We are geographers!
Year 2 are enjoying our geography based topic ‘Where in the world am I?’
Ask your child what they have learned so far? Can they name the four countries in the United Kingdom? Maybe they could tell you the capital city of any of those four countries. Do they know what continent they live in?
This week, we discussed human and physical geography. What is human geography and what is physical geography? We looked at some examples together before sorting pictures of famous features in the UK.
Next week, we hope to take a walk in our local area to take photos of physical and human features close to school and home.
You may have noticed that ‘physical geography’ and ‘human geography’ are on the vocabulary list as part of this week’s talk time homework. Hopefully, the children can talk confidently about these words at home.
Living and Learning: 8Rs for learning
The Eight Rs for Learning promote good learning behaviour.
They include being resilient, responsible, reflective, ready, resourceful, risk taking, responsive and there is one more.
Can your child remember the last one?
Although these eight attributes have been our current focus in Living and Learning, we refer to the 8Rs throughout the year. We thought about some ways the children can show these 8Rs for learning in school or at home and here are some top tips they thought of.
Read more about the Eight Rs in our guide for parents and carers.
Bike to School week and Let’s ride
Biking and scooting are one of the ways we encourage children to actively travel to and from school and next week we’ll be taking part in Bike to School Week (with Sustrans and the Bikeability Trust). We are pleased to be part of this UK-wide event, encouraging families to cycle, or scoot, to school. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate active school journeys and the positive impact it has on children’s health and wellbeing – as well as the environment.
Bike and scooter storage facilities are available by the side of the Year 4 classroom.
Also, taking place this weekend is the free Let’s Ride session held locally at the Brownlee Centre.
This free family community event is ideal for the whole family to enjoy cycling in a safe and friendly space. At the Leeds Brownlee Centre, Bodington Playing Fields, you can ride at your own pace as many times as you like with volunteers on hand to chat all things cycling.
Sign up for the event here.
Great learning at home
Every week, the children will be rewarded with any Lexia and Numbots certificates they have achieved. Well done to all the children who have already started this learning at home. Remember just 10/15 minutes a day can really support your child’s reading and phonics (Lexia) and their recall of addition and subtraction number facts (Numbots).
In Year 2, we are aiming for the children to achieve up to Level 9 for Lexia and Diamond level for Numbots. All logins remain the same from Year 1 and they have been sent home with your child’s homework book last Friday.
Here are the first certificates for Year 2!
Lexia
Congratulations to Aliza and Saavi who have achieved their Level 6 certificate.
Numbots
Congratulations to Talha who has achieved his Copper level certificate. We also have a class leader board for the children who have earned the most coins in the week. Here are this weeks’ results.
1st Roshni
2nd Talha
3rd Saba
Keep working hard at home and we look forward to lots more certificates throughout the year.
If you’ve any questions about this learning at home, please ask.
Netball coaching and half term camps
We are looking forward to having some coaching in school from Elite Netball Academy in the next few weeks.
Elite Netball Academy run weekly netball classes on a Saturday morning at Gateways school and they have an early bird offer for their October half term camps held locally at The Grammar School at Leeds- £25 per day if booked by 17th September.
Settling back in
We’ve had a great, hot, few days and it has been lovely to see all the children back together with their friends and ready for their new learning in Year 2. Here’s some information about some of the Year 2 routines and the upcoming learning.
Firstly, thank you for the postcards you have sent us – they are displayed on our topic board which this half term is all about British geography, Where in the world am I? We have updated the maps in the playground so have a look at them with your child as you arrive at school.
In science this half term, we will be chemists learning all about materials and their properties. This will include some practical science too.
In maths, we’ll be focusing on place value and some basic number facts with numbers up to 100. Help at home by counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 5s and 10s. Numbots and Hit the Button (the website is free compared to the app) will support this learning too.
In reading, we’ll be continuing to develop the children’s reading fluency by having a weekly fluency text. We’re also working on their retrieval and interpreting skills based on different fiction and non fiction texts – our first one being Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. Help at home by reading daily with your child, new books will be sent home next week, and choose some of the reading activities from this guide. Ten/fifteen minutes of Lexia daily will also help.
In phonics, we will be recapping the Phase 5 learning from the end of Year 1 before moving onto some other spelling rules. Help at home by playing some of the games on Phonics Play, accessed through their website not an app, choosing Phase 5 games (Login Sphere Password Sphere3).
In writing, we’ll be starting with lots of sentence work to ensure we remember the basics of capital letters, full stops, finger spaces and making sure our sentences make sense. Help at home by practising spellings in silly sentences. We will continue to work on our handwriting too. This guide shows the cursive letter formation that we use.
Living and Learning will include getting the children settled back at school and talking about how they are feeling as they start a new year. We will also be thinking about the 8Rs for learning and how they can help us at school and at home. We will end the half term with learning about mental health.
The children always look forward to their PE sessions (Tuesdays and Fridays). It’s great to have more space now to get active. We also aim for our active 30 minutes a day throughout the school day with lots of brain breaks. Run the red carpet is one of our favourites.
Homework books will be sent home on Friday and they can be kept at home and used for the children to practise their weekly spellings and to record any brief notes from their talk time homework.
Lexia and Numbots logins remain the same. These will be stuck inside your child’s homework book for reference. For Lexia, the children should aim to achieve their Level 9 certificate by the end of Year 2 and for Numbots, the children are aiming to reach Diamond level.
The children continue to receive free fruit for playtimes in Year 2 and they continue to receive free school meals too. The children have enjoyed returning to a more normal lunch service and trying some new meals from our current menu. If your child has a packed lunch, they can do a combination of school meals and packed lunches if they want to give them a try.
We will be visiting the library on Mondays so if the children have finished reading their book and they would like to change it, please bring it to school on Mondays.
Please do let us know if there is anything we can help with.
Mrs Taylor and Mrs Lake
Welcome back!
We hope you have all had a happy and heathy summer break. We are looking forward to seeing everyone back to school on Monday ready for Year 2.
Below is a list of key points to remember:
- Mrs Taylor will be teaching every Monday and Tuesday.
- Mrs Lake will teach each Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
- Mrs Burgess will also be working in Year 2.
- The children will line up in the playground when the bell goes at 8:50 and a member of staff will take them round to the cloakroom.
- Please ensure your child has a coat every day.
- Water bottles can be brought into school and can be refilled throughout the day.
- PE is on a Tuesday and Friday. The children are being asked to come to school in their PE kits on those days. They will remain in their kit for the whole day.
- Reading books will be changed on Tuesdays and Fridays.
- Please check the uniform policy if you are unsure about any items of clothing or footwear.
- If you have come across any reading books, reading record books or library books from Year 1, please bring them back into school.
Please do ask, at the start or the end of the day, if you have any queries.
Mrs Taylor/Mrs Lake
Tennis opportunities
If your child enjoys tennis or wants to try it out, tennis camps are taking place locally at these clubs over the summer holidays.
Thanks to Roundhegians
We are very grateful to Roundhegians Rugby Club for hosting our sports days once again this year and allowing us to use their excellent facilities.
Roundhegians have a variety of rugby training sessions, from under 6 through to under 17, and these sessions will resume on Sunday 5th September.
For more information, please contact their chair of junior rugby, Chris Fongwah (fongers.cfw@gmail.com).
Design and Technology
This half term, Year 2 have been designing many different free standing structures.
