Happy New Year!

Welcome Back!

We hope you had a fantastic holiday. The children have certainly returned incredibly enthusiastic and ready to learn.

Below you will find the class letter for the next two terms. As always, if you have any questions please do pop in.

Happy New Year

Dear Parents

Welcome to 2018! We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and have managed to relax! The next two terms in Year 2 are incredibly important for the children. For those of you that attended the information evening in November you’ll know the requirements needed from the children in order reach the expected standard for the end of Year 2.

Over Terms 3 and 4 we have both chosen our favourite topics and combined them to make ‘What’s behind you!’ We will be travelling back in time to look at the Great Fire of London and leading into the life of Florence Nightingale.  

·         Literacy

In Literacy we will continue to focus on spelling, especially common exception words and high frequency words. The children will be encouraged to use all the punctuation that has been taught in previous terms and to extend their use of vocabulary to add detail. We will do this through writing diary entries, newspaper reports, non-chronological reports, character studies and fact sheets.

·         Numeracy

The children will continue this term to focus on their times tables and knowing the inverse operations. We will also spend time looking at division, telling the time, statistics, shape, fractions and measures. For those of you that have been using the information sheet given at parents evening, it hasn’t gone unnoticed around the classroom and the deepening understanding of the children’s maths.

·         Science/DT

To link with our topic we are going to be investigating materials and their properties. We will be classifying materials; looking at their suitability and making wax resist paintings. In DT we will be designing and building a modern fire engine.

·         Topic

We will be looking the events of the Great Fire, sequencing events and comparing London then and now. The children will be looking at the life of Florence Nightingale and how she changed nursing for us today. Both topics will incorporate art activities.

·         Computing

We will be using the laptops as part of our topic to research and make our own fact sheets. The children will be looking at how to use the computers, log them on and become confident navigating websites.

·         RE

During RE we will be looking at respect and what it means to us. This leads us onto the Jewish religion and the Passover. We will look at lent and the events that led up to the Easter story.

·         PE

PE continues to be on a Monday and Friday. Please can you ensure that the children have both outdoor and indoor clothing. This term we are looking at gymnastics; making different body shapes, travelling in different ways, making different body shapes and travelling on the apparatus.

Home Learning

It has been wonderful to see the effort the children have been putting into home learning. We often spend time talking about it in class and the tasks they have chosen and why. This continues to be set on a Friday to be handed in the following Thursday. This tem there will be just one home learning grid as we only have 5 weeks.

Spelling

Spelling is an incredibly important part of the Year 2 curriculum. They continue to be in the back of the home learning books and is given each Friday to be tested the following week.

At the end of the year the children will have a test as part of their SATs and could be tested on ANY spellings that have been set throughout the year.

Outlined below are the spellings for Term 3 and 4.

Date Set	Pattern	Explanation	Examples
12th January	/y/	igh changed to a –y at the end of words.	by, cry, dry, fly, fry, my, sky
19th January	Adding –es to nouns	The y is changed to i before –es is added.	armies, cities, diaries, fairies, factories, families hobbies, jellies
26th January			applies, bullies, cries, fries, lies, replies, spies, supplies, tries
2nd February	y to ied	The y is changed to i before –ed, –er and –est are added, but not before –ing as this would result in ii.	cried, denied, fried, lied, relied, replied, spied, tried, carried
9th February	y to ier		angrier, busier, clumsier, chillier,  crazier, dirtier, funnier, happier
23rd February	y to iest	The y is changed to i before –ed, –er and –est are added, but not before –ing as this would result in ii.	angriest, busiest, chilliest, craziest, dirtiest, funniest, happiest, heaviest
2nd March	y+ing		crying, drying, frying, trying, applying, carrying, denying, hurrying
9th March	e to ing	The –e at the end of the root word is dropped before –ing, –ed, –er, –est, –y or any other suffix beginning with a vowel letter is added.	closing, driving, hoping, joking, liking, making, naming, poking, saving
16th March	e to ed		closed, saved, smiled, tuned, used waved, baked, hoped, joked, liked
23rd March	e to er		closer, nicer, driver, hoper, joker, liner, maker

Class Blog

We aim to update the class blog weekly with our activities and ways you can help at home. Please check it regularly for any new information. The address is capella2017-2018.blogspot.com.

Support

As always if you are ever able to spare an hour to come and hear readers you will be welcomed into the class, your support is greatly appreciated.

If you have any questions, worries or concerns please do not hesitate to come and see us.

Best Wishes

Mrs McCann and Mrs Russam