Our Open Day was a great success and we have had some wonderful feedback from the visitors who joined us for lessons throughout the day. Many comments included how happy the children seemed to be and the fact that they really appeared to be enjoying their learning. The children themselves were also fantastic ambassadors for our school too, particularly some of our Year 6 children who acted as tour guides. Estupendo!!
Well we are rapidly hurtling towards the end of the year and there are lots of activities to fit in before the end of term, which I can’t believe is only three weeks away!
Homework
Homework between now and the end of term, will be a different practical activity each week, in addition to the spelling sheets. The children will be asked to feedback what they have done each Monday morning, in order to develop their speaking and listening skills. This will then feed into a weekly piece of writing, using our writing ‘mantra’ ‘Think it – Say it – Write it’.
Last week, the children were asked to investigate different objects around the home and find out how they were measured – grams, kilograms, millilitres or litres. We will be asking the children to feed this back to us on Monday and we will then be writing a recount of their findings.
http://www.ictgames.com/mostlyPostie.html reading scales in kg and g
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/maths/aliencookbook.shtml make an alien recipe using an alien cookbook
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/measures/index.htm
although this is aimed at key stage 2, most of the children will be able to access this - particularly if they like Bob the Builder!
Literacy
Our last topic of the year is a great one to finish with. We are going to look at different stories by the same author. This week we will be reading lots of extracts from authors such as Martin Waddell, Dick King Smith and my favourite, Roald Dahl.
We will be exploring characterisation in the author’s books by gathering evidence from the text, interpreting information and responding to questions through drama and hotseating. The children will be expected to pose and answer questions about particular characters and look for evidence of change during the course of the story.
http://www.roalddahl.com/ the official website
http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/dickkingsmith/
http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/dickkingsmith/waterhorse.html read an extract from The Water Horse, which has recently been made into a film.
High frequency words
The children are doing really well with these for reading. When they are assessed in school, please remember that since they are sight words, the children are expected to be able to say them as soon as they are seen, rather than blending the sounds together to read the word. We aim to have a real push on these for the remainder of the term, as once they are known, children really do gain confidence with their reading ability.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/hfwords/index.shtml
http://www.ictgames.co.uk/ clickon literacy games and then scroll down for the pirate ship and lots of other games to develop HFW and phonics
Numeracy
All the children have now been assessed for their end of year checks, and what a fantastic lot they are too! We know now that we are going to be able to move the children on much more quickly next year, as many of them have exceeded their end of year targets!
We are going to spend the next few weeks, consolidating a few areas where the children would benefit from a little more practice, to enable them to really hit the ground running in September.
If you would like to support the children in beginning to learn times tables in preparation for Year 3, then that would be fantastic. Year 3 have a weekly times tables champion test – wouldn’t it be fantastic if they could have some children achieving the bronze award in September?
Year 1 children could also move onto practicing their number bonds to 20 now and even pairs to 100! Imagine how quickly we are going to be able to move on with our curriculum in September if the children are confident with these before the end of the year?
Teamwork
Following on from last week’s successful Spanish Week, the children will be working in their teams this week to produce an information book about Spain. Each team will be responsible for producing a page, including art work, photographs and key information points. The children will be encouraged to produce some of their best work ever, as we hope to display these in the school library when they are finished.
A big thank you to Mrs Cullen and Mrs Moss who have provided us with some great resources for Mrs Worrall’s Travel Agents. If any of you have any travel brochures, particularly about Spain at home, we would be very grateful for them.
Transition
I know for many of you, you are beginning to think about our little ones crossing the hall in a few weeks time, to become juniors. Fear not! We have been privy to many conversations with the children and the atmosphere of ‘excitement’ more than describes how they are feeling. I myself experienced the Year 2/3 transition last year and the children do take it in their stride. Honestly!
As part of a transition project, we are going to begin some writing with the children, which they will then complete during the induction time in September. The Year 3 teachers will be coming to work with us for a couple of sessions for this and we will arrange for the Year 2 children to spend some time in the juniors before September.
If you do have any questions or anxieties, then please do feel free to pop in and see any member of the 1/2 team.
Domestics
There have been a few letters over the last couple of weeks or so, and I know some of them may have been buried at the bottom of the bookbags, so...
Gullivers World letter - voluntary contribution of £17
Water Bottle letter if you ordered and received one before the holidays
Flamenco dancing donation - £3
Many of the books in the library seem to have depleted recently. Could we ask you to please check at home if you have more than one reading book? Books are changed on Tuesdays and Fridays, so it is particularly important that they are in school then. Also, if your child needs to keep their book, please could you indicate this in the diary. When the children progress to the higher book band levels, it may take the full week to read the text, so that is fine.
Think that’s all for this week, except to say, please check out the links on the right hand side of this blog this week. We use all of these sites on a regular basis and the children are becoming fantastic at navigating through them in class!
Take care,
Year 1/2 team
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