Summer Term Update 5

Hello Squirrels, I hope you’re well and had a great week (despite the horrid weather!). We’ve packed plenty into this week as you’ll see below.

Next week: Spelling Tests!

As next week is the final week of summer term part 1, I will be testing everyone on the spelling list that they’ve been learning this term. They’ve had opportunities in school to practise their spellings throughout the term and hopefully have been working hard on them at home too. You might want to get some last minute practise in this weekend!

Mantle

Our mantle commission from Toys R Us has kept us busy this week. We’ve magnetised our games, written marvellous conjunction filled persuasive sentences on why you should buy the game, finalised decorations and created advertising posters for them. The children have worked so hard on this project and are feeling quite accomplished (see photos below). Next week the team will showcase their designs to Toys R Us.

SPAG: Conjunctions and Prepositions

This week we recapped conjunctions and recalled how some conjunctions are coordinating and some are subordinating. We use co-ordinating conjunctions to join two parts of a sentence that are of equal weight or importance. E.g. ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’, ‘or. For example: “At the weekend I am going shopping and I am getting my haircut.” A subordinating conjunction introduces a subordinate clause (a clause that does not make sense on its own). E.g. ‘after’, ‘because’, ‘if’, ‘when’. For example: “We couldn’t go to the park because it was closed.”

When reading, try spotting conjunctions then working out if it’s a coordinating or subordinating conjunction. Alternatively, you could make up some simple silly sentences then try adding a conjunction in to join two together or add further detail to the sentence. How strange and whacky can your sentences get!?

Prepositions are words used in sentences to tell the reader where something/someone is or when something is happening. If a group of words is used (e.g. “on the floor under the bed” or “on Christmas Day”) then it’s known as a prepositional phrase. The children wrote some great super sentences containing prepositions. Try spotting them when reading or playing “I Spy” with a difference by describing where something is.

Homework has been set on conjunctions on DoodleEnglish.

Maths:

This week we finished our work on fractions. Both Year 2 and Year 3 have done a great job with them, but could still use some practice on finding fractions of amounts. Using objects or by drawing pictorial representations, Year 2 should practise finding half, one/two/three quarter(s) and one/two third(s) of an amount. Year 3 should practise the same as Year 2 plus all fractions up to tenths. Remember, the denominator (bottom number) tells you how many people the amount needs to be shared between.

Next week we begin a unit on money, so any exploration of money/coins/notes will set your child up confidently for a new unit. Homework has been set on DoodleMaths all about money.

Only one more week until half term!

Have a great weekend,

From Miss Cartwright