Dear Parents/carers

Welcome back after the half term break.  We hope you had a good rest and some fun too!

After our geographical and historical studies of last half term, we will study Nocturnal Animals this half term.  The children’s home learning has started us off brilliantly by show casing some habitats of nocturnal animals.  Well done, everyone!  Your home learning was amazing!

	Autumn 2
Topic	Nocturnal Animals
English	In writing we will base our story writing on a book called ‘ HOOT OWL – Master of Disguise’ by Sean Taylor.    I hope the children will love this book as much as I do, and will have fun making up their own stories. We will also be making fact files to put in the bird hides at Crowland Lakes, as well as writing poetry.  Our Christmas writing will be based around the Take One Picture idea.  The picture is top secret and will be revealed in stages. Guided reading groups will continue in class, and we will be analysing texts and discussing them.  Your continued support with reading at home is much appreciated.  We will be reading ‘Plop – the Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’ in our light house reading sessions.
Maths	I hope you will enjoy using the IMPACT maths pack that we will look through next week. We will be continuing addition and subtraction methods this week.  I will be covering multiplication and division, and data handling over the rest of the half term.
Science	Science objectives will be covered by Mrs Hussey, and they are as follows:   explore and compare the differences between things that are living, dead, and things that have never been alive  identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants, and how they depend on each other
Computing	We will be using emails to solve a class mystery!
PE	We will have outdoor PE on Thursday and indoor PE on Friday.  Please ensure your child has a named tracksuit because we will be outside on cooler days too.
RE	We will be learning about the festivals of light’ including Christmas.

Special Events this Term

We will have a visitor from the Raptor Foundation, who will bring various birds of prey to show us. This is a fascinating session.  Last year we were able to hold an Egyptian Owl and watch a Barn Owl flying over our heads.  Amazing!

We will have a trip to Crowland Lakes to leave our Owl Fact Files, and hopefully we will meet the ranger to hear some more fascinating facts.

And after all that….don’t forget the PTFA Christmas bazaar and our performances!

What an action packed half term we have lined up!

 

We have some more formal assessments later in the term, but will run forest school at the same time so that the children can spend time having fun and covering science and geography objectives outside.  They will need to concentrate as best as they can on tasks set in class.

 

Home Learning: This half term’s home learning is a positive, minus, interesting task.  Children are invited to discuss the pros and cons of being a night animal, and to find out something interesting about nocturnal animals.  This should be presented in their home learning books.  You may expand on this if you wish, however you wish!

 

Please continue with Mathletics and daily reading.

 

Equipment needed in Year 2:

• PE days  - Thursday and Friday
• Reading records – please hand in on Fridays.
• Labelled water bottles - we do not have access to a water fountain at our end of the school.
• Please clearly label all clothing - the lost property pile is shocking. We will however return items of clothing if they are named.

If you have any queries, please feel free to come and speak to me at any time.

Many thanks,

Andrea Jackson