Junior Leadership Team
Last week, we took part in a democratic vote to choose our new Junior Leadership Team representatives from year 2.
We wrote some brilliant speeches explaining why we should be chosen to be a JLT member.
Congratulations to the two fantastic and newly elected JLT members.
Here are their speeches that won them their places on the school JLT.
Help at home: What does it mean to take part in a demographic vote?
Adding tens and ones
We have continued to explore tens and ones in our maths lessons.
This week, we have been adding tens and ones together.
We learned that if we have 40 (or 4 tens) and we add 3 ones, the total is 43.
We used Base 10 equipment to help us see this visually. By finding the correct number of tens and ones, we could clearly see the total amount when they were added together.
We are becoming more confident at recognising how numbers are made up of tens and ones and using this to help us add!
Help at home: Can your child choose some tens and ones to add together. They could draw out the Base 10 or show you a part whole model that we have been using.
Health and Hygiene in Science
This week, Year Two began their new science topic all about humans, health, and hygiene.
In today’s lesson, we learned about the famous nurse Florence Nightingale and how her simple ideas about keeping hospitals clean completely changed healthcare. The children discussed why washing hands and staying clean is still so important for our health today.
To explore this further, we carried out an experiment using bread.
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One slice of bread was placed straight into a sandwich bag without being touched – our control slice.
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Another slice was passed around by everyone before washing their hands (straight after break).
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The final slice was passed around again after everyone had carefully washed their hands with soap and water.
The children made some brilliant predictions about what might happen over the next two weeks:
“I think the dirty hands bread will go green and fluffy!” – Luna
“The clean hands bread might stay the same because there won’t be any germs on it.” – Niyah
“I think all bread grows mould, but the dirty one will do it faster.” – Jolyon
We’ll keep a close eye on our bread bags and check back in two weeks to see which slice grows the most mould.
Living and Learning: I respect others
Our living and learning this week was all about respect.
We have been looking at what is means to be respectful and why it’s so important. The children talked about how we can show respect to others by listening carefully, using kind words, and taking care of our classroom and belongings.
We explored real-life examples, acted out respectful and disrespectful situations, and discussed how our actions make others feel.
Respect is when you are kind and share- Isaac
It’s saying thank you to the ladies at lunchtime- Gracie
Respect is doing what you are told by your mum and your teacher- Deacon
It’s playing with your friends and sharing- A
Not listening is not respectful- Thomas
Year 2 Celebrate National Poetry Day
On Thursday, Year 2 celebrated National Poetry Day with a special assembly. The children performed two poems, which were A Little Manners Poem and Autumn Leaves. They had worked hard to learn the words by heart and even created their own actions to add to the performance. It was wonderful to see them performing so confidently in front of parents.
Each week in Year 2 we enjoy reading a new poem. This helps us to develop a love of reading and also supports our fluency. Poetry is brilliant for children because it builds rhythm and expression, introduces rich new vocabulary and encourages memory and performance skills.
The children really enjoyed sharing their poems, and we are so proud of the confidence and enthusiasm they showed.
The Number Line 0-100
This week in Year 2 we have been learning all about the number line up to 100. The children practised estimating where numbers belong and explained their thinking clearly.
We drew 100cm number lines and carefully added the numbers from 0 to 100. Using what we know about halfway, we placed important numbers such as 50, 25 and 90.
Here are some of the things the children said:
George – “I know 50 goes in the middle because it is halfway between 0 and 100.”
Austin – “25 is halfway between 0 and 50, so I put it at the quarter mark.”
Luna – “I put 90 near the end because it is close to 100.”
Gracie – “I checked my number by thinking about counting in tens along the line.”
Help at Home
Have a go at practising together at home with this interactive number line: https://mathsbot.com/tools/numberLine
Football Skills in PE
This term in PE, Year 2 are developing their football skills. We began by learning how to control the ball by stopping it carefully. The children then practised moving slowly around each other, keeping the ball under control as they navigated the space.
Working in pairs, they learned how to stop the ball with their foot before passing it back using the inside of their foot. Finally, the children started dribbling the ball to each other, focusing on keeping the ball close and controlled.
⚽ How you can help at home:
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Practise stopping the ball with your foot.
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Try short passes with a family member, aiming to use the inside of your foot.
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Set up small obstacles (like cones or toys) and practise dribbling slowly around them.
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Talk about the importance of control rather than speed.
Tens And Ones
Our maths learning has been all about multiples of 10. We’ve been practising counting in 10s and adding 10 more and finding 10 less. Although adding multiples of 10 sounds tricky, if we know that 3 = 4 = 7, then 30 + 40 = 70.
We started to think about tens and ones. We’ve been making 2- digit number using Base 10 to represent the tens and ones.
We then looked at groups of objects and thought about how we could figure out the amount by grouping the tens and counting the left over ones.
Help at home: Choose a 2 digit number with your child and see if they can make or draw the number. You can find virtual Base 10 online if needed.
Library Day Update
Hi,
I just wanted to let everyone know that our new library time will be on Tuesdays.
If your child would like a swap their library book, please ensure they have it packed before Tuesdays.
Living and Learning: I use good manners
This week’s Living and Learning was all about using our manners.
Good manners are the thoughtful words and actions we use to show kindness and respect to others.
We discussed what we already do to show good manners such as smiling and saying please and thank you.
We discussed how our manners make our school a nicer place and help everyone to learn.
The children shared lots of fantastic suggestions for showing good manners, such as:
It’s rude to interrupt someone unless it is an emergency- Frankie
I always smile at other people- Zubie
I look at people when they are speaking to me – Austin
Help at home: Chat about times when you have used good manners.