Friday, 6th September 2024
Welcome back and welcome to Year 2!
It has been a pleasure to spend time with the children this week and to learn about their talents and interests. They have settled well and started picking up the routines of learning in their new class.
We introduced new activity areas outside, which the children enjoyed exploring. During breaks, they will have the opportunity to select from mindfulness colouring, Lego, 3D construction, Speed Stacking, car slide and sports such as basketball, tennis or hula-hoops and skipping ropes. These areas will be regularly changed with new resources, often matching the learning in the classroom.
In class we started looking at Place Value in Maths and used manipulatives to re-construct numbers to 10 before looking at numbers to 20 and completing number grid puzzles.
In English,the children wrote short sentences about themselves, reflecting on their strengths, their interests and hobbies. We later illustrated these and drew pictures of family adventures and time spent with friends. I was impressed with how well the children could articulate the stories behind their drawings.
On Wednesday, we focused on teamwork. The class broke into groups to build marshmallow towers using dried pasta and squishy sweets. It has been lovely to see them develop their communication skills whilst also practicing turn taking, sharing ideas and use specific language.
This week, we read 2 amazing books about feelings that can affect our first days in school:
The children listened very attentively to these and had brilliant discussions about strategies to cope with such feelings. We listened to meditative music, participated in bubble meditation and also did rainbow breathing in class.
Later on, we used art to depict opposing emotions by creating clay emojis, which we are going to paint next week.
Our PE days this term will be Mondays and Wednesdays. Please make sure you are wearing the appropriate kit on these days.
Please also remember:
Tuesday, 10th September: Scooter Training
Thursday, 12 September 2.45pm: Meet the Teacher information session in the hall.
Friday, 13th September: Whole School Mass
Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Ms Varga
