Summer Term 2 Update 2

Hello one and all, I hope you've had a great week. We certainly have in Squirrels class!

Much of our week has been spent in the Middle Ages. The year 1103 to be exact. On Monday we spent time researching the different roles of servants and how their working days might have been within a castle. We drew ourselves in Medieval clothing doing our jobs (marshals who tend the wagons and horses, maids, carpenters, messengers, gardeners, watchmen, candle makers and cooks) then stepped into our different roles within Queen Raven's castle. 

The servants had a shock when Queen Raven herself came to inspect their work and made sure everything was done to the absolute highest standard! Afterwards, they completed some brilliant diary writing about their day. 

On Wednesday, we were back in our story on the day of the siege. We used chalk drama squares on the playground to help us focus on our acting (mainly facial expressions and body language) before and during the attack. The servants were very loyal and faithful to Queen Raven and did their best to defend her in the castle, help her escape through the South Tunnel and then follow behind to join her in the safety of a nearby woodland. 

On Thursday the servants met Queen Raven under the old oak tree at midnight. She told them to prepare to siege the castle themselves, as she wants her castle back and will take it by any means! The team stepped out of the story and back into 2021 to do some castle research. The afternoon was spent using books and iPads to discover everything there is to know about castles and how best to attack them. The general conclusion was "this is going to be a difficult challenge, but if we let Queen Raven down, she might execute us...", so we'll be working hard on Monday to form a solid plan! 

SPAG

We had great fun on Monday learning about compound words. Compound words have two root words joined together to make a completely new word with a different meaning. E.g. butter + fly = butterfly. Rain + bow = rainbow. Star + fish = starfish. We had great fun thinking of as many as we could and applying them in sentences. 

On Tuesday we recapped homophones. Homophones are words which have the same sound but two (or more) different spellings with different meanings. The tricky bit is knowing which word to use when. E.g. sea and see; to, too and two; hair and hare; knew and new; blue and blew. 

Try spotting compound words and homophones when reading together and discuss the spellings together. You could also use pieces of paper or post it notes and make a 'Pairs' game to play together. 

Maths 

This week we have moved on to telling the time. This is a very tricky skill to learn, so please practise it as much as possible at home. If you are able to, please give your child an analogue watch to wear and encourage them to use it as much as possible. Talk about key times in the day together, such as when you wake up, leave for school, eat dinner and go to bed. 

Year 2 have been focussing mainly on o'clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to times. More confident children have also been tackling telling the time to 5 minutes (5 past, 10 past, 20 past, 25 past, 25 to, 20 to, 10 to and 5 to). 

Year 3 have done the same as Year 2 above, plus challenging themselves to read times to the nearest minute. They have also been learning about AM and PM and accurately writing digital times. 

SPAG homework has been set on DoodleEnglish and maths time work has been set on DoodleMaths. 

Have a great weekend Squirrels. Please remember to read every day and practise your spellings and maths facts little and often throughout the week and weekend! 

From Miss Cartwright 

Summer Term 2 Update 1

Hello and welcome to the recap of a wonderfully sunny first week back. 

I hope you all had great half terms! I spent mine mostly outside, with plenty of books and sunshine dog walks. 

We've been busy getting to grips with an exciting new mantle story this week. At first we weren't sure who the character was or what time era the story was set in, so the children set about investigating some artefacts that belonged to the mystery person. After plenty of great discussion comparing materials, writing tools and household objects now and then, we decided these artefacts came from history. Bruce suggested that we may be learning about the Roman times, as there was a crown, sword and shield among the artefacts, while Henry H wondered if we were learning about the Vikings.  Almost all of us agreed that royalty might be involved, and therefore probably a castle. The children wrote some thoughtful question sentences and were well and truly hooked in! 

The next day our story progressed some more. The children were able to watch the mysterious person as they were writing in their diary, which was dated 1st June 1103. Archiejack recognised this date as being in the Middle Ages (Medieval times). This person had been forced to flee their castle due to a siege. They were attacked from the outside and the inside by mutinous knights who betrayed their king or queen. The mystery person is angry and wants to take their castle back. The children were cautious when they said that they wanted to help. They agreed the mystery person may attack us and would need to trust us. 

They then watched the person leave a note for their faithful servants to return to them. The message was signed Queen Raven and the children were surprised to find out she was a queen! We agreed that it would be a good idea to set about learning more about the Middle Ages first, before stepping into the story. The children were open to the idea of becoming Queen Raven's faithful servants to make sure that, once we're in the story, she trusts us and does not try to attack us (she does seem like a very fierce warrior queen!). 

SPAG

This week we have focussed on word classes and using the suffixes -ful and -less to turn words into adjectives. 

Word classes: The children have been looking at sentences and identifying the nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives in them. A noun is the name of a person, place or thing. A verb is a doing word. An adverb adds more information onto the verb and tells you how or when it is being done. An adjective is a describing word. The children did a brilliant job in Super Sentences of writing their own sentences containing on of every different word class. 

Suffixes: The suffix -ful means something/someone is full of something. The suffix -less means the opposite. Something/someone doesn't have any of it. E.g. pain becomes painful or painless. These words then become adjectives as they can be used to describe something. E.g. The injection was painful/painless. The children were careful/careless. The rainbow was colourful/colourless. 

Discuss the terminology of word classes at home and have a go at writing some silly sentences containing them all. You could try thinking of as many suffix words for -ful and -less as possible and write them into sentences. Try spotting them when reading too. SPAG homework has been set on Doodle.

Maths

We've continued to work on money this week (and the week before half term). Plenty of discussion and money games at home will help your child to feel confident and develop fluency with money. You could: 

• Count how much money is in someone's piggy bank / purse / wallet / change pot. Discuss pounds and pence and how much money there is in total. 
• Charge the children money for snacks. Only if they can 'pay' you by drawing the correct amount of coins/notes can they earn the snack! The same goes for earning money by completing jobs around the house. 
• Predict how much pocket money they might have by the end of the month by counting each week's amount. 
• Help with the weekly shop by looking at prices online and working out a total cost for (e.g.) all the fruit and veg. 
• Set up a play shop and calculate change.  

Please make sure you are practising spellings and maths facts at home regularly. This term's maths facts focus for Year 2 is multiplication and division facts for the 5x table and for Year 3 is multiplication and division facts for the 8x table. DoodleTables is excellent for practising times tables and division facts. All maths facts information can be found on the school website under the maths section. 

Have a wonderful, sunny weekend Squirrels. 

Remember to drink plenty of water, wear plenty of sun cream and eat plenty of ice creams!

 Love Miss Cartwright