Year 2 Phonics
This half term we have been focussing on spelling tricky words. ‘Tricky words’ are words that are spelt differently to how they are spoken. For example ‘was’ is a tricky word because it sounds like it should be spelt ‘woz’.
During daily phonics and reading sessions we practise saying our tricky words and spelling them. We also put the words into different types of sentences such as statements, questions, commands and exclamatives.
In today’s session, we focussed on Phase 5 tricky words, (set 4). See some of our sentences below!
Help at home: by practising spellings at home. Tricky Words
Story Trail Event
As part of the Leeds City of Culture, there is a local story trail event taking place. The flyers are below and pdfs to download.
Why not take part with friends or family in this fun event?
DT – super structures (strength in numbers)
Our Construction (Design Technology) topic is going down a treat. We are learning how to make freestanding structures using cardboard. We made cylinders which we then joined together to make a super structure. In 1,2B, a super structure with 6 cylinders could hold 20 books. When we added 29 cylinders, it could hold a box full of books and even a whole child. It was so exciting!
Help at home by looking at the 3D shapes that make some of the objects in your home. For example, are your chair legs cylinders or cuboids?
Living and Learning
This week in our Living and Learning topic, KS1 have been learning about different types of families.
Our statement this week has been ‘I understand there are different types of families.’
We started off by discussing words that we associate with families. A few that the children came up with were: care, love and sharing.
We also discussed who might be in our families and that not every family looks the same.
We read ‘The Great Big Big Book of Families’ by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith – which celebrates the diversity of families and illustrates that families come in all shapes and sizes.
All our families are very different but the important thing is that people in families care about each other.
Reading : fiction or non-fiction
Year 2 have been looking at fiction and non-fiction books, finding similarities and differences.
We found that a title, introduction, sub-headings, real photos or diagrams, a contents page and an index page were all common in non-fiction (information) books.
Help at home by comparing or pointing our whether you are reading a fiction or non-fiction book at story time.
Year 1 – Phonics
Last week, the year 1 children completed their phonics screen assessment. This is where the children are asked to read a variety of real and fake words in order to check their phonic knowledge.
We know that we are nearing the end of the last half term, however we want to continue to highlight the importance of regularly reading both to and with your child at home. We feel strongly that this regular reading practise should continue to be a high priority at home both throughout this half term and over the summer holidays. We would like the children to start year 2 being fluent readers of books at their phonic level.
If you are unsure of their ebook login please ask your child’s teacher.
Help at home: read with your child and to your child regularly every week.
Maths – partitioning
During the last few weeks, we have been looking at partitioning two digit numbers.
The year one children have been looking at partitioning numbers greater than 50 into tens and ones, representing this in a variety of ways.
The year two children have been parttioning numbers in other ways.
Help at home: Choose a two digit number and support your child with partitioning it.
Design Technology – stability and strength
We have be learning about freestanding objects and how they are made stable and strong.
We found that shapes with a wide, flat base and a low height were the most stable. We also found that a cylinder was the strongest shape.
Help at home by having a go at these tests and looking and what shapes are used to make strong, stable objects in your home.
Living and Learning – everybody needs to be cared for!
This week in KS1 we have been looking at how everyone needs to be cared for. Everyone has the right to be cared for and in school, we all make sure we care for one another.
The session started off with a discussion about the life cycle of a human and the biological differences between male and female. We know that just like other mammals, it is the woman that carries the baby and produces young offspring. Throughout a person’s life, their needs change and therefore so does the type of care they need.
We know that different people need different types of care. For example, babies need more care from adults because they are not yet independent whereas adults are much more likely to be able to care for themselves and know their basic needs.
We also talked about the different types of needs we might have:
- playing
- loving
- medical
- listening
- physical
- emotional
- social
We finished our session by discussing how we can care for members of our classes. We used the sentence stem ‘I care for _____ by ______.’ The children came up with some wonderful responses.
‘I care for xxxxx by asking if they want to play with me at playtime and letting them join in.’
