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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.

13 January 2012

What is s split digraph?

A split diagraph is an English term under the study of phonetics. It describes a letter that splits during pronunciation. An example is ‘a-e’ which is used in words such as make and take.

Split digraphs are sometimes known as ‘magic e’ words; however, our children will refer to these sounds as split diagraphs.

We’ll be spending the next few weeks learning all about these sounds.

These words will be tested on Friday 20 January.

13 January 2012

This week’s spellings are all words that include contractions.

PE

PE is on Thursdays and Fridays. Please remember to have PE kits in school on these days.

We’ve been lucky enough to have sports coaching students from Leeds Metropolitan University teach Year 2 a variety of multi skills. This half term, we’ll continue with these sessions along with creating gymnastic sequences.

Rights and Responsibilities

This half-term, the SEAL theme is Rights and Responsibilities. Well done to Linda who received last week’s certificate for her contribution to the circle time about having the right and responsibility to stay healthy. This week, we’ve been thinking about having the right to belong to different communities, and the responsibility to care for these communities.

Heroes

Our next Big Topic is Heroes. From Nelson Mandela to David Beckham, we’ll learn what makes each person a hero. The topic has strong art links to Pop Art and Lichenstein so we’ll be trying to create our own versions through printing. In ICT, we’ll use superheroes to create our own comic strip.

I’m looking forward to teaching this topic as I think the children will find it very exciting and engaging!

Materials

Our current mini-topic is Materials. We’ve been sorting objects according to their materials and learning about natural materials. We’ve learned words such as solid, liquid, gas, freezing and melting. Your child has created questions to start experiments and learnt about making predictions and conclusions.

Well done to Year 2 for some fantastic creative homework on materials this week!

13 January 2012

This week’s spellings are verbs (‘doing words’) ending in ‘ing’. Your child will be tested on Friday 20 January 2012.

• joining
• fishing
• floating
• reading
• teaching
• writing
• sleeping
• looking
• thinking
• beating

13 January 2012

Spellings this week are again based on the Wow Words we are trying to use in our writing. Children will also be tested on their understanding of the words.  They will be tested on Friday 20 January 2012.

• apparition
• sodden
• languish
• confined
• grimace
• congenial
• silhouette
• formidable
• endeavour
• longevity

13 January 2012

This week’s spellings are all verbs in the past tense that end in ‘ed’. I’ve noticed that we are making some common mistakes when spelling these words. For example, ‘askt’ instead of ‘asked’. Another common mistake is missing out the e before the d. For example, talkd instead of talked.

Children will be tested on eight out of the ten spellings on Friday 20 January.