Welcome to Year 2 Giraffe Class Page
Teachers: Miss Warnes
Learning Support Assistant: Miss Adams
To contact us, please email- office@alresford.essex.sch.uk
Maths
The importance of children developing their mathematical understanding is vitally important. Your child will be involved in Maths learning each day at school but it is also beneficial for children to continue this learning at home.
In order to support you with this we focus on key instant recall facts (KIRFs) each half term. These are areas of Maths we focus on in school and encourage parents to continue this at home. Each half term we will share a KIRFs parent support sheet detailing ways in which you can support your child.
Reading in Year 2-
Phonics is part of your child's journey of learning to read. We call our reading books 'practise books.' This is because your child will read this book more than once to practise all their reading skills and to help build fluency right from the beginning. Our reading books are banded in phonics phases. Once a child finishes the banded books, they are free readers and choose from a range of books in the classroom and library.
Every child has a reading day each week. This is when they will read on a 1:1 basis with an adult. Their reading day is the day they will change their reading book. The children will keep their reading book for a week, possibly 2 weeks as it is important the children read their book until they are fluent so they are recognising the words as a whole and to give them more confidence when reading.
We believe that reading is the golden key that unlocks a world of imagination, curiosity and life-long learning. Beyond helping children to succeed academically, getting lost in a good book builds empathy, expands vocabulary and boosts confidence. To help foster a genuine love of reading both in the classroom and at home, we are launching a new reading initiative for this year. Alongside other reading events and activities we hope to inspire our children to become more involved and excited about reading. Reading for just 10 minutes a day makes a huge difference to their learning.
At the beginning of term, every child will receive a golden ticket bingo board and their reading log. Each time your child reads at home or is read to – whether it is their school reading book, a comic, an audio book, a favourite bed time story or a chapter book – simply sign or initial their reading log and add the number of minutes they have read. We would like children to aim for at least 10 minutes of reading a day or 70 minutes a week. Each square is split into 70 minutes. If they don’t complete 70 minutes a week one week, the minutes they have already accumulated will roll over to the following week. Staff will check reading logs once a week. They will make a note of how many minutes your child has read. For every 70 minutes they will collect a stamp / sticker and the staff member checking will initial it. Any additional minutes will ‘roll over’ to the next week. If a child finishes a golden ticket board, they can have a new one! At each milestone they will earn rewards.
At each milestone they will earn rewards:
|
Reading Milestone |
Rewards Earned |
|
5 tickets |
Bronze Certificate |
|
10 tickets |
Silver Certificate and bookmark |
|
Completed Board |
Gold Certificate and extra 10 minutes playtime (this playtime will be half termly) |
|
Completing 2 boards or more |
Platinum Certificates Entry into end of term raffle for a book token. One entry for every completed board. |
If your child's reading day is a Monday for example, their reading minutes are counted from Monday to Monday. If their reading day is Tuesday, there's will be counted from Tuesday to Tuesday and so on.
Please see below for some great questions to develop your children's comprehension skills linked to our vipers.
Recommended Reads for Year 2-
Spelling and Phonics in Year 2-
Below you will find some ideas to support your child learning their spellings.
You will also find documents containing the Year 2 common exceptions words which your child should be able to spell by the end of the year; the second is the English Appendix, containing all spelling patterns and rules which are taught across the school.
PSHE in Year 2-
We will be using the SCARF curriculum to explore PSHE this year.
Take a look below at what we will be learning about in PSHE in Year 2.
For further information please look at the PSHE curriculum page on our website.
P.E-
We ask that the children come to school in P.E. kit on their days, (see our curriculum letter above for days) so that they are ready for the activities.
Children must wear a school P.E. kit, not a kit of their choice. Please see the school website for details. When they are outside please ensure the children have warm clothing with them.
The health and safety requirements mean that earrings have to be taken out completely during any P.E. sessions and cannot be taped up. Once earrings have been in for 6 weeks, they are then safe to be removed for a day or for the lesson. Please practise with your child so that they can remove their own earrings, or remove them before school on the named P.E. days.
Please could you also ensure children bring a hairband to tie back their hair, if it is shoulder length or longer.
Autumn 1- Wednesday and Thursday