Year 2

This is what we are learning next week

Mice

Wow! Doesn’t time fly? The last week of school for the Mice class, the last week of Year 2. Finally we are all ready for Year 3. But before that, we have one more week of learning to fit in. In Literacy we will be writing our ‘Horrid Henry Goes To the Circus’ story. Using all the skills we have practised over the last few weeks to make our stories interesting and exciting to read. In numeracy we will be reviewing the key concepts we have looked at over the year. We will be solving problems using our basic Maths skills and choosing the best calculations to find the answers. In IPC we will be preparing for our Exit point by building our model circuses. These will be on display for the rest of Year 2 to see. Lastly, a quick thanks to all those parents who have written back to their children via email. It really helped to make the experience realistic for them.

Next Week:

Monday -Year 2 talent show for the chosen 10 performers, we will also visit the ‘Subway Breeze’ Kiosk to order lunch.

Tuesday - is a normal day preparing for our exit point on Wednesday.

Wednesday - PE as normal - remember your child needs to come in uniform and change at school. Exit point show.

Thursday - Mufti clothes for Party day, please remember to send in your party treats. The children also need swimming kit in a bag.

Friday - Last day in Year 2 ever - house colours mufti!

Gruffaloes

We are going to have only one real objective next week, and that is to have fun, enjoying our last few days together being Gruffaloes. We have a lot of brilliant memories of the things we have achieved this year, and a lot to celebrate. To complete our fantastic learning in IPC, we will finish our Dream Circus models, complete with posters and tickets. We are going to practise column addition and continue to race-against-the clock to improve our times tables recall. The children are going to meet their new teachers on Wednesday and class lists will be sent home that day. The class are busy enjoying their Transition programme having been to eat at the Rainbow cafe and visit the KS2 playgrounds. We are going to finish the booklets for their new teachers next week, which will be completed in Y3.  

Important dates next week:

Monday Y2 Talent Performances for the final 10 children.

Tuesday Swimming as usual.

Wednesday we visit the Subway Breeze at lunchtime.

Thursday Party food and Disco celebrations. Wear PE kit  and bring party clothes in a bag.

Friday is the last day of school - house colours mufti.

Lastly, I would like to thank you for what has been one of the most enjoyable years in my teaching career. I have really loved teaching our class and getting to know all of you.

Owls

Next week in Literacy we will finish word processing our Horrid Henry stories. In Maths we will be using different methods to display data and revise our basic calculation skills. We will continue to work in our groups to make and promote our ideal circuses, we will share these with the other classes in our Exit Point. We will also continue to prepare for Year 3 by completing the Year 2 section of our transition booklets. Some special events are coming up next week too so that we can enjoy our last week together and celebrate all we have achieved together this year.

Monday - the talent show for the 2 finalists in each class.

Wednesday - your child will spend a lesson meeting their new Year 3 teacher and classmates.

Thursday - your child can wear mufti clothes for our Party day. We will also go to the Subway Breeze to use our swipe cards.

Friday - the last day of school in Year 2 - house colours mufti.

I would like to thank you all for your support over the year and wish you a very happy and relaxing summer holiday. I have really enjoyed teaching the Owls and they have had an action packed, fun and successful year. Well done, Owls! :-)

Snakes

The last week in Year 2 for the Snakes. What an amazing and fulfilling year it has been. Watching these children develop through Year 1 and then guiding their progress in Year 2 has been a real privilege. Next week we will be focussing on the final preparations for Year 3. We will be visiting the ‘Subway Breeze’ kiosk on Friday. We will be finishing our transition booklets ready for our new teachers. On Wednesday we will be meeting our new teachers and discovering who will be in our classes in Year 3. On Thursday we have our Year 2 end of year party. Please remember to send your child in mufti clothes, but also with their swimming kit as normal. Friday is house colours Mufti, there is no charge for any mufti next week. All through the week we will be preparing for our circus exit point, which should be something worth waiting for.

Foxes

The Foxes can hardly believe how quickly the academic year has passed by. We will spend next week celebrating our achievements during the year and looking forward to the challenges and new experiences Year 3 offers. After some very successful auditions, the final week of term will begin with the Talent Show Assembly. The children will continue with their Year 2 to Year 3 transition programme on Tuesday by visiting the Subway Breeze cafe to purchase their own lunch using their swipe cards. On Wednesday children will meet their new teachers and find out their new class groups. Then on Thursday children will enjoy a class party and disco to mark the end of the year. On Friday, it is house colours mufti no charge. In between all these exciting activities, the children will be writing their own Horrid Henry stories, revisiting key calculation skills, designing and making their own juggling bean bags and creating their very own circus act. A busy final week to end a very busy and successful year!

This is what we are learning next week

Mice

In our three day week we have a lot to fit in. We will be making the juggling bean sacks that we designed this week. We will be considering whether we should include animals in our circus and the ethical issues around this. In Literacy we will be starting to plan our stories with Horrid Henry characters. We will be practising writing quickly and using speech marks to punctuate conversations. In Maths we will be looking at the various methods for solving different number calculations including number lines and vertical methods. In ICT we will be composing sounds to use as background music for our circus. Remember, Thursday and Friday are no school days!

Gruffaloes

Next week is a short week, but we have a lot in store! In Literacy lessons, we are going to look at the horrid motives Horrid Henry has and how it affects the story. But we will use our imaginations to consider how characters can change in a story...perhaps Henry will turn out to be a good boy! We are going to practise writing dialogue using speech marks - very grown up! We shall continue looking at Forces, in particular balancing acts at the circus. and in Maths, our focus is on right angles and we will carry on with telling the time.

Owls

Next week in Literacy we will be starting to think about and plan our own Horrid Henry stories. In Maths we will be looking at doubles and halves of numbers and we will use this to help us find fractions of numbers. We will also be looking at fractions of shapes and some equivalent fractions. In IPC we will be finishing our bean bags and start to investigate different forces. Remember next week is a short week and there is no school on Thursday or Friday. Enjoy the long weekend!

Snakes

Only three days this week but a lot to do. We will be continuing to build on our circus stories adding characters, new description and dialogue. We will be planning our circus technological novelty (pull, squeeze, push or balance) and thinking of the resources from home we might need to collect over the long weekend. We will be spending some time with the Year 1 Snakes planning our joint teddy bear’s picnic. We will be looking at division and fractions of a number and catching up on some measurement activities.

Foxes

The Foxes are going to have a busy three day week with a geographical focus. They will be learning to interpret and make both large scale and small scale maps. They will be plotting major international circuses on a world map and will later make an internal map of the layout of their brilliant Roman circus models. In Literacy, will be practicing describing exciting settings and then will consider how a character can change as the plot of a story progresses. In Mathematics, we will be revisiting fractions and will be considering some two-step mathematical word problems.

This is what we are learning next week

Mice

The Mice class will be continuing our work on Francesca Simon's series of Horrid Henery books. We will be writing questions to hotseat various characters from the stories and using similies to describe them. We will also be considering events in stories and how these affect the behaviour of characters. In IPC we will draw together our History investigations of the circus and present our findings on a timeline. In DT we will start to look at the 'Big Top' style tents, investigate how tents work and start to build our own versions of the circus arenas. In Maths we will continue to work on our personal targets, We will also be looking at the different strategies we know for solving subtractions. We will see if there are any rules on which strategy is best to use for which calculation. Don't forget we have sports day on Wednesday, it would be great to have you there to support the children.

Gruffaloes

The Gruffaloes will continue to learn about Francesca Simon’s books, with a focus on the development of Setting using descriptive words and phrases, and also the use of the 3^rd person to tell stories. In Maths we are going to practise adding small numbers together as quickly as we can, and to revise telling the time. Our Society lessons will be about the use of animals in the circus, and we are going to design our own juggling bean bags in DT.

I apologise that our class has missed PE and Swimming lessons recently, and it seems that we will have similar disruption to the timetable next week. However, please come along to KS1 Sports day on Wednesday at 9.30 to 10.30 on the main field.

Owls

In Literacy next week we will be role playing in partners, we will be thinking of questions to ask a character in Horrid Henry and think about what they would answer.  We will also be thinking about how characters can change in a story and what causes them to change. In Maths we will be working on our Maths Targets, revising how to use the number line method and revisiting right angles and seeing if we can identify them. We will see if some angles are bigger or smaller than a right angle. This week we had a little time to move onto our Design Technology project. We brainstormed the different things that are used in the circus and thought about what we would like to make. We decided to make some juggling beanbags! There are some fantastic designs. Next week in the Owls class we will start to make these. (If you would like to come in next Tuesday 28^th May in the morning 7.50 – 9.50 to help us, we would really appreciate it!) Also next Wednesday 29^th May is our Key Stage 1 Sports Day – we hope to see you there!

Snakes

We will be continuing or inquiry into the history of the circus and looking at changes to the circus over time. We will also be thinking of our technology ideas for a human cannon-ball model or a clown’s squirting flower or balancing an object on a high wire – some resources from home might be required! We will continue to use the circus (and circus vocabulary) as the context for writing, thinking about the setting, characters and perhaps using dialogue. In Guided Reading we will continue to retell parts (or all) of a story - as well as taking another opportunity at asking questions, to show our understanding of the text. In Mathematics we will continue to look at the measurement of time, length and weight as well as working on our mental maths strategies.

Foxes

 Children will explore the science behind the circus next week. They will build on what they have already learnt about the push and pull forces in the world around them and will progress forward to consider the sometimes complicated forces involved in circus acts. Some of the questions which will guide our science exploration include ‘How does a tight-rope walker balance?’, ‘ Why doesn’t the circus tent fall over?’ and  ‘Why do juggling balls fall back towards the earth?’. In Literacy, the children will continue to consider the stories of Francesca Simon. They will learn about the use of speech within stories and will look for plot themes that span across Horrid Henry texts.  In Mathematics children will be handling data. They are going to make graphs and charts related to circus themes and will be practicing interpreting other children’s charts. Later in the week we will be reinforcing some mental calculation strategies related to children’s previous targets. As a reminder, the KS1 Sports Day is on Wednesday 29^th May.   

This is what we are learning next week

Mice

Next week we will be diving in to our Circus topic, finding out about where the animals that were typically used in circuses come from using maps and atlases to locate the countries. We will be using our Art skills to critiques art pieces originating from circuses and having a go at using the same features in our own work. We will be exploring the Horrid Henry series of books and choosing adjectives to describe characters and things. We will be reviewing our use of speech marks and improving the speed and length at which we write. In Maths we will be using investigative skills to find answers to problems and talking about how we solved them.

Gruffaloes

Next week, the Gruffaloes will be investigating circles, and we will find out why acts perform in a circus ring, why the audience sits in tiered seating, how to draw circles and we will find patterns that we traditionally see at the circus. In Literacy, we are going to begin looking at the style of Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry series, and find things that are unique to the stories such as patterns and repetition. In Geography, we are going to map where circus animals and famous acts come from, using symbols and a key to represent them.

Please note that our class does not have PE or Swimming lessons next week.

Owls

Next week in Literacy we will be collecting adjectives to describe some of the characters in Horrid Henry and hopefully notice that adjectives can describe what something looks like or what something is like. We will also be looking at how using speech can show how a character is feeling. In Maths we will be looking at different methods to help us to add two numbers and revisiting telling the time. In IPC we will learning how to express different emotions through facial expressions in our Art work. We will also be finding out where different animals that were typically used in the circus originally come from and we will use maps and atlases to help us locate the different countries. We will also be visiting the Bear's Class in Year 1 to do some Buddy reading.

Snakes

It is wonderful when we can start to follow the children’s lines of inquiry and that is exactly what we will be doing this week. Two excellent questions from Armand and Yuv – they wondered about following our knowledge harvest. Why are some animals important to the circus? and, Has anything changed in the circus from the past and now? We will also be thinking of our technology ideas for a human cannon-ball model or a clown’s squirting flower. We will be using the circus (and circus vocabulary) as the context for writing, thinking about the setting, characters and perhaps using dialogue. The children’s writing is improving every week and they are beginning to write cursively in their daily writing activities. Last week we enjoyed the satisfaction of writing the letter g and this week we will be tackling the letter d. In Guided Reading we will continue to retell parts (or all) of a story -  as well as taking another opportunity at asking questions, to show our understanding of the text.  In Mathematics we will be looking at right-angles and measurement of time, length and weight. 

Foxes

Next week we will be investigating the question ‘where did the circus come from?’. We will be using a range of sources to try and research this question independently. We will be gathering some information from human sources, interviewing adults around school as we seek to find the answer. We will learn that not all sources are accurate, and we will think carefully about which interviewed adults might not be giving us reliable information! Later in the week, we will plot the historical development of the circus on a timeline and begin to find out significant geographical locations that were important in the history of circuses. In Literacy, we will be beginning our consideration of significant authors and extended stories. We will be finding out about Francesca Simon and reading some extracts from her most famous books. In Mathematics will be continuing to consider the units of measure for length, weight and capacity. 

This is what we are learning next week

Gruffalos

 Next week, the Gruffalo class will be reading and looking carefully at a text and making a response to it. We are very excited about our new IPC topic, The Circus is Coming to Town, and our WOW day is on Tuesday. Don’t forget that your child needs to dress up as a clown that day, and as we said in the newsletter, please let me know if he/she has an allergy to face paints. We will then do our knowledge harvest, to find out what the children already know about circuses and to give them the opportunity to shape this unit by asking their own questions about it. We will be finding out about the history of the circus, later in the week. In Maths, we will be revisiting standard units of measure, measuring using a ruler, and tackling time problems.

Owls

Firstly, thank you to everyone for coming in for our Celebration of Learning on Wednesday. It was lovely to hear some of the feedback and the Owls did a great job. Thank you also for supporting our little Paper Weights business! Next week we begin our new IPC topic – Circus. We will begin with a WOW day where the children will be able to try a few circus skills for example juggling and balancing and they will also design and face paint their friend’s faces as a clown! We will complete our knowledge harvest and think about what we would like to find out. We will begin to look at the History of circuses – what they were like in the past and see how they have developed over time. There is a circus that is in town at the moment. It would be a great learning opportunity if you could take your child so they have a better understanding and have seen a circus live. In Literacy we will begin our new unit on Significant Authors. We will be looking at the Horrid Henry series by Francesca Simon. In Maths we will be continue to develop our quick recall of our number facts and look at measures; weight, length and capacity.

Snakes

A new unit starts this week on the Circus. We will be establishing the children’s prior knowledge and working up their enthusiasm, beginning with our WOW day on Tuesday. In our literacy work we will be looking at the features of extended stories – using another author’s work to reflect on characters and repeating themes. In our guided reading we will be regularly retelling parts of the stories we have read – to include main characters, describing where parts of the stories take place and all the main events in the stories. We will also be learning how to ask questions that demonstrate our understanding of the text we have read. In Mathematics we will be improving our mental maths calculations. We will be measuring and comparing length, weight and capacities. We will be learning to read scales. 

Foxes

The Foxes will begin their new 'Circus' topic on Tuesday with a Circus Wow Day. The children will be trying various circus activities from juggling to tight rope walking. We will also be painting our faces to look like clowns. Remember to wear your best circus clown costume! Following the Wow Day, we will find out children's prior knowledge, experiences and interests related to circuses. We will use this information to plan our topic and themes for the unit ahead. Towards the end of the week, we will be learning about how circuses have evolved and changed over time. In Mathematics, children will be revising standard units of measure. We will be exploring length, weight and capacity and will be revising reading both a digital and analogue clock.

Mice

After the hectic schedule of last week the excitement continues next week with our ‘Circus’ topic beginning with a bang on Tuesday. We will be experiencing the thrill of the circus in our pod trying out lots of circus activities including face painting and juggling. We will be finding out what we already know about circuses by collecting our experiences and knowledge together. Then we will be devising our own questions to investigate and looking at what we would like to learn over the next few weeks. In Mathematics we will be identifying and describing shapes from the circus. In Literacy we will be completing our work on non-fiction texts and in ICT we will be practising communicating using technology through different mediums and researching as much as we can about the circus.

This is what we are learning next week

Gruffalos

Gruffalo class are beyond excited about going to KidZania on Monday. Please allow the children to bring any Kidzos, licenses, bank cards etc they have at home with them. They might want to wear a small shoulder bag that goes across the body, if they don’t have pockets in their batik. Their dry snack could be in cling film and the water bottle can be disposable so we can throw everything away. Thank you to Monika for coming with us.

Next week, we will be preparing our enterprise project and on Wednesday, the children are looking to showing their work to you and to sell you their Art at our Gallery. Light refreshments are available too! I am not quite having the success I’d hoped for, in getting the children to grasp the concept of profit margins. Perhaps by Wednesday afternoon they will have got it!

It is another great week ahead.

Mice

What an exciting week we have lined up for next week! Monday will see us off to Kidzania for a fantastic day exploring all different types of businesses. On Tuesday we will be working hard to get all final preparations finished for our own Popcorn Café business. We have made the publicity materials and the decorations for the café. We have done the market research and worked out the costings and our profit margins. Now it is time to do it! We will be selling to year one on Tuesday and to year two classes on Wednesday. If you would like to visit while you are in school for the celebration of learning, that would be great. We will be set up for first break at 10am. We are also hoping for help from an expert business man Mr Rhodes, who runs his own catering company in the UK. The rest of the week we will dedicate to reviewing how well our business worked and how we would improve it if we were to do it again.

Owls

Next week we have a busy week. On Monday we look forward to visiting KidZania for our Exit Point to celebrate all we have learned in our Jobs unit. On Tuesday we will be continuing to work on our enterprises. On Wednesday the children look forward to welcoming you to a meeting with them where they will show you work that they have prepared. Thursday is a Public Holiday. And on Friday it is our Swimming Gala.

Foxes

The Foxes are getting ready for an extremely busy week next week. On Monday, we will be visiting Kidzania. This is much anticipated by the children and will prove an excellent way to draw our Jobs topic to a close. Remember to bring a disposable snack that can be thrown away. On Tuesday, the children will be busy putting their final touches to their ‘businesses’. Our classroom has been divided into five ‘retail units’ with the children in charge of developing their business to make it as customer friendly as possible ready for the celebration of learning day on Wednesday. School will be closed on Thursday. On Friday, children will enjoy the annual KS1 Swimming Gala. We hope to see many parents coming to support the swimmers during the event.

Snakes

We leave promptly at 8am on Monday heading for our Unit of Inquiry Exit Point: KidZania. The children will have the opportunity to experience and role-play a large variety of jobs and workplaces. On Tuesday we will be writing letters of thanks to Pizza Express and for the rest of the week we will be finishing our job-pages and texts about family members and the work they do. In Mathematics we continue to work on partitioning and multiples of the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. The Snakes are very much looking forward to sharing selected pieces of work, highlighting the progress they have made throughout the year, at their Celebration of Learning on Wednesday.

This is what we are learning next week

Gruffalos

We will be visiting Pizza Express to see how a business works. We will be interviewing the people who work there, looking at the different areas in the workplace, and tracking a pizza order to the last points where the plate is washed and payment made! We will be drawing a floor plan and we will look at the location of the business and the factors that influence its success….or failure. This is a really good Geography field trip and I expect we will get a lot out of it. Our follow up work is to look at what a Product is and to begin planning our own mini Gruffalo enterprise project! So please be prepared to come and spend your money on the Celebration of Learning day! All hard earned profits go straight into our pockets! We will therefore be linking our IPC learning to Maths and revise money such as making totals and finding change.

Owls

Next week in the Owls Class we will be using ICT to finish our information pages on the job we have been researching. We will assess our work by using the checklist we created and reflect upon how we could have made improvements. In Maths we will be revising our doubles and halves and our 2s, 5s and 10s times tables and the related division facts. We will also be tackling 2-step problems involving all four operations and will explain our thinking. As part of our IPC topic, we will be visiting Pizza Express on Wednesday. We will be considering the location of the store, the floor plan of the restaurant and will track the process from when the food gets ordered until it is served at the table.

Snakes

In Mathematics this week we will be using partitioning to help carry out calculations. This will involve splitting large numbers into smaller units so they are easier to work with. This should help them visualise problems and work out large sums in their heads. In our Reading we will be comparing the layout, characters, settings and themes of different books we have read. We will be finishing pages for our book of jobs and editing our paragraphs created using our parent questionnaire. During Inquiry we will continue to plan our Teddy Bear’s Picnic with the Year 1s – allocating jobs, questioning, problem solving and working together as a team. At the end of the week we are visiting Pizza Express to look at a local business and the work involved. We will be looking at the ingredients and resources the company uses and thinking about where they come from and how they get to Jakarta.

Foxes

Next week, the Foxes will be working together to make a class information text about jobs. Each child will research a different job of their choice and create an information page using the information they have found out.  We will then create a front and back cover, contents page, glossary and index to create a finished product for all the children to enjoy. On Monday, the children will visit Pizza Express in Bintaro. As well as learning about the many interrelated jobs within the company, the children will be developing their geographical skills considering the location and features of the building and by creating internal floor maps. These skills will help children plan their own ‘businesses’ back in the school later in the week. In Mathematics we are continuing to develop our ability to rapidly calculate multiplication and division facts, using our knowledge of inversing to check our answers. We will then be revisiting previous learning on the properties of 2D and 3D shapes. We will be recognising shapes in different orientations and will be investigating mathematical problems with a shape dimension.

Mice

This week the Mice class will be concentrating on getting our business plans up and running. After our exciting trip to Pizza Express on Tuesday we will look at the process of taking and fulfilling orders. Also, how they deal with money and ensure customer satisfaction. For IPC we will make plans and maps of our café layout and make sure our business will be a safe one. We will try some ‘dry runs’ to check that our plans will work and design and make the packaging for our product. In Literacy and ICT we will make signs and advertise our business, looking at how best to communicate our message. We will write invitations and prepare to make announcements to other classes. In Maths we will work out costs, selling prices and project profit margins, we will continue to practise giving change and focus on our personal targets.

This is what we are learning next week

Gruffalos

We have had a very interesting week finding out about the range of different jobs at our school, and what our parents do for a living. We interviewed Natasha’s mummy who works as an ICU Nurse! We have a lot more to find out about next week, which is simply packed with activities. Our class will be taking a tour of the Annapurna kitchen and seeing how our Infant meal orders are processed, and watching the butchers, bakers, vegetable preparer, chefs and cooks, etc at work. We will even take a step into the walk-in fridges and freezer to see where the manager stores and tracks the ingredients he has ordered. In Literacy we will be thinking of jobs beginning with all letters of the alphabet in preparation for a fabulous class anthology. We have a lot of research and note-taking to get done! And in Maths, we will continue to learn the relationship between analogue and digital clocks.

After all, you need to know the time when you have a job! You can't be late for work!

Please be aware that next week is also House Week, and on Friday the children are asked to wear their house colours and bring in 10,000rp for charity.

We are beginning our Cook for Kiki scheme on Monday, and I will be bringing in his lunch first. I will email you the rota on Friday if you have not informed me otherwise. Thank you for your support; I always appreciate it.

Snakes

Thank you so much for helping your child with their homework last week. We had some wonderful ideas and some very interesting designs for computers and robots in the workplace. This week I would like them to design a uniform for a specific job and interview a parent to get information about the work they do. The children will be using Mr Koo’s talk as an incentive to write letters of thanks. The children had some great questions ready for Mr Koo and I would like them to think of questions to ask their parents about the work that they do. We will also be working on a job page to be included in a class book. This will allow the children to use many of the features of Informational texts.

In Reading we will continue to work on retelling and questioning.

In Mathematics we will be working out the missing number in a number sentence or making calculations balance.

Foxes

Thank you to all the parents that completed our online jobs survey. The children are very excited to view the results and it will lead to some very meaningful learning activities in IPC.

Next week, children are going to be considering the businesses or enterprises behind many of the jobs that people do. We will learn about how businesses 'make money' by offering goods or services to others. We will consider both large household names such as Nike and Coca Cola and those small micro-enterprises that children may see out of the window during their daily journey to school. This learning will be preparing children to design and develop their own 'business' in school. We will be asking for business ideas from parents - watch out for this on the blog next week! The Foxes will continue to learn about information texts; we will be looking at the important role of illustrations or diagrams in helping us understand what we read and will continue to do much of our own research using information texts from the library and through electronic sources. In Mathematics children will be learning to identify and continue number patterns. They will then practice reading, understanding and solving two-step mathematical word problems.

Remember, next week is House Week. On Friday, children should wear their house colours and bring in a small donation of Rp. 10,000.

Owls

 Next week we have an action packed week planned. In Literacy we will be researching jobs that interest us using a range of sources. We will be planning and starting to put together our information page on a job we have chosen and researched using ICT.  We will be making sure that we include as many features of information texts as we can. In Maths we will be revising money and will use role play as a way of finding different amounts and giving change. In IPC we will visit our BIS kitchen. We will have a look at some different jobs that are carried out each day whilst we are having our lessons, which resources are used and how and where produce is stored etc. We will also be thinking about how businesses work and will start to set up our own mini-business project.

Mice

 Thank you to all of those who took time to help their child fill in the homework survey the other week. We had some really stimulating questions and conversations following on from your answers. It was good to see such a range of occupations. This week was our turn to be under the spotlight as we began a new round of quadblogging. This time we are linked with two classes in the UK and a class in New Zealand, and our class was the first to be visited by the others. As a class we have decided to set up our own business. This week we have been collecting ideas. Next week we will be investigating how businesses work and choosing what we will do. In DT will be looking at how to make our product and what resources we will need. We will also be making and evaluating some trial versions. In literacy we will look at how we can market our product using persuasive language. We will also be linking our IPC learning to Maths and revise money such as making totals and finding change.

Please be aware that next week is also House Week, and on Friday the children are asked to wear their house colours and bring in 10,000rp for charity.

This is what we are learning next week

Gruffalos

Next week, we will continue to explore the features of non-fiction texts, such as the layout of pages and how to find definitions in a text by referring to the glossary. We are going to look at the best ways to make notes of the information in a non-fiction text, and this includes the online site Newsround. In IPC, we are going to look at the range of jobs that people do in our school, from secretarial jobs to architecture! In Maths we are going to practise our place value skills, and we will be counting in multiples of 10 from any number, for example; beginning on 6, count on in 10s. I am away on the Y3 Residential on Wednesday and Thursday, but the Gruffalo class will be taught by Mrs Bulkely, who knows the children well, and we have liaised to plan and resource the lessons for those 2 days.

Owls

Next week the Owls will be continuing to look at the features on non-fiction texts. The children will have a go at making notes of important information, whilst finding out about a job that interests them. We will be trying to answer some of the questions that we wanted to find out about jobs in the past and will be comparing them to jobs done today. We will look at Victorian times and find out that children used to work, too! In Maths we will be using the inverse to help us solve problems and check answers. We will also be looking at place value and revising adding and subtracting 9 and 11 by adding and subtracting 10 and then adjusting. I will be helping on the Year 3 trip on Wednesday and Thursday next week. I have explained this to the children and suitable work will be planned for the supply teacher to cover on these days. I will be back in school on Friday.

Snakes

In our literacy work we will continue to look at the features of Information Texts whilst finding out about work in the adult world. In guided reading we will be regularly retelling parts of the stories we have read – to include main characters, describing where parts of the stories take place and all the main events in the stories. We will also be learning how to ask questions that demonstrate our understanding of the text we have read. In Mathematics, we will be working with number lines and using the greater than and less than signs again. The children will be adding and subtracting two-digit numbers using number lines and their knowledge of place value. We will be giving devices instructions in ICT to make them move. 

Foxes

The Foxes have had a great start to the new term. Next week in Literacy, we will be busy exploring non-fiction texts. Children will be securing their understanding of alphabetical order and will be developing their skim reading and note-taking skills. All children will be encouraged to take home an information book from the library this week. Look through the book at home and discuss all the important features that make information texts unique! In Mathematics, children will be learning about place value, and later in the week will be learning to add multiples of 10 mentally. Our IPC lessons will have a historical focus next week. We will be considering how jobs have changed and developed over time, researching both in the library and using electronic resources.

Mice

What a great week to start off our new term. Wow day on Monday and finished off with sleepover on Friday. Next week, when everyone has had a chance to recover from the excitement we will be delving even further into our ‘How do people earn a living?’ theme. We will be considering how we might ‘Earn a living’ in our class. Looking at what we could make and sell. Planning how we could do it and assessing the options. In Literacy, we will be exploring information texts and looking at how we can use what we find to help our business. In Mathematics, we will be working out costs and prices, and also practising giving change. In ICT we will be looking at different ways of communicating information, and choosing which would be best for us to use.