In English the children have really enjoyed this term’s book ‘Orion and the Dark’, they have been able to relate to Orion and all of his fears, some things we thought were quite silly, like tartan(!) but some things we really understood – like the dark and wasps! They provided advice to Orion in the form of letters, encouraging him to find his fear funny so that he wasn’t scared any more. It also encouraged the children to feel confident to talk about the things that scare them and that it’s ok to share their fears with each other. The children used their imagination to come up with alternative endings to the story – however they all ended happily!
In Maths this term we have covered a wide range of topics from shape, which included knowing all of the properties of 2D and 3D shapes and using the correct vocabulary to describe them. We have also covered addition and subtraction where we cross the tens boundary, direction, position and movement where we have learnt our lefts and rights, clockwise and anti-clockwise and given specific directions to each other to get from the classroom to the hall without crashing into anything!
Our Science this term has gone from strength to strength. We have carried out numerous investigations and experiments including: exploding Coke and Mentos, dissecting a daffodil, the affect of food dye when put into the water of a flower, mixing liquids with different densities, making patterns with skittles and water and many more! The children have thoroughly enjoyed predicting what’s going to happen, ensuring the test is fair, carrying out the experiment and writing up the results and conclusion. We were also very lucky to have 15 Year 10 students from Wilmington Grammar School who came and spent the afternoon with us carrying out different science experiments, including mixing milk, food colouring and washing up liquid – ask your children what happened!
We are excited for what the next term has to offer and our new book will be Charlotte’s Web. We have included below some key vocabulary that would be handy for your children to know. As an extra challenge encourage them to turn into dictionary detectives (which we do in Guided Reading sessions) to find out the definitions:
runt
injustice
goslings
salutations
radiant
campaign
herbivore
carnivore
omnivore
phenomenon
After Easter we will be beginning to prepare the children for their SATs assessments, these will be taken in a really informal way and the children won’t even know they are doing tests. We encourage you to look at the links that Miss Hately has provided, if you would like to do anything further to support your children at home. We advise you not to do any old practice papers as we sometimes use these materials in school and these don’t actually help your children to apply the skills they have learnt, they just help them to answer questions from a test. We continue to encourage the children to read as much as possible, a wide range of materials.
Finally, we hope you all have a wonderful Easter break! The children have worked so hard this term and have definitely earned the break, we hope they have lots of fun and don’t each too much chocolate!
See you in the Summer Term!
Team Year 2
