This term we have continued our ‘magnificent monarchs’ topic in English and history, learning about Henry VIII (with help from our resident historian, Mrs Brewer), and writing some lovely kenning poems about his reign. We will shortly be moving on to the reign of William the Conqueror, exploring the Bayeux Tapestry, and summarising William’s life in comic strip form.
We have nearly concluded the year 2 spelling programme, as well as focussing this term on word classes, apostrophes for contraction, and apostrophes for possession. We are currently enjoying E. B. White’s ‘Charlotte’s Web’ (one of Mrs Applegate’s favourites!) as our class reading book – this is in addition to our ‘reading practice sessions’ on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, where the children read their phonics/fluency books in small groups with guidance and support from a teacher. We hope you have continued to enjoy listening to your child reading their phonics/fluency books to you, and that you have valued the opportunity to share their weekly ‘book for pleasure’ at home. Thank you for remembering to return both books each Wednesday so they can be used by other children (children reading fluency books will also need to bring their books in to school on Mondays and Tuesdays, so they can be used in school).
In maths we have learnt about fractions (halves, quarters and thirds), and we have just finished learning to tell the time to the quarter hour – the children have taken very well to both these blocks, and we achieved some record-breaking scores in our end-of-block assessments! We will cover position and direction, and statistics, before the end of term. Please support your child’s maths fluency by continuing to practise their times tables (and especially related division facts) regularly at home (ideally daily) via the Times Tables Rock Stars website. Children who would also appreciate extra support with their foundational maths skills are still able to access the Numbots website for additional practice with place value, addition and subtraction.
Animal survival continues to be our focus in science this term, spending time in our on-site deadwood microhabitat, and observing and recording the elements animals need in order to survive and thrive there. We are exploring Islam in RE, are enjoying learning a Polish folk dance (with related dance moves!) in music, and in PSHE are exploring ‘changing me’, including preparing for the move to year 3. Cricket and multi-skills are our foci in PE, and in computing we have started to learn how to program using ScratchJnr. In DT we are learning about moving parts, including exploring the function of moving parts on machines, and transferring these movements to paper-based models.
We are very much looking forward to our trip to the Faversham Charters Museum later on in June, and we are also planning a ‘monarchs Monday’ dressing-up day when we will immerse ourselves in Tudor life – we will try to find a cooler Monday for this event, when we won’t melt in our costumes – I will send out a message when we’ve identified a date.
It has already been a very full term! Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support for your child’s learning.