Cheshire

Dear Cheshire 

I am so excited to be your new teacher next year and also becoming a new member of Southborough Church of England Primary School. It is going to be an exciting year full of learning, creativity, exploration and fun for all of us.

I am originally from New Zealand and have been teaching in and around London since I came to the UK. This is my first full time class in Kent, so I am very excited to meet all of you. I look forward to getting to know each and every one of you in the upcoming school year, learning about you and your families and having a great year. Some hobbies of mine include sports (mainly rugby, cricket and basketball), travelling, reading (J.K Rowling is my favourite), cooking, building things and using my creativity. 

I eagerly await your poems or stories that are due to arrive soon and cannot wait to speak with you all on the 21st of July.

Enjoy the sunny weather while it lasts and I look forward to the beginning of the 2020/2021 school year.

See you in September, all the best

Mr Whale.

Friday 3rd July 2020

Dear lovely Cheshire 2!

THINGS have been abundant this week!  In Reception we have focused our learning around the splendidly brilliant book, Emily Brown and the Thing, following the adventures of Emily and her pet rabbit, Stanley, and their nocturnal visitor, the Thing.  We have undertaken all sorts of adventures as Emily and Stanley help the Thing with his various problems.

We have learnt all about bats in caves, as we followed Emily into a witches cavern, to find some medicine for the Thing.  We also wrote our own disgusting and descriptive recipes for our own restorative witches brews, with ingredients, such as,  2 scoops of cheetah’s eyes and a pinch of powdered mud to thicken the mixture!  The children really let their imaginations run wild and they thoroughly enjoyed the task.

We even made our own Things, using a range of materials to create stunning collages.  Some have shiny, metallic limbs, others have wild and exuberant hair and others are simply the strangest looking Things you have ever seen.  But rest assured, they are all very friendly, just like the Thing in the book!

In maths, we have been practicing our counting, but not just any old counting, we have been counting in 2s, 5s and even 10s all the way to 100!  It was a bit tricky at first, but the children dug deep and were the embodiment of our school value of perseverance and got there in the end.

Next week, we have based our learning around another exciting book and we can’t wait to share the learning and fun with you!

It has been wonderful to speak to you all on the phone again this week. I know you have had a busy week catching up with family and friends. It has been lovely to hear that some of you have been meeting up, going for walks and bike rides. This week it was great to see one of my best friends who is also a teacher! We met at University over 10 years ago and have been the best of friends ever since. Say hello to Miss Cornish! 

I hope you are getting to do some lovely things too.

A big well done on completing your brilliant assingments this week - I was very impressed with all the colourful gloop you made and the scientific investigations you carried out to discover how a solid becomes a liquid! 

Keep up the amazing hard work, I am very proud of you all!

Take care, lots of love,

Miss Silcott x x x

Home learning. Please continue to learn the times tables that you were given last week.

Keep reading regularly.

Details of further home learning will be sent to you shortly.

Term 4 Highlights

In our maths curriculum we have been learning to recognise, name and label fractions. The children know that a half means one part out of two equal parts, a quarter means one part out of four equal parts and a third means one part out of three equal parts. We have been looking at these fractions within shapes such as circles, squares and rectangles.  Problems involving fractions have been set involving sharing food items such as cakes and pizzas into equal parts.

Our English text this term is called 'Where do Zebras Go?" This is a collection of poetry that we have been sharing. Our poems are based on themes such as night time, animals and morning. We have been looking at how poets use vocabulary to create images in the mind of the reader. The children have now written their own poems and have practiced performing them aloud.

Our science this term focuses on materials and we have been describing the properties of many different materials that are used to make things. We will be investigating what materials are used for the sole of a running shoe which needs to provide grip.

In our History sessions we have looked at the events involved in The Great Fire of London. We have looked at the order of the key events during the fire and also learnt how eye witness accounts are useful for discovering what it was like to be there at the time. The children have been reading the diaries of Samuel Pepys.

In music this term the children have been continuing to learn the recorder and play London's Burning.

PE lessons have included skills used for curling and golf.

RE has focused on the importance of Easter to Christians. We have created different images of the cross using happy and sad colours and chosen key vocabulary from the Easter story to match these feelings.

Our DT lessons will focus on a cooking task comparing recipes for rock cakes from 1666 to modern recipes. 

Term 3 Week 6

This week in maths we have continued to explore money problems and different ways to calculate the difference between amounts, total amounts and how much change we get when we are shopping. The children have recorded amounts of money and different methods of calculation.

In our English lessons we created a storyboard of the beginning of our key text The Last Wolf. The children were hungry like a wolf and began to retell the story in their writing books using a variety of sentence structures, conjunctions, punctuation and vocabulary. 

In our Science this week looked at the environmental concerns that scientists have about future weather patterns. With an increase of high winds, flooding and drought the children considered how farmers of the future will protect the crops that we grow to provide the world with enough food to eat. The children used a range of resources to represent how they could protect the crops from these extreme weather conditions.

This week our computing lessons have been based around Internet Safety Day. We learnt key messages about why we should never share our personal information online. We learnt how to create an avatar and online name which reveals nothing about our true identity. The children also shared a story about how to protect themselves online and how they must always tell a trusted grown up if they see something online that makes them feel worried.

In RE this week we looked at how Jesus and his promise of peace from the book of John (14: 27) in the Bible. We discussed different definitions of peace, how Christians shape their lives through this message of peace and how we prioritise peace within our own life at school and at home.

Our PE lessons have worked on key skills for playing hockey. This included simple ball control and how to correctly hold a hockey stick.

Term 3 Week 5

This week in maths we began to solve maths problems with money. We have learnt the values of all UK coins and notes and how to write amounts of money, e.g. 50p, £10 & £15 and 30p. Note the children are not yet using decimal points to record amounts of mone. The children have begun to compare amounts of money and investigate which coins and notes can be used to pay for items of a particular cost.

In our English lessons we looked at the character of the last wolf and wrote a comparative piece of narrative looking back at how life used to be for the wolf in "the good old days," and how the wolf's habitat has been changed by human activity. The children have also been studying how to use the suffix ed to show the past form of common verbs.

In our Science this week we carried out an investigation into the preferred micro habitat of woodlice. We recreated for micro habitats  within a large tray and watched as woodlice were released into the tray, noticing where they naturally went. From this we decided why woodlice need dark, damp places to provide them with food, water and shelter from predators. 

In RE this week we looked at how Jesus and his promise of peace from the book of John (14: 27) in the Bible. We discussed different definitions of peace, how Christians shape their lives through this message of peace and how we prioritise peace within our own life at school and at home.

Our PE lessons have involved looking at building up elements of dance with a particular piece of music as well as focusing on new gymnastics skills.

Term 3 Week 4

This week we began to learn about picture graphs and how they are used to represent information and data. The children learnt to read picture graphs and answer a range of questions that require counting and comparing the information that they show.

In our English lessons we wrote about the strange door that Little Red found in the middle of the woods. The children used their imagination to create a setting and a character who may live behind this door in the base of a tree trunk. The children focused on how to use commas in a list to describe these settings and characters.

In our computing lessons we began to experiment with taking photographs with the camera on an Ipad. The children found out how to zoom in and pan out to take images at different scales. We then reviewed our images and deleted those we did not want to keep. 

In RE this week we looked at how Jesus chose Matthew the tax collector to be one of his disciples. From this we considered how Jesus accepted all people to be His followers and how Christians are influenced by this to accepting of others in their own lives.

In our Music lessons the children are learning the basics of playing a recorder. They are beginning to experiment with simple tunes. 

Term 3 Week 3

This week saw us consolidate our calculation skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We have used several methods of representing mathematical problems such as columns, bar models, part part wholes and other drawings and jottings. The children have also learnt to read temperature scales and estimate temperature readings in degrees Celcius.

Woodlice habitats have been the focus of our writing this week. The children filmed a video clip of a woodlouse and named him Woody. We used this to write a description of Woody's home and how he travels around his habitat to gather food and protect himself from predators. Children have also been focusing on the use of different conjunctions to lengthen some of the sentences.

In our computing lessons we have begun to discuss how to take digital photographs and learnt what makes a good photograph. We will be taking different digital images of trees from varying perspectives. 

In RE we are now studying stories of the life of Jesus from the Christian Gospels in the Bible. This week we looked at the parable of the Pearl of Great Price and considered what things are most valuable in our own lives.

In PSHE we learnt about how we can sometimes feel like erupting like a volcano and how we need to use different strategies to control what we might say to others when we feel like that.

Year 2 curriculum for Term 3

English

Our text for the term is The Last Wolf. Little Red’s mother remains calm when her daughter declares that she is off to the forest to catch a wolf. After all, none has been seen for a hundred years or more. As Little Red wends her way through the Autumnal wood she happens upon the home of the Last Wolf in the land who introduces her to the Last Lynx and the Last Bear. This text introduces us to the plight of animals whose habitats are being destroyed. We will be considering solutions to the current problems that our planet’s environment is facing and how the actions we take can have a positive impact on future world citizens.

Mathematics

The children in Year 2 have begun the term reading scales to measure the mass of different objects and will be calculating the difference between different amounts. The children will then be learning about how temperature is measured and how to read picture graphs. In both of these areas your child will need to count up in 2s, 5s or 10s and calculate the difference using subtraction. Throughout the term the children will be solving a range of word problems which will require them to use their written methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division confidently. Please continue to support your child in learning the times tables they are set each week as they need to rapidly recall these to solve mathematical problems throughout the year. They are required to be secure in their 2, 5 and 10 times tables to meet the expected standard at the end of Year 2.

Geography

Our key question is –Does our planet need forests? We will be researching and comparing forests around the world using atlas, information books and online sources. A focus will be exploring the different dangers faced by rainforests around the world and the impact this will have locally and globally.

Science

Year 2 will be deepening their knowledge of animals and their habitats, learning about micro-habitats and food chains. We will be relating our learning to our text and the animals that are facing the perils of habitat destruction. We will be exploring some solutions to the problem of disappearing resources across the world.

Computing

The children will be learning how to take digital photographs and simple ways to edit, manipulate and save these images. They will learn how digital images are used for different purposes in the world of business and industry.

R.E

This term Year 2 continue to learn about Christianity with a focus on the gospels. We will be studying stories from the Bible and recognising what these stories mean to Christians, how Christians show their beliefs and also exploring ways in which Christians use Bible stories and texts to guide their beliefs about prayer both in their church communities and their own lives.

P.S.H.E

The children will be exploring different feelings and considering what it means to feel safe in different contexts. We will be linking our feelings to the feelings of the characters within our text The Last Wolf.

P.E

Please ensure that a full PE kit is in school every day as our timetable for PE lessons can vary on a weekly basis. This term all Year 2 children will be having specialist P.E coaching on a Wednesday for dance and another PE lesson during the week with a focus on multi skills.

Art and D.T

We will be experimenting with chalks and charcoal to create different tones of light and dark. We will also create patterned art with tree rubbings and use of other natural objects.

Music

The children will continue to learn the recorder, using simple notes to create tunes. They will also learn how to care for a musical instrument.

Term 2 Week 7

This week saw sparkling performances of The Inn-Spectors, our Christmas Nativity production. We hope everyone enjoyed watching. The children have worked tirelessly for many weeks to put this together and everyone involved played their part in making this a fantastic show. 

Children from Year 2 also performed some of the songs from the nativity next door at Christ Church to entertain the members of the Tunbridge Wells COGS club. The singing was fabulous and they represented our school in a wonderful way.

In Geography this week the children wrote letters for Southborough Town Council to discuss the conditions of a local alleyway which is blighted by litter and unsightly graffiti. The children have suggested how improvements can be made and we look forward to receiving replies from the council in the New Year.

Our mathematics lessons have continued with opportunities for practical measurement of metres and centimetres and also developed skills of reading and interpreting word problems that require calculations of length.

We have completed our study of The Secret Sky Garden in English lessons by examining how the author and illustrator have used colour in the pictures and text. The children worked on developing their own metaphors and similes  based on colours. 

The children have also been designing and creating Christmas cards, experimenting with different techniques of painting, collage and mounting. They look forward to sharing them with you during the Christmas holidays.

Term 2 Week 6

This week the children have been working to polish their performances of our Christmas Nativity production, 'The Inn-Spectors.' which we will be performing on Tuesday of the coming week. Dancing, acting and singing will be combined to bring a shining performance to show to parents. Thanks to all the efforts that parents have gone to to provide costumes for this.

Our English lessons have provided an opportunity to create a story board of our key text, The Secret Sky Garden and the children have used these to write extended narratives using enriched vocabulary, phonic spelling strategies and their renewed efforts on handwriting and general presentation.

In Maths we have begun a new series of lessons on the measurement of length. The children have been comparing objects and learning to measure with rulers, metre sticks and tape measures. The standard units of centimetres (cm) and metres (m) have been introduced.

As part of our Art and Design Technology curriculum we have been designing Christmas themed decorations which were used to adorn the stalls at Friday's Christmas fair. 

Term 2 Week 5

This week we were given a mystery to solve. Muddy footprints, a beaten up old map and two videos led us to our woodland trail at the bottom of the school field. Armed with trowels, forks and rakes we set about digging at the site of a red cross on our map. To our surprise we found golden coins buried beneath the ground. Maybe pirates or aliens have been leaving their treasures at school for us to discover. The children have written detailed accounts of this experience using time connectives to sequence the events in the correct order.

We have continued our own growing experiments looking at how plants grow in varying amounts of light. The children have begun to record how plants are thriving or otherwise given varying amounts of light. 

This week we have continued rehearsing our Nativity play, entitled The Inn-Spectors, which will take place on Tuesday 10th December. We cannot wait to share your talented children's performance with you.

Our maths learning has continued to explore the relationships between multiplication and division and have been learning to find and record the family of equations that can represent a division problem. We have also looked at the difference between odd and even numbers and how to determine whether a number is odd or even.

Term 2 Week 4

Our English this week continued to focus on the two main characters in The Secret Sky Garden. Funni meets Zoo and we wrote in the role of Funni as she discovers this new friendship. This changes her outlook and the children have been choosing vocabulary to describe how her feelings changed and describe the amazing changes she has created in the former run down, derelict car park.

We have begun our own growing experiments looking at how plants grow in varying amounts of light. The children have made reasoned estimates of how much growth will happen and they are helping to provide the other factors needed for healthy growth such as water, warmth, soil and space.

This week we have begun earnestly rehearsing our Nativity performance, entitled The Inn-Spectors, which will take place on Tuesday 10th December. The children have been singing with great gusto and learning dance moves which they are eager to perfect before they perform to their families. 

Our maths learning has looked at division and how this can be represented by grouping and sharing. For example if 20 cakes are put on plates in groups of 4 how many plates will you need? If 16 marbles are shared between 4 children how many will they get each. We have explored the relationship between multiplication and division and used concrete apparatus and drawings to solve a range of division word problems.

Term 2 Week 3

Our story The Secret Sky Garden has introduced us to a new character called Zoo who has gained a different view of the garden whilst flying over it in a jumbo jet plane. The children considered what words he might use to describe the riot of colourful flowers that he sees growing beneath him on the roof of the car park. Once again the children have been up-leveling their ideas through careful proof reading and editing of their own writing. 

We were inspired by the book to think about how plants reproduce. We looked at a range of fruits, bulbs and seeds and learnt about the processes involved in seed germination. Detailed scientific diagrams have been drawn by the children and we are also setting up a range of growing experiments in different locations to consider the requirements of plants for healthy growth.

This week saw our worship focus around Remembrance and also anti bullying week. On Monday we respectfully held our silent reflection for 2 minutes at 11 o clock to mark Armistice Day and some children have shared stories about members of their families who have served in the armed forces. Tuesday was odd socks day and the children wore a fabulous collection of colourful socks.

Our maths learning has continued to focus on multiplication. We used the 2, 5 and 10 times tables and looked at picture arrangements of objects called arrays that help to represent multiplication equations. 

In our RE lesson the class studied the account of Mary's visit by Angel Gabriel from the Gospel of Luke. We wrote recounts of this event from the story of God's Incarnation.

Term 2 Week 2

We have discovered more about the character Funni from our story, The Secret Sky Garden. She is an environmental warrior who sets about transforming an old rooftop carpark into a flower garden. The children explored clues about her character from the book and wrote their own character studies using powerful adjectives and adverbs to describe her. 

We were inspired by the book to consider the local environment of Southborough and have used Ordnance Survey maps to identify areas where there is a need for transformation. The classes have developed important geographical skills by finding and describing familiar local landmarks on the maps. 

Our maths learning has focused on multiplication. We have looked at the language of multiplication and have been using our 2 and 5 times tables to solve a range of problems. The children have been journalling about their understanding and recording repeated addition and multiplication equations for a range of contexts. 

Our RE learning has focused on the incarnation of Jesus and how Mary was informed that she was to be the mother of God's son. Through role play the children explored the range of feelings and emotions that Mary and Joseph would have felt on hearing the news from the Angel Gabriel. 

Term 2 Week 1

This week we have begun our voyage into a new text. The Secret Sky Garden has introduced a strange setting to the children......a place covered in junk, broken cars, weeds and an old oil drum. Beyond is a city skyline and an aeroplane taking off. Amongst this chaos a child appears to be contemplating unknown thoughts. We have been writing a description of this setting and considering what might be about to happen in our story.

Our maths has continued our exploration of subtraction including column sums where re naming is required to work out the solutions. For example 43 - 28, where the ones column needs to be increased by renaming one of the tens into ten ones. The children have been working on this new method and writing about how this works in their maths journals. 

In Art we have created a floral design based on the close up view of a flower that a bee would have. Our next step is to experiment with watercolour paints to add texture and colour to this design based on the different colours that insects see.

We had a bonus singing session on Thursday with Mrs Bateup who is continually amazed at the high standard of sound and energy that the children in Year 2 produce when they are working with her. Well done to all our amazing voices. 

Term 1 Week 7

This week the children wrote the final adventures of Leaf the Polar Bear as he attempted to escape from the strange island and return to his Arctic home. We read the end of the story and all of us were delighted to see that the animal characters,who had been suspicious of Leaf, helped to escort him safely back to be reunited with his family in the frozen North. 

As half term arrived we looked back at all the amazing maths learning the children have been completing since September. We have been introduced to the column methods of solving addition and subtraction problems and have been developing important reasoning skills. This week we continued our exploration of subtraction and discovered lots of ways to record our thinking in our maths journal books. 

Our Science learning focused on the different ways animals use their habitats to hunt and feed, hide from predators and build places for safety and reproduction. The children matched a huge range of animals to their habitats and wrote about particular animals in relation to their surroundings.

Our RE learning concluded a section of learning about the Christian story of Creation. We thought about how we can apply God's care for the world to our own environmental concerns. The children are very aware of the damage our world's environment is suffering from and what actions they could take to protect the future of the planet.  

Term 1 Week 6

This week the children considered how Leaf, our polar bear story character, would describe his story to the friendly crows. We wrote first person accounts of his journey using expanded noun phrases to describe what he saw and felt on his journey from the Arctic. We have used the theme of polar bears to create Christmas card designs which will be available to order following the half term break.

We all experienced an exciting and enjoyable drama workshop set in ancient times with King Arthur and the knights of the round table. The children had to protect the sword Excalibur from an evil witch and mix up a magic cake with many strange ingredients.

Our maths lessons have extended our knowledge of addition using the column method and other methods. We have also focused on learning counting patterns with chants and songs to help remember our 2, 5 and 10 times tables.

On Thursday we celebrated our Harvest Festival in church and our children were involved in leading Bible readings and sharing a harvest poem.

Term 1 Week 5

We have continued our learning journey through the story of Leaf, the displaced polar bear. This week the children have written advice to Leaf to help him continue his mission to return to the Arctic. We have focused on using different kinds of punctuation in our writing and on checking our own writing for meaning and sense. In the story Leaf collects leaves from the woods to help him fly and we were inspired in our art lessons to collect leaves and use them to create colourful natural patterns. These patterns have been created after looking at the work of the artist Andy Goldsworthy who creates images using natural objects.

You can find some of his work on this web site.

https://www.boredpanda.com/land-art-andy-goldsworthy/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Our geographical studies have looked at the impact of climate change on the numbers of polar bears within the Arctic and we have discussed what might happen to polar bear populations in the future if the rate of sea ice melting continues to grow.

In our maths lessons we continued with our work on addition looking at different methods of recording our thinking and ways of solving addition problems. The children have been introduced to the column method of addition and are beginning to use their number bonds knowledge to solve these effectively. The following web based game is a good place to help practice these number bonds , especially those up to 10 and then up to 20, which are so important for mathematical fluency.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

Term 1 Week 4

We have been considering the character of Leaf, a polar bear in a strange environment. The children wrote a note in the role of the polar bear considering his feelings and thoughts. Our science involved looking at simple food chains and work out what the difference is between producers, consumers and predators. In maths we began to explore addition and look at varying methods of solving addition problems including simple column addition. Rapid recall of number bonds with numbers up to 10 will help children to become confident in using a range of addition methods. 

Term 1 Week 3

In English our Key Question was are Polar Bears black? We carried out research to find out the answer to this question. One of the facts we found out was "Polar bears have hollow, transparent fur that traps the air to keep them warm". We then discovered the skin underneath is black to absorb the sunlight. "I also learnt that Polar Bears have 42 teeth!" Charlie G.

In science we investigated the affect that blubber has on a polar bear. We used lard to represent the fat coating and plunged our hands into ice cold water. We were then introduced to recording our finding on a table and writing a conclusion "The four fingers of fat trap the warmth so it doesn't get out" Isabella W. 

Term 1 Week 2

This week in Cheshire 2 we have been exploring Maths No Problem, building on our knowledge of tens and ones. We have been counting numbers up to 100, counting up in 1's and 10's, comparing numbers and partitioning them in 2 different ways. 

Will there be ice in 50 year's time?

In geography we explored the Arctic. Did you know the temperature of the Earth is rising. "Gases, from things such as cars burning fuel, form around the Earth and trap heat from the sun". William "This causes the Earth to slowly heat up". Samuel B 

Who made the world? 

In RE we discussed our key question. We looked at images of the natural world, we then explored our school grounds and collected things that we believed the creator made. In Cheshire 2 we drew what we think the creator looks like and why we believe the world was made. 

Term 1 Week 1