What a brilliant end to a brilliant half of term! The children wow-ed everyone with their confidence and acting skills in the class assembly. There is a lovely article about the assembly in the ‘News and Events’ section of the blog if you want to read about it.

DT day also fell this week and so the children were set the challenge of creating a bridge. The bridge had to be strong, steady and stable. The children demonstrated amazing teamwork and an ability to try, try, try again, until their bridge was completed. This was an important lesson in experimentation!

In RE, we all said the Lord’s Prayer together and discussed the different words we had learnt within this prayer over the half term. We then thought about how else Christians might pray. We then prayed individually and compared how it felt when we prayed altogether and how it felt when we prayed alone. We decided both had a time and a place.

In Maths we have wrapped up division and moved onto shape. The shapes we have been looking at have been; square, rectangle, circle, hexagon, pentagon and triangle. Some of us also looked at right angle triangles and irregular pentagons. We counted the sides and decided whether the shapes had a vertical or a horizontal line of symmetry.

In English, we have been changing adjectives into the superlative and comparative forms. We had to remember to remove the ‘y’ and add an ‘I’ in some cases and also that some words just do not work (beautiful and delicious)!

In Art we finished our beautiful big cats crawling through a rainforest just in time for the assembly. These should have made their way home to you.

I hope everybody has a lovely, restful half term.

See you on the other side!

Miss Hall

This is a  useful article about comprehension and reading if interested: https://www.ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/reading-overview-for-website.pdf

In Hoberman this week we have been particularly busy squeezing in our class assembly practice around all our other learning. The children are doing a brilliant job at remembering their lines and cues. The song lyrics should have made their way home over the last few days and if the children could possibly practice these over the weekend that would be brilliant. For the ‘On my Way’ song, if you google ‘Makaton on my way’ you will find the video, so the children can sing along and do the actions. You should – hopefully – have also received a short letter with information regarding your child’s costume. It is very simple and straight forward. Black and white cats – in black and white (!), ginger cats in orange/brown and rats in black/grey. The children will know whether they are a cat or a rat and what colour they are! Thank you for all your support as ever, we are really looking forward to Thursday morning and taking to the stage…

In English, we started a new book called Mama Panya’s pancakes which is a fun story about a little boy who can’t help but invite everyone he meets for pancakes. The children did a lot of thinking about how his mother might have been feeling at each point in the story and the lucky characters being invited. The children were practicing answering in full sentences, using full stops, capital letters and the contractions which we looked at last week. We learnt that ‘pancake’ is something called a compound noun, which is two nouns sewn together to make a new word. We finished the week looking at spelling the superlative form of an adjective and the spelling rules that help us.

In Maths, we have stormed into division, counters everywhere! The children have done very well at remembering the importance of equal groups and chanting the stem sentences.

‘There are ____ altogether. There are ____ groups. There are _____ in each group.’

We finished the week by putting these calculations into word problems to secure our understanding of them in context.

In art, the children had a think about big cats and which big cat they wanted to draw and paint creeping through their Rousseau-inspired rainforest scene. The children all drew a very different animal in a very different way and demonstrating real imagination. We look forward to sharing these with you after the class assembly.

In Science, the children were looking at wood and how this hard, brown material can really be where paper comes from! The children designed their own comic strip of paper in the making, to illustrate each process.

As part of Coding Week, the children learnt some big words – ‘algorithm’ and ‘debugging’! we created an algorithm to instruct somebody to be able to sing ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ (which we sang about 100 times…). The children sorted picture cards of each body part into the correct order and then wrote each step – like an algorithm. Some of us then added ‘repeat’ as an instruction to develop our algorithm.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Hall

What a great week we’ve had in Year 2! The class are doing amazingly with their assembly practise. It would be great if we could have a massive push on line learning over the weekend. I have attached the lines along with the homework incase some have already gone walkabout – the children should know who/what they are!

In English, we read the alternative version of Cinderella entitled, ‘Seriously, Cinderella is So Annoying’ and acted it out in groups. We then moved onto comparing the classical version and alternative version of the story. In the alternative version, the class decided that the stepmother is kinder and Cindy loves to tell stories. Because of this, it turned out that the stepsisters and stepmother lived happily ever after when Cindy married the prince. Following this, the class wrote a letter to the prince to persuade him that he was making the wrong decision. We finished the week by reading an example of our final write, which we will plan and write next week. The class had to unpick all of the adjectives, conjunctions, contractions, suffixes and punctuation within the text.

This week in Maths, we finished working with coins. The children have done very well to be able to identify the different coins, order them from greatest to largest and even find the difference in cost between two objects. Today we started to look at multiplication, however, we are starting by creating equal groups.

In partners, we were creating groups of 2, 5 and 10 and adding equal amounts of spots to each group. We did a lot of chanting the below to help us understand the concept of grouping to support us as we start to tackle multiplication next week.

There are ___ equal groups with ___ in each group.

In Humanities, we have been exploring all of the different animals in Kenya and placing them on our very own safari map.

In R.E, we have been discussing what the section “Forgive us our sins / trespasses, as we forgive those who sin / trespass against us” means and how we can show forgiveness. The class designed their own crosses and discussed what the horizontal and vertical part of the cross represents.

In Science, we have been discussing and experimenting with how some materials can change shape by squashing, bending, stretching and twisting them but others can’t.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Miss Hall

First full week down and the children have already produced a beautiful, long piece of writing in English. The children stepped into the glass slippers of Cinderella for yesterday’s lesson and wrote a diary entry of the remarkable appearance of her fairy godmother. The children used words with the –ful and –less suffixes and some even attempted to use the possessive apostrophe. The children did a great job of using the past tense consistently, another grammatical focus of the week. The children are still taking a lot of care over their handwriting and there have been crowns circulating for hard work and beautiful handwriting.

In Maths, we have been adding pounds and pence in order to find the total in written calculations and word problems. Following this, we have been finding the change when paying for something in written calculations and word problems. We have been trying to get to grips with the concept of change and using subtraction to find the right answer. Any opportunities you have over the weekend involving buying,  please do involve the children. Any  counting of coins and calculating change would be of great support. We discussed strategies of the number line and the tens and ones frame to calculate the trickier ones.

In Humanities, we recapped our knowledge of where the seven continents are on a world map. Following this, we talked about the weather and climate in Kenya and thought about what we would pack to go on a Kenyan safari and why.

In Science, we thought about which materials are man-made and which come from the natural world. This lead to a discussion around the importance of recycling plastic.

In R.E, we have been identifying the sentence in The Lord’s Prayer ‘Give us today our daily bread’ and understanding trust in the prayer. We also discussed the difference between what we need to live and what we want. We finished with a discussion around why we don’t always get what we want and why that helps us to be better people.

We have been learning the Makaton to ‘On my Way’ in preparation for the class assembly. It is a while away but the children are always on board for a happy song and are doing a great job at learning the signing.

Have a great weekend.

Miss Hall​

We’ve had a brilliant week in Year 2 wrapped up with a very happy all singing, all dancing Friday! The children have now getting much more confident with the class assembly. Some brilliant acting being done!

In English this week, the class planned and wrote their own, wonderfully detailed stories based on, ‘Seriously, Cinderella is So Annoying’. They then did some work on editing, carefully rereading their work and thinking about any improvements that could be made. They looked at their spelling, handwriting, punctuation and vocabulary. We have also been practising reading and spelling contracted forms of words. Next week, we will read a book set in Kenya which ties in nicely with our Geography work on this African country.​

In Maths, we have been working on multiplying in 2s, 5s and 10s. The children have been using arrays to find the correct answer. Today they were drawing their own arrays to represent a multiplication sentence.

In Humanities, we have been using a compass to help navigate around a safari map that the children designed. In Science, we have been identifying the suitability of metal and plastic for a variety of purposes.

In R.E, we have been looking at how Christians believe the Lord’s Prayer helps them with “What Would Jesus Do”. We discussed how Jesus teaches us that it is important to ask for God’s help in overcoming temptation and protection from evil.

In Art, we have been looking at Henri Rousseau. We enjoying trying to spot the animal hiding in his beautiful wild, green scenes. We used watercolours to make our own grassy frame for a picture based on his tiger in a rainforest. Next week we will be completing these, drawing and painting our own animal to hide amongst our watercolour grass.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Miss Hall

Happy New Year!

Thank you all for the many cards and gifts that I was kindly given at the end of term.

Hoberman Class have started 2020 fantastically. We have jumped straight into our learning and lots of it…

In English, after recounting our Christmas holidays, we moved onto Cinderella. We have really enjoyed reading this familiar story and thinking about how each character is feeling at each point in the story. We accompanied this with some more straight forward comprehension to ensure we really thoroughly understood what is happening at each point in the story.

In Maths, we have been doing money. We had some discussion around how money cannot buy you happiness – lots of the children told us about special people in their lives which was really lovely! The children have been counting coins to make amounts. We have been adding pence and pounds, taking care to add the pence and pounds separately, as well as using coins to find different ways to make given amounts. For example, I could make 48p using two 20 pence pieces, one 5 pence piece and three 1 pence pieces. If you have pennies that need counting or have any change that the children could count then that would be a great supporting activity!

In RE we thought about the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. Lots of us knew the words and could say them confidently but did not know the meanings. So we have started from the top with some discussion around why we call God ‘Father’.

In Science, we have started our materials and their properties topic. The children were using their senses to identify the properties of a range of materials.

We have started our new Humanities topic, ‘Let’s Go on Safari to Kenya’. The children have identified the seven continents of the world as well as the seas and oceans. All the children can locate the continent of Africa on a map and find the country Kenya.

We finished the week with an art lesson looking at Adrian Berg who painted beautiful landscapes of parks and Kew Gardens. Using paint and oil pastels we created a winter scene reflected in water. We then read a story called ‘The Whisperer’ which might be the inspiration for our class assembly. It went down a storm with the children.

To keep up the beautiful handwriting please encourage them in their homework books to sing the ‘handwriting song’ before they begin to make sure they are set up for success!

Happy weekends all round!

Miss Hall

spring 1 week 1

Happy Christmas holidays everybody!

Hoberman class have covered a huge amount of learning this term and have done incredibly well to work hard right up until the end. Besides their hard work, their enthusiasm and kindness have made for a really great first term at St Stephens.

Father Christmas received a flood of beautiful cards from Hoberman class this week. The children did a fantastic job of remembering how to layout a letter and wrote some very thoughtful letters with much more than just a list of requests! Lots of adjectives were used to ensure that Father Christmas doesn’t buy the wrong thing!

In Maths we have been revisiting and revising those tricky addition and subtraction calculations disguised as ‘fun’ word problems.

In Science we have, quite ironically for this time of year, been thinking about what makes a healthy diet and the importance of exercise. The children designed their own meals creating some unusual yet balanced combinations…

We made Christingles in RE reminding ourselves of the meaning of each part as we added them to our orange.

Today we finished the day, Christmas songs on repeat, making our small Christmas gifts of festive baubles which just need the parts sticking on at home.

Finally, a huge thank you for all the kind messages and well wishes that I received today and this week. Such a lovely send off into Christmas.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas with your friends and families.

See you in the New Year!

Best wishes

Miss Hall

We’ve had such an amazing week in Year 2. The highlight of course being the brilliant Nativity. All of the children did so well to remember lines, songs and dance moves and worked so well together making it such a great performance. Miss Whiting was blown away by the childrens energetic dancing and beautiful voices. We hope you enjoyed every moment as much as we did. It was so lovely to see lots of smiling faces in the audience along with the huge cheers you gave the children. Thanks so much for being so supportive. I know it made the children feel extremely special.

It has been a fun filled week in Hoberman. Around our learning we have been working really hard to perfect the Nativity. Our voices have got stronger and louder and our dancing even more beautiful! We are almost ready for the big performance and cannot wait to show you!

In English we have been looking at lots of different of poems, all with one thing in common – sounds. We learnt a very very long word – ‘onomatopoeia’! We have been collecting onomatopoeic words and gathering them into our ‘sound bag’ we will then use this next week to create our own poem in the style of Roger McGough in his poem ‘The Sound Collector’. Next week the ‘Sound Collector’ will visit St Stephens and will we compose a poem about what sounds he might collect from all corners of the school…

After a triumphant final lesson in subtracting two digit numbers which was very tricky (but all the more satisfying once we had cracked it) we have moved back to one digit numbers. This time we are subtracting three of them. We have also been adding three of them. We have developed different strategies to help us including beads in a table, the number line or even just our fingers.

In RE we looked at Christingles and thought about what each part could represent. We then drew and labelled one which we will be making before the end of term. We ended the lesson by reflecting on what we might want to add to our Christingle and why. We thought about adding a heart to represent the love of God or a crucifix to remind us that Jesus died for us.

A couple of things to note regarding DT day next Thursday. In preparation, the children can plan their small Nativity set as part of their homework. The children need to think about what resources they could find at home and at school which they could use to create a Nativity scene (in one day). The children may do a labelled drawing of their plan on the paper given to them. Find sheet attached along with the homework to the website. In addition, if you have any shoeboxes lying around at home please may you send them in with the children on Monday. Thank you to those parents who have already done so.

Have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing (most of) you next week.

Miss Hall