Week Beginning 21.10.16

Wow! What a half-term! I can't believe how much we have got through and the children's level of dedication and ambition. Every challenge has been greeted with enthusiasm, consequently the their achievements have never ceased to amaze me all half-term. Well done year 2/3!

Music

In music, we have learnt a song to help us remember the parts of the viola. Question us and see how much we remember and can describe. 

Literacy 

We have been doing lots of writing this week, as we start to use paragraphs in our work by grouping related ideas and information. We have structured our sentences using generalisers as openers and other tools to make the starts of our sentences more engaging for the reader. We have been using conjunctions to add detail and ensuring we us lots of rich description, as we wrote our non-chronological reports about dragons of our own design.

Science 

In science we continued our investigations, as we observed the behaviour and strength of different magnets. We looked at which poles attract or repel and tested the strength of a variety  of magnets. We were quite surprised when we realised that it was not necessarily the size of the magnet which could hold the longest chain of paperclips.

D.T

We had great fun on Friday, making our movable heads using origami to create our own monsters. When we are finished, we are looking forward to attaching our pneumatic system and watching them come alive. Also, well done to Harry for winning the Wonderful Work certificate for his much improved sentence work, whilst writing his dragon report. 

In other news...

Another parliament of owls went home this week reading to become home reading buddies. Congratulations on earning 35 stamps and the improvements in reading skills that come with all that hard work.

Week Beginning 10.10.16

Music 

It was an exciting start to the week this week, as during our music lessons we got our violas out for the very first time. We asked and answers questions about the different parts and had a go at holding our instrument. We also worked with sticks to create rhythms using short and long beats. 

Science

This week we learnt about magnetic fields and discovered that planet Earth has a giant magnetic force field. We organised materials in our scrapheap challenge, into piles that are magnetic and non-magnetic. We were surprised to discover that not all metals are magnetic. 

We also made our very own compass by rubbing a magnet along a piece of metal to line up the particles. We were all amazed when we floated it in water and it pointed north. 

Literacy

Literacy we have been researching on the computers, playing games and reading all about dragons. We enjoyed some role play as we interviewed our expert dragon hunters for Dragon Watch TV. We have also been focusing on ways to make our sentence starts more interesting and using generalisers, so that our writing does not sound too repetitive.  We have also been looking at spelling with the suffix -ly. This week were pleased that we manged to change 6/7 of our jumping orange words green. Only one more left! Keep practising on the sheet that has been sent home.

D.T

This week we used an I.T package to investigate different types of pneumatic mechanisms. We also started to design our very own moving monsters on the computers too. 

In other news... congratulations to the first group of children who have received their reading owls and red ted bookmarks. They have all worked really hard at their reading at home, reading 35 to take home their reward. Well done!

Week beginning 3.10.16

Literacy

This week, we have been combining our word processing skills  and editing knowledge as we improved and typed up our newspaper reports. Pop in and see them displayed in the classroom. They look just the real thing. We have also been writing sentences using causal conjunctions such as: because, so, as, although.  These help us make our sentence structures more interesting and make sure we add more detail to our work. Finally,  have been looking at information pages and examining the content as we asked and answered questions about a text. 

In our spelling sessions, we have moved on from the prefixes un-, im, in,  and dis- to the suffix -ous. A suffix is found at the end of a root word:

Root word               Suffix  

 Danger         +            -ous     = Dangerous

How many can you name? Ask us to help! Don't forget to keep practising your spellings from your half-termly list.  Of course the Year 2s have their phonics sessions in key stage 1 so don't forget to check out Mrs Cryan's page for the latest spelling and phonic updates.                               

Maths

We have been working on our mental addition and subtraction skills. We have using number facts to help speed up calculations when adding or subtracting a single digit number from a two-digit number. We have also been adding up three or more numbers in a row by adding the larger numbers first. 

Science 

We are really enjoying our science at the moment and all of the practical elements it contains. Yet again, we had a double investigation this week as we investigated friction. We timed ourselves picking up dry jelly cubes with chopsticks and then jelly cubes covered in oil to see what effect reducing the friction had. 

We also investigated different materials such as: carpet, plastic, wood.  We observed  how the resistant force of friction changed with different surfaces and how it affects the movement of a wooden toy car on a slope. 

The Year 2s' have also been busy investigating and learning all about materials and their properties. Be sure to drop into Mrs Cryan's page to find out all about it. 

Geography 

We have been learning all about the different localities in the U.K as we researched some of our countries counties. We learnt about county capitals, rivers and geographical features and special features and attractions. 

In other news...

We enjoyed a fantastic performance of Wind in the Willows from the image theatre group on Thursday. Some of us were even chosen to do some acting and join the performers on stage. Well done Oliver and Meaghan for transforming into the naughtiest weasels!

Week Beginning 26.09.16

Science

On Monday the year 3s' started their week with a forces and movement circus. We investigated different experiments to observe forces in action. These included: balancing clowns, shooting straws, snail in a maze, puff jets, and balloon toys.

We enjoyed solving challenges and discussing which type of force was in action and the effects they had. 

Literacy 

In literacy this week, we created a complete newspaper article all about the discovery of our mysterious giant bone. We made sure we included all the important information and answered the important who? what? where? and when? questions. We organised our writing into paragraphs and included lots of time conjunctions and conjunction to add details. We made sure it was all written in the third person and even included quotes.  

Geography 

In geography, we received another  postcard from Uncle Travelling Matt asking for help to research about the main waterways of the U.K. As a result, we have been learning the names of; and locating the main rivers in Great Britain, along with the names of the seas and oceans that surround our island. 

D.T

We started our new design and technology topic this week: Moving Monsters. We explored different pneumatic devices and experimented creating a short movement using two plastic syringes and a length of tubing to make our monster heads appear out of a cave. 

Maths 

This week, we have been learning about addition and subtracting. We have been counting on mentally and using a number line to find number bonds to 100. We have also been learning all about the equals sign in a variety of different calculation. We now feel a lot more confident finding the missing number in balanced equations.   

Congratulations were in order this week, as a member of our class was chosen out of the whole school to be  awarded Sportasaurus for his excellent effort and progression in P.E. We look forward to hearing what sporting activities they both get up to over the coming week. 

Week Beginning 19.09.16

Literacy 

This week we were learning about time conjunctions and adverbials when we had an exciting interruption to our work. Whilst exploring the reflection garden, we found a giant mysterious bone and what looked like some teeth or claws. We spent some time thinking about how they may have got there and what they could be from. We decided to record the event in a mind map and have started writing  newspaper reports to spread the news. 

 Maths

In maths this week, we have working on place value and writing amounts in pounds and pence. We have been doing lots of practical work with coins and converting pence to pounds as well as comparing amounts. 

 Science

Continuing our topic on forces and magnets, we have been experimenting with paper planes. we identified the type of force and discussed the effects of increasing and decreasing forces. We even added an elastic band to the plane to store the energy and release it all at once. We also learnt how to represent different forces with different sized arrows. Experimenting has never been so fun!

In other news... congratulations to Daisy who will be representing our class on the school Eco council and also to Amos for being our new class School Council member. We look forward to hearing all your great ideas and contributions to the wider school family. 

Our first team competition has been released this week; designing a flag for friendship. Every entry counts as so get your designs in by  Wednesday 28th September. 

Finally, well done Ceona for getting wonderful work for the impressive homework booklet, all about dragons, that she brought in this week.

Week Beginning 12.09.16

Literacy

In literacy this week, we have been working on word classes. We have spent lots of time sorting, identifying, researching and playing games based around: nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. 

We have also started our first literacy topic; newspaper reports. We have been discussing the layout, the purpose of the key features, the type of language used and the content. 

Our spelling focus this week has been the prefixes dis- and in-. A prefix can be added to the front of a root word to change its meaning. In these cases it means the opposite. 

For example;    in    +    visible   =   invisible

Look at the spelling sheet sent home this week to learn and memorize more examples. Can you think of any more?

Numeracy 

We have been continuing with our place value work as we made human number lines, placing 3-digit numbers in the correct position. We have also been comparing and ordering numbers. We have also started some addition and subtraction by adding or subtracting 10 and 100 to any number. 

In our maths investigation this week, we used the pentominoes that we generated last week. We discovered that the shapes will tessellate to form a variety of different sized rectangles. 

Geography 

In geography this week, we learnt how to use an Atlas to look for the major capital cities of the U.K. We created a map for Uncle Travelling Matt to help him with his upcoming visit it to the U.K after we received a post card from him asking for our help with his adventures. 

P.E

We have learnt lots of new vocabulary in P.E that will help us with our performing our positions, balances and rolls, as we make up our own gymnastic routines. Ask us to explain or demonstrate some of these terms: pike, straddle, tuck, cannon, unison, match and mirror. 

In other news...

Congratulations to Ceona, Meaghan, James and Olivia being the first in the class to receive the prestigious Pen Licence. They have proved they can write with all their letters in the correct orientation, size and accurately joined. Well done.