Another very busy week. We are feeling ready for our week’s holiday!
Literacy
This week we learned the digraph sounds oi (boil, foil, coin) and oy (boy, toy, enjoy). We used the following image to help us to remember the sound.
We have had a focus on what makes a sentence and have done some work on identifying sentences, ensuring that they each make sense on their own.
In writing, we finished our unit on instruction writing with a piece focussing on our morning routine at school. We are now confidently using bossy verbs, using words of order and sequencing instructions correctly. We have been developing our skills in self assessing our work against these success criteria.
We have been continuing to work on developing our spelling of tricky words and recognition of key words from our reading books.
Things to try at home:
- Practise reading your new reading book with the illustrations covered up
- Continue to practise word wall words – we should know these by sight
- With an adult practise finding words in your reading books in isolation e.g. ‘find the word pulled’, ‘find the word stream’.
- Following on from parents evening your child will now have a copy of tricky words to practise – use post-its or small pieces of paper and make a pairs game to play – making the cards will further cement the spelling of these words.
Numeracy
This week in numeracy we have continued to practise our numerical skills by:
- Counting forwards and backwards starting and stopping at different points
- Recognising numerals
- Handwriting numbers correctly
- Using a counting on strategy for addition
Our main focus has been revisiting doubles facts using fingers unseen (1+1, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5) and extending this to (6+6, 7+7, 8+8, 9+9, 10+10).
We also introduced the concept of near doubles (doubles plus 1.)
Things to try at home:
DOUBLES! DOUBLES! (*new* 1-10 version) – YouTube
Addition: Doubles + 1 / Growing Brain – YouTube
Loop cards (dominos) games – select ‘doubles to 15’ or ‘doubles to 20’ Loop Cards – 5-11 year olds – Topmarks
Hit the button game – select doubles to 10 – Hit the Button – Quick fire maths practise for 6-11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk)
Other Areas of the Curriculum
As part of our Polly Jean Pyjama Queen topic we have been learning about adaptions animals have developed to live in their habitats. The two animals we learned about were: camels and how they have adapted to life in the desert and polar bears and how they have adapted to life in the Arctic.
We enjoyed taking part in experiments to find out how polar bears have adapted to cold climates.
We used lard to create a polar bear glove and tested this in ice with one hand gloved and one hand bare. We found that the hand with the polar bear glove could not feel the cold ice at all! The lard provided a thick layer of fat similar to that of the polar bear.
We also used cotton wool to insulate our hand against ice, just like a polar bear’s thick fur. It helped to keep our hands warm!
In PE we have continued to develop our coordination and jumping skills using a range of activities.
We enjoyed working with the other P2 class to find and unscramble tricky words in the playground.
Independent Learning
(Photos taken by the children, their proud moments! )
Other information
- Please ensure your child brings a jacket every day to school.
- Thank you for your support in emptying the purple folders each day.
- A reminder to name all items of clothing and shoes, and to check names on items brought home in case your child accidentally acquires a jumper belonging to someone else.
- We would appreciate donations of any unwanted empty or partially used notebooks or diaries (used pages can be removed). Also, any enticing writing implements (i.e., glittery pencils/gel pens/ pencils with feathers etc – anything other than standard school issue type pencils/pens). The children enjoy choosing resources from the table to use in their independent learning.
- We are looking for small pieces of ‘junk’ for modelling e.g., toothpaste boxes, tea bag boxes, snack bar boxes. The more interesting shapes the better!
- Remember we will back on Wednesday 26th October.
Have a wonderful break!
Mrs de Bonrostro
Buckstone Primary School 