Hoberman Class have had a busy week. The children are really getting into the swing of things and have already done some brilliant work.

We continued reading The Lion in the Meadow and a story based on it called The Tiger Under the Stairs. We then started to plan our own version of the story. The children’s imaginations ran wild and they have finished the week by planning their own story. The focus will be on capital letters, full stops, adjectives and expanded noun phrases.

Thank you all very much for sending in the baby photos. We had a brilliant Science lesson guessing who was who! Mr Schumm even joined in the fun! The children then recorded what they were able to do as a baby, before thinking about and recording what they can do now.

In Maths, we have been looking at ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’. We then practised counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.

In R.E, we were doing some ‘Karma drama’ – using our acting skills to demonstrate what ‘good karma’ looks like. We learnt how most Hindus and Bhuddists believe in Karma.

In Art, we continued to work on our line drawing portraits, adding some bright ‘pop art’ colours and starting to work on our own ‘Litchenstein’ spots.

In Relationships and Health the children started to name and ‘show’ their emotions using their faces and body language. The rest of the children had to guess the emotion from each child’s performance. We discussed how no emotion is ‘wrong’ and it is normal to feel different emotions.

Harvest Festival 

It is wonderful that we are getting back to some semblance of normality at St Stephens and that we can all meet together to celebrate our church festivals. On that note, you are all invited next Thursday morning at 9pm (September the 30th) to our Harvest Festival where we come together to thank God for our harvest. This will be held in St Stephens Church.

Every year we collect non-perishable goods to go towards feeding those in need at a local charity. Like last year, proceeds will go to the ‘Upper Room’. You would have all received a parentmail with the list of appropriate goods. We look forward to seeing you there.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Hall

The children have blown us away this week with their focus with their learning. We have had a really lovely, calm learning environment during lots of lessons this week which is a win!

We started reading The Lion in the Meadow and used this to practise our comprehension skills. Our grammar focus for the week was commas in a list which the children can practise in their homework. We also started to look at expanded noun phrases (adjective, adjective noun) to help make our writing more interesting. If the children can find (and understand) any particularly exciting adjectives they can share them with the class next week and maybe even go on our ‘WOW Word Wall’ where we collect new vocabulary!

In Maths the children continued to work on their partitioning of two-digit numbers. The children have been partitioning the same number lots of different ways and even with different part whole models. Some with more than two parts, some turned upside down and on their side etc. We finished the week by using greater than, less than and equal to symbols to compare dienes and then numbers.

In Relationships and Health we imagined our ideal classroom – calm, happy, safe, kind (sweets and chocolates also got suggested…). We all made a pledge for what our contribution will be to create this ‘perfect’ classroom and made a big paper chain out of our pledges which is now hanging in the classroom.

In computing the children practised logging in and using J2e.

In RE the children learned about Hindu values and made comparisons between these and our own – whether of faith or not.

Humanities focussed on London landmarks. The children answered multiple choice or quiz-style questions about some of the key London landmarks using an information sheet to find the answers.

In Science, the children were matching baby animals to their fully grown version!

Homework

Look at last week’s blog for more information about the standard spelling homework.

This week the children need to complete their comprehension/grammar task in addition to their spellings. This will be stuck in their book. I have said to the children to just do as much as they can! There is a big step up in terms of the amount of homework, so please just do as much as you think the children can manage. We don’t want it to ruin weekends/evenings! Better they have a positive attitude towards it than hating it.

Science Request

Please may you email me one picture of your child as a baby for an upcoming Science lesson. I am still missing some!

Maths Streaming

After half term we will be ‘streaming’ the children into Maths groups based on the level of support a child needs. One will be the ‘supported’ group and will have more adults in the room than the other. Both groups cover the same National Curriculum objectives. For now, we want to keep the children in their classes so we can continue to get to know their ability levels. The groups will continue to be fluid depending on how each child is finding each maths topic.

Pelican Music

If your child has music lessons with Pelican. Please let the music teacher know directly if your child cannot make a session. We will let them know about school trips.

Parent Readers Request

We are looking for regular readers to come in and help us read with the children. We would be so grateful to anyone who can spare thirty minutes on a regular basis – weekly or ideally daily to read with the children. First thing 9am to 9.30am everyday would work well. Regular reading is a huge support to the children’s overall learning and they would all love someone else to read with. Any volunteer would need to complete a DBS check. Email me if you are interested and can spare the time.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Miss Hall

The children have done an amazing job at stepping up to Year 2!

This week we have been reciting our class poem ‘Brother’ by Mary Ann Hoberman and using this to inspire our own poems. By the end of the week, the children knew most of the poem by heart and had some actions to help them along the way. We now have a whole host of amazing, imaginative poems about cars, hoovers and family members ready to go up on our English board in our classroom.

In Maths the children have been working on place value which is all built on our understanding that (in a two digit number) one digit represents the tens and one represents the ones. We practised making numbers using dienes and then moved onto ‘partitioning’ which is the focus of the arithmetic homework this week. We also looked at spelling numerals as words which is our spelling homework for the week.

In Relationships and Health we talked a lot about any worries we might have, if the children weren’t scared of spiders they might be now… The children then wrote about or drew any worries and ‘fed’ them to our ‘Worry Monster’. The idea is that by writing about or drawing worries, they get smaller.

In computing the children practised logging in and then had a play on J2E (lockdown memories) and found a picture of a piece of work they did last year and had a play with adding text of different sizes and colours to ‘label’ it.

In RE the children started their Hinduism topic. The children were interested to learn about the importance of family in Hinduism. We then thought about the importance of family to themselves and about anything that is similar between their family and a Hindu family.

Humanities was all about London! The children finished the lesson by playing a board game which involved true or false quiz cards which they had to answer correctly in a race to the end of the board!

Homework

Homework is on the blog in the side box labelled ‘Homework’. Please may this be returned by Thursday at the absolute latest next week. The sooner the better! Your child’s red homework book is (should be!) in their bag. If anyone cannot print the homework and really needs us to print it for them and send it home each week, just email me.

There will be a label inside the front cover of their homework book that explains if they are in green group (6 spellings), purple group (9 spellings) or blue group (12 spellings). This will be something that is fluid throughout the year. They will need to learn their spellings for a relaxed spelling test each Friday as well as writing each of the words 4 times in the front of their homework book to help them remember how to spell them.

Following this, they will need to write 4 sentences using words from their spelling list in the front of their homework book.

There will be a small Arithmetic task set at the bottom of the homework sheet, which is to be completed in the back of the homework book. For this week, we have given the children a sheet to help them layout their maths homework which is stuck in at the back.

Each Friday we will set tasks on Mathletics which are to be completed by the following Monday.

PE

For this week coming the children will have PE on Friday instead of Tuesday. Please may the children wear their gym kit on Thursday and Friday. It will then be back to Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Reading Books

If there are still any at home, please make sure they come in on Monday and we will change them as a one off! They need to be in on Fridays going forward.

Science Request

Please may you email me one picture of your child as a baby for an upcoming Science lesson.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Miss Hall

We have had a great start to the new school year. Mrs Kaz and I have both had a lot of fun getting to know the children and are looking forward to meeting you all further down the line. Drop off and pick up don’t often make for a good chance for a chat!

The last couple of days have been all about learning how Year 2 works, getting to know each other and a whole lot of art! We spent this afternoon focussing on the story of Frida Kahlo and looking at how Mexico inspired her artwork. We have begun our own self portraits and will be adding inspiration from countries which are important to us next week.

Please find below useful information about Year 2:

Homework

Homework will set each week on a Friday and will need to be returned by the latest on Wednesday the following week. Your child will be given a homework book to complete their spelling homework, sentences and Maths homework in. The homework sheet will be uploaded to the class blog on a Friday each week.

The children will have a set of spellings to learn. There will be a label inside the front cover of their homework book that explains if they are in green group (6 spellings), purple group (9 spellings) or blue group (12 spellings). This will be something that is fluid throughout the year. They will need to learn their spellings for a relaxed spelling test each Friday as well as writing each of the words 4 times in the front of their homework book to help them remember how to spell them.

Following this, they will need to write 4 sentences using words from their spelling list in the front of their homework book.

There will be a small Arithmetic task set at the bottom of the homework sheet, which is to be completed in the back of the homework book.

Each Friday we will set tasks on Mathletics which are to be completed by the following Monday.

We don’t want to overload the children with homework at the beginning of the term as the main thing is that they feel settled and happy in Year 2 so the homework will start on Friday 10^th September.

Instead the children can start to learn their Hoberman class poem called Brother over the weekend. The poem has been uploaded in the homework box. If the children would like to they could also draw some pictures about the poem.

PE

PE is on Tuesday and Gymnastics is on Thursday so the children need to come to school in their PE kits on those days.

Reading Books

Reading books will go home on Monday each week. They must be returned by Friday with a signature inside the yellow reading book to let us know that they have read the book and the books can be changed.

Red Words

These are the tricky words (cannot be spelt phonetically) which the children need to learn how to spell by the end of Year 2.

Please email me if you have any questions at all.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Hall

f.hall@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk