Time Travel Houses and Homes
Year 2 launched straight into their new topic, Time Travel Houses and Homes, by talking a walk around the local area to see what houses are like today.
We spotted lots of different types of houses and noticed what was the same and what was different. Ask your child what is the difference between detached, semi-detached, terraced houses and bungalows.
After looking at what houses are like today, we will be going back in time to find out about houses in the past.
Take a look at what we found and maybe you might see some of the houses on your way to school.
Phonics mornings
Don’t forget to attend our phonics mornings this week.
You’ll be able to see how the children are progressing and find out how you can help to support them at home.
These sessions will be held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9am.
See you there!
Learning to tell the time and other maths
The children are enjoying the new clock in the home corner and are teaching each other how to tell the time!
This week we have been learning about estimating.
The children had to estimate the number of bears that could can fit inside Ewan’s shoe.
Lots of children accurately guessed 9!
Then they had a go at guessing how many bears my boot would hold!
Scientists and product testers
Today, Year 2 received a letter from Mr Vango asking for their help to test various materials to see if they are waterproof and therefore suitable for their tents. We used lots of science skills to test this out.
Questioning
- ‘Is the material waterproof?’
- ‘Is the material strong?’
- ‘Does it tear?’
- ‘Is it flexible?’
Predicting
‘We predict that plastic will be the best material because it’s strong and waterproof.’
Testing, observing and recording
Concluding
We found out that plastic, paper and foil were all waterproof but, when we considered other characteristics of the materials, we decided that plastic would be the best material for the tents. Our prediction was correct! We hope this helps Mr Vango with his research.
This online activity allows you to investigate properties of materials more.
New themed menus
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special Australia Day themed menu on Tuesday 24 January. This themed menu has recently been selected by our school councillors.
Please contact the office, by 12 January, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
Another themed menu selected by our school councillors is for Shrove Tuesday, 28 February.
Please contact the office, by 09 February, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
What’s the Matter?
We love working scientifically in Year 6 and loved experiencing reversible and irreversible changes first hand. It really helped us to understand these words as we could see it happening in front of us.
Tricky words
The children enjoyed reading their bananas this week!
Phonics
We have begun phase 3 of the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonics programme.
The purpose of this phase is to:
- teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example, ‘oa’ as in boat
- practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light
- learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly
- read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
- read and write words in phrases and sentences
Here are some examples of words your children will be reading: tail, week, right, soap, food, park, burn, cord, town, soil
Tricky words
During phase 3 the children will learn more ‘tricky words’: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, said
In addition, during this phase children will be expected to begin to write sentences independently.
If you have any questions, please ask and do attend our next phonics open mornings on Wednesday 18, Thursday 19 and Friday 20 January.
What’s the matter?
We started our mini science based topic. The children were all very keen to learn about solids, liquids and gases.
The children enjoyed a carousel of activities including investigating solids and some scientific reading!
Materials
We’ve been learning about different materials this week. We started by discussing the types of materials and their properties. We’re now designing a new shed for Mr Grumpy using the most appropriate materials.
