Learning to write
Now that your child knows lots of letter sounds, they are keen to use their phonic knowledge to write. The process of writing is not easy and research has shown that for some children, especially boys, holding a pencil can be physically painful if the muscles of the thumb and fingers are not strong enough.
Why not try some of the following activities at home to help develop the necessary muscles for writing:
- paint with fingers and with a variety of brushes
- use dough and plasticine to pound, roll, mould and pinch
- use scissors, hole punches and staplers
- pick up and sort collections of pulses, pasta and buttons
- let your child help prepare fruit and vegetables by cutting and pealing
- do up buttons and zips independently
Please encourage your child to write at home and hold the pencil correctly. However, remember that if your child’s muscles are not ready, forcing them to write at length may put them off. Practising a little every day and doing some of the above activities is far more beneficial than a longer period of writing practice.
This week’s phonemes
This week, the new phonemes are ai, ee, igh and oa.
Remember to say the letter names (‘ay’, not ‘ah’) and encourage your child to join up the letters when writing.
This week’s ‘tricky words’ are my and was.
Moortown Tower
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd12TKqQl38&feature=g-upl&context=G2a2bf28AUAAAAAAAAAA
Our first Big Topic of the year was Our House. Moortown Tower is the final piece of work which brought together a lot of the learning we have done throughout the topic.
Thanks, parents, for all the shoeboxes!
What a great week!
Year Six should be congratulated this week on the amount of learning that has gone on in class.
Children have been working with new maths partners. Bronwen and Angel have achieved great success, as have Bradley and Adam. Matthew has worked extremely hard: so hard he received a cerificate in assembly, with Mr Roundtree also noticing his progress in reading. SEAL has been all about having the right to learn and taking responsibility for our own learning; Lauren‘s suggestions in this lesson were outstanding.
I’d also like to say well done for the excellent homework produced by the class and the amazingly sensible, mature and informed discussion we had about charities afterwards.
Here’s to another great week next week!
Expanded column method for addition
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKJRAajMsKw
The expanded column method is a way to add that makes links between how we might add mentally and the standard column method that we’ll move on to very soon. We believe it’s important to teach this method so our children have an understanding of numbers and the number system and not just able to carry out a process.
Our Big Topic is….Animal Kingdom
Our topic this term is jam-packed with fun and exciting events which could potentially make this one of the best ever!
We had a special visitor join our class on Monday. Ask your child about Pip and the sort of habitat she lives in.
Year 4 are going to have the opportunity to visit Allerton Grange to create their own animations involving animals. Also this term, Year 4 will be identifying and hunting for animal habitats. This will involve mini-beast hunts locally, as well as looking at habitats all over the globe.
Finally, in response to children’s requests we have crammed even more art in this term! The children’s final piece will be a mud-roc sculpture of an imaginary animal.
Class assembly
The next Year 2 class assembly will be on Thursday 8 March. The previous date on the Year 2 newsletter was incorrect. We hope you can make it!
Class Assembly
Quick reminder for you:
Class Assembly on Thursday 19.01.12 at 2.40 pm.
Hopefully see you there.
Who can be a hero?
This will be one of the questions your child will be asking in our Big Topic this term.
- Is it a sporting hero?
- A historical hero?
- A comic book hero?
All of these questions will be investigated and the children will be able to decide who they think is a hero. There will be opportunities to think about local, national and worldwide heroes. Are all heroes the same?
Talk about your family heroes with your child.
How can you be a hero?
This week’s phonics
This week the new sounds are sh, ch, th, th and ng. The ‘tricky words’ are me, we and be.
When referring to the individual letters in these sounds, the children should now be encouraged to use letter names as letters do not stand for sounds when they form part of two-letter and three-letter graphemes eg the sound ‘sh’ is written with the letters s ‘ess’ and h ‘aitch’ not ‘ssss’ and ‘h’.
We also teach the children to join up the letters to form these digraphs to make it easier for them to remember.