Year Two weekly newsletter

What busy bees you have been this week Year Two!

In English this week, we have been diving deeper into our story The King Who Banned the Dark. We explored grammar by learning how to use subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, as well as contractions, and practised using them in our own writing. We then searched through the example text, highlighting all the different grammar features we'd been learning about. To bring the story to life, we took part in some exciting role play--some of us became the king, while others took on the role of advisors trying to convince him to release the ban on darkness. We also acted out how the citizens might have felt when the ban was first introduced, how they celebrated at the time, and how their feelings changed after a month with no darkness. All of this thoughtful discussion and drama helped us write powerful letters to the king, explaining why the ban should be lifted. We can't wait to finish these off next week.

In spellings you have looked at the spelling pattern of doubling the consonant and adding ing when you have a short vowel in the word e.g. skipping or knotting.

In Maths this week, you have continued your fantastic work on fractions. You learnt all about thirds and how to split objects or shapes into three equal parts. You explored how to find the whole when given just one part, using your knowledge of equal sharing. We also introduced the terms unit and non-unit fractions--you discovered that a unit fraction always has a numerator of 1, while non-unit fractions have numerators greater than 1. You've been using this new vocabulary confidently to describe and compare fractions. Great effort!

Today we completed our second lesson of digital music. We recapped our learning from last week and the music we had listened to by Gustav Holst. You then learnt what rhythm and beat was and listened to a great video that explained this to us. You then created your own musical pattern between you and your partner. You followed a pattern of 'AABAABAAB'. You then performed your piece of music to the class. It sounded brilliant! You were then introduced to chrome music lab and you created your own rhythms using digital music. The classroom got very loud as you explored making your own rhythms but what fun you had Y2!

In RE this week, you explored the idea of what makes a place holy. You listened to the story of Jacob's dream in Genesis 28:10-22, where God made important promises to Jacob. You acted out these promises--God promised that Jacob would own the land he was on, have a large family, and that He would always be with him. You then drew these promises in your books. From this, you discovered a powerful message: it's not just special buildings that are holy--any place can be holy, because God is always with us.

In courageous advocacy this week, you continued your journey with the Archbishop of York Trust and were introduced to the theme of teamwork. You explored how great leaders work better together and that true leadership often means supporting one another and achieving shared goals as a team.

In history this week, you were excited to discover that your new topic is The Great Fire of Nantwich -- an exciting journey that will even lead to a school trip to Nantwich Museum! You began by learning about the key events that happened before the fire and carefully placed these on a timeline to help you understand the sequence of events that led up to it. You found out that it happened during the Tudor times when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne. You found out that she was the daughter of Henry the VIII.

In geography this week, you concluded your unit on Kenya by comparing your own childhood experiences to those of Nana and Heke, two children living in Kenya. You explored their school life and noticed both similarities and differences -- like the fact that both you and they go to school, but in Kenya the school day can start as early as 6 or 7 o'clock. You also discovered that the food is different, learning that they often eat uji, a type of porridge. It was a fascinating way to understand life in another part of the world!

In PE this week, you had an exciting first session with Coach Sam. He introduced you to some important tennis skills, including different ways to catch and throw. You had the chance to get creative with your catching techniques before partnering up to practise throwing and catching with cones. To finish, you played a fun group tennis game in teams of four using the skills you had learned. It was a fantastic start to your tennis journey with Coach Sam.

In music you played notes C, D and F on the glockenspiel.

After a warmup game of corners, children were encouraged to come up with dance moves to match the words on our mind map from last week and the lyrics from the song we were dancing to. They were given the lyrics and they circled the words (the top tip was to choose the nouns and the verbs) they thought would be good to create moves to. We chose our favourites as a team and tried to dance in time to the music and each other. Staying synchronised was tricky but we practised lots and chose people to lead us at the front to keep us in time.

What a fantastic week we have had. Homework was emailed out on Friday. Please make sure your child is completing their reading every week. We are not having many children changing their books at the moment!

Have a wonderful bank holiday,

Miss Haynes