Ho Ho How quickly time flies when you’re having fun. I can’t believe we’re at the end of a very busy term. Thank you to all our families for your support so far in Year 2. We’re very grateful for your kind words as we end the autumn term.

We’ve been busy in maths thinking about the value of coins and different shape names. We enjoyed using tangrams to help create different shapes, patterns and objects – we’ve enjoyed learning the word ‘parallelogram’ too! 

We’ve been learning about the word ‘religion’ and talking about what ‘beliefs’ mean. We have learnt that there are many different religions. We have learnt about some buildings that are particularly special in some religions such as a church, mosque and synagogue. We recognised some symbols like the cross on churches, the Star of David on synagogues and star and crescent on mosques. 

It’s been a festive week with many special days. Many of us enjoyed a Christmas dinner on Wednesday. On Thursday, we sang, danced and cheered along to a special virtual pantomime edition of Cinderella (Oh Yes We Did!) and on Friday we enjoyed virtually joining in with the Year 4’s Christmas talent show, Xmas Factor! 

We’re sending some passwords home for TT-rockstars which also has details for how to login to ‘numbots’, a fun interactive series of games and maths learning to help with arithmetic. https://ttrockstars.com/ 

 Additionally there are logins for ‘my maths’, another interactive maths app that includes lessons and games that will cover a series of teacher-set topics. An optional lesson has been set on mymaths for over the holidays but it is only there if you would like to access some additional activities. https://www.mymaths.co.uk/ 

We will aim to trial this more for Friday homework tasks in January. 

We hope you’re able to enjoy a happy and restful holiday after a very busy term. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Christmas has well and truly arrived at Damers! We have been enjoying Christmas Jumper Day today and there has been lots of sparkle in the classroom in aid of Save the Children.

We have also had a busy week rehearsing our version of A Christmas Carol. We are really proud of the children who have worked hard to learn their lines, songs and dance. Thank you adults at home for your help with this too! The children loved having the opportunity to perform on the stage under the lights and really showed us what super actors they are. We can’t wait for you to see the film when it is released.

We’re especially proud of all the children’s adapting and learning new parts, whether that was in school or from home. If you were able to send in a Christmas message for those at home, thank you; we understand that you couldn’t be there and we’ve missed you very much. Everyone in Skipper 2 is missing you all and can’t wait until we’re all able to be the full team again!

Amongst rehearsals we have continued practicing ball skills in PE and singing Christmas songs in music. We’ve even started learning how to use sign language for the song ‘Jingle Bells’. 

In maths we have been continuing to look at the 2, 5 and 10 times tables, showing different ways of representing an equation. You might like to have a look at this together at home.

The children have been enjoying Hit the Button and TT Rockstars in class and if you have time you might want to have a go at using one of these at home to reinforce our learning of the 2, 5 and 10 times tables.

We have continued to learn about Victorian toys and really enjoyed making our own thaumatrope. This is a toy that some children would have played with as they were easy to make at home. They have a different design on each side of a circle and when spun quickly create the effect of a moving picture. We decided to make ours Christmassy so on one side we had a snow globe and on the other side a picture of the item inside the snow globe.

We talked about this being an early step in animation leading the way to cartoons and eventually movies like Frozen and Cars years later. 

Here are some other designs you may like to experiment with at home:

We can’t believe we’re approaching the last week of term before the Christmas holidays. Have a wonderful weekend where possible.

December is here and the sound of Christmas is in the air!

We have been having a wonderful time learning our lines, dancing and singing our way towards our own rendition of ‘A Christmas Carol’. So many children have come in with beaming smiles saying they’ve been learning their lines and songs at home – thank you! 

We’re looking forward to recording these performances next week to share with you at home. A letter has gone home with your child(ren) about simple home clothing/ outfits we hope the children can wear. Please let us know if you need a copy or have any questions. 

We’ve continued practising our times tables this week and we’ve started to explore how multiplication can be done in different ways. For example, we are recognising that 2 x 5 is similar to 5×2 and produces the same answer. Here’s an example of 4 x 2 and 2 x 4:

We found out some more about Victorian classrooms. We couldn’t believe some of the rules that existed in some of the classrooms! We all agreed that the dunce’s hat and cane were very unkind and made some of us think the children may have preferred working back in the factories! 

Our blinged bikes and scooters looked amazing. The children enjoyed taking part and showing off their Christmas themed transport! 

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