Learning is fun!

We have had another fun learning week.  With the fine (but very cold) weather this week, the door to the outside area was opened. The children were keen to be outside where they were busy locating and sorting odd and even number pegs and creating superheroes with natural resources.  Take a look at some of the fabulous pieces of work we created.

In Maths we have been focussing on odd and even numbers.  This was finalised today with a fun task involving speed of recall.  In the provision areas the children have been completing column addition challenges to reinforce last weeks learning.  We have also been recalling the order of the days of the week, practising with a fun learning and movement song.  We have been looking at which days come before or after others.

Our superhero dances have been started.  The children are working in groups to put their movements together so that they fit the timing and have relevance to the song.  We are will continue to add, extend and refine our performances over the next few weeks.

In our literacy sessions we have looked at an extract from "Cartoon Kid" by Jeremy Strong.  We have been looking at the different ways in which text has been used for effect and emphasis.  The children have been thinking of synonyms for the word smoothly. Collaboratively we made a super list with words such as calmly, quietly, and gently.

​​​​​​​We have also been making chatterpix about our learning powers in school.  This is a way of making 2d images have a voice which the children then embellished by narrating information about the chosen learning power and adding creative stickers.

You will notice that the children have brought home letters about online homework activities.  These are a fun way to practise maths skills learned in school.  Allocations will be made when they are relevant to the learning taking place.  Please check back to see when new tasks have been issued.  Should you have any issues logging in please let us know so we can try to help.

See you all after the weekend for another fun learning week in school.😀😀😀😀

Happy New Year

Welcome back!  Hopefully you have all had a restful holiday time.  It was lovely to see all the children again on Wednesday morning and hear what they had been up to over the Christmas period.

This half term our topic is 'Superheroes.'  This morning we had a visit from the "Mood Menace", an evil villain (aka Mrs Roberts) - which gave the children the chance to ask many questions and think a lot more about what work they would like to do that could be linked to this topic.  We had lots of fantastic ideas that we will incorporate over the coming weeks.  Towards the end of the topic we will be dressing up as superheroes. - using items from home is perfect for this so please don't rush out to buy costumes.  More information will be sent out nearer the time.

You may have heard the children singing a superhero song that we have been learning the past few days.  We are going to be using this as a basis for some of our upcoming work. If you would like to see the song in action for yourselves the link can be found below.

This week in school we have been focussing on using paragraphs when we write.  It was lovely to see the children show eagerness to try and have a go at this new idea in their writing. This will be encouraged in their work from now on if appropriate.  

During maths we have been looking at addition of double digit numbers in column addition format.  Some children even had a look at carrying numbers over.  We will be doing more practise on this but it is something that could be looked at at home if you would like something to work on.  

Next week our spelling pattern is the split o-e sound.  We will still have the mild/spicy/hot test but each section will be mixed up.  This will mean the children will have to think carefully about what they are spelling.  A copy of the spellings can be found below.

Thank you for popping by to see what has been going on.  See you next time! 😀

Happy Holidays!

Well done to all the children for working so hard since September,  upon our return to school after half term and for their amazing effort during our Christmas concert.  Have a well deserved rest over the Christmas holiday and I look forward to seeing you all again in January. 

All DVD orders have been collected and will be made to order.  We will endeavour to get these to you as soon as possible in the new year.

There are no new spellings to learn over the holiday for 2LC.  We will send new spellings home on the Friday of the first week back.  These will then be tested the following week.

Finally a  big "thank you" for all your thoughtful gifts.  You have been very generous and your kindness is very much appreciated. 

See you all in 2019!

Some dates for you diary.

 Monday 7th January 2019 – Training Day  

Tuesday 8th January – Training Day   

Wednesday 9th January – School opens 

Monday 14th January – Mock tests all week (Year 2 – Year 6) 

Monday 21st January – Careers Week 

Wednesday 6th February – ‘Keystrings’ Music Show. FP and KS2 

Wednesday 13th February – ‘Young Voices’ Manchester 

Thursday 14th February – Friends Film Night 

Monday 18th-20th February – Year 4 visit to Pentrellyncymer. 

Friday 22nd February – Interim Reports to parents 

- School closes 

Monday 4th March – School opens. Parents Evenings begin (all week) 

Thursday 11th April – Friends Disco 

Friday 12th April – School closes 

Monday 29th April – School opens. 

Our week in school

The Christmas productions are over and we are back to work - in between the excitement of Christmas dinner and our enjoyable trip to the pantomime!

This week we have been busy with a science investigation.  We were looking at which material would be the best insulator to prevent the visiting ice trolls (ice pops) from melting.  We discussed having a control ice troll with no insulation and the way in which we could make our investigation a fair test.  We have mapped out our learning and the children are becoming proficient at retelling the investigation orally using scientific language and actions.

We have also worked with our learning partners to devise mnemonics to help us learn the order of the planets from the closest to the furthest away from the sun.  This was not an easy task with limited letters.  With the use of a generated work bank a whole range of fun word patterns were created to help the order be remember and recall the order.

New spellings have been posted here.  For the next test the sound will be the split sound 'i-e' we say 'i-e, nice smile'. The bold, underlined letter is actually the final sound said in these split sound words.

Next week we plan to hold a Christmas party.  This will take place on Thursday (21st December) afternoon.  It would be gratefully appreciated if you could send in a small donation of food on this day.  Children can also wear party/Christmas clothes on this day.  On the final day of school children are able to bring in a game.  Please ensure that these are named to avoid confusion.  Thank you.

Please also remember that a copy of the Christmas performance is available to purchase should you wish.  These are made to order so please ensure that you return your slip to school so that staff know exactly how many copies need to be made.  Please can all orders and the payment be sent in a named envelope as this is extremely helpful when we receive money at the start of the school day.  

** As always, your kindness and support is gratefully received especially at this busy time of year. **

What we've been up to this week...

This week between performance practise we have been busy baking.  Last week we got to taste a variety of different biscuits and use ordinal numbers to rank our favourite.  This week we actually made our own biscuits.  Lots of skills were involved in this task... team work and cooperation was essential so that everyone has a turn at measuring and weighing, reading recipe instructions and helping turn the crumby mixture in to a ball of dough.

Later in the week we also wrote how we made the biscuits.  The children had to write in the past tense, remembering as much detail as they could, for example the weight measurements for the ingredients.  The children worked really hard on this and produced some very good quality writing.  

The Christmas production is really coming together now.  The children have taken part in green screen filming this week and have enjoyed putting on their costumes to do this.  They looked fabulous!  Thank you for all the effort you have put in.  

Today the Friends of the school have sent raffle tickets home with your children.  It would be very much appreciated if you could manage to sell these before the school Christmas Fair.  The fair takes place on Saturday 1st December in school.  I will be there helping out and look forward to seeing many familiar faces.

This week the spelling pattern is 'oi'.  Sounds are now being taken from speed sounds set 3. This week there are 3 challenge words. Spellings are saved in a pdf format and can be seen after this update.  

Have a really good weekend everyone.  See you on Monday. 😀

This week in school

Today everyone got in the 'Children in Need' spirit, coming to school in spotty clothes, dressed as Pudsey or in their own clothes.  Thank you everyone for the donations.

We have been working hard on the Christmas concert this week and it is slowly coming together.  More filming will take place next week.  Most costumes are now in school - thank you. 

This week in Maths we have been decoding word problems.  We have been working out if they are addition or subtraction stories (or even division and multiplication!) and then writing the story and working out the answer.

Our literacy work has been based around the story "Biscuit Bear" by Mini Grey.  We have worked with learning partners to think of adjectives to describe the biscuit dough at two points in time.  We have also been inferencing. For this we looked at a certain picture in the book.  What could we see as evidence in just this picture? We also did some wondering... asking questions about things in the picture we were unsure about.  This meant we were able discuss the reasons behind our thinking with suggestions and ideas that showed great thinking.  What a fantastic few sessions we had.

A polite remember that fruit money for last half term was £4 and this half term it is £3.50.  You can pay this online or by sending your contribution to school in a named envelope.  Many thanks.

New spellings have been stuck in your child's book if it was in school today.  There is a link to a pdf document with copies of next weeks spellings if needed.

Have an enjoyable weekend!

Operation Christmas Child

Yesterday morning in assembly the children heard about Operation Christmas Child. This is a charity that sends parcels overseas to children who would otherwise receive nothing for Christmas.  The idea is to fill a Christmas wrapped shoe box with small toys and everyday items that can then be passed on to less privileged children.

In the past I have filled shoe boxes with products bought in places like Home Bargains and The Works. I have included such things as a child’s toothbrush and toothpaste, a woolly hat and gloves, a yo-yo, toy cars, pad of paper and pencils, crayons, pens etc some playing cards a bouncy ball a small cuddly toy and other such items. 

To find out more information about on how to fill your shoe box and what to fill boxes with, please take a look at the website https://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/as there are certain restrictions on products that can be included.  

Filled boxes can be returned to school and will then be collected before being sent for distribution to other countries.

There is not long left to fill shoe boxes but the final date for sending a filled box into school would be Friday 16th November.  

Christmas Cards

Today your child will have brought home an original piece of artwork. This is their Christmas card design that can be purchased in card format.  With this they also brought home a little information card with details on how to submit any orders that you may require in time for Christmas.  This has been organised by the Friends of the school. Should you have any further questions regarding orders, please ask at the office.

Thank you also to everyone who has been learning their lines for the Christmas concert.  Your help with this is very gratefully received.  Also a polite reminder that in order to begin recording some parts of the play in school, could all costumes please be in school by Monday 12 November?  Thank you for all your help and support.

​​​​​​​

Midweek Peek

This week Maths has been all about symmetry. We have been discussing the meaning of vertical and horizontal too. We have looked at regular and irregular shapes and decided if they have vertical lines of symmetry or not and sorted accordingly. Some of us changed the criteria for our sorting looked whether shapes were symmetrical or had equal edges or were symmetrical or had curved edges.

We have also had the new addition of challenge cards in the classroom. Each week a series of challenges will be set for the children to independently complete and record the finished challenges in their Seesaw journal. Some of these challenges will be set in the outdoor area. This week the children had to draw the other side of a chosen leaf as accurately as possible. Inside the classroom the children have been writing sentences with the spelling words that will be tested on Friday. Also, the construction area has been busy with children using construction materials and loose parts to make symmetrical patterns.

Have a look at some of our challenge results on the pdf that has pictures to show the kinds of things we have been doing.

We have also been learning lots of new vocabulary.  We are looking at  definitions, learning about syllables, how words change with prefix and suffix additions and synonyms and antonyms for these words.  So far this week we have looked at words such as tussle, recuperate, soak and visceral.  The idea is that children begin to develop a wide awareness of the words around them and can identify some of these words in their daily lives.  Just like the weekly spellings that the children are encouraged to use,  hopefully some of the new vocabulary will be transferrable to independent written work too.

Please come back agin soon to see what else we have been doing.

Christmas Half Term

Tomorrow is the start of a very busy half term in the run up to Christmas.  We have songs to practise and scenes to put together ready for the concert and lots of work to do too.

Please remember to bring wellies back to school so we can make use of the outdoor area and outdoor classroom as much as possible.  Please can you also make sure that children have their winter PE kits in school?  Our outdoor session is on a Monday and as long as it is not raining we plan to go out.  Children will need jogging bottoms and a long sleeved top as well as a polo shirt and trainers or pumps.  Please remember to make sure any PE kit is labelled and also any hats, gloves and winter coats are too as this makes identifying owners of mislaid or duplicate items much easier. Thank you. 

Please check back regularly to see what we have been up to as the half term progresses.

See you all tomorrow morning! 

Up and running at long last!

Apologies for the delay in getting the webpage back up and running.  There have been a few technical disruptions but hopefully all is well now.

School Days

Thank you all, parents and children, for your commitment to class life.  Things are running smoothly and we have got a good routine going.  All the children have made a great start to Year 2 and have will hopefully enjoy a week off after a long start to the school year.

Attendance

The newsletter highlighted that in 2LC we are exceeding the attendance target set by school.  This is great news and hopefully something we can maintain until the end of the summer term.

Good Reads

As a class we are enjoying reading lengthier chapter books.  We began by reading Jill Murphy's "The Worst Witch" and are nearing the end of our current book "The Boy Who Grew Dragons" by Andy Shepherd.  We recently received postcards from Andy which are now displayed in the classroom.

Reading Books

There is lots of reading taking place which is wonderful.  Please remember to bring book bags every day.  We change books three times a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Please make sure that reading records are signed when reading has taken place and that if a book has been completed that this is clearly indicated as this really helps on those book change days.  Thank you.

Christmas Performance

Next term we will begin to rehearse for the Christmas production.  These will take place on the evening of Wednesday 5th December and the afternoon of Thursday 6th December.  More details will be sent out nearer the time.  We kindly ask that costumes be brought into school by the 12th November.  

Parents Evening

When we return to school there are three evenings of appointments.  If you are unable to make the time indicated please let me know and we will be able to arrange a mutually convenient time.  Your child's books will be available to look at in the practical area whilst you wait.   Hopefully you will not be kept waiting too long.  Thank you in advance for your patience.

That's all folks! 

Now that everything is working, I plan to regularly update our class page with information, photographs and explanations about what we have been up to with our learning.  Please come back regularly to see what takes place in our class.  Have a great half term everyone.  

See you on November 5th!

IYMI (Incase you missed it)

Here are some dates of things that are happening for children in the Infant department during the next half term in the run up to Christmas.

Thursday 15th November – Children in Need Disco 

Friday 16th November – Children in Need (Non-Uniform Day) 

Friday 30th November – Non-Uniform Day (bring a bottle) 

Saturday 1st December – Friends Christmas Fair 

Wednesday 5th December – 6.00pm – YR2 Christmas Production

Thursday 6th December – 2.00pm – YR2 Christmas Production 

Tuesday 11th December – Infant Panto – Venue Cymru 

Thursday 13th December – Christmas Disco 

Friday 21st December – School Closes for Christmas 

Monday 7th January – Inset Day 

Tuesday 8th January – Inset Day 

Wednesday 9th  - School opens for pupils