Good morning everybody

I hope you had a lovely weekend.

PE

Let’s kick start the new week with Joe Wicks’ exercise video:

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1/featured

If you do not enjoy this kind of exercise, that’s absolutely fine, just get your body moving in whichever way works for you – this could be stretching, skipping or even dancing! Put on your favourite song and off you go!

English

Firstly, re-read ‘Gorilla’ by Anthony Browne: English – Gorilla by Anthony Browne. This is your last chance to ‘magpie’ some ideas/words! Next, look carefully at your plan and (if you can) put it right in front of you, so you can look at it as you are writing. Think about the details you could add to describe the scene and characters and make the story really exciting!

Now you are ready to start writing your own ‘Gorilla’! Make sure you have a clear beginning where you explain who the main character is. The middle of the story should be when something extraordinary happens and finally an ending. Here is the worksheet: Monday 30th March English

If you want to, there is an activity in Busy Things under Monday where you can draw a scene from your story.

Maths

This week we are starting statistics. Please watch the presentation called ‘Statistics’. You will find this in JIT. Once open select ‘File’ then open with Powerpoint.

Once open in powerpoint, select ‘Slide Show’ on the menu at the top followed by ‘Play from Beginning’ to the top left, you can watch the presentation together. Click to move on. On each slide discuss what you can see and ask questions to ensure your child understands before moving on at each step. Complete the sheet: Monday 30th March – statistics bedtime

Music

You might recognise this song! Listen first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6WeVBHtL9o

Then have a go at singing along. Can you make up actions for some of the words? Perhaps, you could find an audience to perform to?

I would certainly love to see your performances if you want to record yourself and send it over.

Have a happy, healthy day Hoberman.

Miss Hall

Happy Friday Year 2!

In true Friday style, here is a video of me reading out your spelling test. Please pause after each spelling if I’m going too fast:

https://youtu.be/ZeviZZL0tWI

After your spelling test, you can move onto your times tables test:

https://youtu.be/JTKAIp9rUfM

Here’s a list of the everyday activities we’ve been doing so far that you can keep on using if you’re enjoying them:

The 9am P.E lesson with Joe Wicks:

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1/featured

If you miss that then please follow the link below for some yoga:

https://youtu.be/coC0eUSm-pc

If you’re fancying a bit of a workout after lunch Darcey Bussell’s school fitness program DDMIX is doing live 10 min fitness class at 1.30pm:

https://www.facebook.com/779480452138702/posts/2889580397795353/

If you want to listen to a story today David Walliams is doing an audio reading of one of his books:

https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/elevenses/

To help with reading please look at the website below:

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/library-page?view=image&query=&type=book&age_group=&level=oxford+level+3&level_select=oxford+level+3&book_type=&series=#

You need to register but once you have there are lots of books available, free of charge.

For English today I would like you to plan a story based on ‘Gorilla’ and then on Monday you are going to create your very own version of the story. You need to think of a main character and a toy that comes to life. Then you must think of three places that they could visit. It would be a great idea to re-read the book for inspiration which you can find on JIT.

Here’s a PDF link to the sheet:

Friday 27th March English

The sheet is also on JIT titled ‘Friday 27th March English’. Please follow the link in my previous blog if you are having trouble finding the file. Use all of the work that you have done so far to help you with your plan.

For Maths today I have set some work on solving problems involving time. When you’ve completed the sheet, create your own mathematical questions involving time.

Here is the PDF link to the sheet:

Friday 27th March Maths

It is on JIT titled ‘Friday 27th March Maths’.

Please go to the pin ‘Friday’ on Busy Things where you will see a few activities that the class can complete:

Maths:

Super-tall structures

English:

Read the caption

For Art today I would like the class to create their very own dinosaur. Here’s a Gregosaurus for some inspiration:

https://youtu.be/bhyCxVPb1qU

For Drama I would like the class to complete the following drama game called ‘This is not a…’. Parents, I know you’ll be extremely eager to join in with this one as well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIDqU3x93ww

Following this, I would like you to turn your plan from English into a live action scene. Think about who’s going to play what character. Maybe you could even create some costumes.

For the Easter holidays, we will be setting you a Humanities project where you will be making a book or a poster based on one of the follow: Romans and Celts, Castles and Knights, The Tudors or The Victorians.

This week I would like you to choose which historical topic you want to base your project on and find out five interesting facts.

Much love,

Miss Hall

Good morning Year 2!

I hope you had a brilliant day yesterday.

Here’s a list of the everyday activities we’ve been doing so far that you can keep on using if you’re enjoying them:

The 9am P.E lesson with Joe Wicks:

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1/featured

If you miss that then please follow the link below for some yoga:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnlDBKD2S78

If you’re fancying a bit of a workout after lunch Darcey Bussell’s school fitness program DDMIX is doing live 10 min fitness class at 1.30pm:

https://www.facebook.com/779480452138702/posts/2889580397795353/

If you want to listen to a story today David Walliams is doing an audio reading of one of his books:

https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/elevenses/

For English today I would like you to use apostrophes to show possession. Try to include adjectives in your sentences. I’ve put an example on the sheet to help out.

Here’s a PDF link to the sheet:

Thursday 26th March English

The sheet is also on JIT titled ‘Thursday 26th March English’. Please follow the link in my previous blog if you are having trouble finding the file. You will also be receiving it via whatsapp.

Here’s a power point to help with this learning along with some extra tasks:

Apostrophes for possession

Here’s a video clip to support this learning:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zvwwxnb/articles/zx9ydxs

For Maths today I have set some work on comparing and sequencing intervals of time and remembering the number of minutes in an hour and the number of hours in a day. The times in blue next to the blank table are the times that you have to order from shortest to longest.

Here is the PDF link to the sheet:

Thursday 26th March Maths

It is on JIT titled ‘Thursday 26th March Maths’ and you will be receiving it via whatsapp.

Please go to the pin ‘Thursday’ on Busy Things where you will see a few activities that the class can complete:

Maths:

Numerical order: numbers and words below 99

English:

Common word makeovers

Science:

Please read through the activity ‘Plant life cycle’ on Busy Things and then create your own plant life cycle offline. Use the Busy Things template to help you along with this powerpoint:

The life cycle of a plant

Another offline activity:

Following on with our Science afternoon, I would like you to become an inventor and create your very own product. It could be a drink, an ice cream or maybe even a chocolate bar. You could design the packaging, flavours, title and slogan. The world is your oyster! Be as creative as you like. I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with.

Here’s to a very inventive Thursday!

Much love,

Miss Hall

Happy Wednesday Year 2 Hoberman!

I’m sending you a big hug through my computer screen.

Here’s a list of the everyday activities we’ve been doing so far that you can keep on using if you’re enjoying them:

The 9am P.E lesson with Joe Wicks:

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1/featured

If you miss that then please follow the link in my previous blog for some yoga.

If you’re fancying a bit of a workout after lunch Darcey Bussell’s school fitness program DDMIX is doing live 10 min fitness class at 1.30pm:

https://www.facebook.com/779480452138702/posts/2889580397795353/

If you want to listen to a story today David Walliams is doing an audio reading of one of his books:

https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/elevenses/

For English today I would like you to use commas in a list. It would really help if you read through the book ‘Gorilla’ for inspiration which you will find in JIT titled ‘Gorilla by Anthony Browne book’. Here’s a PDF link to the sheet:

Wednesday 25th March English

The sheet is also on JIT titled ‘Wednesday 25th March English’. Please follow the link in my previous blog if you are having trouble finding the file. You will also be receiving it via whatsapp.

Here’s a link with a video and activity to help with how commas are used in a list:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z8x6cj6/articles/zxvcrdm

For Maths today I have set some work on how to tell and write the time on a clock to five minute intervals. 

Here is the PDF link to the sheet:

Wednesday 25th March Maths

It is on JIT titled ‘Wednesday 25th March Maths’ and you will be receiving it via whatsapp.

Here are some video clips to support this learning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6RNkQ7lU8Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W47g3FMFKJU

Please go to the pin ‘Wednesday’ on Busy Things where you will see a few activities that the class can complete:

Maths:

Numerical order: written two-digit numbers

English:

Homophone magic

R.E

Easter story in brief

You can choose to do this on Busy Things or below I have attached a PDF of an offline R.E option along with a power point:

Wednesday 25th March – Easter story

The Easter Story

You will also receive this via whatsapp.

PSHE:

Hand washing activity and poster.

Offline activity: Design a poster on how to wash our hands. Maybe you could even put it above your sink.

Have a brilliant Wednesday.

Much love,

Miss Hall

Good morning to my amazing class!

I am missing your smiley faces already and am sending you a huge smile through my computer screen.

I know that there were some complications yesterday with JIT. I passed this on to Mr Faith and he explained that JIT has likely never had this amount of usage however, they have been working on strengthening their programme so this should be rectified as the week goes on. I know some of you were able to go back on in the afternoon and access the work which is great. Whilst they are working on this, I will upload any work from JIT onto the blog and am going to email Nick the word document which she will put in the WhatsApp group.

Feedback tells me that the class are really enjoying doing P.E first thing in the morning so I think we should make this a daily task.

Here’s the link to the 9am P.E lesson with Joe Wicks:

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1/featured

If you miss that then here is the link for some yoga:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Q6FKF12Qs

If you’re fancying a bit of a workout after lunch Darcey Bussell’s school fitness program DDMIX is doing live 10 min fitness class at 1.30pm:

https://www.facebook.com/779480452138702/posts/2889580397795353/

For English today I would like you to add the suffix -ly to the end of adjectives in order to make them adverbs. Here’s a PDF link to the sheet:

Tuesday 24th March English

The sheet is also on JIT titled ‘Tuesday 24th March English’. Please follow the link in my previous blog if you are having trouble finding the file. You will also be receiving it via whatsapp. If you are doing this activity on the computer please change the adverbs to red and the verbs to green. If you are doing this activity offline then underline the adverbs in red and the verbs in green.

Here’s a link with a video and activity that will help the class to identify a verb:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zrqqtfr/articles/zpxhdxs

Here’s a link to help with adjectives and adverbs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/ks1-english-adjectives-adverbs-with-johnny-inel/znfjbdm

For Maths today I have set some work on how to tell the time quarter to and past the hour.

Here is the PDF link to the sheet:

Tuesday 24th March Maths

It is on JIT titled ‘Tuesday 24th March Maths’ and you will be receiving it via whatsapp.

Here is a video clip and activity to support this learning:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zhk82hv/articles/zcmdwxs

As well as a song which I’m sure the children will love:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/ks1-maths-telling-the-time/zk4t8xs

Please go to the pin ‘Tuesday’ on Busy Things where you will see a few activities that the class can complete:

Maths:

Numerical order: numbers up to 99

English:

Phase 5 compound cutting

Computing

Helicopter rescue

Block-a-doodle-doo

Spanish:

Numbers 1-10 (Spanish)

Numbers 1-19 recall (Spanish

The offline activity of the day is… design your own clock! Think about what numbers are on the clock, which hand is the shortest and which hand is the longest.

Heres a website with some great ideas to give you some inspiration:

9 CREATIVE DIY CLOCKS TO HELP KIDS TELL TIME

Please feel free to send me photos of any activities the children have done. I loved receiving emails and looking at everyones work yesterday.

Much love,

Miss Hall

Good morning sunshines!

I hope you’ve all had a brilliant weekend!

Here are some activities/work you could do today:

9am – A P.E lesson with Joe Wicks. He is streaming this live Monday-Friday at 9am. A really good way to get our bodies moving when we wake up.

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1/featured

If you miss this then you can do some yoga to get the day started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JI01thiHYI

After that you’ve got some English and Maths that you could to do.

To access the work please watch the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEI6VjAgwfs&feature=youtu.be

Here’s written instructions of how to access the learning:

• Copy the address: https://my.uso.im/ into your web browser
• From there click on the red icon uso login
• Enter the username and password that your child received from school
• That will take you to a website page with lots of different icons
• Click on the first one that says JIT
• From there, click on my files
• Then click on shared files.
• Click on Hoberman

You will see four different icons.

• Monday 23^rd March Maths
• Gorilla by Anthony Browne book
• Monday 23^rd March English
• Monday 23^rd March English 2

There is also other options that you could work on.

• If you go back to the page where you clicked on the JIT icon
• Instead of clicking JIT, click on Busy Things
• After that, click on Key Stage 1 – Year 2

At the top of your page you will see pins titled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Please click the day that it is and find work that has been set in there.

Please have lots of breaks in between any screen work that you are doing. Maybe even do one of the lessons offline to have a break from the screen.

Here’s a music lesson to do at some point during the day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1TrUZK8SUY

This will be where the children find their work each day this week. Any question please don’t hesitate to email me.

Have a brilliant Monday! I can’t wait to see your amazing work!

Miss Hall

What a very surreal week it has been! It has been very sad to say goodbye to the children quite gradually and then very quickly over the last couple of weeks. The children have been amazing, as ever, at being positive and enthusiastic throughout. We hope to provide a steady, consistent stream of learning each day and week for the children. Whilst there is no pressure to do everything, we wanted to provide enough to keep you busy and offer structure to the children’s learning journey. The homework for this week is saved below. This can be done in the purple book if your child was here to receive one, or any workbook/notebook you have.

Of course, this is new to us all, so please let me know if you have any issues. Miss Whiting will be putting a video up on the blog showing you how to access the work that is set on Monday morning.

The first thing you will need, will be the ‘My USO’ login which you should have received, either as a letter or an email. This will show you a screen with JIT and ‘Busy Things’ at the top. English, Maths and the Foundation subjects will be on JIT. There will also be daily activities ‘pinned’ to the top of Busy Things. We will put some very clear instructions up on the blog as to how to access everything, besides the video. As ever, we are only an email away… Hopefully in time this will become familiar and a simple routine!

Besides online activities, there will always be an ‘offline’ option which we will also post on the blog.

It has been an absolute pleasure teaching Hoberman class, and I am just sad that it has been cut short. Even though it has only been 6 months we have done a lot of singing, dancing, learning and laughing. so I’ll just count myself lucky to have had them been with them as long as I have. What a wonderful start to St Stephens they, and you all, have given me with all your support and kindness.

Everything crossed that I’ll see you all in the Summer. Until then I’ll be checking in online on Monday as we kick start this virtual learning journey together.

Much love,

Miss Hall

Dear parents,

If you and your family are self-isolating at this time, here are some links that you can follow to some educational games and activities.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/levels/z3g4d2p

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/index.html

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ParentsMenu.htm

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zgssgk7/articles/z28dpbk

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/history/general-history/florence-nightingale/

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resources

If you would like to do any independent work following up on things we have learnt in class (write a story, make a poster, do some research about the countryside for our Humanities topic), that is great and you can bring them in to share when you’re back again. These activities are not compulsory and obviously you need not do them if you are feeling ill.

Hopefully things will be back to normal soon but, if we are forced to close the school, we will be posting a more comprehensive educational program and providing all children with their USO logins so that they can access more specific activities set by their teachers.

Thank you for your continued support.

Miss Hall

Year 2 enjoyed a fun and sunny day in Gunnersbury Park on Wednesday as part of their History topic on Florence Nightingale. Besides, playing in Gunnersbury Park, the children were able to meet Florence herself (!) and learn about her fascinating life, as told by her. Every single child had their part to play in the story, from being a member of her family to one of her hard working nurses! The gruesome stories and historic props really bought the topic to life for Year 2.

This week in English, we started the week by identifying different types of sentences. Following this, the children have planned and written information texts all about bees. They thought of a title for the text and organised the information into different sections with question subheadings. They wrote about how bees make honey, how beekeepers collect honey and where bees live. Some children also added a glossary to their work. To finish the week, we recapped the difference between the homophones their, there and they’re. Next week we will be moving onto a new unit ‘Gorilla’ by Anthony Browne.

In Maths, we have been looking at fractions. We have been find one half, one quarter and one third of a number. This has proved really tricky so any conversation around fractions would be really helpful. The children were confident with shading a half or a quarter of a shape but found it much trickier to find a quarter of a whole number (one quarter of 12 would be 3 because 12 divided by 4 is 3).

In R.E, we have been discussing what a Saint is. Following this, we identified the Saint of our school (St Stephen). We also discussed how Saints always have a halo around their head and the important lessons we can learn from St Stephen.

In Science, we discussed how plants can be grown from bulbs such as crocus, garlic and hyacinth.

Thank you so much for coming to see our brilliant work in the Arts cafe. The class absolutely loved Arts week and were so happy that they could showcase some of their work to you.

Have a great weekend.

Miss Hall

What a wonderful Arts Week we have had! It has been jam packed full of wonderful activities. We have had a story telling session, a fantastic drama session, watched a marvellous performance of Treasure Island, created our very own puppet show and finished the week creating a Mandala. All of this besides creating some fabulous artworks, some of which will be presented in the Arts Cafe.

The 8^th March is International Women’s Day which we celebrated last year to great success. This a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. This week, we would like you to research and create a poster/fact file/presentation about a female author or journalist.

Consider:

• Where they were born
• Age
• How many pieces they have written
• What is your favourite piece by them and why
• What you enjoy about their work
• Where can you find their work
• Don’t forget to include a picture of your author

We look forward to seeing your fantastic ideas and learning more about the impact of female authors. ​

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Miss Hall

We’ve had a full-on and fun first week back after half term. It’s so lovely to see the children excited to be back and to see all their friends.

A few things I wanted to share, if the children are really struggling with the homework-load, do come and see me. I definitely do not want homework to be a cause of stress or drama at home! Also, next week is Arts Week. We have so much creative fun planned. The children will still need to come in in their PE kits on Monday, however, they do not need to be in their PE kits Thursday morning.

In English, Year 2 wrote a wonderful recount telling me all about their half term. It sounds like everyone had a very exciting half term. Following this, we started our new English unit, which is based on information texts. In English, we have been looking at an information text about bees and answering questions. We had to really make sure that our answers came from the text not from our heads – it seems some of us already knew a lot.

In Maths we have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We have been counting faces, vertices and edges of 3D shapes and sides and corners of 2D shapes.

In Geography we read the amazing story of Florence Knightingale. We learnt about how she followed her dream of becoming a nurse, against her parents’ wishes. We then discussed what we all wanted to be when we grew up.

In Science, we have been discussing how different seeds grow into different plants and filling in the what, where and how on a seed packet.

In PSHE, we received a postcard from ‘Harold’ the giraffe, which the children were very excited about. He is on holiday and telling us about how he is keeping safe and healthy. We discussed the importance of good handwashing. We have also been discussing situations in which we would need to say ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘I’ll ask’, or ‘I’ll tell’ in relation to keeping ourselves and others safe. Lastly, we did activities to get the heart rate up. Then we laid down and listened to our hearts and breathing as they slowed. We talked about what was happening in our bodies and why exercise is important.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Miss Hall

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