Happy half term!

What a busy time we had in our final few days!

On Friday the 18th of May we had a visitor called Nick from the Norfolk Broads Authority and he came to tell us about all the wildlife in our pond. He brought in a microscope and connected it up so we could look closely at all the different things we found. We had great fun learning about Norfolk Broads animals, especially when asking Nick questions.

Then on Monday some of us went to a workshop hosted by the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. We learnt about the story of Alice Through The Looking Glass with help from some amazing musicians from
https://www.brittensinfonia.com/
We joined in with singing and storytelling and one lucky child got to conduct the mini-orchestra!

On the Wednesday Mr Whitehead led a team of intrepid golfers to Sprowston Manor for a Trigolf event. The children worked really well and impressed everyone with their super skills with each child earning a certificate for their efforts

Alongside all of that in Maths we have been solving problems involving number patterns, symmetry, shape and dominoes! If you fancy having a go at a new challenge... why not look at this:
https://nrich.maths.org/245


In English we have been reading and writing poems with an animal theme. We have tried to write mini-poems using only 4 sentences using each sentence type.


In topic we have been thinking about mini-beasts and their habitats. When we come back after the holiday we will look at bigger animals from elsewhere in the world. Can you identify some of their habitats, life cycles and food chains?


Finally, thanks for everyones efforts during the very busy month of May and please remember that if you have any questions, do come and see one of the Year 2 Team.

We hope you have a happy & healthy half-term!
Mrs R & Mr W

It has been a very busy week full of animal rescues and dramatic scenes in the role play areas! Thank you for your many and varied toys that have come in to be treated, hopefully they are all on the mend and will be home soon.

In English we have been continuing to use The Great Pet Sale by Mick Inkpen. We have begun to identify features of the book that we will need to use in our own versions e.g. alliteration. We have designed our own main characters to swap for Mick Inkpen's rascally rat. Can your child remember who they have created? They will use their character for their own version of the book during the next few English lessons.

Why not see if you can get hold of some other books by Mick Inkpen to read?
https://www.hachettechildrens.co.uk/Books/MickInkpen/index.page
You could look at home, at school in the classroom or the library, visit your local library or even look in the book-swap shed!

In maths we have been handling coins and investigating ways to pay. You can help at home by looking at real coins and talking about their worth. The children have been exploring addition by finding totals of amounts. We have begun to think about giving change and relating this to subtraction. Please continue to practise times tables at home. This relates well to money as you can say things such as "how much are eight 5p coins worth?".


In our topic we are beginning to think about the animals we would find our locality and a little further afield. We will be comparing pets, farm animals and wildlife.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, do come and see one of the Year 2 Team.
Mrs R

Last week we have continued to think about our carnival of the animals topic and have begun to create an animal rescue role-play area. As we have said to the children, they are free to bring in any animal toys if they have asked permission at home and are happy for other children to play with them, it would be best to stick to no more than one or two per child. We have already raided our personal teacher toy collection though, so it is not urgent to do so. We have also used our scientific enquiry minds to learn about life cycles and how they differ for different species.

Our English learning this week continues to focus on the book The Great Pet Sale by Mick Inkpen. So far we have read the story and begun to discuss the animals and language we don’t understand. We will move this on by writing our own version of the story next week. Alongside this we have been thinking about how to use money so that we don’t have to rely on tills or shopkeepers to ensure we receive the correct change. This work has included remembering how we can use chips and peas to help us answer what two items cost or how much change is received.

Finally, with it being the month of May many children have already begun to prove how much they have learnt in the SATS. So far all of the children have been super keen to demonstrate their best so please keep this up till the end of the month. Equally please remember to talk about word meanings, ask questions and make predictions whilst reading books at home. For further ideas on how to help with reading or any queries generally please come and speak to a member of the year two team. You may also find the website below useful to explore with your child at home, especially when reading.

www.theschoolrun.com

Carnival of the Animals

We have begun our new topic and have enjoyed sharing our prior knowledge and questions. We have started to think about our favourite animals and are beginning to learn about new animals.

Did you know... that whales are mammals? (But they're not furry!)
Mrs R's class found that really exciting.

In English, our text has been Tadpole's Promise by Jeanne Willis. It has a rather unexpected ending! We used the story to discuss feelings and how authors (and illustrators!) show feelings in stories.

In Maths, we are exploring the best strategies for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. In Mrs R's room we explored how to add 19 by... adding 20 and taking away 1! We also looked at data handling and answered questions about tally charts. The data was about garden birds.

In topic, we thought of as many animals as we could and began to decorate the classrooms and role-play areas. Watch this space!

Ideas for your home learning:

• Make an A-Z of animals, what about an A-Z of insects? or mammals?
• Research a favourite animal
• Ask your adults to help you look carefully for mini-beasts in your garden or in the park
• Make a tally chart of birds you see 
• Ask your friends and family what their favourite animals are and make a graph that shows the answers
• Visit the library and choose some topic books
• Ask a member of your family about their pet
• Find out about an animal you've never heard about... an ocelot? an axolotl?
• Use well known websites such the BBC and National Geographic to help you ask and answer questions