Hi everyone, the children have certainly settled into school after their half term holiday.


We still have a few SATs to complete over the next week and them the results are moderated at the end of June.. We still have the longer writing task and a Numeracy paper to do so we are still reviewing our Maths topics at the moment.

Literacy

We began a new topic this week- Extended stories.The children have been looking at how they can develop their ideas and extend their sentences further to make them more interesting. In this topic the children will have the opportunity to practice all the skills they have learned over the year and put them into a longer story. By the end of the unit, the children will work independently to plan and write their own sustained story with a logical sequence of events. They should be able to include elements from reading, for example characterisation, setting, story language, and add detail and dialogue to sustain the reader's interest.If you get a chance at home, this would be a great opportunity to read a longer story together as a family, or maybe the children could read to a younger sibling. We have been looking at stories with a fantasy element, the children had the opportunity to watch "The Secret Garden" and thoroughly enjoyed the imaginative world of the garden.

The children will be looking at links between events and making predictions at key moments in the story. The children will also be looking at main characters and taking note of their changes of behaviour.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/games/story_plant/small_no_sound/standard2.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories/?fairy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/drilldown/stories/2/2/1/

http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/curriculum/literacy/lit_site/lit_sites/speech_marks/index.htm

http://www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/funandgames.htm#General_Knowledge

http://www.eduplace.com/tales/help.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/floppy.shtml

Numeracy

Although the children will be reviewing all of the topics taught last half term, their main focus will be looking at 2D and 3D shapes.

All children must be able to classify and describe 2D and 3D shapes.

Most children should be able to classify and describe features of 2D and 3D shapes. Begin to recognise halves and quarters of shapes.

Some children could be able to do all of the above and recognise halves and quarters of small objects.

A couple of good shape websites are:

www.ngflcymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/maths/maerdy_2d/frames.asp

www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/maths/information/shape_facts/shape_facts.htm


Science

We began our new topic on Forces and Movement. This week we will be learning about how we can make things go faster. We will be experimenting with toy cars to see how they can be moved faster or slower or change direction. In P.E. the children will throw bean bags or soft balls to each other and suggest how to make them move faster and slower or change direction.

http://www.mystery-productions.info/hyper/Hypermedia_2003/Johns/index.htm

http://www.mystery-productions.info/hyper/Hypermedia_2001/lall/1.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/5_6/pushes_pulls.shtml

http://rubble.heppell.net/simulations/nb_friction0.htm

http://www.camelsdale.w-sussex.sch.uk/teach_with_ict3.asp

The last new topic for this term is The Seaside.This topic has both a History and a Geography focus and is very interesting.We are starting the history topic called "What were seasides like in the past?"
This week we will be looking at how to find out about holidays in the past from photo's.
Websites for this topic:

http://www.seasidehistory.co.uk/50s_60s_70s_holidays.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/uk_bristish_seaside_history/html/1.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/seaside_01.shtml

From last week onwards all the weekly 'domestic' notices about what is happening in school will be available on the school web site and not posted on the blog as before. This is in preparation for a phasing out of the weekly blog and the introduction of the Virtual Learning Environment which will be brought in for next term.the address for the website is:

http://www.stvincentsprimary.co.uk/


Have a great week.

Year 2 Team xxxxxxxxxxx