Learners Class

Learners Class have been working really hard on addition and subtraction in maths over the last few weeks..

This week, Learners have been using many strategies to aid their learning and are able to select the resource or manipulative that supports their learning the best. For some this is using ten frames, for others this is using a number line and for others this is using a place value chart or rekenrek.

Learners have access to all of these resources during each maths lesson. Using different practical resources is definitely deepening understanding. This week Learners have been adding and subtracting across ten.

Our history morning on Monday was a great success. We welcomed many families into Learners class to share in our history learning about Whitby now and then. Families were able to contribute and share their own knowledge with us and could reflect on the how Whitby had changed over time. Thank you to all who could join us. 

Learners have decided to hold a Christmas Movie Night, to raise money for the Zambezi Sunrise Trust. Look out for more details on this in this week’s newsletter.

Christmas is approaching and this week we have begun to practise the songs for our Christmas performance. Keep your eye on the newsletters and on Tapestry for any information around this!

The weather is starting to turn colder, so please make sure your Learner has a warm coat in school each day.

Learners are maths marvels this week. Well done Learners, you are awesome!

Learners have enjoyed art this week. Building on the skills we developed last half-term, Learners have been looking closely at primary and secondary colours. This week, we enjoyed mixing primary colours to match the colours of autumn leaves. We thought carefully about how to mix just the right amount and ratio of each colour. In some cases, we needed to add a little bit of white to make the shade lighter. There was a lot of concentration and Learners kept checking their c colours until they were happy with the match. Just like our focus artist Wasilly Kandinsky, we listened to some classical music as we painted.

In history this week, Learners have been comparing the changes over time of Whitby fish quay. We looked at old photographs taken by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe and recognised that there was less fishing in the town these days, but more fish and chip shops.

In maths we have been learning different strategies that will help us with addition and subtraction. We are becoming great problem solvers and are able to transfer our knowledge to answer reasoning type questions in maths lessons.

After writing letters to families in English before the half-term, we are excited to welcome our families into the classroom on Monday to share in our history learning. 

Learners have had the MOST wonderful week of history learning.

On Monday we kicked off the week with a drama session with Louise from Red House Theatre. The session supported our history topic of Whitby now and then wonderfully. We used our imagination to visit Whitby in the past. Through movement, we turned ourselves into the steam train, the Abbey and we even became sellers in the old marketplace. 

Back in the classroom, we used iPads to research how Whitby marketplace had changed overtime. We discovered that Elizabeth Botham had sold her bread from a basket in the marketplace before opening her first shop. We also found out that whale blubber had been sold to make oil. Most shockingly we learned that urine was sold at the marketplace, which was used as a cleaning and dyeing aid – we were certainly glad to live in Whitby ‘now’ rather than ‘then’.

On Wednesday we visited Whitby and were able to being all our learning to life. We visited Fortune’s Kipper shop, a shop that we had seen on Frank Meadow Sutcliffe’s photographs of old Whitby. We stopped at the marketplace and were able to use our imagination to become market traders again – this time in the actual same place. We spotted many Whitby Heritage Sculptures around the town, which gave us an insight into Whitby from the past – we particularly liked the ‘Herring Girls’ sculpture near the bandstand. We walked up to the park, where we visited Whitby Museum. The Museum was fascinating, we saw Frank Meadow Sutcliffe’s gallery of photos and delighted in seeing many local artefacts.

Learners class have had the MOST fabulous week and history this week has been awesome!

Learners love to learn 🙂

Learners spent the day in the forest this week. The sun was shining and the experience was delightful. It was a beautiful autumn day, the leaves were falling around us and we were able to spot signs of autumn and colour match the leaves we found. This consolidated our science topic around seasons wonderfully. 

Also in the forest, we were able to collect some descriptive language to inspire our poetry writing. We used our senses and recorded the things we saw, felt, heard and touched. Our poems are about our wonderful Earth, so being outside in the forest was the perfect place to gather inspiration. We are excited to write our poems and will keep you posted once they have been published.

We were delighted to attend Church on Friday to celebrate our Harvest Festival with families. Learners performed a song ‘Thank you for everything’. We sang confidently and it was clear how much we enjoyed the words in the song, it was lots of fun!

We are looking forward to our trip to Whitby next week, which will be consolide our history learning in class. We will be visiting Whitby Museum, the marketplace and spotting the sculptures around the town. The weather looks settled and we are excited to go.

We are looking forward to welcoming families into school this week for a reading workshop/event, to share the important aspects that make up reading. We will also have some resources from our Little Wandle, Catch-Up and Fluency programmes too.

Learners will also have a drama session next week, which we always really enjoy!

Learners are such enthusiastic learners!

Learners enjoyed a fun afternoon at a community sports event this week. We spent our time jumping, throwing, catching and running. Learners are great friends and have amazing team spirit, they cheered and supported each other through every activity.

Elsewhere in the classroom, we have been learning more about Islam. This week in RE we have been finding out about mosques and what happens inside. Learners always have open and meaningful discussions in RE and are fascinated to learn about different religions and their important traditions.

In English, we are looking closely at poetry. We have been enjoying a poem called “What is the sun” by Wes Magee. We have been writing expanded noun-phrases and alliteration in order to use these in our own poetry. Our poems will focus on our amazing earth and the natural wonders within. To inspire our vocabulary, we will visit the forest on Monday and be experience nature first-hand. 

We are busy practising our Harvest song, in order to perform in our Harvest Service in St John’s Church later in the week. It is always a happy celebration and Learners are excited to sing together.

Learners have such enthusiasm about their learning and are always so keen to come into school each day! This is such a joy to see. Learners, you are awesome!

Learners class have enjoyed some brilliant art lessons this week. On Wednesday we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon being artists. We explored painting and making different patterns using watercolours to see how different brushstrokes created different effects. Inspired by our focus artist Wassily Kandinsky, we listened to music while we painted. The classroom was focused and peaceful, as we enjoyed painting. Our sketchbooks are looking amazing and we are looking forward to sharing these with families at Parents Evening next week.

This week in English, Learners have been putting their finishing touches to their non-chronological reports around Global Goals. Learners have been passionate about the goals and have spent a lot of time understanding and clarifying meaning of each goals’ target. This depth of understanding is evident in the amazing pieces of writing produced throughout this writing topic. Well done Learners.

In science, we have been looking closely at the weather and have been filling in our own weekly weather chart. Thursday definitely provided a talking point as the rain was nothing sort of torrential. 

Learners are looking forward to sharing their achievements with families this week during Parents Evening. I certainly have many successes to share with you!

Learners love too learn 🙂

The weather has turned autumnal outside this week. Learners have enjoyed learning more about the different seasons in science. This week we enjoyed selecting clothes we would wear in summer and comparing these to the clothes we would select to wear in winter. Our choices reflected the change in weather throughout the seasons. We had lots of fun trying on different clothes and were able to transfer our knowledge to draw and label pictures to show our learning.

Elsewhere in the classroom, learners have been working really hard in maths and have been focusing on Place Value. We have been partitioning and flexibly partitioning numbers to 100 this week ad have been able to use our knowledge to answer some problem questions too.

We welcomed our families into L:earners class on Wednesday. They were able to share in our current learning around Global Goals. We were delighted to share what we knew.

In history this week, we identified the changes that could happen over time and recognised that museums, artefacts and people could help us to understand more about how things have changed. We are looking forward to our trip to Whitby Museum inn a few weeks to consolidate our learning.

Learners have enjoyed listening to poems by Brian Moses this week. Our favourite being “Walking with my Iguana’.

Learners enjoy learning and are always so excited to see what we are learning next!

This week Learners have been looking closely at the Global Development Goals. We are working on writing our own non-chronological report around these aspirational targets that will make the world a better place.  We are excited to welcome families into school on Wednesday to  explore these goals further.

In PE this half-term we are focusing on developing key multi-skills. This week have been throwing, sending and receiving a ball by rolling and catching. Learners showed lots of control and precise hand eye co-ordination and balance. Next week in PE we will be exploring and evaluating different ways to jump. We are looking forward to attending a local school multi-skills event in October, where we can showcase our skills.

This week in Science we have been exploring that the days are longer in the summer than the winter and drawing pictures of the activities we like to do in different seasons.

In art we have been getting to know our focused artist, Wassily Kandinsky. We used iPads to research some background information about him. We found out he was a Russian painter who loved to listen to music as he painted. He used his emotions to guide his creativity and painted using colour, shapes and lines. His style of painting was called ‘abstract’. 

Learners have enjoyed reading our brand new fluency reading books this week. Please support your child at home by reading regularly and recording in their reading record. This really does make a difference!.

Thank you for your support.

Learners have had an amazing start to the new school year.

We have settled wonderfully into the the routines of Year 2.

On our first day back, we were delighted to be able to watch the Tour of Britain go by school. There were lots of waves and cheers of support as the cyclists whizzed by.

Back in the classroom, we have been enjoying the book ‘Small steps, big change’ by Anne-Marie Cool. We identified th sustainable goals within the book and had some great discussion around the small steps we can make at Sleights to create big environmental change. We all agreed that ‘lots of people doing little things achieves more than one person doing everything’.

We have been finding out about how to stay safe online in computers this week and keeping our personal information online to ourselves.

In maths we have been counting in tens and ones in order too learn about place value.

Most importantly, we have come into school smiling and ready to learn, which is wonderful to see after 6 weeks away from the school routine.

Learners love to learn and we are all excited for the year ahead.

We will be swimming on Tuesday afternoons this half-term. Please bring your Learners swimming kit on Tuesday mornings.

Learners enjoyed a marvellous trip to the Rotunda Museum in Scarborough. While we were there, we enjoyed a workshop called Dinosaur Detectives. We looked closely at fossils, dinosaur bones and were able to share our knowledge while we were there. This trip was an excellent way to consolidate all our History learning this term. Learners class have absolutely loved the history topic of dinosaurs, digs and discoveries and have shown huge engagement in their learning.

We were able to spend the whole day in Scarborough, so couldn’t resist a trip to the beach. We took with us some games and activities on a trolley from the Rotunda, with games such as ‘dinosaur egg and spoon’. Learners class had the best day out and the trip really brought our learning to life.

Elsewhere in the classroom this week, we have enjoyed some excellent science learning. We have learned about different food groups and the nutrients that different foods give us. We have looked carefully at our school dinners, identifying the nutrients we have been eating each day. I’ve heard that Learners have been doing the same with their meals at home too!

Thursday saw Sleights School sports day, which was a great success. The whole school ran, jumped, relayed, threw and cheered! The rain held off just until the final moment!

This week we are looking forward to Learners Class Julia Donaldson, a chance to celebrate one of our favourite authors! More information on that next week.

Learners are always so keen to learn and are totally awesome!