Welcome to Kingfisher Class

Class teacher: Miss McCormack

Class email: kingfisher.class@rawreth.essex.sch.uk

Miss McCormack can be reached on this email address. This inbox will be checked at least once each day between Monday to Friday.  Please still contact the office for urgent matters including absence, school lunch orders, change in home time collection arrangements etc. 

For our history lesson next week we will be exploring how Bonfire night celebrations have changed over the years. If any parents/grandparents/great grandparents could send in any notes/photos etc to describe how they celebrated Bonfire night, this would be a great addition to our lesson. Thank you!

Changes to Kingfisher class this week:

Wednesday AM - ECT/PPA time -  Mrs Hills to cover

This section will be updated every half term. 

This week we will be learning:

• Maths - we will be recapping place value and focusing more on numbers with more than one ten. We will practice using diennes and ten frames to help us visualise the number we are partitioning.
• English - we read our new story today 'Sparks in the sky.' It is about a girl named Bo who attends her first Bonfire Night celebration. We will be learning the story using actions and story maps. We will then move on to innovating the story with our own ideas before writing our own story.
• Science -  We will be looking at living things and their habitats. We will be classifiying objects into living, was once alive or never alive, identifying how habitats provide what is needed to survive, recognise how animals and plants depend on each other and discuss how animals get their food from plants and other animals.
• Art - We will be looking at different ways to create texture in our artwork. We will explore types of lines, the effects made when the pressure and control is changed and will be creating portraits in the style of Paul Klee.
• History - We will be focusing on Bonfire night for a few weeks before moving on to the Great Fire of London.
• Computing - We will be looking at algorithms and programming.
• PSHE - Our focus for this half term will be health and wellbeing. We will be looking at our emotions; recognising how they feel and how to cope with our big emotions.
• RE - Our big question in RE this half term will be 'Why is light an important symbol for Christians, Jews and Hindus?'. We will look at what light symbolises for each of these religions.
• Music - We will be focusing on rhythm and pitch in our music lessons. This will be in addition to learning songs for the Nativity play. We have enjoying introducing body percussion and finger tracing to our brain breaks.
• PE - on Mondays and Thursdays we will be focusing on dance. Children will be learning dance moves based on different themes. They will use counts of 8 to sequence their dances and then perform them to the class.

PE Days - Monday and Thursday

Please could you ensure children have the appropriate clothing for the weather and they have a top, trousers/shorts and appropriate footwear in their PE kits.

Please remove any earrings before school.

Homework

Login details for homework will be stuck in the back of reading records by Friday.

Daily reading - please log their reading in their reading records. Please be aware that children's books will be changed once per week. If your child has read lots at home that's fantastic, please use the questions in the books to discuss the story so we are also building on their comprehension as well as their reading and fluency. Please also allow them to read their own materials - this could be magazines, books, poems, songs, etc. to help encourage a love for reading rather than just reading for homework. 

Maths - Please encourage your children to explore the numbots website. There will be dojos up for grabs for time spent using numbots.

Phonics - Children will receive a blue folder with the sheets for the year, this can be kept in their book bags and bought into school. Once your child is secure with the sound and words at home please could you highlight/mark this. 

Handwriting - Please spend time focusing on letter formation ensuring the letters start and finish in the correct places. This is to help ensure a smooth transition when they move through the school and begin to join their handwriting. I have uploaded some more resources below to help support handwriting at home. There is a worksheet for both lower and upper case letters as used in the Monster phonics scheme. There is also a document which details the handwriting rhymes used in Monster phonics to help the children remember how to form each letter.

Spelling - Using the spelling shed website, children have assigned tasks set for each week. Year 2s will have their spelling tasks assigned according to their group.

Thank you!

Phonics resources:

Pure sounds: https://youtu.be/oJGDN5p-Kvg 

Letter formation: https://vimeo.com/909204231?fl=pl&fe=vl

The children have a phonics book to read and an additional book from the library to share with someone at home. The library book is to be read for pleasure so they may need help to read this. Both books need to be returned to school each week. 

Year 2 pupils in Kingfisher class have been very excited to start quizzing on their accelerated reader book and have so far been amazing!!