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!

Busy Workers!!!

English

The children have developed into brilliant readers while in year 2 and I am very pleased with the progress every one of them has made. This week we have been doing a lot of work improving our comprehension skills- understanding what we have read. The children have read fiction and non-fiction text and answered questions given, as a class we looked at how to skim read and highlight important parts.

I have also introduced our new class book- Little Polar Bear. We will be using this in a lot of our future lessons to develop different styles of writing. The children enjoyed finding out about Lars and his adventures.

 Phonics

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

We did a ‘ear’ word hunt in the hall and children enjoyed working as a team to locate and identify ‘ear’ words in pictures.

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

Maths

Estimating, weighting, counting in 5s, 10s and groups of 20s- Wow! A very busy week!!

We started our week ordering items from lightest to heaviest according to their weights. Moving on, we then started reading scales using standard units of measure- ‘kg’ and ‘g’. The children were able to read different weights given on scales with understanding that 1000g was the same as 1kg- Well Done! Using this knowledge the children then worked in groups to weigh different items around the classroom. We had lots of fun and found some very interesting weights.

 Topic

We finished our puppet making this week- they look great with moving arms, legs, tails and heads. The children have worked extremely hard and have enjoyed experimenting with different materials and ways of adding detail to their puppets. I am looking forward to seeing some theater performances using these in the near future.

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 weight, there is a worksheet attached in children’s homework folders working on ordering weights and answering questions based on children’s understanding of grams and kilograms.

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!

Artists at Onegino

English

This week we have been concentrating how to use a dictionary. We have explored what alphabetical order is and what definitions are. The children have organized words in alphabetical order and then had a go at writing their own definition for everyday things like an ‘apple’ or ‘snow’.

We have also looked a great deal at fiction and non-fiction books. We have identified the difference between the two and used all the features of a non-fiction book to locate and learn about different topics.

Phonics

This week we have been concentrating on the 'oi' sound. The children have matched pictures to their correct vocabulary and investigated 'oi' words around the classroom. They have been able to use their sound when writing and reading with fluency- Well done!

Maths

The children have started using multiplication in game activities. We have started with x2 x5 and x10. Great understanding so far, this will be reinforced throughout the year and we will be going into deeper depth soon.

In year 2, during our Maths sessions this week we have also been looking at how we write our numbers using sounds and the inverse of number sentences. We noticed that numbers can be added and subtracted in different ways.

          We know that ‘73 + 12 = 85’ is the same as ‘12 + 73 = 85’, we have also recognized that we can flip the number sentence around and use a ‘-‘… 85 – 73 therefore must be 12.

Topic

It has been an Art celebration this week. The children have taken part in a number of activities around the school. On Monday we moved classes and groups. Mr. Daniel in year 4 taught the children how to use symmetry to draw portraits of the teachers. Mr. Chris taught the children to make friendship bracelets and I helped the children to create masks. The results were brilliant and I loved the creative thinking behind some of the masks.

During the week we have also been making puppets. On Monday we read the book ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book?’ we identified all the characters and chose our favourite. From this the children then identified what clothing and extra features the characters had and planned how to make their own puppet to resemble them. I am very excited for the end results.

Homework

This week’s homework is to work on comprehension skills. Each child has been given a story or poem to read and questions to answer about the text. The story or poem given included phase 3 phonics which have been worked on in class and therefore the children should be familiar with most of the vocabulary. There are also spelling and books to keep them busy.

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!

Past tenses

English

This week we have been concentrating on past and present tense, using ‘+ed’ in our writing, actions and in our reading. The children have developed a great understanding for this and are growing in confidence when using the alternative verb as well as ‘ed’ as the suffix. Well done everyone!

Phonics

This week we have been concentrating on the '+ed' at the end of word. The children have matched pictures to their correct vocabulary, investigated '+ed' actions and acted these out in the classroom. They are using +ed with more fluency when reading and spelling.

Maths

We have been learning about ordinal language, using first, second, third etc. when to problem solving. The children have had to use their reading skills as well as their mathematical vocabulary to complete tasks.

Topic

This week the children have been developing their digital competence through writing about their favourite things. Thank you again for bringing in such interesting items, I have enjoyed hearing about them and why they are important to the children. We have learnt how to use ‘pic collage’ and the children have modified their text and pictures on a screen. We have all enjoyed this activity and please keep an eye out for your children’s work on display soon in the entrance to the classroom .  

The children have also been looking at a programming game- Kodable. They have shown a great interest in this and have enjoyed programming their ‘fuzzy kodable’ around a maze.

  

 

Homework

Thank you for letting children bring their 'Favourite things' to school, if they haven’t please do so as we would love to get their picture onto our display.

This week’s homework is set on using past tense. The children must identify the correct verb in its past tense and use this in sentences.

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

Start of a new term

Welcome Back!!!

I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas and New Year break.

English

The children have been pulling out all the stops and doing some amazing writing all about their holidays. I am impressed with how much progress they have all made this year. Some have wrote up to six pages and been able to check over their work, ensuring that their punctuation is correct along with adding detail and feelings. EXCELLENT!!!!!

Phonics

This week we have been concentrating on the 'le' sound at the end of words. The children have matched pictures to their correct vocabulary, investigated 'le' objects within the classroom and shown a use of 'le' within their reading and writing with confidence. Well done!

Maths

Although some of our Maths hasn't been the most interesting this week as we have been recapping on previous concepts and assessing our understanding we have had fun. The children have been looking at patterns within odd and even numbers, place value and revising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s (in preparation for multiplication and division).

Topic

Healthy Eating. We have diamond ranked our wants and needs and provided reasons as to why things are important or not important to use- great reasoning here! Moving on we have starting looking at healthy lifestyles and what we can do to ensure that we are healthy. We have looked at exercise and how this affects our bodies as well as the foods that we should eat. Next week we will be looking further into a balanced diet and investigating the sugar in our favourite drinks.

Homework

Thank you for letting children bring their 'Favourite things' to school next week- they have done some lovely oracy work on these and I am hoping we can write about these more next week. This week's homework is again spellings and a research task into a coming topic- The Frozen Planet. Have fun and thank you for your support with tasks and reading!