to ensure that children are familiar with and confident with the phonics we have learnt so far this year. We had fun!

Maths

Continuing to developing measuring using ‘mm’, ‘cm’ and ‘m’ as our unit of measure. We have carried out an investigation into the length and height of many items in our classroom- the children work as a team to identify measurements of snow and winter clothes.

 We have been amazed to find out some of the heights and lengths of Polar animals.

Fact we found out this week…

Did you know a Polar Bear could be 3m tall and the weight of 10 men?

Did you know a Killer Whale is 7m long? That is around the same length as our classroom.

Topic

Continuing with Frozen Planet, we have research life in the Polar Regions and answered many of our questions.

Homework

This week’s homework is set comprehension skills I have included a text all about Polar Bears, please listen to your child read and answer the questions given. They might already know some of the questions from our research.

Have a fun week off and thank you for your support with all tasks and reading!

Frozen...

English

With us celebrating Valentine’s Day this week we have been doing a great deal of work on friendship. The children have all made their own heart cards and wrote their own messages to a friend. These were lovely to read, I am pleased that they are such a kind class!!

We have also been working on our Book- The Little Polar Bear, Where are you going Lars? From this we have identified the key characters and how they played a part n helping Lars back to his family.

 

Phonics

We have been recapping previous sounds this week- the children completed a phonics hunt and from we have identified the sounds that we need to recap over the next few weeks before introducing more sounds.

Maths

Measuring- we have used standard units of measure; meters and centimeters. We have measured the children and noticed that they have all grown a deal amount since September- How did this happen?

They have also been identifying when we use ‘m’ and when we would use ‘cm’ to measure.

Topic

Frozen Planet- the children have completed a KWL grid. Identified all the facts they already know about the Polar Regions and decided on what facts they want to know. Some great thinking and original ideas, I wonder if we will find out if there has been a UFO sighting?...

Homework

Spellings have been set; please practise the correct formation of the letters too, in your best handwriting.

I would also like the children to look at measure, there is a worksheet attached in children’s homework folders working on ordering heights of animals as well as drawing the animals using the measurements given.

Please note that if your child has been absent this week that Miss Karina will email you the homework too.

Have fun and thank you for your support with tasks and reading!