Book Fair
This afternoon, we’ve been lucky enough to visit the book fair as a class. We enjoyed perusing the many books and were each given a voucher to use to buy one of the featured books.
We’ve discussed in the past how important reading is and this week is a great chance to really promote a love of reading. Ask your child if they enjoyed the book fair; talk to them about the book they chose; ask them if there were any other books that they liked – could you go to a library and see if you can find it?
Also, don’t forget that World Book Day is this Thursday. Your child should bring in a book from home and everyone has the opportunity to dress up if they would like.
Phonics
We’ll soon begin Phase 4 of Letters and Sounds. In this phase, children will continue to practise previously learned graphemes and phonemes and learn how to read and write:
CVCC words: tent, damp, toast, chimp. For example, in the word ‘toast’, t = consonant, oa = vowel, s = consonant, t = consonant.
CCVC words: swim, plum, sport, cream, spoon. For example, in the word ‘cream’, c = consonant, r = consonant, ea = vowel, m = consonant.
They will be learning more tricky words and continuing to read and write sentences together.
Tricky words:
said, so, do, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what
Ways you can support your child at home
- Practise reading and spelling some CVCC and CCVC words but continue to play around with CVC words. Children like reading and spelling words that they have previously worked with, as this makes them feel successful.
- Make up captions and phrases for your child to read and write, for example, a silver star, clear the pond, crunch crisps. Write some simple sentences and leave them around the house for your child to find and read. After they have found and read three, give them a treat!
- Look out for words in the environment, such as on food packaging, which your child will find easy to read, for example, lunch, fresh milk, drink, fish and chips, jam.
- Work on reading words together, for example, a street name such as Park Road, captions on buses and lorries, street signs such as bus stop.
Time travellers at Herd Farm
Year 2 have enjoyed a glorious trip to Herd Farm going back in time to discover houses from the past.
First, Tina, our Forest School’s guide, took us to the Mesolithic Camp to show how hunter gatherers made temporary shelters with sticks covered in skins. We learnt about two main types of shelter – teepees and wigwams. Ask your child about the stick rule and the safe way to carry a stick.
Then we set to work creating our own shelter by creating a stable base (equilateral triangle) and turning a triangular based pyramid into a cone (great Maths learning too!). We were proud of our creations. Great teamwork, everyone!
After that, we took a walk to discover the Iron Age village in the valley – what a great setting for a village! We discovered that early farmers built thatched roundhouses with wattle and daub walls and cooked on open fires.
Then it was time to look inside…
Outside the roundhouses, Ian, our archaeologist guide, lit a fire while we enjoyed our fruit. We took some time to sketch the roundhouses and other features of the Iron Age village.
We left the Iron Age village to return to the main Herd Farm buildings (now a residential centre). The farm house was built in 1760 and we also found the newest building on the site, a sustainable steel framed, wooded covered building with a wood pellet biomass heating boiler, bringing us right up to date.
All the class demonstrated excellent behaviour and it was great to hear them share their knowledge from our topic so far. There was just time for a team photo before we got back on the coach to return to school for lunch!
‘I loved going to Herd Farm and I learnt that Iron Age houses are made of wattle and daub like Tudor houses. I was sad to leave.’
‘I enjoyed it because it was really fun and exciting. There were lots of activities at Herd Farm. I learnt lots from the past.’
‘I didn’t know that Iron Age houses had thatched roofs. It was cool to build our own shelters. I loved it!’
UTC Digital visit
On Monday, we had a visitor from UTC Digital to talk to us about the opportunities we have in the future if we want to go into the digital world for our careers or just learn some very valuable skills in digital technology which can be applied across a number of professions.
They explained that, to use, computers themselves are not smart; it’s the people who control them who need to be clever as computers need very specific instructions in order to work. He made us realise just how specific these instructions had to be by asking us to instruct him in making a jam sandwich. Simple right? No. Turns out it’s not. We had bread everywhere, his hands were covered in butter and he kept doing it wrong …all because our instructions were not specific enough.
It was an interesting and enjoyable session for the children and our visitors have emailed us since to tell us how impressed they were with the children’s enthusiasm and behaviour – well done.
School trip tomorrow!
We are all looking forward to visiting Herd Farm tomorrow morning as part of our Time Travel Houses and Homes topic.
As we will be outside, and the forecast is for cold weather, please ensure your child comes in warm long sleeved clothes, with ideally waterproof boots and coat. They should also have a water bottle in school to take with them.
We have been looking at the forecast throughout the week and fingers crossed the wind dies down.
We will be back for lunch so no packed lunch needed!
Transport Museum
We had a brilliant day today at The Streetlife Museum of Transport and The East Riding Museum in Hull. We started our day with a science workshop linked to friction and forces. Year 3 had to think about what forces are used to move different items.
As we walked around The Streetlife Museum we saw a variety of old fashioned transport: Victorian carriages, trams, railways, cars, horses, bicycles, boats and much more.
We also enjoyed exploring The East Riding Museum. The museum took us on a journey through time which linked really well with our history topic.
Here are some photos of the great things we saw…
Transport Museum
Today, we enjoyed a trip to The Streetlife Museum of Transport in Hull. Such a variety of old-fashioned transport was on display. We enjoyed looking at Victorian carriages, trams, railways, cars, horses, bicycles, boats and much more. Year 4 also had a science workshop linked to friction and forces. After putting on our white lab coats and a pair of goggles, we were ready for action. The children took part in quite a few experiments, all of which demonstrated forces and friction in action.
Across from the transport museum, there is another place of interest: The East Riding Museum.
This took us on a journey through time, beginning with a life-size mammoth and then continuing on through various time periods.
We learnt some fantastic facts, had great fun and thoroughly enjoyed the day.
Take a look at some highlights of the trip.
Our new SEAL theme – Getting On
For this half term, our SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme Getting On covers four main aspects:
- developing the social skills of friendship
- working well together in a group
- managing anger
- resolving conflict
A key resource for children to refer to during this theme, and at other times, is Peaceful Problem Solving. This encourages children to sort out their own problems. You may wish to talk through this with your child(ren).
When group work takes place in school, some questions for children to consider are:
- Did everyone take turns?
- Did everyone listen to what other people thought?
- Did each person have chance to tell the group what they thought?
- If people had different ideas could the group reach a compromise?
The key areas of learning throughout this theme are empathy, managing feelings and social skills.
We start our weekly SEAL statements with a focus on manners, I don’t interrupt (with my mouth or with my hand).
Meet our new School Council
Congratulations to our new school councillors who were elected by their class in our whole school elections. Their first meeting will be held after half term.
An eighth continent…?
Our age-related expectations set out what children in each year group should know by the end of the year. The expectations are based on the National Curriculum.
In Geography, for Year 2, one of the expectations is to name the seven continents of the world and find them using an atlas, map or globe.
This might need to be changed based on a story in today’s news!