Welcome to Mrs Mavers's Year 2 Blog!
I huge thank you for all your support over the last year. I wish all the children the very best as they move up to Year 3. I am sure they will continue to thrive.
Mrs Mavers
Week beginning 6th July
We all had a wonderful time at Knowsley Safari Park on Tuesday. The children had an African workshop in the morning. We found out all about African animals. We found out about carnivores and herbivores and even got to meet a few including a cockroach, a snake and a giant snail. Throughout the day we got up close to a giraffe and watch an incredible sea lion show.
Today we we have had a Wimbledon day. We watched Andy Murray play tennis, researched facts about Wimbledon and learnt the rules before going out and having our very own tennis match.. Oh and we even managed to squeeze in some strawberries and ice cream.
Have a lovely weekend
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 24tyh June
This week it is National Sports week and Year 2 have been very sporty indeed!
On Monday we went to Highdock High School for Olympkids. This was a action packed morning full of lots of different sporting activities including tennis, golf, target throwing, balancing, penalty shooting and lots more. I was really pleased with the children's good manners throughout the morning. The7 certainly represented are school well.
On Wednesday morning we were visited by other teachers from local schools to observe our Singapore maths lesson. The staff were very impressed with the children's attitude to learning and especially their explanations of mathematical concepts. Well done year 2. I couldn't be more proud!
On Wednesday afternoon we had our Sports Day. I fantastic afternoon had by all!
On Saturday 4th July it is our Summer Fair
On Thursday 9th July it is our Disco
Reminders
Tuesday 7th July - KS1 trip to Knowsley Safari Park
Have a lovely weekend
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 15th June
What a fun week we have had!
During PE this week the children have been practising for Sports Day. We have some very excited children who can't wait to compete. They will all be taking part in the sprint and our chosen class event- The Sack Race!! Please can I remind you that you child will need their colour top (red, green, yellow or blue) for this event. We are also looking forward to Olympkids, which is another sports event that Year 2 will be taking part in on Monday at Haydock High.
In Science we have been exploring bubbles. The children have been investigating if they can make different shapes and sizes. After a fun and entertaining session playing with the bubbles the children shared their findings. We found out that the bigger the hole the bigger the bubble and no matter what shape wand we used the bubbles were always the same shape. It was lovely to see the children having so much fun working together!
On Thursday we recorded our school CD. The children sounded fantastic! We had such a lovely day and I must say that our class song is amazing!! Well done Year 2 I am so proud of you! The children were so grown up and sang beautifully. I can't wait to listen to the CD.
On Friday we had a lovely Art morning. The children used buttons to create an amazing photo frame.
Reminders
Monday 22nd June- Olympkids
Wednesday 24th June - Sports Day starting at 1:30pm
Saturday 4th July- Summer Fayre
Tuesday 7th July- Knowsley Safari Park
Week Beginning 8th June
We have been learning lots of new skills in maths this week and have enjoyed trying to explain our methods to each other. We have used lots of concrete resources and pictorial representations to demonstrate our methods. During one maths session we looked a partitioning 2-digit numbers talking about the value of each digit. We then used this knowledge to add 2-digit numbers using the column addition method.
In Science we have been taking a closer look at different fabrics using magnifying glasses. The children looked at the labels in items of clothing to find out what they are made out of and how to take care of them. We discovered what the different symbols mean and shared our findings with each other.
Reminders
We will be having an Art Day on Monday 19th June. Thank you for the buttons! We have had lots of buttons donated but we still need more so could you please continue to send these in. Thank you!
KS1 trip- We will be going to Knowles Safari Park on Tuesday 7th July
Olympkids- The children will be going to Haydock High School on Monday 22nd June to take part in a sports event
Have a lovely Weekend
Week beginning 2nd June
Welcome back to the last half term!
In English this week we have been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The children have been imagining what it would be like winner a golden ticket. We took on the role of Charlie bucket and used time adverbials to write diary entries about 'The Big Day'. We have been talking about how we can improve our writing and make it interesting for the reader. The children are have thought of their own personal targets which they are going to work towards to improve their writing. What superstars!
In maths this week the children have been using their number facts to solve problems. We have also been trying to explain and listen to each others methods that were used. We have such good mathematicians in our class and we are beginning to use mathematical vocabulary to talk about maths.
In Science we are finding out about Materials and their Uses. This week we carried out an investigation to see if we can change the shape of different materials.
Reminders
We will be having an Art Day on Monday 19th June. Thank you for the buttons! We have had lots of buttons donated but we still need more so could you please continue to send these in. Thank you!
KS1 trip- We will be going to Knowles Safari Park on Tuesday 7th July
Olympkids- The children will be going to Haydock High School on Monday 22nd June to take part in a sports event
Have a lovely Weekend
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 18th May
This week in English the children have worked really hard writing their stories based on The Sorcerer's Apprentice. They remembered lots of the features that we have been looking at when writing an adventure story. Well done Year 2!
The children have also been busy during our 'Eco-School' week. We have had lots of important visitors such as, Sankey Valley Rangers, a beekeeper, the local police, community arts citadel and even a farmer! The children have been involved in fun activities including drama workshops and planting around the school. We have learnt all about what we can do at home and at school to help our environment and the importance of our role in changing our sustainable world.
A few dates for you to remember:
Olympkids - 22nd June 2015
Knowsley Safari Park - 7th July 2015
For our Art project next term, we are asking for donations of any buttons you may have. Thank you.
We hope you all have a lovely half term break.
Year 2 team.
Week beginning 11th May
In English this week the children have worked hard planning their own adventure stories. We had lots of fun 'hot seating' characters from The Sorcerer's Apprentice. This enabled us to write in role as a character and helped us to understand their feelings, thoughts and actions. The children created amazing story mountains and thought of their own problems and resolutions. We have looked at lots of different features and have included wonderful adjectives, conjunctions and different sentence openers to improve our writing. Keep up the hard work and a big WELL DONE to you all!
On Thursday we went onto the playground to explore the school building for our Science topic 'Materials'. The children carefully observed the building and identified the different materials that had been used in the construction. Back in the classroom we had lots of discussion about materials and their properties and why certain materials were specifically chosen.
In our computing sessions, children have been creating their own PowerPoint's about Florence Nightingale. They have enjoyed researching, importing pictures, experimenting with text size, font and colour. This week we had great fun adding animations and transitions to them. Some children used features such as fade in and out, they made their text and pictures appear with a spinning motion or move like a wriggly worm. I am looking forward to seeing the children present their PowerPoint's next week.
Have a lovely weekend
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 4th May
In English this week the children have had lots of fun exploring adventure stories. We have worked hard to improve our word choices when writing descriptive phrases for characters and settings.
In Maths we have been looking at place value and the children have worked exceptionally hard to work independently. We have looked at word problems involving money, such as finding change from £1.00 and adding the cost of items together to find the total amount. Remember to keep practicing counting in 2's, 5's and 10's at home. There are lots of games on Education City and Abacus for your children to access at home to support their learning in Maths.
This term in PE the children have been developing ball skills. So far we have practiced rolling, retrieving, throwing and catching. This week we have had fun improving our throwing and catching techniques and set challenges that involved speed and accuracy.
A big thank you to everyone who have returned their sponsor money so far!
On Thursday our new school gate arrived which means that the electrics will soon be activated. The gates will be controlled by the office as an extra security measure. Keeping our children safe at all times is so important to us at Grange Valley.
The gates will be locked to cars from 8:40 until 3:40, access within those times will be limited. Staff will have access fobs and visitors will need to speak to the office via the intercom that will be situated by the entrance.
The gates for pedestrians will also be locked and access to school will be limited with permission needed via the office through the new intercom.
Any queries please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Holcroft or the office staff.
Have a lovely weekend. Year 2 team.
Week beginning 27th April
This week in English the children have enjoyed writing their own riddles and thinking carefully about adjectives, similes and a range of sentence starters. We used our senses to explore different fruits to help create our ideas. I wonder if you can guess which fruit the children are describing?
I am as round as the moon.
I am soft and juicy.
I am smaller than a melon but bigger than a grape.
You can peel me.
I have little pips inside me
I begin with an O.
What am I?
On Friday we had great fun taking part in our sponsored dance. I'm not quite sure who had the most fun, the children or the staff!
Have a Lovely long weekend
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 20th April
Welcome back! I hope you all had a lovely break. I can't believe it is the final Term already. The children have worked so hard this week and are so excited to find out about our new learning challenges. You should have received a curriculum letter informing you of all the exciting things we will be learning this term. In Science we are finding out all about materials and in History we are finding out about Florence Nightingale. I was impressed with the children's homework that they completed over the holidays. They could tell me so many things that they found out about the life of Florence Nightingale. We are going to be using this information to create PowerPoint presentations in our computing sessions.
Have a lovely weekend
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 23th March
In English this week the children have been finding out about Explanations. We have been learning all about the water cycle and create our own flowchart. We used the flowcharts to explain verbally to each other before writing all about it.
The children may have told you about our new visitors in class... baby caterpillars. Well, they're not so small anymore. Next week the children will be writing an explanation of the life cycle of a butterfly. Everyday the children have been watching the caterpillars and talking about the changes that they can see. We have also used are artistic skills to make some beautiful butterflies to display in our classroom.
In ICT the children have become TV Chefs. We have been using the ipads to record a series of shots to create a video on how to make a fruit kebab. The children have really enjoyed this topic. Next week we will be editing and improving our videos before watching them back and evaluating each others work.
Decorate an Egg Competiton
We will be holding our ‘decorate an egg’ competition once again , back by popular demand from the children.
We would like children to use their creative talents by decorating a ‘boiled
egg’ and bringing it into school to exhibit it in the hall on Wednesday 1st April. All eggs
will be judged by Mrs Bailey and Mrs Louden and prizes will be given for the best dressed eggs
in each class!
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 16th March
This week in Maths the children have been working hard to tell the time using analogue and digital times. We have been using these skills to help us solve word problems such as finding start and finishing times of TV programme. This is something you can support you child with at home. Try and ask them what time it is at o'clock, half past, quarter to/past. The children will be keen to impress you i'm sure.
We have been learning lots of interesting things about the Queen this week. The children have been finding out about the Coronation and using photographs and text to answer questions. We also read a funny story called The Queen Knickers. This is a story about a little girl who wonders what knickers the Queen would wear to visit her school. This inspired the children to write a creative story about the Queen's visit to Grange Valley. They had some interesting ideas for what knickers she would wear including sparkly knickers, twinkling knickers and my favourite GV knickers.
The children have also been using their ICT skills to research their own facts about the Queen and we used this to write a biography. I am so impressed with the children's writing and to show it off we have been working hard to produce quality writing to display in our classroom.
Easter Egg Raffle Tickets
Tickets will be on sale in school at break time for the Easter Egg Raffle that will be drawn at our Easter Bingo on the Thursdays 26th March organised by our PTFA. There are lots of scrummy Easter eggs available to win. Tickets are 20p each or £1 for a strip.
Decorate an Egg Competiton
We will be holding our ‘decorate an egg’ competition once again , back by popular demand from the children.
We would like children to use their creative talents by decorating a ‘boiled
egg’ and bringing it into school to exhibit it in the hall on Wednesday 1st April. All eggs
will be judged by Mrs Bailey and Mrs Louden and prizes will be given for the best dressed eggs
in each class!
Week beginning 9th March
We have had a very arty week in Year 2. In Science we have been finding out all about fruit and vegetables so we have used this as our inspiration. The children have been looking at the cross section of a variety of fruits, looking closely at the different colours and the shapes and sizes of the seeds inside. We made some careful observational drawings and then used different materials such as ink, oil pastels, tissue paper and sequins.
The children have also been looking at the artist Giuseppe Acrimboldo. He is a famous Italian painter who creates images of faces made up entirely with objects such as fruit or vegetables. The children were amazed to find out that he was born over 500 years ago! They really enjoyed using lots of different fruit and vegetables to create their very own fruit faces.
Well done to our football team who won 2out of the 5 matches they played. It was tough competition but they continued to work well as a team showing good sportsmanship!
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 2nd March
This week the children have been finding out about the Royal family. Our learning challenge is 'What was it like when the Queen came to throne in 1953?'. We started by creating a Royal family tree. The children have been asking lots of interesting questions about the Queen and her role. Hopefully we will be able to answer the questions at the end of our exciting topic.
The children were really excited to find that Julia Donaldson had sent us a reply to our lovely letters.
Today we have celebrated World Book Day. The children all looked amazing!
Next week on Friday 13th March it is Red Nose Day. The theme for this year is 'Dress funny for money'. We stress, as always, that parents do not need to spend money on outfits but make use of items you already have e.g funny hats, glasses. You could just paint a red nose or simply wear something red on this day. We will be raining money for comic relief so a donation of £1 , if possible, would be great.
Have a lovely weekend
Year 2 team.
Week beginning 23rd February
What an amazing week we have had in Year 2! This week we have had an 'Around the World Week'. Year 2 have been finding out all about the USA. I started the week off by giving the children a pre learning challenge to find out what they already knew about America and to find out what they wanted to learn. The children all admitted that they didn't really know much about America at all. After an eventful week I can now tell you that Year 2 know lots and lots about America.
We used laptops and ipads to research interesting facts.
We did some American style dancing in the hall.
We used our creative skills to make American top hats.
We have located USA on a map and learnt a song naming all the 50 states in America. Wow!
We tasted lots of yummy foods such as donuts, pancakes, hot dogs and popcorn.
We also went on a trip to Haydock library to find out about different books from around the world.
Have a lovely weekend!
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 9th February
I can't believe its half term already! I can tell you that the children have all worked so hard this term and deserve a well earned rest!
This week the children had to follow instructions carefully to make bird feeders. This was a sneak preview into our next terms work where we will be following and writing sets of instructions. The children put lard, seeds and bread into their bird feeder. Once set we then went outside to hang them on the trees. Throughout the week we have been watching the different birds (and squirrels) come and eat the delicious treats from our classroom window.
In DT the children have been planning and making their own snakes and ladders game. The children have completed these on Wednesday and enjoyed playing with them. They made the board, the snakes, the ladders, the counters and even the dice.
On Thursday we had our Valentines disco. The children had so much fun!
Important Information
The first week back we will be having an Around the World Week. Year 2 will be finding out all about America. On Friday 27th February the children will be asked to come to school dressed in something with an American theme. This could be a basketball player, cheerleader, colours of the flag etc.
Have a lovely week off and I will see you all after the half term!
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 2nd February
This week we went on our trip to Sankey Valley. The Rangers told the children all about the different birds we might see and what birds like to eat. They showed use how to make a bird cake which included; seeds, bread and nuts. We then went on a nature walk looking for the different birds and even fed the ducks. The rangers showed us how to do a chicken dance on the soil. This helped rake up the soil which made the robins come down. On our walk we talked about how important it is to look after our environment especially by putting rubbish in the bin.
This week in maths we have been rounding numbers to the nearest 10. I was very impressed with how quickly the children picked this up. We then used this to help us estimate costs of items from a shop. The children have been showing off the times tables this week. We have been working really hard on our 5 times tables. There is a really fun rap on Education City that the children enjoy using to practise this important skill.
Important Reminders
Valentines Disco - 12th February 3.30-5pm
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 26th January
In was so lovely to see lots of Grandparents and parents on Tuesday afternoon. The children enjoyed asking them lots of questions to find out what life was like when they were at school. There were lots of photographs, money and other memories that were shared with the children. A big thank you to all that came along.
In English this week we had read 'A Snail and the Whale'. Another classic story by Julia Donaldson. The children had a discussion as to whether they felt the snail should go on an adventure round the world with the whale or should he stay on her black rock. The majority of children supported the snails decision as it was her dream to see the world. After reading the story we wrote a diary entry.
In Maths we have been learning how to tell the time. We have been looking at o'clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past.
On Thursday excitement filled the classroom as it started to snow! We are very lucky in Year 2 as we have an incredible view from our classroom window. We even get a fox who passes by every morning in the neighbouring field.
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 19th January
Where has the week gone? In English we have continued to find out about Julia Donaldson and her books. The children have wrote letters to Julia Donaldson telling her about their favourite books and characters. We have also been revising question writing and included lots of questions in our letters. We hope we will get a reply. We will keep you posted!
In Maths this week we have been revising our number bonds to 10 and using these to help us with our additions. The children are good at recalling number bonds mentally. There are some useful maths activities on abacus to help reinforce these skills and lots more. I update these activities weekly so keep checking.
In Science we have been finding out what plants need to grow healthy. We decided that the best way to find out is by carrying out an investigation. Together we planned an experiment to see if plants need soil, water and light to grow. Each group planted some cress seeds. One group are using cotton wool instead of soil, one group will give no light, one group will have no water and the finally group will have all three. I wonder which one will grow the best?
In History we have prepared some questions to ask our Grandparents about what life was like when they were in Primary School. Thank you to all those Grandparents that have agreed to come along to our coffee afternoon on Tuesday at 2:15pm. If you would like to join us please let me know. The children are really excited to ask their questions.
In ICT we have been finding out about algorithms. The children have been writing a set of instructions for a beebot to get from one place to another. The children really enjoyed using the Ipads to put their algorithms to the test using a beebot APP. Next week we will be thinking about debugging!
Well done to all the children who completed their project homework. It was so hard to choose the top 3 so I decided to have 4 well deserved winners.
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 12th January
This week it has been Money, Money, Money week. We have had lots of visits from parents and the community to talk about their jobs and how they achieved them. The children had the chance to ask lots of useful questions . This got us thinking about our aspirations. The children all discussed what they would like to be in the future. We talked about how important school is and trying our best at all times so that we can achieve our dreams.
In maths we started talking about money and why we need it in the future. The children found out about the importance of saving and completed lots of money related problem solving activities.
On Thursday we had our class Market. Year 2 decided to make some lovely batik flower canvases. To create these the children made some observational drawings and then used wax to follow their design. We finished them off with lovely bright inks.
On Friday we got all our pennies to create a Penny Trail in the hall.
Have a lovely weekend
Year 2 Team
Week beginning 5th January
Happy New Year!
The children have had a fantastic start to the new term. We started the week by watching a wonderful Pantomime. This was a lovely treat for the children as they had worked so hard during the Autumn Term. It was a very lively and funny Cinderella performance. The children all enjoyed joining in with the singing and the dancing.
The week in English we have been finding out about t
