Happy New Year to you! We are excited to be back at school and start our new topic about the Royal Family. Here is an overview of our learning context this term:

In RE we will be learning about Revelations, Lent and Easter. Please look at the RE pages in the yellow home learning log. These will give you ideas on how you can support home learning in RE at home.

In maths we will be focusing on number, looking at money, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as ordering number and thinking about how much a number is worth e.g. 12 = 10 + 2.

In literacy we will be learning about fairytales and comparing common themes beteen different stories. We will be describing villains and innovating our own version of a well know fairytale.

In science we are focusing on what humans need to stay healthy and grow. We will be using our topic of the Royal Family to compare the lifestyles of people in different times and understand how lifestyles affect life expectancy.

In PE we are excitedly going to be learning a traditional court dance linked to our topic. We will be performing this dance at the ‘Queen’s birthday party’ at the end of term.

In ICT we are practising our typing and mouse skills. The more you are able to practice at home, the better! We know children are very confident at using tablets and Ipads, however they seem to lack confidence and skill at using a keyboard to type with and being able to use a mouse to navigate successfully on a computer.

French and music will be continued to be taught by subject specialists alongside ‘Listen to me’ where Hampshire County Council have provided a music teacher to teach tuned percussion to Year 2 over the Spring term.

In history and geography we will be focusing on our Royal Family topic, looking at Royalty in Britain throughout history as well as looking at where they lived and their castles and palaces. We will be comparing ways of life at different times, of different Monarchs, and what changed over time. We will look at the people of those times and find out about their quality of life. We will be celebrating British values through watching the Queen’s speeches and learning how she promotes justice and freedom.

During art lessons, we will be exploring a variety of techniques and materials to create different portraits of Monarchs.

PDL will include learning about how to play an active role as citizens and living in a democracy and having the right to vote.

As usual, the children will have a Bloom’s Taxonomy from which they can select different home learning activities to steer their own project. We would like to remind you that it is not necessary to complete all tasks and you are able to be creative and imaginative by thinking up tasks of your own.

Thank you to everyone for our lovely cards and gifts.

We hope you enjoy opening your special presents from the children.

Have a lovely (well-earned) break Year Two!

We look forward to seeing you all, rested and refreshed, in the New Year!

If you choose to continue your home learning projects over the Christmas Break

(apart from assembling new toys and writing thank you cards of course!)

then we suggest you start researching and finding out about the Royal Family.

Perhaps you could watch the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day…

Have a wonderful Christmas.

From all of the Year Two team.

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to our Ukulele Concert today.

We hope you enjoyed it.

We have uploaded some pictures,

just in case you weren’t able to get there

We are so proud of all that we have learnt this half term.

Merry Christmas!

12.12.14

Literacy: I could write instructions telling someone how to wrap a present. Don’t forget your time words!

Numeracy: I could make a Christmas decoration using interesting shapes.

RE: I could think about peace and how I could help bring peace to others. I could also write a prayer about love to share in collective worship next week.

Phonics

Miss Smillie: Spell contraction words e.g. It’s, I’ve, let’s, we’ve, couldn’t, didn’t etc. How many can you use in 1 sentence?

Miss Stinton: Listen to all the sounds in a word when I sound it out e.g. chestnut, sleigh, Christmas

Miss Hele & Mrs Wickes: Practice spelling Christmassy words e.g. chestnut, cracker, Rudolf, Christmas, jingle bell, roast, stocking.

Bug Club, Abacus, My Maths

Literacy: I could write a description of my favourite fairy tale character using adverbs, adjectives and noun phrases.

Numeracy: I could find different shapes around my house and practice using a numberline to add and subtract.

RE: I could make an Advent wreath or find out more about Prophets.

Phonics

Miss Smillie: Practice spelling: suddenly, cried, because, clothes, mother, feet, It’s, which.

Miss Stinton: Practice reading and spelling words with the split digraph ‘o_e’ e.g. whole, explode, alone, close

Miss Hele/Mrs Wickes: Practice spelling: like, some, what, have, there, their, who.

Bug Club, Abacus, My Maths

Literacy: I could start an Advent diary at home to keep track of my preparations for the coming of Jesus.

Numeracy: I could practice using a ruler to measure and draw lines and shapes.

RE: I could use real leaves and holly to make an Advent wreath. I could think about each of the candles in the wreath and what they represent.

Phonics

Miss Smillie: Spell words with the prefix un- e.g. unsatisfied, unhappy, unimpressed, unfortunately

Miss Stinton: Sound detective- look for words with the split digraph i_e in e.g. slide, glide, tribe.

Miss Hele: Different spellings of the ‘oa’ sound e.g. o_e, oe, ow, o, oa

Mrs Wickes: Different spellings of the ‘oo’ sound e.g. ew, oo, ue, u_e

Bug Club, Abacus, My Maths

We have been learning how to play the ukulele

and we would love to show you how well we have done and what we have learnt!

We would like to invite you to our Elephant Class Ukulele concert on

Monday 15^th December at 11am.

We hope you can come to it!

This week we learnt so much about how to prevent bullying.

On Wednesday we had a special visitor come to visit us in assembly to teach us all about Hearing Dogs. We felt really strongly that we should help raise money to train more hearing dogs. We learnt the fact that only 150 dogs are trained each year but there are over 800,000 people in the UK that could benefit from one.

We will be collecting used stamps at school to help raise money for this charity. Please send in used stamps with at least a 0.5cm border around them of envelope.

We also had a visit from a guide dog on Thursday.

This week we have been so inspired to be more considerate, more understanding and more helpful to those around us. We hope you notice this at home!

Literacy: I could write a diary, pretending to be my pet or an animal. I could write all about what I do all day!

Numeracy: I could collect some data about what we eat at home and make a pictogram.

RE: I could start thinking about Advent and how we prepare for the birth of Jesus.

Phonics

Miss Smillie: Practice spelling: away, did, or, who, can’t, new, our, take, more, shouted.

Miss Stinton: Collect words with the /ey/ sound, the /oe/sound and the /au/ sound (e.g. donkey, autumn, goes).

Mrs Wickes/ Miss Hele: Practice spelling: could, put, old, too, by, I’m, called, here, asked

Bug Club, Abacus, My Maths

THIS WEEK IS ANTI-BULLYING WEEK!!!

We are excited to have special guest visitors holding assemblies this week to help us learn more about how we can stay safe, appreciate others and love how special and different we are! Mrs D is holding an anti-bullying competition in the library and we will be looking at what we can do to fight against bullying in our school and community.

Perhaps you might like to design a poster, write a short story or poem about anti-bullying and bring it in to share?

Our other Year 2 home learning this week is:

Abacus

My Maths

Bug Club

Miss Smillie:

Write sentences that use the days of the week! Please practice spelling each day and writing them in sentences. Remember, they always have a capital letter and watch out for the tricky spellings!

Miss Stinton:

Practice spelling: said, what, why, when, he, she, with

Mrs Wickes and Miss Hele:

Write words that use the /oa/ sound e.g. boat, coat, sew, so, doughnuts, smoke, potatoes, slow

Next week we will be learning about:

In numeracy we will be looking at pictograms.

You could perhaps create your own pictogram at home of which mode of transport you use to travel anywhere next week. e.g. 8 times in a car, 3 times walking, twice cycling etc.

In literacy we will be focusing on anti-bullying and how everyone is special and different.

In RE will be learning about Ramadan and the special ways Muslims prepare for this time of the year.