Welcome back!
The children have settled really well in their first couple of days in Year 2 with lots of new routines to learn and an earlier start time of 8:45am.
We look forward to meeting you over the next few weeks but for now, here is some key information about Year 2.
Mrs Taylor – Monday and Tuesday
Mrs Lake – Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
Mrs Maqbool also assists in the class.
Important days and dates
PE – Tuesday and Thursday
Spelling test – Friday
Library – Friday
Class assembly – Wednesday 18th October at 2:40pm
Water bottles
These should be brought to school daily and they will be brought home every day for refreshing and cleaning.
Milk
Please contact the office if your child would like to have milk in Year 2.
Homework/Spellings
Whole school homework is set every Friday (along with new spellings). Homework and spellings can also be accessed from the website.
Reading
Your child will be bringing home a letter explaining about their reading. Daily reading, whether this is their e-book, a book from home or the library, is key to making progress in reading and to develop fluency.
Numbots
We continue to use Numbots in Year 2 (using the same login as Year 1) and certificates will be awarded every Tuesday for children who complete the different stages and make the most improvement over the week.
For spelling practice, reading and Numbots, little and often (10/15 minutes a day) is recommended.
Uniform
Please do check the uniform policy to ensure your child is wearing the correct items including for PE days. Earrings must be removed on PE days.
Acceptable Use agreement
The children have brought home the acceptable use agreement for their use of the internet at school. We have talked through this together but please read it with your child and sign and return to class.
Finally, please do ask if there are any queries and keep checking back on class news to find out more about your child’s learning!
Have a happy and healthy summer
Mrs Taylor, Mrs Lake and Mrs Roth would like to thank you for all our kind and generous gifts and cards.
We have had a great year with the children and it has been a pleasure to teach them and see how much they have progressed and matured over the year. We shall miss them!
We hope you all have a happy and healthy summer holiday.
Fun and games!
In Year 1 and Year 2, we’re enjoying our last day of the term with board games, construction toys and colouring. The children have had a wonderful morning playing, smiling and working together.
Have a happy and healthy summer holiday!
Science: animals (including humans)
This half term, our science learning has been all about animals including humans. We have been biologists. Here is the key vocabulary we have been learning and using.
This video introduced the learning by helping us to think about what animals need to survive – what are their basic needs?
This text helped us to learn about life cycles.
We carried out an investigation to see if older children have bigger heads (and they did!). Ask your child why that is.
Our latest science learning fit in well with our Being Healthy themed week learning all about exercise and why our body needs it and why it is important to have a balanced diet based on the Eatwell Guide.
Year 1 and 2 joined together for this learning.
Finally, we learnt about the importance of hygiene and keeping ourselves clean.
We also concluded our observations over time. Here is the tree in our front playground with photos taken in January, May and July. We discussed the differences between the photos and the reasons for these. Ask your child what type of tree this is and how they know.
Every week, we measure the temperature and we observe the weather. We looked at how these have changed over the year and the link between the seasons.
Help at home: Can your child suggest some ways they could become healthier at home?
Thank you to Roundhegians
We had a great sports day last Thursday and thanks go to Roundhegians Rugby Club for once again allowing us to use their great facilities.
Have a look at the options for rugby coaching available at the club.
We know the children appreciated it too.
Being healthy themed week: bike safety
Thank you to Stu and Alex from Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative, based in Chapel Allerton, for visiting this during our Being Healthy week.
They were kept busy by checking lots of bikes to ensure they were safe to use. Thank you to everyone who brought their bike into school.
Then, Year 5 and 6 learnt some different bike maintenance tips to do on their own bikes.
Living and Learning: Being Healthy themed week – d:side visit
On Tuesday, we had a visit from Dave from d:side. Dave talked to us about keeping our body healthy.
There are three things that should go in our body (also known as our basic needs which is part of our current science learning). These are:
- food
- water
- air
If we have all these things, we might still get poorly so Dave reminded us of keeping safe around medicines and who should (and shouldn’t) give us medicines.
But where does the food, water and air go in our body?
We learnt about different parts of our body and where they are found. We recreated it correctly too!
Help at home: Ask your child, what were the different parts of the body we learnt about?
Living and Learning: Being Healthy themed week – Active Tuesday
Over the course of the Being Healthy themed week, Year 2 worked on improving a physical activity skill and we saw improvements in the children’s personal bests.
Teamwork, speed and looking skills were needed for this active treasure hunt. How quick could each team find the different locations on the school grounds?
Help at home: ask your child how much physically activity they should have in a day?
Living and Learning: Being Healthy themed week – healthy teeth
Instructions are currently part of our writing learning and so we tied this in with our Being Healthy themed week.
First of all, we watched this video that gave us lots of tips for how to look after our teeth.
We worked in groups to sequence instructions for how to brush our teeth and we identified the imperative verbs in each instruction.
Help at home: can your child retell the instructions and can they remember why it’s important not to rinse after spitting out.
Living and Learning: Being Healthy themed week – Mindful Monday
We kicked off the Being Healthy themed week with Mindful Monday recognising that our mental health is as important as our physical health.
Mindfulness can make you calm.
Mindfulness is good for you because it can make you feel relaxed and calm down your feelings.
Mindfulness is good because it helps your mental health.
We regularly have mindfulness time after lunchtimes but today was chance to add some more techniques to the ones we already know (self hug, ok breathing, breathing tree, starfish meditation and back to back breathing).
Yoga is a great way to help our mental health and Vikki from The Yoga House came to teach us some yoga poses and relaxation.
I enjoyed the yoga because it made me feel really relaxed.
I liked the yoga because it made me feel really joyful and active.I loved the yoga because it made me feel calm and made my worries float away.
I liked it because I enjoy doing yoga at home.
I loved the yoga because when you have shavasana time, you feel relaxed and I had lots of deep breaths.
Help at home: discuss these relaxation techniques with your child. Which is their favourite and which works for them? Also, have a look at our mindfulness guide for more ideas to try at home.