Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Autumn Term
Week commencing 3rd December
This week we revised our maths skills and worked out addition and subtraction calculations. We used our reasoning skills to answer maths questions. In our reading lessons we have continued our reading about Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. We learnt some of the vocabulary in the text, we practiced reading for fluency and we retrieved answers from the text.
In History we created a fact file all about Neil Armstrong, the children loved learning new facts about him. In art we created a collage of the moon using a range of different materials. Please see some photos below of the children making their great collages.
We ended our week having fun completing our Santa dash around the track on Friday. Please see some photos below.
Have a great weekend.
Mrs Ayaz, Miss Higgs and Mrs Johnson
Week commencing 25th November
What a fun filled week we have had! On Tuesday we had a whole class forest school where we did some bark peeling and den making.
In English we have started reading 'Man on the moon (A day in the life of Bob)' by Simon Bartram. We have explored a range of new space related vocabulary and created a word mat together. We have then used some adjectives and verbs to describe the noise a rocket would make taking off and what the moon would look and feel like. We have written a plan for a sequel to Man on the moon that we will be writing over the upcoming weeks.
In Maths we have continued with our unit of addition and subtraction by exploring inverse calculations. We have learnt that inverse means opposite and have understood the relationship between the symbols addition and subtraction.
In D&T we made our trenches. First we painted the inside of our shoeboxes brown to resemble the muddy conditions. We then used shredded wheat for sandbags, rolled up paper for ladders and lollisticks for duckboards. The children had great fun making these! We even used cut out paper soldiers to play with our trenches after.
Enjoy your weekend,
Miss Higgs, Mrs Ayaz and Mrs Johnson.
Week commencing 18.11.24
In Maths, we have explored both addition and subtraction. We used our tens and ones method to help us with these calculations. We have built on our learning of subtraction as we have subtracted (not across ten) and to end the week on Friday we subtracted two 2 digit numbers (crossing ten). We will continue to master this skill next week.
In English we read the second half of our story we read last week. We then wrote another postcard from the perspective of Arthur the solider and explained to our family at home that our life is much better now and the hen has given them hope and food, when it was scarce. The children were keen to use adjectives to develop their writing and a range of punctuation including; capital letters, fully stops, question marks and exclamation marks.
In Happy minds this week we continued to explore character strengths. We have identified that everyone has a unique set of character strengths. We are now trying to identify these strengths every day. They include; Love & Kindness, Bravery & Honesty, Exploring & Learning, Teamwork & Friendship and Love of life and our world.
To end the week it was Crazy Hair Day and the children were very excited to show off their unique hair styles. Please see a couple of photos below.
Have a super weekend,
Mrs Ayaz, Miss Higgs and Mrs Johnson
Week beginning 11th November
We have had such a busy week in Year 2. We celebrated remembrance day on Monday by going outside as a school and having a two minutes silence at 11. We took our poppy crosses outside with us.
On Tuesday, we had a special visit from Clive. His Grandad was a soldier in WW1 and we were lucky enough to hear extracts from his original diary. In the diary we learnt about his experience signing up to the army, military training at Battalion Headquarters in Maidstone and life in the trenches. We handled artifacts such as a helmet, water bottle, button polisher, backpack and jacket. We also had lots of opportunities to role play different characters such as a sergeant, officer, recruiting officer and several soldiers.
In Maths we added two digit numbers to two digit numbers, using the tens and ones method to help us.
In English we started reading 'The little red hen and the Great War.' by Jennifer Beck and Robyn Belton. We explored different character emotions through drama and then we wrote postcards home pretending we were Arthur the soldier. We discussed how Arthur would be feeling and what his day to day would look like. We used subordinating conjunctions to join sentences and included adjectives to make our writing interesting.
We hope you have a lovely weekend.
Miss Higgs, Mrs Ayaz and Mrs Johnson.
Week commencing 4th November 2024
Welcome back year 2!
A busy first week back!
In maths the children have been exploring 10 more and 10 less and different methods to calculate this. Some children have mastered this and have been able to do it mentally and explain it to other children. We also have explored adding and subtracting a range of multiples of 10. The children continued this and had an opportunity to take their learning outside the classroom for outdoor learning day- see some photos below.
In English, we have been exploring poetry and linking to Remembrance Day. Within this the children have learned about adjectives, alliterations and rhyme! They have produced some beautiful poems. In addition, in preparation of Remembrance Day, the children have made a poppy from tissue paper for our class wreaths.
In addition as part of outdoor learning day on Thursday the children had their grammar lesson outdoors exploring and finding adjectives to describe nouns all around the field, maths outside and enjoying the sensory garden with lovely books.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Ayaz, Miss Higgs and Mrs Johnson.
Week commencing 21st October 2024
What a great last week of term we have had.
We finished our non-chronological report about the Titanic in English. We have learnt lots of interesting historical facts and made sure to include these in our reports. We discussed the meaning of verbs, nouns and adjectives and tried to use a range of adjectives in our writing.
In Maths we have continued with the topic of addition and subtraction, using the tens and ones method to help us.
In Geography we used atlases to locate the 7 continents and 5 oceans and we sang a really fun song to help us remember them! We enjoyed using the atlases too.
In Art we created some wonderful scenes of the Titanic using a range of materials that are torn, cut and glued. We also combined different materials to create different textures. Come and have a look at the windows of our classrooms to see our master pieces displayed! (If you can't spot your one it is because it is up on display in our corridor).
Have a well deserved, restful half term all.
Miss Higgs and Mrs Ayaz
Week commencing 14th October
A lovley super week in year 2.
In Maths we have been adding and subtracting crossing ten. The children have used a new method of tens and ones to calculate this and the children have started to exchange when subtracting. This learning will develop and continue throughout the Autumn term.
In English we have written our non-chronological reports all about the Titanic. Across the week we have written our Title, opening sentence, a paragraph about the ship, a paragraph about what happened and a final paragraph about life on board. The children really enjoyed exploring this topic.
We also did some drama to link to both our topic lessons and English lessons including things the First Class and Third Class passengers could do on the ship. We also had a discussion about if the children thought it was ok that people were treated differently on board the ship.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Ayaz, Miss Higgs & Mrs Johnson
Week commencing 7th October 2024
What another great week we have had!
In Maths we have been continuing with our addition and subtraction topic. We have learnt a new written method to help us answer addition and subtraction calculations.
In English we have been planning our own non-chronological report all about the Titanic! We have explored various non-chronological reports, identifying key features such as; title, opening paragraph, subheadings, present tense, pictures and closing paragraph. This has helped us plan our own.
In History we have learnt all about the sinking of the Titanic and have found out some really interesting facts. I'm sure the children have told you all about this! We then had to place events on a timeline and use historical vocabulary such as; centuries ago, decades ago and in the past.
During Forest School this week we made leaf crowns and have had a go at recreating our own wattle and daub structure. This was great fun and we got super muddy.
We finally burnt our Tudor houses this week. It was a windy day so it helped the fire spread, which linked to our prior learning of how the fire spread so quickly in 1666.
Week commencing 30th September 2024
Another busy and exciting week in year 2.
In maths, we have been exploring counting in 3s, recapping number bonds to 20 and building on this to knowing our bonds to 100. We noticed that we can use our bonds to 10 to help us. The children noticed patterns within this.
In English, we welcomed October and the start of Black History Month by researching a very significant individual, Mary Seacole. Mary was a nurse who saved her own money to help British Soldiers in the Crimean War after the government turned her away. We then looked at a range of poetry and features of poetry. We then planned and wrote our own poems. The children tried very hard with this.
In our DT/Art lessons we continued with our Tudor Houses and they are now complete! We are very proud of all the skills the children have learned in this process. We then evaluated our products. We look forward to burning them on Tuesday (weather permitting).
Have a super weekend.
Mrs Ayaz, Miss Higgs and Mrs Johnson
Week commencing 23rd September 2024
What a fun week we have had!
In Maths we have been comparing and ordering numbers using the comparing symbols '<,>,=' and using language such as 'greater than', 'less than' and 'equal to'.
In English we have finally finished our big piece of writing, retelling the story of Toby and the Great Fire of London. We have produced such excellent pieces and have worked hard on editing and making corrections where needed. For our final section of writing we focused on taking our time to think, say and write our sentences to ensure we don't miss any words in our writing.
In History, we learnt about why Samuel Pepys was a significant person in History. We discovered that without his diary, we may not have found out about the events that occurred during the Great Fire.
In Science we learnt about the different properties of materials, sorting materials based on their properties and discussing why certain materials are suitable for specific objects dependent on their properties.
In Design and Technology, we started making our Tudor houses this week, we did some weaving to recreate wattle and paper mache to recreate the daub. We had so much fun!
Week 3 Wc 16th September
A busy week in year 2!
In maths, we explored tens and ones on a number line. During this we recapped learning from year one of counting in tens and used that knowledge to find multiples of 10 on a number line. We then developed this by identifying both and tens and ones on a number line. The children had to use their number knowledge to identify missing numbers.
In English, we started our story map of Toby and The Great Fire of London story. The children can retell the first part of the story using actions and the story map to help them, the children have enjoyed using drama in lessons. We then started to write the story in full sentences with a few tweaks to make it original. We look forward to continuing with this for part 2 next week.
In Geography and History we explored how London has changed over time and compared London in 1666 and London now. Have a look at the photo below!
In DT, we designed Tudor Houses for our topic lesson. The children worked well in pairs to discuss what materials and equipment they will need and took inspiration from images to design their houses.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Ayaz, Miss Higgs and Mrs Johnson
Week commencing 9th September 2024
We have had a fantastic second week! In English we have planned and written a recount of the Great Fire of London. First, we placed all the events that took place onto a timeline and used this to guide our writing. We used adverbs of time to assist ordering the events.
In Maths we have continued our learning of place value and have explored a range of resources and methods, such as dienes, number cards, place value charts and whole part models.
We have looked at different aerial images of cities in the UK in Geography. We learnt about physical and human geographical features and labelled some on an aerial image of London. We also learnt about some famous landmarks in London.
We did PE altogether this week and enjoyed our multi-skills lesson all about balance. We played lots of fun team games, focusing on working together to keep our balance.
Check out our neat handwriting during our spelling practise!
Well done for a great week Year 2.
Miss Higgs, Mrs Ayaz and Mrs Johnson
Week commencing 3rd September 2024
Welcome to Year 2! The children have had a fantastic first week in year 2.
In maths we have been exploring place value and using the dienes in class to represent tens and ones. We have also explored different ways numbers are represented, in objects, in numerals, in words, etc.
In English, this week we have practiced using full stops and capital letters and ensuring our sentences make sense. We have talked about how we can use adjectives to make our writing more interesting and conjunctions to expand our sentences.
In topic we introduced The Great Fire Of London, the children were excited to learn about how it started. In Art, we focussed on William Turner the famous painter who was known for being a ‘painter of light’ for his choices to include bright colours in his art work. We mixed colours to create a background to represent the Great Fire of London and cut out a silhouette of the buildings using black paper.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Ayaz, Miss Higgs & Mrs Johnson
