Penguins have become our big focus in Year 2 recently! We have loved finding out facts about emperor penguins and how they survive in the challenging Antarctic climate. We’ve looked at different non-fiction texts called non chronological reports and have planned our own. We are looking forward to making our own books about the emperor penguin.

We’ve been continuing to measure with metres and centimeters and have had a go at some challenging word problems too. 

You might want to explore measuring at home, can you find things which are bigger than 1m and less than 1m. Or you could explore the length of these lines using the ruler in this game. 

We’ve been thinking about spirals we can see in nature. We were amazed at how many spirals we could see in the images we looked at. From tiny snail shells to huge elephant’s trunks and small chameleon’s tails. We enjoyed sketching and shading an elephant’s trunk from a photograph and imagined it kept spiralling and spiralling.

We’re getting the measure of things this week in maths! We’ve been using metre sticks, trundle wheels and rulers to help us measure in metres (m) and centi-meters (cm).

It has been fun measuring different things we have in school from our pencils to the playground! We’ve talked about the importance of how to start measuring. Have a look at this challenge together. Is the crayon 8cm long? 

We enjoyed a virtual visit from Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service. The children enjoyed learning about all of the different jobs that firefighters do and also talked about how to keep safe at home. The children learnt how many smoke alarms houses should have and how often they should be tested.

Follow this link for information for adults about smoke alarms: https://www.dwfire.org.uk/safety/safety-at-home/smoke-alarms/ 

And how to plan an escape in the event of an emergency: https://www.dwfire.org.uk/safety/safety-at-home/plan-your-escape/ 

Outdoors, we have been thinking about nature. In art we discussed where we can see circles in nature – from animals to food, plants and parts of the world and even other planets too! We’ve been exploring our local environment to see where we can spot circles/round shapes. We found lots: from the pond, to the frogspawn (yes,frogspawn in January!), to the ripples in the water and plants and logs all around us! 

Our class has been loving learning about the polar regions and we’ve taken a particular shine to penguins and Antarctica! We are learning how information texts (non chronological reports) can be written by looking at examples and finding features. We can’t get enough of penguins right now and are looking forward to writing our own reports about them soon. 

We can’t believe it is already week 2 into our new half term! We have had an action packed week full of some amazing learning and making the most of the sunshine, even though it has seemed to feel a little bit chillier!

In literacy we have continued to explore our new text Lila and the Secret of Rain, we had lots of fun using pictures on a story map to help us to record the different events that took place in the story.

We then began to use these to help us retell the story. The text has also helped us to think about the weather in Kenya and how this is different to the weather we see in the UK. In the story, Lila was upset that it had not been raining as it meant her crops could not grow which helped us to explore why we need the rain for lots of different reasons. 

Thank you to those who had a go at the division questions on MyMaths, I have been really impressed with our mathematical skills in division this past week. We have been looking at dividing by 2, 5 and 10 and using different strategies such as grouping to help us solve these equations. We have also started looking at the inverse of division and using our times table facts to help us. 

We’ve also discussed how knowing one number fact, can help us with others. For example:

On Tuesday, we investigated and looked for where we could see circles within nature. It was really interesting to see that there are lots of circles within nature all around us. Here are some of them: 

What other examples can you think of or find?
We looked closely at peacock feathers and spent some time drawing these. We focused on using our pencils to create different shades and tones to highlight the light and dark within these feathers. 

Happy New Year! We hope that you were able to have a happy and restful holiday; it has been lovely to see you all again this week.

We have started to look at the concept of division in Maths and used manipulatives to practise sharing things into equal groups. You might want to have a go at sharing some items at home, such as pasta or toys, into equal groups using the 2, 5 and 10 times table. We’re setting some home learning for mymaths to practise some division challenges. Well done to those of you who had a go at the optional task over the Christmas break.

You may like to play an online division game to help practise dividing: https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/doggyDivision/index.html 

We have also started our new Literacy text – Lila and the Secret of Rain. We have enjoyed reading this traditional tale and have talked about how it is similar/different to the traditional tales we read earlier this year.

You may enjoy listening to the story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04gRXlPnEeo or you could mute/pause the video to read it yourselves. 

We’ve been enjoying using a book called an Atlas to learn about the world. Combined with Google Earth, we have been revising the continents of the world and learning about certain countries.

We have enjoyed learning about how many different countries there are in Africa and liked using maps to find out where countries like Kenya are from. We have looked at different artefacts from some countries around the world. We really enjoyed looking at how some people use recycled materials to make toys, instruments or ornaments/jewelry. 

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! 

Please make sure you’re getting messages coming from Parent Mail/the school office. We appreciate several messages were coming your way this past week. If you’ve not been getting ParentMail messages, please contact the school office to check your details are correct on the system. 

Another busy week completed! We can’t believe it’s the last full week of November – this term is flying by. 

We have been enjoying finding out more about Victorian life for some children; we were surprised how different it was for some families! We’ve continued thinking about childhood for many Victorians and discussing similarities and differences. 

In literacy, we have been writing something called a recount where we write factually about something that happened to us. We decided to write a recount about our trip to Shire Hall. We used pictures from our trip to remind us what we did in chronological order. As a class, we really liked making the peg dolls and looking at the artefacts. We agreed that Harry Parker would have probably felt very alone and scared in the dark cells.

In maths we have been revisiting our times tables. We have reminded ourselves that times tables is a bit like repeated addition.For example, 3×2 is like adding 2+2+2 (three lots of 2). Building blocks can be useful to show times tables:

Next week is ‘Bling Your Bike Day’. A letter/email went home earlier in the week but here is the headline info: To make cycling to school even more fun, we are having a ‘Bling Your Bike’ day on Tuesday 30th November when we would like to encourage all children to cycle or scoot to school with their bikes or scooters decorated with a Christmas theme!

We work with a charity called ‘Sustrans’ who have this handy bike buying guide too that may be useful:

We’ve been practising and revisiting many of our phonics work that we have learnt in Year 1 and at the start of Year 2. Thank you for your support with the children’s home learning phonics books. We hope that by revisiting the alternative digraphs (e.g. how’ ie’, ‘y’, and’ i_e’, can make the ‘igh’ phoneme in some words), the children will become more familiar and confident with spelling patterns and word recognition etc. 

We have had a great week learning about the Victorians. We have enjoyed learning about Victorian schools and comparing how they are similar/different to schools today. We were particularly fascinated by the fact that many children would have had to work rather than go to school and one of the jobs they would have done would have been chimney sweeping or working with dangerous machines.

We had an amazing trip to Shire Hall and the adults there were so impressed with the children’s knowledge and how polite they were. Thank you to the adults that helped on the trip, your time and support is much appreciated. We spent time learning about the Victorian era and explored the courtroom and cells too. We learnt a lot about a child called Harry Parker and why he was in court at Shire Hall. We are now experts at exploring evidence and deciding whether we have enough grounds to convict someone.

We also had a great time getting crafty and making peg dolls. Some children even used these to tell stories as well. We learnt about Victorian toys and how rich children would have had dolls made from china whilst those from poorer backgrounds would have had homemade toys made from things that were around the house such as wood. There was a crib that was allegedly made from a smuggler’s box with a wooden doll inside.

This week we have also participated in anti-bullying week and looked at the theme of ‘One Kind Word…’. We have thought about what kindness means to us at school and how we can show different acts of kindness, it has been lovely to hear some of the kind acts the class have been sharing with one another. We created some great writing thinking about what kindness is.The children came up with some fantastic ideas: “Kindness is sharing and helping others. Kindness is looking after each other and making sure we use kind words.

Finally, we watched this video all about the kindness ‘boomerang’ effect, you can watch it here (adults please check the link in case of external adverts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwAYpLVyeFU

Remember, remember the 5th of November! It’s been a chilly but sunny week – we hope you had a restful and happy half term break.

Today we have thought about why Bonfire Night and Fireworks are so common in England at this time of year. We have learnt a little bit about Guy Fawkes. Next week we will also be thinking about why and how people remember others on November 11th with poppies and Remembrance Day (we do a lot of remembering in November don’t we?!).

In maths we have been learning how to use the column method when we add numbers together. We have learnt that we can add without renaming (where the numbers we add don’t make an extra 10) such as 25+32. We have also began looking at when adding does involve renaming such as 17 + 7 or 25+ 26 etc. As one of the children said “we can use our number bonds to help us… if we add the ones and it makes 10 or more, we need to rename the ones into a ten and remember to add it with the tens!”. 

Here are some examples without renaming:

And with renaming:

We used tens and ones (dienes) to help us make the numbers too.

In literacy, we enjoyed finishing off some of our work about Baba Yaga. We thought about noun phrases to describe the witch and the forest where the story is set. For example, The mean, scary witch had a long, twisty nose. She lived in the deep, dark forest. Etc. 

We enjoyed learning some tennis skills in PE this week. We practised how to hold the racket and develop our skill with balancing the ball and how to direct the ball to where we want it to go when we hit it. 

Next week at Damers we are welcoming Jonathan from Sustrans. Jonathan is coming in as Dr Bike to help give our bikes a free check up. Please see the below picture for details.