Welcome to the first Year 2 Newsletter Blog on Hwb!
We have had such a busy month already and the children have worked very hard. Ardderchog pawb! We all celebrated Dydd Santes Dwynwen by listening to the story, which we then retold orally, and in small groups created the story in drama. We then wrote up the story and made a card to give to our loved ones using the Welsh we had learnt. Caru ti!
We used the book ‘I want my hat back!’ by Jon Klassen in Philosophy for Children (P4C) sessions. We thought of questions we wanted to ask before having a discussion and showing our opinion on an opinion line. Lots of lovely ideas were shared and some children changed their opinion after the discussion.
In Science we explored static electricity in our ‘Messy Hair Experiment’ using a balloon, some tissue and our hair! What would happen to the tissue when a small charge of static electricity was generated? Children made lots of connections to prior learning and their own experiences to make a prediction. We also explored our different reaction times to catching a falling object and were able to measure it using a ruler. Again, lots of super predictions and connections were shared and recorded in our Science booklets.
Our daily Letters and Sounds sessions have continued with spelling games, dictation, independent writing and challenges. We also assessed high frequency words and a copy of those to work on at home will be sent home in the coming week. Gwaith da!
We looked at relationships and how we treat people with an excellent book called ‘Have you filled a bucket today?’ by author Carol McCloud and colourfully illustrated by David Messing. This simple book encourages positive behaviour by using the concept of an invisible bucket to show children how easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation, and love by “filling buckets. Children were keen to discuss their own experiences and we used these ideas to make a display of our own buckets describing ourselves. Children illustrated ‘fillers’ and ‘dippers’ which we have displayed in the classroom. Please feel free to come and see our work in class after school with your child.
Our school monthly value is appreciation and we played the ‘Gratitude Game’ to enable us to think and share aspects of our lives we are thankful for. We watched a lovely video called ‘Colour your world with kindness’ which is available on YouTube should you wish to view.
In Welsh sessions we have learnt letters and sounds with the brilliant ‘Tric a Chlic’ programme as well as daily guided reading sessions after lunch using the story of ‘Tedi Twt a Doli Glwt yn yr Ysgol’. We have focussed on food vocabulary this term and our Café Cymreig should be up and running in our outside area very soon.
In Maths sessions we have been measuring in the forest, measuring in centimetres, comparing 2 digit numbers, exploring odd and even, place value, the 2, 5 and 10 times tables, developing strategies for addition and subtraction, as well as reasoning tasks in forest sessions.
We used the story of ‘Mamgu’s Campervan’ by Wendy White to produce a tally of our favourite foods in Welsh and created a block graph and pie chart on Just2easy on HWB. We looked at a map of Wales and used atlases to plot their journey around Wales taking in many ice cream and Welsh castle stops along the way!
In PE we have been doing gymnastics, concentrating on making shapes and working with a partner to produce a sequence to perform to the class. We have continued to develop skills of stretching and meditation using visualisations to cool down afterwards.
In Literacy we used a section of the brilliant Roald Dahl ‘Revolting Rhymes’ film which was shown on television over Christmas and used this idea of merging stories and characters to write a completely new fairy tale of our own using characters and storylines from two different fairy tales. The children really enjoyed this and had some brilliant results! We are making a class book for our library area so that everyone can enjoy our creativity.
We look forward to the month of February with some more fabulous learning and thank you for your continuing support.