Month: April 2016

 

 

Using Dear Greenpeace by Simon James as their inspiration, Class 2 have been researching other exotic and wild animals.

They have been concentrating on how to improve their writing by using conjunctions to add clauses to sentences. They have been writing statements to show all that they’ve learnt about these beautiful animals.

This week, the class wrote reports about exotic animals. They focused on using a heading and sub-heading to organise their ideas and then they concentrated on writing statements with different conjunctions. Read the two examples below to learn more about exotic animals.

Dear parents/carers,

Class 2 will be sitting the end-of-Key-Stage-1 tests on the week beginning Monday 16th May.

During the week, the children will be completing:

one Short Reading paper;

one Long Reading paper;

one Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar paper;

one Arithmetic paper; and

one Mathematical Reasoning paper.

All the tests will be completed by the end of Thursday 19th May.

 

The children have been working hard and preparing for the tests all year so it will be a good opportunity for them to show everything that they have learnt this year.

During the week of the tests, please ensure that your child gets a good night’s rest before the test days and that they have a good breakfast.

There will be no homework set during SATs Week to allow the children to focus on the tests.

Weekly Spellings – plurals

Below are the spellings for this week’s Spelling Test in Class 2. The theme for this week’s spellings is –plurals. The children need to know the spelling of all words, however the test will only include the plural words.

Plural y – ies

1. fly – flies
2. try – tries
3. body – bodies
4. city – cities
5. lolly – lollies
6. puppy – puppies
7. teddy – teddies
8. hurry – hurries
9. carry – carries
10. worry – worries

Extension Challenge – plural es

1. glass – glasses
2. wash – washes
3. patch – patches
4. bus – buses
5. box – boxes
6. dish – dishes

Additional writing challenge

Write the spellings in joined-up handwriting.

Additional writing challenge – write these words in exclamations (if possible)

In Year 2 exclamations take the form of What or How statements. What a mistake! or How noisy!)

More SPaG resources are available on the Class 2 blog.

How dirty are those dishes!                

What an expensive pair of glasses!

Arithmetic – subtraction using numberlines

Below is an outline of how to develop skills in subtracting using numberlines. Year 2 children need to be able to subtract two 2-digit numbers that cross the tens boundary (e.g. 41 – 29 =    because it is a higher order skill than 49 – 27 =  in this example the units value don’t cross the tens boundary).

1. Write down any two 2-digit numbers in a subtraction calculation. Make sure the biggest number is written first e.g. 52 – 28 = rather than 28 – 52 =
2. Draw a blank line on a piece of scrap paper. Then draw the smallest number at the start of the line and the largest number at the end. 28 ________________________________________52
3. Jump from the smallest number (e.g. 28) to the nearest multiple of 10 (e.g. 30). In this example, it is a jump of 2.
4. Then jump in tens to the nearest multiple of 10. (e.g. from 30 to 50). In this example, it is a jump of 20.
5. Then jump to the final total (e.g. from 50 to 52). In this example, it is a jump of 2.
6. Then add together the jumps (e.g. 2 + 20 + 2 = 24). So, the answer to 52 – 28 is 24

The tests will be on Friday 6^th May.

Weekly Spellings – common exception words

Below are the spellings for this week’s Spelling Test in Class 2. The theme for this week’s spellings is – common exception words (previously known as ‘tricky words’).

Contractions

1. door
2. floor
3. poor
4. because
5. find
6. kind
7. mind
8. behind
9. child
10. children

Extension Challenge

1. wild
2. climb
3. most
4. only
5. both
6. old

Additional writing challenge

Write the spellings in joined-up handwriting.

Additional writing challenge – write these words in different sentence types

(There are four different sentence types: commands (an instruction); statements (give facts); questions (need answering); and exclamations (in Y2 they take the form of What or How statements. What a mistake! or How noisy!) More SPaG resources are available on the Class 2 blog.

Am I the only child left now?                   How wild was that wind!             

Don’t climb on the door.                          I don’t mind waiting to eat dinner.

Arithmetic – making money totals

Below is an outline of how to develop skills in making money totals. Don’t make money totals above £1.

1. Find some items around your home and ‘buy’ them using coins, e.g. ‘I’ll buy the pencil for 32p using a 20p, a 10p and a 2p’
2. ‘Buy’ the same item using different coins, e.g. ‘I’ll buy the pencil for 32p using two 10ps, two 5ps and two 1ps’
3. ‘Buy’ items using a given number of coins, e.g. ‘Buy the pencil for 43p using 4 coins.’ ‘Now buy the pencil for 43p using 6 coins.’
4. Investigate what is the smallest number of coins needed to make different totals, e.g. the smallest number of coins needed to make 44p is four.

The tests will be on Friday 29^th April.

Weekly Spellings – contractions

Below are the spellings for this week’s Spelling Test in Class 2. The theme for this week’s spellings is –contractions (two words that become one when you use an apostrophe).

Contractions

1. don’t
2. can’t
3. aren’t
4. weren’t
5. won’t
6. she’d
7. he’d
8. you’re
9. you’ll
10. we’ll

Extension Challenge

1. they’d
2. they’ll
3. you’d
4. couldn’t
5. shouldn’t
6. mustn’t

Additional writing challenge

Write contractions in joined-up handwriting. Remember, you don’t join the letters on either side of the apostrophe.

Additional writing challenge – write these words in different sentence types

(There are four different sentence types: commands (an instruction); statements (give facts); questions (need answering); and exclamations (in Y2 they take the form of What or How statements. What a mistake! or How noisy!) More SPaG resources are available on the Class 2 blog.

Can’t I play outside now?                        What couldn’t she do!               

Don’t eat biscuits before dinner.              You’re fantastic at learning spellings.

 

Arithmetic – Subtraction

Below is an outline of how to develop skills in subtracting.

1. Subtract 1-digit numbers from 2-digit numbers using missing numbers, e.g. 21 – __ = 15
2. Subtract 10 from any 2-digit number using missing numbers, e.g. __ – 10 = 33
3. Subtract multiples of 10 from any 2-digit number, e.g. 43 – 20 = 23 and 43 – 30 = 13
4. Subtract two 2-digit numbers by counting on from the smallest number to the biggest number, e.g. 43 – 29 = 14
5. Subtract two 1-digit numbers from a 2-digit number, e.g. 43 – 7 – 5 = 31

The tests will be on Friday 22^nd April.

Weekly Spellings – homophones

Below are the spellings for this week’s Spelling Test in Class 2. The theme for this week’s spellings is – homophones (words that sound the same but have different spellings and different meanings).

Homophones

1. where – Where are you going?
2. wear – I like to wear hats.
3. your – Don’t forget your school bag.
4. you’re – In P.E, you’re going to learning about cricket.
5. week – In one more week it will be my birthday.
6. weak – The sun is weak today so there’s no chance of getting sunburnt.
7. know – I know the 5 times table.
8. no – There will be no clubs this week.
9. knew – I knew that I needed to be polite to the visitor.
10. new – I got a new toy for my birthday.

Extension Challenge

1. bored – The new film made me bored.
2. board – We have a nice, big white board in Class 2.
3. our – In our house, I help with the tidying up.
4. are – There are 29 children in Class 2.
5. by – I walked by the River Thames.
6. buy – I went to the shop to buy some milk.

Additional spelling challenge

Find antonyms (words that have an opposite meaning) for the words that have opposites, e.g.

bored – excited

Additional writing challenge – write these words in different sentence types

(There are four different sentence types: commands (an instruction); statements (give facts); questions (need answering); and exclamations (in Y2 they take the form of What or How statements. What a mistake! or How noisy!) More SPaG resources are available on the Class 2 blog.

Do I have to wear my new coat? How fantastic is the outfit you’re wearing!            

Wear your best clothes today.                I like to wear my trainers when I go to the park.

 

Arithmetic – Quartering numbers

Below is an outline of how to develop skills in quartering.

1. Count in 4s
2. Write each number from 0 to 40, e.g. 0, 4, 8, etc
3. Halve each of these numbers, e.g. half of 4 is 2.
4. Halve again, e.g. half of 4 is 2 and half of 2 is 1 so ¼ of 4 is 1.

Extension Challenge

5. Multiply the answers by 3 to calculate 3/4, e,g ¼ of 4 is 1 so multiply 1 by 3 to calculate ¾ of 4.

The tests will be on Friday 15th April.