4th - 8th September 2023

Welcome back! What a lovely first week we have had together. The children have settled really well into Year 2 and we can’t wait for the year ahead!

Highlights of the week:

We have enjoyed looking into the main character of ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker in English this week. Before reading the story, we have been using clues from an illustration alongside our imaginations to share our thoughts about the character and what the story might be about. Using questioning, freeze frames and hot seating, we have stimulated a wide range of ideas the story may entail. We have been looking at punctuation and the use of a question mark. This has been a fun way to begin our learning journey.

Place value has been our focus unit in Maths this week. We have been exploring this to ensure a secure understanding of place value with ‘tens and ones’ to 50. We have completed a variety of activities to help us learn different ways to represent numbers. This included writing numbers in words and numerals and representing them using a range of different mathematical resources such as dienes and multilink.

This week in Phonics we looked at /ue/ in both alternative sounds, as in blue and rescue. We have also looked at the phonemes /ce/, /ci/ and /cy/ to recap the reading and spelling rule of the soft c. The children have shown great confidence in continuing to use our phonic scheme during phonic lessons and to support their independent writing using the Alphabetic Code to support them when they need it.

In Science we have been introduced to the longitudinal study of plants with the main focus question of ‘What do plants need to grow and thrive?’ This is a project which we will continue to revisit throughout the year. We have explored and identified the plants and trees we have in our school environment and made some observational drawings of these, ready for us to compare them later on in the year.

In our wider curriculum subjects this week we have been recapping our geographical knowledge from year 1 of maps in Geography including creating and using our own maps of our school! In Music we have been learning the song ‘Hands, feet, heart’. We have been focusing on ‘Being me’ for our Jigsaw PSHE lessons this week exploring our rights and responsibilities both inside and outside of school. E-safety has been our focus for Computing thinking about the importance of privacy and the oversharing of our information online. Alongside the notion of illustrations as a stimulus for our writing, we have been focusing on them in our artwork. We have been looking at different illustrations and discussing what we like and dislike about them.

Home learning:

● Please ensure you are reading with your child at home as this will support them with both their reading and writing in school.
● Please support your child to access Numbots online. It is recommended that children play Numbots for 10 minutes a day for maximum impact.
● Your child will arrive home with their Phonics folders. Please support your child with recapping their learning to ensure a secure understanding.

Our PE days are Mondays and Thursdays. Please ensure your child has their PE kit which is labelled with their full name. Thank you. See you next week!