Fronter

Please note that all information is now on Fronter so please log on to see what we have been up to.

It would be great if you could join in the conversation too.

Mr. Merchant

Masks!

This week we have been working hard on our assessments. Well done everyone - we are very proud of you!

In Numeracy we have been learning about Data Handling and how to create and use tally charts, blockcharts and barcharts.

In Literacy we have been looking at the famous author Roald Dahl. We looked at the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and thought about the character of Charlie.

In Art we designed and created our own masks. You can see our masterpieces in the photo above!

Homework (due in Wednesday please) is to complete the story below;

There once lived a boy called Tom. Tom had dark brown hair and big green eyes. He was the same as any other six year old. He loved to run about and play all day. His favourite game was hide and seek which he played in the big, green field at the bottom of his garden. The field went on for miles and miles and Tom could quite happily spend all day there. Each day as soon as he got home from school he would quickly knock for all his friends and they would rush over to begin playing.

However when Tom woke up one day he had a strange feeling that something was wrong. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and quickly pulled back the long, grey curtains that covered his windows. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the bright sun reflecting off the wet grass on the field. But when he looked again he could see something odd. A small shadow was forming. The shadow was getting larger and larger and looked as if it was rushing towards him. Something was out there! He must find out what...

Have a good weekend as we get ready for the lead up to half term. Remember that Friday 27th May is an INSET day.

Mr. Merchant

Fun at the seaside!

This week we have been doing some lovely writing all about the seaside! On Wednesday afternoon we made our very own seaside in the classroom and acted out some visits there. Then we wrote a diary entry about a visit to the seaside. Well done Year 2 - your writing has been amazing and you have been trying so hard to keep your work neat!


Please come along to our class talk on Tuesday after school to find out more about all the exciting things that we have planned for this term!

The blogs will soon be phased out and we will be using a new system of online communication called Fronter! Many schools are already using this excellent tool and i'm sure it will be very useful for Glade too.

Have a nice weekend,

Mr. Merchant

Fun Times Tables Game!

Play this fun game to help you with your times tables.

Remember to dance along while you are playing! :-)

http://www.multiplication.com/flashgames/DiscoDino.htm

Mr. Merchant

Making 3D Shapes

This week we were learning all about Shape! We had to look at some pictures of shapes and then use them to make 3D shapes out of lollipop sticks and plasticine. We had to think carefully about the property of the shape when we were making it. It was a little tricky at times but we all managed to create something by the end.

Photos coming shortly!

In our topic work we started our work on Seaside Holidays. We thought about the Seasides that we had visited and how we got there.

A reminder that children are only in Tuesday 3rd May and Wednesday 4th May next week as Monday is a Bank Holiday and Thursday and Friday are INSET days.

Have a good long weekend,

Mr. Merchant

Easter is here!

Easter is here and we say goodbye to our Explorers topic. What a lot we have all learnt this term! We have all been working really hard. Please find below details of the homework for the Easter period. During the Summer term we will be looking at the topic the 'Sensational Seaside' which explores the differences between seaside holidays now and in the past. We will be using the text Katie Morag to look at what an island is and exploring how where we live is different from where Katie Morag lives on the isle of Struay.

We are back to school on Tuesday 26th April at the usual time. Have a lovely Easter break everyone! Mr. Merchant

Year 2 Easter Homework

Due in Wednesday April 27^th Please

Literacy

Your Literacy homework is to keep a diary for one week of the Easter holidays. You can write about what you did, who you saw, how you felt etc. Remember to use all of the things that we have been talking about that make your writing exciting!

Full stops and capital letters

Different connecting words

Different ways of starting your sentences (sentence openers)

Adjectives (describing words) and ‘WOW’ words

Different punctuation (commas in lists, question marks, exclamation marks)

Neat handwriting

Use your sounds/keywords to help with your spellings.

You can also include pictures and photographs if you want to.

This work can be done in your green homework books or you can use your own book if you wish.

Numeracy

Please continue to learn your 2, 5 and 10 times tables and the related division facts

e.g. 2 x 5 = 10 so 10 divided 5 would be 2.

Can you remember the other words that mean the same as multiply?

Can you remember the other words that mean the same as divide?

Topic

Next term our topic (as part of the Creative Curriculum) will be ‘The Sensational Seaside!’ If you get a chance please visit the library / look on the Internet to try and find out how Seaside holidays in the past were different to Seaside holidays nowadays.

Have a lovely Easter break.

The Year 2 Team (Mr. Merchant, Miss Porter, Miss Harris, Mrs Simons, Mr King)

Easter is near!

Andras jumping through the air in Gymnastics!

This week in Numeracy we have been looking at Fractions. We learnt how to find fractions of numbers and fractions of shapes. We looked at a pizza and found out about how to cut it out halves and quarters. Some of us even had a go at adding some fractions together!

In Literacy we have been looking at Fairytales. We looked at what all Fairytales have in common with each other before looking at some modern alternatives of classic fairytales and seeing how they were different. We really enjoyed reading the story of the Three little wolves and the big bad pig. Mr Merchant's favourite part is when the pig tries to use a Pneumatic drill to get into the Pig's house!

In Science we looked at which exercise is best for us. We did 5 different exercises for the same amount of time and counted our breaths after each one. We found out that jumping on the spot was the best exercise for us because it made us use up more of our oxygen than the others. Next week is the last week before Easter.

We are looking forward to hearing the Easter story and eating all of those Easter eggs!

Mr. Merchant and 2M :-)

Explorers Day!

On Thursday we had our Explorers day to mark the end of our Explorers topic. Some of us went to Miss Porter's class and some went to Mr Merchant's class. We started off by thinking about why people explore and what they may be looking for when they explore. Then we thought about what we should take with us when we go exploring and what the best things to wear would be.

After play we received a letter from Alfred Cook (Son of the great James Cook) who wanted to test our exploring abilities. He told us that he had left us some treasure but we needed to follow the clues to find it. Then he left us a list of objects that we had to find around the school. Miss Harris's group came first and Mr. Merchant and Mr Nelson's group joint second.

In the afternoon we did some role-play about an exploring adventure and then created a mindmap for everything that we could remember about exploring and explorers.

We had a great day.

Our topic next term is the Seaside so we are looking forward to that too!

Mr. Merchant

Olympic Week 2011

We had great fun at Olympic week. We tried lots of different activities including Parachute games, Capoeira, Yoga, Speedstacking and Gymnastics. Please find above some photographs of the fun that we and the whole school had during the week. We are looking forward to Olympic week next year as 2012 is a special year for sport!

A reminder that we have our Explorer day on Thursday where we will spend the whole day taking part in Explorer based activities. Children are invited to come to school dressed as explorers for the day. We look forward to seeing your costumes! Don't forget your explorer tools too - they may come in useful!

Amazing Work!

On Monday Mrs Crouch from Chigwell Infants School came in to work with some of us in the forest. We had great fun finding hidden cards, playing the 'Wake the dragon' game and building a house for a rat! The children who didn't get a chance to take part in the session will have their session this week.

In Literacy we worked extremely hard with our Reading and Writing assessments :-)

In Numeracy we enjoyed mental maths week and reminded ourselves of Number bonds to 10, 20 and 100, Odd and Even numbers, Ordering numbers and Right angles.

In P.E we finished and performed our jump and travel sequences and performed them to the rest of the group. We spoke about what was good about our sequences and how we could improve them.

We are all looking forward to Olympic week next week. Please ensure that children have their P.E kit in school each day and bring 1 pound to come dressed as a sporting hero on Friday.

Mr. Merchant

'Stop, Look, Listen, Think'

This week Year 1 and 2 had Mrs Cray from the Redbridge Road Safety team visit to talk to the children about how to keep safe on the roads. We enjoyed acting out the different vehicles and thinking about how to cross the road safely. We learnt how important the words 'Stop, Look, Listen, Think' are when we are crossing the road.

In Numeracy we have been thinking about measuring. We learnt about the difference between standard and non-standard measures and how to estimate and measure accurately. We looked at an investigation into 'Do taller people have bigger hands?' and found out that they don't.

In Literacy we have been looking at the book, 'Bob's best ever friend' We created a new friend for Bob thinking about what makes a good descriptive piece of writing. The children may have told you about the alien spaceship that landed in the playground, yet we are still to find the alien so he may still be in the school somewhere!

Next week we are all looking forward to mental maths week and getting better at our number skills.

Homework this week is Literacy, due in Wednesday. Children have also taken their road safety competitions home to complete.

Mr. Merchant

Money Money Money!

Well done for all your hard work this half term :-)

Above are some photographs of our jumps that we have been practising in Gymnastics this half term!

This week in Numeracy we have been learning about money. We learnt about why we need money, how to add coins together, how to find amounts and how to find change.

In Literacy we have been looking at poetry and we looked at lots of different types of poems and thought about the features of a poem. We wrote our own funny poems.

Next term in Design and Technology we will be making our own Explorer vehicles out of junk materials so please bring in any old food packaging i.e. cereal boxes, cardboard tubes, plastic containers etc for us to use.

We also have our Explorer day coming up when children will be invited to come into school dressed as an explorer and we will spend the whole day exploring our school! More details will be out soon!

We hope you have a lovely half term and will see you back at school on Monday 28th February.

Mr. Merchant and the Year 2 team

China Week!

This week we were very busy because it was China week! In Numeracy we learnt how to count to 20 in Mandarin. We also had a go at counting backwards too which was a little more tricky! We had a go at some addition and subtraction calculations using Chinese numbers as well as some word problems with Chinese numbers. We also looked at special shape patterns called Tangrams. We had to use the shapes to copy some patterns. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can guess what the pattern is of.

In Literacy we listened to some stories told by a special Chinese storyteller called Tony. We learnt how to write our names in Chinese as well as write a Chinese factfile about ourselves.

In P.E we learnt a traditional Chinese martial art called Tai-Chi.

We had great fun and learnt a lot about China and the Chinese way of life.

Data Handling

This week in Numeracy we have been looking at Data Handling.

Mr. Merchant asked us the following question;

How could we find out 2M's favourite drink?

We came up with the idea of creating a tally chart to collect the information and then some of us presented it in a block chart and some in a bar chart.

We found out that Coke is 2M's favourite drink as most peopled said that they liked it. The least popular drink was water.

Test your data handling skills by playing the game below:

Click here to test your Data Handling skills with this fun game!

Can you complete the 'Really hard' level too?!

Heating Materials!

In Science this week we were looking at what happened when you heat different materials. We heated different materials over a candle (chocolate, cheese, bread, oil, cracker and water) and saw whether they melted, burnt or stayed the same. First we had to make a prediction (this means a guess) about what we think would happen.

We also thought about how to make the investigation a fair test. Some of the ways to make it a fair test were using the same size of each material and heating for the same amount of time.

Look at the photographs above of the results of the investigation and see if you can guess what the material was before it was heated and what happened to it. Did it burn, melt or no change?

Can you remember what happened to the water?

Exploring Claybury Forest!

We had great fun this week when we did some exploring over Claybury Forest. First we walked through the puddles and mud and then reached the giant hill. We did some hill races and played a game called 'welly wanging' where we had to see who threw the wellington boot the furthest. Then we built some dens using old wood, before having a scavenger hunt and exploring the adventure playground. We enjoyed ourselves and did lots of exploring along the way.

Thank-you to everyone who helped to make the trips a success!

Mr. Merchant

Explorers!

This term we are all very excited because we are learning all about Explorers! We are also going to do some exploring of our own!

We started the topic by writing down everything that we already knew about explorers - what a lot we already knew!

Then we had to do some exploring of our own. We had to explore some unusual objects and try to guess what they were. One was a typewriter, one was a sieve, one was a compass, one was a religious vase and one was a pair of binoculars. We think we may be able to use some of these in our own exploration!

2M will visit Claybury Forest on Monday 17th and 2P on Tuesday 18th, where we will do some exploring of our own. Children should come to school in old clothes on this day with wellington boots and then bring clothes and to change into when we are back at school, as it will be very muddy over there.

Unfortunately I was off school ill on Thursday and Friday but heard that you all worked really hard so well done! I will hopefully be back on Monday.

Mr. Merchant



A video to introduce our topic. Please turn your sound up to enjoy the music!
Can you name any of these Explorers? Do you know what they explored?