Marvellous Mice

Year 2 Class 2022 - 2023

Welcome to the class page of Year 2 Marvellous Mice.

Visit here for weekly updates on what your child has been doing in school. 

If you would like to speak with us, please feel free to chat to us on the playground at the end of the day.  Alternatively, you can contact us using the following email address: mice@willington.derbyshire.sch.uk  

Information about your child and the class will be sent out on Parenthub.

Summer 2 Week 7

Wow!!!! What a week to finish in Year 2!

I am sure you will all agree that our African Drumming and Dance workshop was amazing. The children absolutely loved it - we didn’t stop all day and I was so proud of their final performance.

We have had lots of parent feedback from this event - emails and parents talking to both myself and Mrs Spencer-Lovesy. It has been really lovely to hear such wonderful comments thanking us for giving the children this experience. 
Thank you to everyone for your support. 
 

We wish all of our Marvellous Mice all the very best in their next journey into the juniors.

Have an amazing Summer break everyone and stay safe.

Summer 2 Week 6

Spellings for this week.

Summer 2 Week 5

Thank you to everyone who has completed the online permission form for tomorrows mini olympics.

Please send your child into school wearing their PE kit, suncream applied, a hat and a water bottle. 

Maths

We have been using the vocabulary of position to follow instructions.

Mini Olympics 

We have had a great afternoon, taking part in the mini Olympics event.

We have played handball, dodgeball, football cricket, American football and have ran relay races against three other schools.

Everyone will sleep tonight !!

Spellings

Spellings for this week.

Summer 2 Week 4

What an amazing week of sports we have had!
Monday’s Sports Day was fantastic and all the marvellous mice joined in so well - everyone tried hard and everyone was cheering each other on - so nice to see such good sportsmanship.

I think it is fair to say that some of our Mums and Dads had a great time too! A huge well done to Avaani’s mum for winning her race.

On Wednesday, we had a great afternoon with the Olympic swimmer Joe Robuck. We were super impressed with the efforts the Year Two children gave, during the circuit training.
Everyone enjoyed the assembly too, learning about how Joe became a swimmer, where he has travelled, what races and medals he has won.

Thank you so much to everyone who has raised sponsorship money too! 

Spellings

Spellings for this week.

Summer 2 Week 3

Spellings

Spellings for this week.

Summer 2 Week 2

Spellings

Spellings for week 2.

key

donkey

monkey

chimney

valley

trolley

journey

turkey

jockey

kidney

Summer 2 Week 1

Spellings

Spellings for this week.

Summer 1 Week 6

The final week of another half term!

The Marvellous Mice class have worked so hard on their special quiz work over the last two weeks; everyone has tried their very best and can be very proud of themselves.

Art

The children are so proud of their African art in the style of Sarah Shiundu; when they had been cut out and stuck onto a background the children couldn’t wait to point their work out to a friend. 
 

The art work looks amazing on our topic display, everyone who visits our classroom comments on how good it looks. 

Computing 

In computing, we are learning all about digital photography.

After identifying which devices could be used to take photographs, the children learnt about how to take a good quality picture and loved playing photography bingo!

We then learnt about how to improve our photographs as well as enhance them using a photo editing app.

Summer 1 Week 5

Spellings

Here are the spellings for this week.

African Art

We have enjoyed learning some facts about the late African artist Sarah Shiundu. We have looked at and discussed lots of examples of her work. 
We then choose two of her pieces to copy before designing our own work in her style. 

Leaf Printing

As a treat after our ‘Special Quiz Work,’ we had great fun leaf printing. We experimented with different colours and thought carefully about the back drop for our African art. These are going to look great with our Sarah Shiundu style drawings over the top. 

Summer 1 Week 4

Spellings

Here are the spellings for this week.

Summer 1 Week 3

Spellings

Here are the spellings for this week.

Africa 

We have really enjoyed designing a t-shirt onto an African map background. Some of us added Mount Kenya, others added African animals and colours of the Kenyan flag. 
It was great to have Lupita back into school to judge the competition - they were so good she ended up choosing two winners!!
One design will go on the front of her shirt and the other on her back. We can’t wait to see photos of her out in Kenya wearing the winning designs - well done Shae and Willow.

Thank you to everyone who donated during our dress up day, the total amount collected on the African map outline was £80.00.

Well done Marvellous Mice ! 

Thank you also for all the clothes donations, these will be given out in the community where Lupita is volunteering. 
 

Summer 1 Week 2
 

Carrot Tokens 

We have enjoyed our assembly with Mrs Spencer-Lovesey, learning about the WPS rules and our new reward system. 
 

The new school rules 

Be ready

Be respectful

Be safe

To earn carrot tokens we must display our manners and good behaviour around school. Our class teacher cannot give us carrots, we can only earn them from other adults in school. The tokens will be added together each week and the class with the most tokens will be awarded 15 minutes carrot time. The class get to choose their reward and can even bank the time for a later date.

Spellings  

Here are the spellings for this week.

Science
In Science this week, we have been learning about the different creatures that live in micro-habitats. We went outside on to the school field and searched for micro-habitats. Here are some photos to show what we did!

Learning Logs

Thank you so much to all the Marvellous Mice for their amazing homework projects. We enjoyed sharing them as a class and it was clear to see the effort you put in.

We look forward to seeing your next projects from Learning Log 2.

Rock Steady Music 
 

What a fabulous assembly with Ben from Rock Steady Music !

World Daily Mile Day!

On Thursday, we took part in World Daily Mile Day. We ran for 15 minutes on the playground with Year 5, then discussed why we like to do the Daily Mile at school. Here are some photos of us with our posters!

Summer 1 Week 1

Welcome back! We hope that everyone has had a fantastic Easter holiday and are all fresh and set for the final Summer Term!

Click on the Curriculum Star at the top of this class page, to see our Topic Web for this half term. 

We have lots of exciting things planned!

Spellings

Here are this week's spellings.

Fundraising for Kenya

We have really enjoyed welcoming back one of our ex-pupils, Lupita, to talk about her upcoming trip to Kenya in May. She showed us video clips of the community she will be working with and talked about how she will be helping to rebuild the roof of a local school. 

Lupita was really pleased with all the donations of children's clothes and is looking forward to giving these to the children she meets who are much less fortunate than ourselves. 

We covered an African map with coins to raise money for the hard work which Lupita and the team will be doing in Kenya. 

Spring 2 Week 5

On Thursday and Friday, we had our Design and Technology days in Year 2. We had to design and make a bag for a book character. We carried out some research, designed our bags, learned how to sew, then created and evaluated our bags - the finished products came home on Friday after school!

Spellings

Here are this week's spellings.

Spring 2 Week 4

Here are this week's spellings.

English

We have finished our sentence stacking based on ‘The Owl who was afraid of the Dark.’

The children have really enjoyed writing about Plop’s adventures and are now working on their own adventure for Plop and his friend     Cat. The children will be planning plot points and writing their own stories into next week. 

Parent’s Evening

It has been really lovely to see you over the last few evenings and share with you the progress that your child is making. 
We would like to thank you for all of your support with your child’s home learning - it really does make a difference!

Spring 2 Week 3

Science Week

In whole class reading, we have been reading about famous women scientists. We have focused on retrieving information from the text to answer questions. We then wrote a retrieval question for our friend to answer using the text. Next time you hear your child read, see if they can ask you a retrieval question. Remind them that you must be able to find the answer in the text. 

In our Science afternoon on Friday, we found out lots of facts in our whole class reading session about David Attenborough. We then spent the afternoon finding out about 'Living things, including animals'. We talked about the different habitats that exist locally, and then worked in small groups to classify living things into their habitats.

English

In our sentence stacking lessons, we have continued writing about the adventures of ‘Plop’ the owl. This week he has been to a campfire and is beginning to realise that the dark isn’t so bad after all. 

Special Visit

We have been so lucky to meet Sofia’s baby brother and sister. 
Amelia and Archie are adorable -  congratulations to all the family.

Spring 2 Week 2

We have had a very busy week this week!

In Maths, we have been learning about length and measure. We measured objects around the classroom using metre sticks in groups and recorded our results in a table. We used our results to compare objects and used the vocabulary 'bigger' and 'smaller'. 

In English, we have started looking at our new text, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark. We are really enjoying reading about and writing sentences about the adventures Plop the Owl is having. He even watched a firework display, and so did we - on video of course!

Please find below the spellings that have been set for a test next Friday (17th March).

In Science, we have started our new topic 'Living Things and their Habitats'. We have been learning about how to classify whether living this are alive, dead or have never been alive. Here is our whole class classification chart!

Spring 2 Week 1

Welcome back Marvellous Mice - we hope you have had a super half term break.

This half term, PE day will be on a Thursday - please send your child dressed for PE on this day each week. 
Library books will also be changed on a Thursday.

Spellings

Spellings will now be tested at the back of Home Spelling books.

This way, you will see which spellings your child spelt correctly or incorrectly, as well as their weekly score.

This weeks spellings are from the Year 2 Words and all spelling groups have the same.

Our class novel for this half term….

Spellings

Next week's spellings are below for each group and all children also have 3 of the Year 2 Common Exception words to learn.

World Book Day

We had a fantastic day on World Book Day - here is our class photo of us all dressed up!

Spring 1 Week 6

We can’t believe that we are in the last week of Spring 1 - it seems to have flown by since we came back at the start of 2023!

Spellings

Please find below your child’s spelling lists for this week. 
 

Art

Our completed hands for the school ‘REACH’ display.

They look amazing!

Road Safety

The children have listened really carefully today and have learnt about different ways of safely crossing the road.

Spring 1 Week 5

Spellings 
 

The Marvellous Mice did so well on their spelling tests last week; there were lots of full marks and raffle tickets and house points rewarded. 
Here are this weeks lists.

Children’s Mental Health Week

We have had a great start to the week, thinking carefully about and discussing different emotions, what kind of things trigger different emotions and how we can help to be positive and look after our well being.

Most importantly, we talked about how it is okay, not to be ok.

We talked about the importance of talking about our feelings and then wrote about how we were feeling this morning. The children were extremely open talking about how they felt and why. 
 

The Year 2 Willington Warriors, will be delivering positive messages to different staff members throughout the week. We hope these will be displayed in classrooms as messages to us all.

Dress to Express Day

On Friday 10th February, we took part in Dress to Express day as part of Children's Mental Health Week. Here are some photos from our day!

Art

We have enjoyed completing ‘Hands’ for a school communal display.

The display will be linked to our ‘REACH’ school values;

Respect

Empathy

Aspiration 

Collaborate

Honesty

Some children chose to use paints to create ombré hands, using skills taught when we completed our ombré ocean work in the Autumn term. Others chose to use pattern and bold colours.

They are going to look amazing on display, watch this space!

Maths

We have started a new topic - Multiplication and Division.

Today we have been identifying equal groups.

Children should now be secure with their 2s, 5s and 10 times tables. We will soon be learning our 3 times tables.

Here are some links to Maths games which the children are familiar with and know how to play.

Spring 1 Week 4

Spellings 

Here are this weeks spelling lists.

We now have all of the ‘Spring 1 Tricky Words’ displayed alongside our new reading area. I have uploaded the photos of these so you can continue to learn these with your child. They should be able to both read and spell these words. Remember to use the ideas from the front of their home spelling books as well as those from the ‘Meet the Teacher’ presentation (click on the star at the top of the page).

English

We’ve been on another virtual train ride; this time with snacks of strawberries and chocolate buttons.

We created wordbanks of adjectives and verbs to describe both eating the snacks and what they tasted like.

We then used these wonderful words in our sentence stacking. 

Geography / ICT

We have had great fun using googlearth on the iPads. First we rotated the world and found Europe, then flew into England. We found Willington and then changed from aerial view so we could walk around. We found our school and some of us found our homes. Someone even spotted their Mum!!

Our Class Story

Spring 1 Week 3

Spellings

Here are this week’s spelling lists and tricky words.

The children are getting some super spelling scores and are always proud to achieve house points and raffle tickets for their efforts.

Tweak of the Week

Each week, Mrs Spencer - Lovesey gives us something to focus on as a school. This week we continue to think more carefully about how we move around school. 

Reading Area 

We are so excited about our new reading area - Wild about Reading. 
We would like to thank ‘Friends’ for donating us money to spend on our reading space. 

English

We are starting our new sentence stacking writing unit based on a picture book titled ‘The Train Ride’ by June Crebbin. 
Mrs Robinson handed us train tickets as we returned to our classroom after break. We then went on a virtual steam train ride through the Scottish mountains. 

We then worked in small groups to create word banks to describe the sounds of the train. 

Maths

This week we have been learning about money.

What each coin looks like and what it’s value is.

We have enjoyed tipping out coins from money bags, drawing around them, identifying them and then adding them together. 
Some of us even moved on to adding notes. 

Please support your child at home, here are some ways you could help:

* give your child a selection of coins to draw around, identify and add together.

* play shops together - label up some toys and ask your child what coins they need to buy the toy.

* give your child coins to spend in the shop.

Children have less access to real money situations as we now use cards etc so little things like these really do help.

Spring 1 Week 2

We hope that your children have shown you their new Reading Records. We expect the children to read at home at least five times a week. This only has to be for ten minutes at a time; please see the letter inside your child’s reading record for more information.

Each time your child reads to an adult at home, they will achieve a house point.

Story

We know that Christmas has been and gone, but the children were so eager for us to finish the story. We are hoping to finish this week. 
 

Spellings 

Here are the spelling lists for this week, your child’s Spelling Shed Login has been stuck into the front of their new reading record.

English

We have been working very hard on our use of basic punctuation. This week, we have focused on capital letters at the start of a sentence and for names and places, full stops and question marks. 
Some of us have had great fun ‘playing teacher’ and correcting sentences with red pen. 

Spring 1 Week 1

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas break with your children.

We are very much looking forward to starting the New Year with a new Headteacher - Mrs Spencer-Lovesey has really enjoyed meeting the Year 2 class and looking at some of their learning. 

Please see our Spring 1 Topic Web 'Wonderful Willington' by clicking on the 'Curriculum' star above. 
 

PE

This term, the children will be doing PE on a Tuesday afternoon.

They will also be completing a scheme called ‘Jungle Journey’ twice per week; this is to develop and improve fine and gross motor skills. The children will not need to be in PE kits for these days.

Children will only need to come into school in their PE kits on a Tuesday. 

We have enjoyed making a start on our ‘Circuit Training ‘ unit today. 
We completed a shuttle run and a mat leap, developing our skills of changing direction and leaping. We recorded our scores and we were extremely proud if we beat this on our second go. 

Autumn 2 Week 1

Welcome back, we hope you have all enjoyed the half term break.
It was lovely to see you all at Parents Evening and we hope that you are as proud of your child’s progress and how they are settling into Year two as we are.

Click on the ‘Curriculum’ star above to find out what we will be learning this half term. 

PE

This half term our PE days remain the same - Mondays and Thursdays. 
Monday is gymnastics with Rosie.

Thursday is attacking and defending games with Miss House. 

Spellings 

This week your child will be bringing home their new ‘Home Spelling’ books. Here you will find your child’s spelling list and some ideas to help support your child in learning their spellings. New spellings will be added onto Spelling Shed and sent home in books on a Monday and your child will be tested on these words on a Friday.

This weeks spelling lists.

Topic

To start our new topic on ‘Explorers,’ we have had great fun following a video tutorial on how to draw an astronaut. We then cut these out and used them as a front cover for our new topic. 

Maths

In Maths, we have been working hard learning our number bonds to ten. 

Autumn 2 Week 2

Spellings

Spelling test scores will be written in ‘Home Spelling’ books. This will be done on a Monday, at the same time your child is given their new spelling lists. Remember to use the ideas at the front of the book to help your child learn their spellings. You could also have another look at the ‘Meet the Teacher’ presentation for other ideas.

Here are this weeks lists.

English

We are very proud of our completed sentence stacking, for our story based on ‘Little Red Reading Hood’ by Lucy Rowlands. 
We have looked back across each plot point to recall the lenses we used for our super sentences. We then ‘walked’ through the story, linking the lenses into each plot point. We can’t wait to start planning our own stories. 

Remembrance Day

We have been learning about the significance of the Poppy and have enjoyed making these beautiful 3D poppies.

Maths

In maths, we are working so hard to learn our ten times tables and count in tens.

This has been one of our favourites to sing along to - maybe have a sing song at home !

Autumn 2 Week 3

Spellings

Here are the spelling lists and tricky words for this week.

We were really pleased to see so many children trying so hard to learn their words - lots of house points and raffle tickets have been awarded. 
Keep it up Marvellous Mice !

Maths

We have been working on our addition sums using base ten apparatus - or chips and peas!

1000 Angels

St Wilfrid’s Church in Barrow upon Trent is 1000 years old.

Some lovely ladies, from the church, came to help us decorate angels.

To celebrate the church turning 1000, there will be 1000 angels hung in the church. 

We have been so lucky to be a part of this amazing project. Keep checking the class page for an invitation to the opening night - you may be able to spot your child’s angel. 

Autumn 2 Week 4

Spellings

This weeks spelling lists and tricky words. 

Football

We enjoyed watching the England match on Monday afternoon, what a result!!!

Maths

We have been continuing our work on addition and subtraction, using base ten apparatus, counters and number lines.

We have been comparing addition and subtraction sums.

Pink Hampers

Thank you so much for your amazing donations - lots of pink goodies for our Christmas fayre hampers.

Please remember to return your raffle tickets - there are some fabulous prizes to win. 

If you are having a sort out, before Santa comes, please donate your toys and teddies next week so we can sell them at the fayre and raise money for school. 

We are also asking for donations of good quality children’s clothes. 

Art

In art, we have been looking at pattern and shading. We have enjoyed experimenting with our pencil, applying different amounts of pressure to create different shades. 

Autumn 2 Week 5

Spellings

This weeks spelling lists. 
Group B will have some words they have had before, as it is our phonics review week. 

Fire Safety

We have really enjoyed having Kate come to visit us from Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service. 
She told us about her job role, not only do they put out fires, but also rescue people from floods, rescue animals stuck in mud and are called out to traffic accidents too. 
 

She showed us a photograph of Dexter the Fire Dog. He is trained to smell where fires are started. 
 

The children answered lots of questions and identified fire risks around the home:

- matches

- lighters

- candles

- electricity (overload of plugs)

- cooker

- fireplace 

- cigarettes 

Kate told us what to do if our clothing caught fire - STOP, DROP, ROLL - we are going to have a go at this in PE when we have more space.

Kate told us about smoke alarms and how we should have one downstairs and one upstairs - if you don’t have smoke alarms, please see the letter your child has been given; there is a contact number for you to ring and the fire service will come to your home and fit alarms for free!

Remember to check that your smoke alarms are working - we should check them every week.

Kate usually does her fire safety talks on a Tuesday so her saying is ‘Check it Tuesday,’ today we went with ‘Work it Wednesday.’

She showed us how to test an alarm today so ask your child to show you.

We also talked about having a ‘Fire Plan’ in the home?
The children know what to do if there is a fire in school but do they know what they would do at home?
Please talk to your children about this. We watched a video which shows just how important having smoke alarms and a fire plan are.

Here is the link so you could watch it again with your child and maybe share with siblings too.

Jingle the Elf

The children ( and the teachers 😁) have been very excited to see the return of Jingle, the Year 2 naughty elf.

Autumn 2 Week 6

Spellings

This weeks spelling lists….

Maths

In maths, we have been using the geo-boards to investigate 2D shapes. 
We have talked about the number of sides and vertices 2D shapes have and have also had a go at drawing them. 

Even Jingle the Elf has enjoyed exploring the 2D shapes.

English

As part of our writing, based on the BBC Christmas Star Advert, we have enjoyed watching talent shows. We watched ‘Diversity’ perform on Britain’s Got Talent and then acted as the judges. We thought carefully about what we would say to the dance group after their performance. We heard some great vocabulary as we listened to different responses.

Christmas Production

Next week is our Christmas play ‘Snowman at Sunset.’

Wednesday 14th December 

Please send your child into school in their school uniform with a Christmas / colourful jumper and hat if possible. 
We will be performing our play to EYFS and all of Key Stage 2 on Wednesday morning, next week.

Then it’s your turn to come and watch!

If you are attending the 2.30 show, you will be allowed to take your child home with you, but you must remember to sign out at the office.

Please could children be back at school 4.45pm to prepare for our 5.00pm performance.

We are really excited to show you how hard we have been working learning all the songs. 

Autumn 2 Week 7

Spellings

Here are the lists for this week.

There will be no spellings given next week as this is the last week of the term.

History

We have been looking at original newspapers from the moon landing in 1969 and watched the rocket take off - it was very loud !
We are now working hard, writing our own newspaper articles to show what we have learnt about mission Apollo 11.

Computing

We have enjoyed programming the Bee Bots to learn about controlling robots using algorithms - simple step by step instructions. 
We had to use lots of positional vocabulary.

Julia Donaldson Live Event

We enjoyed listening to the ‘Christmas Pine’ written and read by Julia Donaldson. We then drew the tree with the help of illustrator Victoria Sandoy.

Julia then read one of our favourite stories ‘The Smeds and the Smoos.’ Illustrator, Alex Scheffler talked us through drawing Bill, Janet and their baby.

We even got to see a little sneak preview of the animated story which will be shown on BBC 1 Christmas Day.

Christmas Production

Wow! How wonderful did your children do! We hope you enjoyed the performances.

We are so proud of the marvellous mice class - they sang excellently and did us proud.

It’s been such a busy week - it’s not just the children who are tired……

Autumn 2 Week 8

We have made it to the end of the autumn term and would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas. 

We will be sad to see Mr Tague go back to his school in Repton, but are also excited to meet our new head teacher in January as we begin our Spring term. 
Our PE day in the new year will be Tuesday - please send your children into school dressed in their PE kit. 
 

History

We have continued to work hard in our final week of 2022 and have completed our newspaper articles on the first moon landings - the children are very proud of their completed work, which shows their excellent understanding of mission Apollo 11 in July 1969. 

Art

We have looked at a painting titled ‘Bubbles’ by John Everett Millais. We talked about the age of the painting and how we knew it was old, we also had good discussions about the contrast of light and dark in the painting. 
The painting was originally called ‘A Child’s World’ and became famous for advertising Pears Soap.

The subject of the painting is the artist’s grandson, William. William became an admiral in the Royal Navy and was always nicknamed ‘Bubbles’ because of this painting. 
 

We went outside and blew bubbles in the playground, watching carefully how they moved and the colours they created. We then recreated a photograph taken, looking carefully at the contrast of light and dark and the rainbow colours created by the bubble - we compared these features to the original painting. 
 

We experimented with chalk and pastels to create bubbles and drew bubbles which we filled with pattern and different colours.

The children then created their own art work titled ‘Bubbles’ choosing which skills and materials to use. Some children also used collage to enhance their work. 

Autumn 1 Week 1

The Marvellous Mice are settling into their new classroom and we are enjoying getting to know your child.

During our transition day in the Summer term, we talked about aiming high in Year 2 and the children each decorated their own hot air balloon. These look lovely displayed in our classroom. 

We have enjoyed sharing 'Giraffes Can't Dance' by Giles Andreae.

We have talked about what happens in the story and have also enjoyed identifying the rhyming words. We then wrote about our own worries and things we are good at. 

We have also enjoyed getting messy and making handprint giraffes. 

We are enjoying our class story 'The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me' by Roald Dahl - especially when Mrs Robinson does the singing parts!!

The children have enjoyed spending time in our class reading corner and have all chosen a book to share at home. Please remember that there is no expectation that your child can read this - it is a free choice book for you to enjoy and share together. 

Another important job this week, has been discussing and creating our class rules.

Autumn 1 Week 2

Thank you to everyone who attended our 'Meet the Teacher' presentation; it was lovely to see some familiar faces as well as meeting new parents. 

The power point presentation is now uploaded onto the class page - just click on the large star near the top of the page.

Here are this weeks 'Tricky Words' for you to read and spell with your child. Don't forget to have a go at some of the spelling activities we talked about at the meeting; writing the word big, singing the word, writing it backwards etc. Let's make learning spellings fun!

Like a Rainbow by Y2

We have completed our first text this week using the sentence stacking approach. We thought carefully about each colour of the rainbow, working in pairs to collect ideas. 

Autumn 1 Week 3

Look at our wonderful self portraits! The children followed a presentation to carefully draw the features of a face in the right proportions to each other. They then used mirrors to carefully look at their own special features and added them to their drawings. They then enjoyed painting their drawings to complete their artwork. 

They all look fab on the hall display.

Can you spot your child?

Here are this weeks 'Tricky Words' for you to help your child to read and write. 

In PSHE this half-term, we are learning about people in our lives who are important to us. This week we have talked about the qualities of a good friend. Our class decided that a good friend should be: caring, honest, kind, helpful and a good listener. We used these qualities to create our own friendship flowers in our PSHE books.

We are enjoying our class story 'The Twits' by Roald Dahl. Mr and Mrs Twit play some very funny tricks on each other, it has made us all laugh a lot. We are really enjoying the book!

Autumn 1 Week 4

In topic, we have enjoyed learning songs to help us remember the 'Seven Continents' and the 'Five Oceans.'

I hope that your child has been singing these at home - if not, here are the links to encourage them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DSMZ8b3LE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6BE4VcYngQ  

We have had great fun in art, carefully mixing white with our chosen 'ocean' colour to create these stunning ombre backgrounds. Watch this space to find out what we do with these very soon!

This is what you call TEAMWORK - well done Marvellous Mice!!!!

We have also followed a video tutorial to draw and colour a sea turtle. They look tuurtally-amazing!

In Maths, we have been using practical apparatus to show our understanding of place value. 

Here are the Tricky words for this week. Some of the children have been coming into school and testing each other on mini white boards. We always have the Tricky words on display and love playing 'Roll and Spell' to help us learn them. 

We have set up a new visual for our 'Good to be Green' behaviour scheme. We feel this is much more appropriate to our class and after only a few days has already made a difference - the children are more eager to settle quickly after breaks and moving between activities and are listening better when the teacher or others are talking. 

If the children stay on Green, they will receive 3 House Points and a raffle ticket at the end of the day. Five raffle tickets will be drawn from the box on a Friday afternoon, these children will each have a dip in the prize box!

We hope that you will support us with this at home - ask your child; Did you stay on green? Why did you get a 'Stop and Think?' Did you manage to get back on to green? How? What could you do tomorrow to do better? Etc. 

We hope that this will encourage the children to be more responsible in making 'good choices' and supporting their friends to do so also.

The children understand that the more raffle tickets they collect, the more chance they have of winning a prize! Good luck Marvellous Mice!

Autumn 1 Week 5 

All the children now have their Spelling Shed Login details stuck in the front of their reading journals. The children know which spelling group they are in (A, B or C) and all have a copy of their spelling list too. 

Here are this weeks 'Tricky Words' and 'Spelling Shed' word lists. 

The children have been working hard in PE, with Rosie, developing ball skills and keeping control of the ball. Their favourite was throwing the ball into the air and seeing how many claps they could do before they caught the ball. They also enjoyed passing the ball around themselves and throwing it through hoops. 

Please remember to send your child into school with a school jumper or cardigan for PE days - it is getting colder and we try to do PE outdoors whenever possible. 

In Sentence Stacking, we have started our new text 'Little Red Reading Hood' by Lucy Rowland and Ben Mantle. 

The children have had great fun thinking about where they would curl up with their books. 

In art, we added silhouette sea turtles to our ombre ocean backgrounds - they look fabulous on our class gallery.

Autumn 1 Week 6 

Here are this weeks 'Tricky Words' and 'Spelling Shed' word lists. 

The children will be completing work based on their spelling lists in school - this may be during phonics, SPAG lessons and / or 'Roll and Spell' sessions. 

This afternoon, the children have enjoyed using iPads to learn about sea turtles. We looked at different websites and watched some short videos too to help us write notes. We then chose our favourite fact to copy out. We listened to each other’s facts and by the end of the afternoon, knew lots of information about sea turtles. 

In Geography, we have used water and blue food colouring to learn about the five layers of the ocean.

What can your child remember about each ocean layer?

We have had our friends, Angie and Robin, from the local church to deliver a harvest festival assembly.

Thank you so much for your harvest donations - you have all helped families in South Derbyshire because of your generosity. 

Autumn 1 Week 7

We cannot believe that your child has almost completed their first half term in Year 2!

It is always nice to look back through the class page to remind the children how much they have learnt so far!
 

This week in PE, the children have enjoyed improving their racket and ball skills. They then enjoyed working in pairs, hitting the ball to each other ‘through the gates!’ This took good skills to control the ball as well as fabulous team work and listening skills. 

Here are this week’s spelling lists. Your child will have a copy in their reading journals along with their spelling shed login details.

As it is our phonics review week, have a look back at all the autumn 1’Tricky’ words - how many can your child read?

We had fun, using our collected rubbish, creating this collaborative piece of art. The sea turtle, represents how some of our oceans sea creatures are being replaced by plastic. Sea turtles eat plastic, thinking it is jelly fish or sea weed and this can be fatal. Dropped litter blows into streams and rivers, which lead into the seas and oceans. 
The Year 1 children joined us for a KS1 assembly - we enjoyed hearing ‘Someone Swallowed Stanley’ by Sarah Roberts. There was lots of great discussions about how plastic and other litter can be dangerous to sea creatures. We talked about always putting our rubbish in the bin.