Class 2 Blog

Highlights:

This week in maths we have continued with addition and subtraction. Some of the children have struggled to apply number bonds to ten to help with addition. For example, being able to quickly add 3+6+7 because they already know that 3+7 will total ten and they just need to add on 6 more. Also continuing number bonds patterns such as if they know 3 + 7 = 10 then they also know 13 + 7 = 20, 23 + 7 = 30, 33+7 = 40 and so on. Recognising and continuing patterns is an important concept in understanding maths. Please help your child practice this. A worksheet has been added to Seesaw. This does not need to be printed, it can be completed by using the online Seesaw tools. You can also access number bond activities on the Topmarks website which was mentioned on last week’s class blog. In English we have planned and started to write our descriptions of our imaginary planets. Make way for fluffy, marshmallow clouds and lakes made of strawberry milkshake! In computing this week we started exploring and learning about digital footprints. Please can the children continue to practise logging in to Purple Mash when you can at home. In science we discussed what would be a suitable habitat for woodlice and why. We then went out into the school grounds and did a tally of woodlice in two different areas and compared them. This also gave us the opportunity to practise counting in fives. In RW we looked at what it means to become part of the Christian faith. We discussed baptisms and christenings. The children enjoyed sharing their stories, including a christening in Spain. Please email/send in/upload to seesaw any photographs of the children taking part in any of these religious events. Finally, in history we investigated timelines then ordered some of Amy Johnson’s achievements on our own timeline.

What’s happening next week: In science the pupils will be learning about food chains including completing a practical activity pretending to be a bird! In computing we will be exploring digital footprints in a little more detail. In history we will be recapping everything we have learned about Amy Johnson and will be answering some of the questions we wanted to find out at the beginning of the unit. In RW we will be learning about what we might see inside an Islamic Mosque.

Class Focus:

We are working on developing our independence and self-help skills so that the children have strategies to support their learning when an adult is not working with their group.

Spellings:

This week’s spelling focus has been common exception words. The spelling test is now on Mondays. Please ensure the children practise spellings at home, the children stick their new spellings in their reading logs every Monday. Below we have posted what they had this week so they can be practising over the weekend. The spelling sheets that the children complete daily in school will also be sent home each week for you to revisit when you can.

Just a reminder that PE days are now Tuesdays and Fridays (except next week ONLY W/C 14th October it will be Monday and Friday, text sent home yesterday).

Dates for your diary:

Monday 14th October – Harvest assembly and start of our East Yorkshire Food Bank appeal. Please bring your donations of baked beans, tinned vegetables, tinned fish, teabags or coffee any day this week and leave in the cardboard boxes outside reception. Many thanks in advance.

Tuesday 15th October  – Parents evening meetings – appointment times have been sent home this week

Monday 21st October – Key Stage One trip to Hull and Ferens Art Gallery – thank-you for returning permission slips and making a contribution online towards the cost. We really can’t run these trips without additional financial support from both the PTFA and from parents so it is massively appreciated.

Friday 25th October – KS1 will enjoy another visit from the artist Charlotte Eldred as part of East Riding arts creativity week.
This day will also be our school ‘Be Bright Be Seen’ Day which children can celebrate by coming to school wearing bright colours.

In maths we have done the end of the place value unit assessment and have begun the focus on addition and subtraction. In English we have moved onto learning about imaginary settings descriptions using the book The Smeds and the Smoos. We have also looked at some features of non-fiction texts including contents page, headings, sub headings and the glossary. In computing this week we have been exploring Purple Mash email some more and learning how to attach a picture to an email. Please can the children continue to practise logging in to Purple Mash when you can at home. In science we designed our own microhabitats and labelled the drawings with what minibeasts would live there. In RW we looked at Christianity in more detail and explored some faith stories. In History we sorted old/past and new/present transport and also learnt some more key facts about Amy Johnson.

This week we also had a pumpkin assembly! Please see the school newsletter for a report on this. Many thanks to the Pumpkin Patch at Bewholme for supplying us with a fantastic pumpkin and allowing Peter to visit!

What’s happening next week:

In Science we will hopefully be back in the wildlife garden observing the habitats of woodlice. In History we will be looking at ordering Amy Johnson’s achievements on a timeline. In computing we will be learning about digital footprints and what they mean. Finally, in RW we will be learning about why Christians get baptised.

Spellings:

This week’s spelling focus has been The /i:/ sound spelt ey. Please ensure the children practise spellings at home, the children stick them in their reading logs every Monday. The spelling test has been a Friday but from next week this will change to a Monday. Below we have posted what they had this week and also next week’s so they can be practising over the weekend if they wish. The spelling sheets that the children complete daily in school will also be sent home week for you to revisit when you can.

Last call for reading photos to add to our reading wall! Please ask mum or dad to take a photo and either upload it to the class Seesaw account or email it to plattenk@brandesburton.eriding.net or mcintyres@brandesburton.eriding.net and we will print them off and display them. Thank-you to George, Isabelle and Louis who’s photos were added to our wall this week.

To support maths learning please try to access the Topmarks website Hit the Button activity to practise number bonds to 10 and 20 and 2x. 5x and 10x tables. This will greatly speed up maths mental skills and allow the children to apply their learning to other areas of maths such as problem solving. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button This is also available as an app for Ipads and mobile phones. Another great FREE app to download to support mental maths skills is the White Rose One minute Maths app. As we follow White Rose for our maths curriculum, this aligns perfectly.

Class focus:

We are working on developing our independence and self-help skills so that the children have strategies to support their learning when an adult is not working with their group.

Just a reminder that PE days as from next w/c 7th October will be Tuesdays and Fridays. Finally, please can we have all trip slips and contributions back asap.

Dates for your diary:

Monday 14th October – Harvest assembly and start of our East Yorkshire Food Bank appeal. Please see this week’s school newsletter for more details.

Tuesday 15th October  – Parents evening meetings

Monday 21st October – Key Stage One trip to Hull and Ferens Art Gallery – letter came home this week.

Friday 25th October – KS1 will enjoy another visit from the artist Charlotte Eldred as part of East Riding arts creativity week.
This day will also be our school ‘Be Bright Be Seen’ Day which children can celebrate by coming to school wearing bright colours.

In maths we have been continuing with our number line work and have been comparing numbers. Quite a few children reverse numbers when they are writing them, it would be really helpful if you could practise writing numbers 1-10 with your child. In English we completed our wanted posters for our alien characters with some amazing descriptions. You may see some of these up around school. We are also going to be recording an oral version of these and uploading them to Seesaw. We have looked at the differences between fiction and non-fiction books. In computing this week we have been learning how to send an email on Purple Mash. The children’s Purple Mash log ins are now in their reading records so you can access this at home. Please can the children practise logging in when you can at home. In science we had to abandon our pond dipping due to bad weather so we hope to do this next week. In RW we enjoyed a trip over to the church to explore the inside and outside and to see what we could find. Finally, in history we looked at the similarities and differences between transport from 100 years ago and transport now.

The whole school celebrated European Day of Languages on Thursday with an assembly where we practised saying ‘hello’ in other languages. All of class 2 also helped with a retelling of The Hungry Caterpillar story… except it was in French!

What’s happening next week:

In Science we will hopefully be back in the wildlife garden doing our pond dipping and additional work on minibeast habitats. In History we will be continuing to look at and compare transport and also learning more about Amy Johnson. In PE we will be continuing with hockey and tag rugby. In computing we will be exploring email a little more.

Hopefully everyone has now managed to access the class 2 Seesaw account. Please do visit Seesaw regularly as we are constantly updating the content and we do love to see what you have uploaded too. It has been great to see your photos of the places you like to read. Thank-you Louis and Elsie for uploading your reading photos.

Spellings:

This week’s spelling focus has been Homophones and near-homophones. The children will practise these spellings in school but please also ensure they practise at home, the children will stick them in their reading logs every week in school and these will usually come home on a Monday. There will be a spelling test every Friday. Below we have posted what they had this week and also next week’s so they can be practising over the weekend if they wish. The spelling sheets that the children complete daily in school will also be sent home at the end of the week for you to revisit when you wish.

Please continue to send in your reading photos to add to our reading wall. We had hoped to show you a photo of our updated reading wall display but unfortunately we still haven’t got quite enough photos. Please ask mum or dad to take a photo and either upload it to the class Seesaw account or email it to plattenk@brandesburton.eriding.net or mcintyres@brandesburton.eriding.net and we will print them off and display them.

To support maths learning please try to access the Topmarks website Hit the Button activity to practise number bonds to 10 and 20 and 2x. 5x and 10x tables. This will greatly speed up maths mental skills and allow the children to apply their learning to other areas of maths such as problem solving. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button This is also available as an app for Ipads and mobile phones. Another great FREE app to download to support mental maths skills is the White Rose One minute Maths app. As we follow White Rose for our maths curriculum, this aligns perfectly.

Class focus:

We are working on developing our independence and self-help skills so that the children have strategies to support their learning when an adult is not working with their group.

Dates for your diary:

Monday 14th October – Harvest assembly and start of our East Yorkshire Food Bank appeal. Please see this week’s school newsletter for more details.

Monday 21st October – Key Stage One trip to Hull and Ferens Art Gallery – letter to follow shortly

Highlights:

In History this week we have continued with our research on Amy Johnson, we discussed how and what we could use to find out more. We then used a variety of different sources to gather information and we were able to answer some of our questions we wanted to find out. In computing we have been practising logging on to Purple Mash independently. The children’s Purple Mash log ins are now in their reading records so you can access this at home. Please can the children practise logging in when you can at home. In science we made our first visit to the wildlife garden searching for minibeasts in microhabitats. We were lucky (!) enough to find worms, woodlice, ants, slugs, snails and a spider. In English we have nearly completed our Wanted posters for our alien characters with some amazing descriptions. Finally in maths we have been investigating number lines. Quite a few children reverse numbers when they are writing them, it would be really helpful if you could practise writing numbers 1-10 with your child.

What’s happening next week:

In Science we will be returning to the wildlife garden to do some pond dipping and we will also be mapping the garden. In English we will complete our character descriptions and move onto writing setting descriptions based on imaginary planets. In History we will be looking at the transport Amy Johnson used and comparing past and present methods of transport. In RW (Religion and Worldviews) we will be heading next door for a visit to the Church to have a closer look inside.

Hopefully everyone has now managed to access the class 2 Seesaw account. Please do visit Seesaw regularly as we are constantly updating the content and we do love to see what you have uploaded too. It was lovely to see Ellis’ workstation where he can practise his spellings and a video of Mina reading plus another science investigation!

Spellings:

This week’s spelling focus has been Homophones and near-homophones. The children will practise these spellings in school but please also ensure they practise at home, the children will stick them in their reading logs every week in school and these will usually come home on a Monday. There will be a spelling test every Friday. Below we have posted what they had this week and also next week’s so they can be practising over the weekend if they wish. The spelling sheets that the children complete daily in school will also be sent home at the end of the week for you to revisit when you wish.

Please continue to practise the Year 1 and 2 common exception word fish. Common exception words are words that do not follow the common phonetic spelling rules that children learn in year 1 and year 2. These are for the children to keep at home and learn. Please can you/your child colour half the fish when they can read the word and the full fish when they can consistently write and spell the word correctly.

We need your help! Our reading display is looking very empty at the moment (see below). We would like to fill it with photographs of you all reading in your favourite place. Please ask mum or dad to take a photo and either upload it to the class Seesaw account or email it to plattenk@brandesburton.eriding.net or mcIntyres@brandesburton.eriding.net and we will print them off and display them. We hope the next photograph of our reading display that we share with you looks much more inviting so please try to get those photos taken and uploaded as soon as you can.

Class focus:

We are working on developing our independence and self-help skills so that the children have strategies to support their learning when an adult is not working with their group.

Dates for your diary:

We will be having a Key Stage visit to Hull to compare and contrast Brandesburton village with the city of Hull. We will also visit Ferens Art Gallery in support of our art curriculum. Final preparations are underway and the provisional date for this trip is Monday 21st October. If you are able to volunteer to come on the trip with us please let any of the Key Stage One team know as soon as possible. We hope to have the final arrangements with you next week.

We will be celebrating Harvest with an in-school assembly on Monday 14th October led by our vicar Suzanne Cooke. During that week we will be accepting donations for the East Yorkshire Food Bank – details to follow.

Highlights:

We’ve had a super first full week back and the children have been busy getting stuck into all our subjects. In English we have been reading the book Here Come the Aliens. You can access an animated version of this story on the class Seesaw account. The children have written some amazing character descriptions for the aliens in the story. In Maths we have started with place value looking at tens and ones. Again if you look at the class Seesaw account, you will find a link to a counting song we have been using to help us count in tens. We began our History topic with an Introduction to Amy Johnson. We thought about questions we would like to find out about her and her life. There has been some fantastic prior knowledge from some of the children that had competed some amazing research over the summer holidays. Mina and her mum were busy over summer creating a little Amy Johnson project and Izzy has made a fantastic model of Amy Johnson’s plane. Take a look below…

What’s happening next week:

In science we will be continuing our work on life processes and recognising things that are dead, alive or have never been alive. Hopefully we will be out and about in the school wildlife garden! In English the children will design their own alien character and will write a detailed description of it in the form of a Wanted poster. In History we will be finding out a bit more about Amy Johnson. In RW (Religion and Worldviews) we will be continuing with our ‘Belonging’ theme. Thank you to everyone that brought things in to show for this.Please try to ensure you have signed up for the class 2 seesaw account as we will regularly share photos of what we have been upto. Let us know if you have any problems with this. Please also feel free to upload photos or videos from home to Seesaw that we can share with the class. This week we have seen Mina’s science experiment, Angelica’s cross-stitiching and George’s football achievements. Well done everybody!

Spellings:

This week’s spelling focus has been the /dʒ/ sound spelt as ge and dge at the end of words, and sometimes spelt as g elsewhere in words before e, i and y. The children will practise these spellings in school but please also ensure they practise at home, the children will stick them in their reading logs every week and these will usually come home on a Monday. There will be a spelling test every Friday. Below we have posted what they had this week and also next week’s so they can be practising over the weekend if they wish.

Coming home this week will also be the Year 1 and 2 common exception word fish. Common exception words are words that do not follow the common phonetic spelling rules that children learn in year 1 and year 2.
These are for the children to keep at home and learn. Please can you/your child colour half the fish when they can read the word and the full fish when they can consistently write and spell the word correctly.

Class focus:

We are focussing on listening carefully to become independent learners. In our writing we are practising writing sentences that are consistently punctuated with capital letters and full stops. Please try to get your three reads in as a minimum at home. It really helps with pace and fluency.

Dates for your diary:

Please find attached the current list of events for the Autumn term. We will add to this and post on the class blog as needed.

Highlights:

All of the children have settled incredibly well this week and we are so proud of them.They have been keen to learn and very enthusiastic in the classroom. Behaviour has been outstanding and the children have been so kind and helpful to each other. We have made a start on some of our curriculum areas such as science and computing. We have also really enjoyed sharing the class library books and also the books that were gifted to us by an education company. We also read a book called All the Ways to be Smart’ and reminded ourselves that we are ALL smart in our own ways. Here’s to a fantastic year ahead.
Do check in weekly with the class blog to see what we have been upto and to keep abreast of diary dates. Please also sign up to the class Seesaw account as we like to post lots of photos there of what we have been upto.

Next week we will be starting all of our lessons in full and we are hoping the weather holds so that we can get outside for science and PE. We have some fantastic lessons and activities planned and can’t wait to share them with you.

Homework:

Expectations for reading are set out on the class newsletter below. There are also general suggestions for supporting spelling and maths. Any homework set will be posted on the weekly class blog. This will usually consist of the weekly spelling pattern for additional practice at home and some suggestions for games to support learning. Occasionally there will be other activities posted too.

Please find attached our class newsletter for information. You should have also received this in email form.

Diary Dates:

Please find attached the current list of events for the Autumn term. We will add to this and post on the class blog as needed.

This week has been a week of very mixed emotions. Although we have all been excitedly looking forward to our Summer holidays (and perhaps even some sunshine), we have to say goodbye to class 2 as it currently is and also a big goodbye to Mrs Osborne. Mrs Osborne has been a student teacher at Brandesburton Primary School since the beginning of the Spring term and she has been in class 2 since the start of the Summer term. She has worked extremely hard to create engaging lessons, resources and activities and she has had the children at the heart of everything she has done. The class have loved having her and we will all miss her very much as she moves onto the next stage of her teaching career. We wish her every success and look forward to her paying Brandesburton School a visit in the future to tell us how she is getting on.

Last week we had our annual Summer Fair. Rain most certainly did not stop play as everything was moved to take place inside. The school was a hive of activity and it was a very successful event. Thank-you to all who attended, sent cakes or bought raffle tickets, your support is very much appreciated by the PTFA and the whole school. Thank-you to the PTFA for the overall organisation, they will let us know in due course just how much money was raised.

This week we have had special visitors in assembly from the National Coastwatch Institution. Ron and Andrew are based at Coastwatch Hornsea – you may have seen that the Coastwatch office has recently been ‘yarnbombed’ and is now covered with over 4000 knitted and crocheted flowers which makes it a real talking point and has drawn much needed publicity to a very important service. The pupils were told how to keep themselves safe on a visit to the seaside and each pupil was also given an activity booklet and a sticker. We are very grateful to Ron and Andrew, who are volunteers, for giving up their time to deliver such an important safety message.

We also joined with class one to have a little disco in the hall on Wednesday with some party games too. All the children enjoyed dancing, doing some action songs. playing musical bumps and musical statues. We finished the afternoon with some juice and crisps.

Final message from Mrs Platten

I really can’t believe we have come to the end of the year! I know I have said this lots of times but the time has absolutely flown by. I feel as if we should still be somewhere in the Autumn term and here we are with all of you about to start Key Stage Two. You have all risen to the challenges you have faced this year and have absolutely blown our socks off with your attitude to learning, your determination and your resilience. We have seen you consistently using your Brandesburton Toolkit for Life. You have been kind and caring and have looked out for one another like the team you are and you are now all year-3 ready. I really hope you have an amazing summer holiday. Class 2 Seesaw will still be available until September so feel free to post some photos of what you get up to as I look forward to seeing them.Parents and grandparents, thank-you so much for your support, it really does make a difference. Take care everyone, Mrs P x

Final message from Mrs Joplin

I can not thank the children (or Mrs Platten) enough for the warm welcome I have received during my first year at Brandsburton. It has been a pure delight to watch all of the children blossom and grow, and to be part of their learning journey this year. We have done some really fun things that I know we will all remember: trips to the farms and to see the bridges in Hull; making clay tiles and building bridges; cooking soup and baking bread, and much much more! Each and every one of the children has made me smile in their own special way. I have loved learning about all of their hobbies, pets, holidays and crazy family antics (yes, they tell us everything)!!! I can not wait to see how they continue to mature as they head into next year as BIG keystage 2 children! I hope you all have the most magical summer! See you all in the autumn! Mrs Joplin xx

This week class 2 have been working on their Design Technology Project to design and build a bridge. They have thoroughly enjoyed identifying and testing different materials to make their bridge and discovering how much weight their bridges could hold. They have also considered which materials the bridges that they saw on their trip to Hull were constructed from and why. All of the chldren have shown great teamwork skills and it has been lovely to see them work together on what will be their last big project of year 2.

In maths, the pupils completed their unit of work on money and started work on their remaining unit which is 3D shape. They have been getting to grips with shape names sucn as square based pyramid, cylinder and cube and they have been learning about faces, edges and vertices. They have also been completing their original journey stories in English.

On Wednesday the pupils got to spend the morning in what will be their new class in September. They all came back very excited at lunchtime having had a successful morning, They have been well prepared for the next stage of their learning and were able to find out about some of the the new routines of Key Stage Two and were excited by the fact that they will be learning French!

There is no reading homework this week as we are staring to collect inand sort readng books for next year. If you would like to test your mental maths skills then you can access the Hit the Button game on Topmarks. You can challenge yourself with your multiplication and division facts, doiubling, halving and number bonds. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

For our last spelling pattern of the year we will be investigating the /s/ sound spelt with a ‘c’ before ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’.Four of the words on the list are rhyming words, can you think of a short rhyming poem that uses these words?

We are very much looking forward to spending our last week with our class two pupils next week. Hopefully the sun will be shining and we can go outside for some fun and games and also reflect on what a fantastic year we have had together. Next week will be our final round up post!

Well after today we will only have two more Fridays left and then school is out for Summer! The year has certainly flown by. Our children will all get the chance to spend the morning in their new class on Wednesday morning so they can meet the class team, investigate the classroom and find out what exciting things they are going to be learning as part of Key Stage Two in September!

Last week was our really enjoyable sports week. We were incredibly lucky with the weather in the end and thoroughly enjoyed our Euros football competition, non-stop sports, traditional sports afternoon and our trip to Brandesburton Bowls Club. This last activity was a real community event – you can see some photos below.

This week has seen the last visit from our music specialist. He has visited class 2 every Friday this term and the children have really looked forweard to his visits. It has been a fun way to enrich our curriculum.

Next week we will be working on our final Design Technology unit which will be a bridge building challenge. The children will be applying some of what they learned when they were on their school trip to Hull visiting lots of different bridge structures. They have also completed research work in geography on bridges to support their learning. We would be extremely grateful if you have any old newspapers that you could donate to help us with our making!

Reading: A BIG plea from Mrs Platten and Mrs Joplin! Next Friday will be the last occasion on which class reading percentages will be collated and shared in the Special Mentions Assembly. We would really LOVE this to be our best week ever! we have been lagging behind some of the other classes recently. All the children love sharing and reading stories in school so please all try your very best to get a minium of three reads with three signatures at home.

Diary Dates:

W/c 8th July: Class 2 Design Technology week

W/c 8th July: Last week for school reading scheme and school library books. Books will then be collected in on 15th July.

10th July: All classes (except year 6) have a transition morning with their new class.

11th July: Brandesburton school reunion with afternoon tea.Tickets still available, please see the school office for further information

Friday 12th July: 10am The children will enjoy a performance from Mrs Creswell’s music groups.

12th July: School Summer Fair 2.00pm-4.30pm – please do come and join us!

18th July: PTFA After-school disco

19th July: School finishes for the Summer break

Congratulations!

We would also like to say a huge congratulations to Mrs Osborne this week. She has been working incredibly hard over the past term in class 2 and we are super proud to say that she has successfully achieved QTS. We really don’t know what we would have done without her! She has been a fabulous addition to the class 2 team!

Spellings

The /dʒ/ sound spelt as ge and dge at the end of words, and sometimes spelt as g elsewhere in words before e, i and y

This week has been another fun filled week!

In English, they have been practising their story writing techniques, in order to prepare them for writing their own journey story, over the next couple of weeks. This week in maths, the children have been finishing off their position and direction unit. They not only had to explain direction of movement but also had to be able to describe turns, using quarter, half and three-quarter turns. We found out that clockwise and anti-clockwise is a little bit trickier when the object begins facing east or west!

Geography

In geography, the children are consolidating their map reading and locational skills by discovering the location of significant bridges in their local area. In order to put their practise into action, the children participated in a fieldwork trip to Hull. On this trip, the children visited more than 8 different bridges. At each stop, they had to complete an observational drawing, count the traffic crossing the bridge and think about the bridge’s purpose! Everyone who attended was so well behaved and worked so efficiently that they even had time to play on the park below the Humber Bridge. It was a real treat for us all!

Thank you again to all of the parents who supported on the day and to the PTFA for supporting with the cost of the bus.

Spelling

This week in spellings, the children have been learning how the ‘oo’ – look at a book – sound can be written as ‘o’. We talked about all of the words we could think of with this sound and noted how some people say these words differently. We would love you to practise spelling some of these words at home. If you get the chance, we’d love to see your efforts on Seesaw!

Reading

We are still hovering around the 74% mark for class reading for this week. I know that lots of the children were hoping that we could make it to 100%. Please could you try your hardest to ensure that your child reads 3 x or more next week! Let’s see if we can once again be the reading champions!