'Our Love of Reading'

In our school, we strive to inspire a love of reading in every single child. In our class this is nurtured by ensuring that every child has access to a wide range of books that are linked to the children's interests. Each child also takes home two books every day. The first book is very closely linked to the child's phonic ability and will challenge the child to apply the skills and knowledge that they are currently developing in their 'Read Write Inc' phonics group. The second book has been chosen by the child, from an appropriate selection of books in our school library, to share with an adult at home. We hope that you will encourage your child in their love of reading, and please do share your success by making a note of any shared reading in your child's reading record.  

Our current book of choice for afternoon story-time, is the fabulous

'Fantastic Mr Fox' by Roald Dahl.

Week 8 - Science Week

We have been a classroom of scientists this week! Predictions, questions, investigations, fair tests, measurements, conclusions.... it's been very busy! Our favourite investigation this week was inspired by our learning during Health and Wellbeing Week. We asked 'Do germs spread easily?' It all started when Mrs Tordoff dipped her hands in the glitter pot and before we knew it, the glitter was everywhere!

We also took some time this week to build on our class collection of 'Recommended Reads'. This is a growing collection of books that the children have read or shared with an adult, that they have really loved reading, and would recommend to their classmates. The collection includes fiction and non-fiction books, as well as some search and find books which are really good for developing concentration skills. 

In Design and Technology, our fabric faces are coming along nicely. We learnt about the various joining techniques and now that we have developed these skills, we have moved on to learning how to design a template. We then used the template to develop our careful cutting skills. Our fabric faces are finally taking shape - literally!

Week 7

In our Geography lesson this week, we learnt more about some human features of our local area. We looked at the different types of homes that we might possibly see in Goldthorpe, then we used Google Maps to find some examples.

Our music lesson was even more physical than usual this week as we used our bodies to find the pulse. We learnt that the pulse stays the same and we moved in time by shrugging our shoulders, marching, tapping our feet and shaking our hips. We have also been learning that the rhythm changes and we have been developing our musical skills by clapping some simple rhythms. 

We continued our 10 day active challenge this week and Wednesday was 'Green Day'. Going green was great fun, we all dressed in green and ate as many green foods as we could. At lunch, many of us tried green beans for the very first time! They were yummy. 

Week 6 - Health and Wellbeing Week

Wow! It's been even busier than usual in Class 2 this week!

We are always encouraging the children and staff in our school to think carefully about their health and wellbeing. But this week it became a special focus, with lots of extra fabulous activities, competitions, challenges and even some goodies to take home.

Our sports leaders from Active Fusion have been teaching us how exercising safely can help to keep us fit and healthy. We especially enjoyed circuit training this week and learning about a healthy heart.

Week 5

Do children get faster as they get older? This week in Science we continued to learn about how animals, including humans, change as they grow. We worked in groups to work out how they could investigate the answer to this question. We then worked with the Year 6 children to complete a comparative test and used stopwatches to measure the amount of time it took for five older children and five younger children to run a set distance. Then we recorded and analysed our results. We decided that not all of the older children were faster than the younger children, but most of them were. The children thought about why this could be and discussed reasons such as the length of children's legs and the amount of experience the children had of running. We really enjoyed working with the Year 6 children and we learnt a lot from them about fair testing and recording results.

Week 4

Our collective worship this week was a response to some sad news that one of the children in our class had shared with us. We read from Luke 12  and Matthew 6 and focused on the message 'Don't be worried, trust in God.'

We read the story of Mr Worry and we talked about how we often feel better if we share our worries with others. We then lit a candle and listened to some music as we each placed all of our worries into a basket, leaving them with God whilst knowing that we have people in school that we can share our worries with. 

Week 3

We shared a lovely book this week called 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' by an author called Judith Kerr. This book was written in 1968 and linked brilliantly to our topic 'Memory Box'. We were able to look at the lovely illustrations and discuss how different the clothes, cars and household items look compared to the things we see today. We then started to use story language from the book to build our own stories about creatures who come to tea with us. So far we have a monkey, a unicorn, a dinosaur, a panda, a snake and many more!

In maths, we have been using the symbols < > = to compare numbers with the help of Charlie the Crocodile! The children were also given their passwords for a website called Times Table Rock Stars and a copy of your child's password has been put in their book bag along with instructions about how to access the site. We also had a look at odd and even numbers and decided which envelopes should go in the odd and even postboxes. Looking at the house numbers on the envelopes, some children very quickly made a link to the 2x tables.

Week 2

This week, in maths, we have been developing our knowledge of place value and one of our fun activities was a game called Shark Numbers. Please use the link below to use this game at home too.

We also had great fun using Google Maps to explore our local area of Goldthorpe. We discovered lots of human and physical features including places of worship, parks, supermarkets, open spaces and woodland. The children asked if they could use Google Maps to find the place where they live so maybe this is something that you could do at home with your child?

Our art session this week had us talking about life before cameras and we explored portraits by various different artists. Then we learnt how to draw a self-portrait which was very interesting - did you know that your eyes are actually about halfway down your face?

Week 1

The children were very pleased to see each other again and eager to share the stories of their summer holiday adventures. We made the children who have joined our class feel very welcome and we explained that we are the 'Wise Owls' because we are all so clever!

We have had many discussions about the importance of making good choices and we shared our class rules.

Our class rules are:

• Eyes looking
• Ears listening
• Mouth quiet
• Raise hand to speak
• Keep hands and feet to self
• Have fun and learn!

Read Write Inc

You will have heard the children talk about their Read Write Inc sessions. Read Write Inc is the phonics programme we use in school to help children learn to read and write. The children have taken some photos which you can use at home to practise saying the letter sounds. We also talked about our favourite letter sounds! Mrs Tordoff's favourite letter sound combination is 'ch' because all her favourite things start with 'ch'. (Chocolate, cheese, chips, church and children!) What is your child's favourite letter sound?

Our first topic this year is will get the children asking questions such as:

Can you remember being small?

Do you remember learning to crawl?

Did you have a favourite toy or teddy bear?

Did you have a favourite book?

They will quickly learn that the answers will vary depending upon the age of the person they ask! There will be lots of exciting activities and we hope that some grandparents will be able to join us for a very special Grandparent's Topic Session - so keep your eyes open for an invitation.