26th November 2018

This week in English we have been looking at...

• spelling common exception words and learning how to use a word mat to find them and spell them correctly (all children have one of these in their home learning books) 

• learning about using an apostrophe for contractions (e.g. I am -> I'm, it will -> it'll)

• thinking about different sentence types-
• statements- There is a tree. (These end in a full stop.)
• questions - Where is the tree? (These end with a question mark?)
• exclamation sentences - What an enormous tree you fell from! (These end with an exclamation mark and must contain a verb!)
• we haven't looked at commands this week but you can talk about these at home.

Here is a fun video you can watchat home...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/supermovers/42612496 (question and exclamation marks)

We will be using all of these skills next week to help us write a letter to Father Christmas. 

This week we have been looking at money. We have been...
- recognising different coins and notes
- making different amounts
- solving simple problems for money

As part of your home learning it would be great if you could give the children some real coins to look at and play with. If you have a big pot of change at home there is a simple game you can play...

1. Roll a dice

2. Count out that many 1p coins

3. Repeat

4. Can you exchange the 1p coins for any larger coins? (for example exchange two 1p coins for one 2p coin, or 5 1p coins for one 5p coin)

5. Each player gets 3 turns and then count your total to see who has the most and who has the least!

The winner could be the player with the least amount of coins or the player with the largest value of coins.

Here are some other games you can play at home...
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/toy-shop-money 
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/coins-game

This Friday (30th) is our trip to the Playhouse to see The Snail and the Whale- please remember to send your child with a school packed lunch if you haven't ordered a school packed lunch.

This Friday (30th) is also our Christmas fair. We hope you can come along and join in the fun!

Over the next few weeks we will be doing some assessments in reading, writing and maths. This may mean that we have less time to hear your child read in class but please remember that they can change their book at any time. Thank you for your support with this.

19th November 2018

           

This week we were really lucky and got to meet Ben Langley from Norwich Theatre Royal. He gave each class a pantomime workshop and it was fantastic! The children got to enjoy listening to the story of Aladdin and we couldn't stop laughing!  

We love how much most of the children are reading at home. Please could we ask that they are reading their school books first and then enjoying other books. They are free to change their school books as often as they like. This is especially important if they are reading daily or if they are not enjoying a particular book. We ask that children read at least 5 times a week but ideally we would like them to be reading every day. Thank you for your support with this.

In English this week the children have continued to plan their pirate stories and have had a go at writing the whole thing- beginning, middle and end! We will be reading it back to edit and make any changes. They have worked really hard and we are really impressed with their efforts. Are they able to retell their stories at home?

In maths this week we have continued to look at subtraction. In Mrs Ellis's class we have looked at...

- 2 digit subtract 1 digit numbers (e.g. 15 - 4 =)

- 2 digit subtract a 10s number (e.g. 15 - 10 =)

- 2 digit subtract a 2 digit number (e.g. 15 - 12 =)

We have looked at these firstly using concrete resources (tens and ones) and then used pictorial representations (drawing the tens and ones). Some children have also been able to solve these mentally as well!

In Mr Whitehead's group children have been...

- 2 digit subtract a 10s number (e.g. 15 - 10 =)

- 2 digit subtract a 2 digit number (e.g. 15 - 12 =)

- Solving worded questions for subtraction

Next week we will start to look at money- recognising different coins and notes, making different amounts and solving simple problems for money. As part of your home learning it would be great if you could give the children some real coins to look at and play with. If you have a big pot of change at home there is a simple game you can play...

1. Roll a dice

2. Count out that many 1p coins

3. Repeat

4. Can you exchange the 1p coins for any larger coins? (for example exchange two 1p coins for one 2p coin, or 5 1p coins for one 5p coin)

5. Each player gets 3 turns and then count your total to see who has the most and who has the least!

The winner could be the player with the least amount of coins or the player with the largest value of coins.

We are really excited about the trip to the Playhouse on Friday 30th November to see The Snail and the Whale- please remember to send your child with a school packed lunch if you haven't ordered a school packed lunch.

Friday 30th is also our Christmas fair. We hope you can come along and join in the fun!

This week your child should have brought home a letter about Developing Experts. This is an online science curriculum which we are using in year 2 to teach science. Each child as their own log in so they can access the lessons at home once they have been taught in school. At the end of each lesson there is a quiz they can complete.


https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/paint-the-squares 

12th November 2018

Autumn has definitely arrived! This week for the big talk we are encouraging you to go outside and talk about the changes you can see. 

On Monday we had a fantastic time at Lodge Lane Infant school working alongside their year 2 children. We got to try shooting in a basket ball hoop, our dribbling skills, team building games and we were lucky enough to try some basic jiu jitsu skills as well! 

Jui jitsu demonstrators 

Dribbling skills!

Team building games using
maths skills

Dribbling the basketball!

In English this week we have started a plan to write a pirate story. The children have all drawn and labelled their own character, decided on a suitable setting and started to think of interesting ways to begin their story. As part of your home learning you could read lots of different books and look at the beginnings. How does it start? Does it make you want to read more? Can you think of different ways the book could have started? 

We have also reminded ourselves what verbs are (doing or action words). We watched this video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPrWo5pEvyk

 ...and wrote down as many verbs as we could.  We were really impressed with how many different verbs the children came up with. We then thought about verbs associated with pirates and learnt about adding the suffix -ing to them. For example look -> looking, search -> searching, find -> finding. We will use these next week when we think about writing the middle and end of our pirate stories!


In maths we have started to look at subtraction. We know that there are lots of words we can use including...

subtract

minus

take away

less

leave

difference

In Mrs Ellis's group we started the week by looking at 1 more and 1 less using a 100 square. You could try this at home using the paint the squares 100 square link below...

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/paint-the-squares 

We have then moved on to looking at taking away using concrete objects and then beginning to draw these pictorially. We have mainly focused on 1 digit subtract 1 digit numbers ( 9 - 3 = ) and 2 digit subtract 1 digit numbers ( 15 - 3 = ). 

In Mr Whitehead's group they have been looking at subtraction using 2 digit subtract 2 digit numbers and choosing their favourite method to solve these number sentences. Which method does your child prefer? 

For both groups we encourage you to count forwards and backwards 10s starting from 0 (0, 10, 20..) but also from any number (e.g. 3, 13, 23, 33...) as this really helps them to solve problems.

This Friday was Children in Need and children all looked great. Thank you for your support. All donations will all go to Children in Need.

Today the children also had their flu vaccination if you handed in and signed the permission form. 

Next Wednesday (21st) the library van will be in school so please remember to send in any books which need to be returned and also library cards!

5th November 2018

Thank you so much to all of those parents and carers who were able to make it to the maths event. We appreciate all of the feedback you gave and hope you found it useful. We will be sending home some information to support you with maths at home. 

This week in English we have been learning about expanded noun phrases. There is a great short video you can watch which explains what these are. 

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/articles/z3nfw6f

We have used these expanded noun phrases to write firework poems and we have also included some onomatopoeia words- these are words like BANG, Whizz, pop!

In maths this week the children have been working in different classes but all have continued to look at addition. 

With Mrs Ellis the children have been...

• doing simple addition mentally by counting on
• adding three 1 digit numbers (for example 3 + 4 + 7 = ) using concrete resources, pictorially and by counting on in their heads
• learning how to bridge ten in single digit addition. Below is an example...

First we use concrete resources to show the ones

Then we use our knowledge of number bonds
 to make 10 by exchanging some of the ones 

Then we perform the switch-eroo where we switch
10 ones for a ten stick!
This makes the number sentence easier to solve.

With Mr Whiteheads children have been...

• thinking about their favourite way to solve addition - including using tens and ones, drawing tens and ones, partitioning and using a blank number line.
• solving word problems for addition- for example- I spend 26p at the sweet shop and 13p at the toy shop. How much have I spent altogether?

As part of your home learning we would like the children to solve simple problems by counting on in their heads. We have talked about putting the bigger number in their head and putting the smaller number on their fingers. For example- 15 + 7 = 
We put 15 in our head, 7 on our fingers and then count on. 
You could also do quick fire- can they show you 4 on their fingers? Can they should you this using a different combination of fingers? 

Next Monday 12th November we will be going to Lodge Lane Infant school to take part in a Basket Ball event. Please remember to send in a school packed lunch if you haven't ordered a school packed lunch. Children need to come to school wearing outdoor sports clothes and practical shoes. Please send them with their book bags as we are only going in the afternoon. 

Next Friday the children will be getting their flu vaccinations and it is also children in need!