How often is your child reading at home?
Daily reading, ideally with an adult, is vital to become a better reader.
We’ve had a challenge this half term to see who can read the most at home. Children needed to read, and have their reading record book signed, to earn a star on the chart. For some children with longer books, this doesn’t have to be the whole book. You can also add any extra books that you’re reading at home – don’t forget non-fiction books (maybe to do with our Life Forces topic), poetry, comics, websites or newspapers!
Well done to the children who have already reached the target and have received their prize. We’ll continue to have the challenge next half term so keep reading!
Tricky words
At the back of your child’s reading record book are the Year 2 common exception words for your child to practise reading.
One of the end of Year 2 expectations for writing is for children to spell these words, too.
Therefore after half term, we’ll be having some informal spelling checks using these words.
We’ll use the word lists in the order they are in the reading record books, starting with list 1:
- door
- floor
- poor
- because
- kind
- find
- mind
- behind
- child
- children
Living and Learning – Safer Internet Day
Year 2 started the day considering, what is the internet? We used this video to help to understand what the internet is, where it can be used and what it is used for.
We talked about the benefits of the internet and how it can help us. This could be with our learning (Lexia, Mathletics and researching information for homework or in lessons), for entertainment, shopping and communicating with friends and family across the world. We remembered a recent Skype conversation with children at Sandford International School in Addis Ababa.
We then considered how the children currently use the internet at home and at school.
The text Chicken Clicking helped us to discuss how chatting to people online, that we don’t know, could put us in danger. Using drama, we thought about the chick’s actions in the story and gave some great advice for what she should have done. Remember that not everyone online is who they say they are. Ask your child what happened in the story.
In groups, using six key safety messages we tried to sort them from most important to least important. This generated lots of discussion and the children had good reasons to justify their positioning of the messages.
We decided that all these messages are important to remember, for different reasons, when you are using the internet.
We also spent time considering emotions that people might feel as a result of using the internet. Using different scenarios, the children had to decide how they might feel if this happened to them and why.
For example, someone in an online game says something mean about one of your friends. How would you feel?
Finally, we enjoyed the Key Stage 2 performance of Team Robot v Meanies led by Splats Entertainment. This reinforced a lot of the messages we had been thinking about during the day, in a fun way.
To follow this up at home, the children took home two NSPCC/O2 parent online safety booklets and we hope you enjoy reading Digiduck’s Big Decision with your child at home to reinforce this learning.
The key message from the day is if you see anything on the internet that makes you feel uncomfortable or you are not sure about, tell an adult that you trust.
Courgette Muffin Making!
Last week, the children used their DT skills to prepare and bake healthy courgette muffins. They had to chop, weigh and mix the ingredients before baking. A copy of the recipe also went home with the children so you can make them again at home!
Skipping
Funded through our PE and Sport Premium, Year 2 and Year 4 have recently taken part in a skipping workshop led by ‘Skipping School’; both classes will then be part of a Leeds wide skipping competition.
- ‘I learnt a lot! It was fun and I learnt new skills.’
- ‘I think it is a good idea to skip because we are a happy and healthy school.’
- ‘I liked the skipping because I got to learn new things.’
- ‘I loved the skipping and the new skills because skipping makes you fit.’
- ‘First, I was really bad at skipping but when Jodi came I got better. Now I like skipping.’
We are offering all children the opportunity to learn these new skills, from their peers, by introducing skipping as a physical activity at lunchtimes. This is one way we are promoting physical activity during the school day for children to get their active 30 minutes.
The Government’s Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action, shares the expectation for all primary schools to provide a minimum of 30 active minutes every day for all pupils. The Chief Medical Officers recommend a minimum of 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity for children aged 5-18. Schools are expected to provide 30 of these minutes and families to achieve the other 30.
‘Skipping School’ also sell their ropes and we would like to offer all children the chance to buy a rope at a heavily subsided price (funded by our PE Premium) to continue learning these fundamental movement skills at home.
Ropes will be on sale at a price of £2 (normal price £5) before and after school during the week of 05 February. Starting with a stall at the PTA cake sale, Year 6 children will be selling the ropes in the playground subject to the weather. Please bring exact change wherever possible.
Digital homeworks
If your child creates any digital homeworks, they can be emailed straight to the Year 2 teachers using the following email address:
moortowny2@spherefederation.org
This email address should only be used for homework. Any other email correspondence should go through the office or head of school email address.
02 February 2018
The homework this week is creative.
I know some of the different plants and animals which live in my locality.
Spend time in your locality. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a green space or a concrete jungle, a garden or a park. Look out for the different plants and animals that have their homes there.
It’s up to you how you communicate this back to me!
d:side esafety
This morning, Dave from d:side joined us to discuss how we can stay safe when we’re using the internet.
We talked about lots of things:
- how we need to be careful when looking for pictures online
- how we can make a Google search safe by adding ‘for children’ into our searches
- the types of games we should and shouldn’t be playing
- how and why we need to be careful before opening emails or clicking on links in websites
- why we need to be careful of posting things online like photos and videos
- how we need to stick to websites which are just right for us
After-school clubs
Mathletics
Have you looked at Mathletics recently?
This is a great online resource that supports maths learning at home. You child has work assigned according to our learning in class so take a look with your child when you can.
Well done to Christina who continues to complete her assignments and regularly achieves a Mathletics certificate.
Please ask for login details if needed.
