Kingfisher Class – Years 1 and 2

Taught by Mr Hartley and Miss Cunningham (Thursday afternoon). Teaching Assistant – Miss Rhodes. 

School Year 2021/22

Kingfisher Class Newsletter 2022 

Kingfisher Class Newsletter Autumn 2021

Kingfisher Class Long Term Plan

Kingfisher Class Newsletter Spring 2022

School Year 2020/21

This term Class 2 will be learning all about the Great Fire of London. The children will be comparing London to Huby in geography and learning more about villages, towns and cities. In Literacy we will start by writing recounts before moving on to adventure stories. During the Autumn term children will also write poetry and explore instructions. In RE we will learn about sacred places as well as learning about what is special about living in a community.

Our page will be updated throughout the term with photos showing what we have been up to!

General Information

Listening to your child read on a regular basis, for example 3 or 4 times a week really helps them to progress and your help is greatly appreciated.

It will be very helpful if you could please continue to do the following:

• Return the reading record to school each day with the books, even if they have not yet been read at home.
• When you read with your child, enter the date and title of the book in the reading record and sign your name.
• Feel free to comment on how your child has done, but please don’t feel that you must do this every time as just signing your name is fine.

Spellings

The test is every Friday. The children are tested on a specific phonic sound. For example, ‘igh’ in the word high. They will have already been tested on a specific sound before but we will revisit the sounds as they provide the children with good foundations of how to spell. On other occasions your children will receive ‘common exception’ words. These are just everyday words that children use when writing.

A quick reminder of good ways to practise learning spellings together:

• Read the word together out loud 3 times.
• Look, Cover, Write. Encourage your child to say the word by sounding it out, cover the word and then write the word, saying the sounds as they write.
• You can practise maybe just 3 words at a time, rather than all at once.
• If you are testing your child please say the words out of order or within a sentence.

Tests

On a weekly basis the children do BIG maths. This is a timed test and is a fun way to ‘speed up’ children’s arithmetic skills. They only compete against themselves to try and beat their own best score.

Year 2 children will take their SATS tests in Spring 2021 and we will discuss this with parents at parents evening nearer the time.

All Year 1 children complete an annual Phonics Screening Check in June of each year. The test comprises of 40 words for the children to read. Some of which are real words and some are made up. The children use their phonic skills to decode the words and pronounce them properly. There was no test in 2020 due to COVID-19.

SMIRFS

Your child is working on their SMIRF targets. You can find these in the front of their yellow reading record book.  Like last year, the aim for your child is to complete the targets to enable them to move onto the next planet. Instant recall of mental maths is really beneficial to your child’s understanding and further progress in maths.  Please encourage your child to practise these on a regular basis, just 5 minutes is perfect!

Times Tables Rockstars

This is a great website where the children practice their times tables (and the corresponding division facts). Each child has their own username and password to login. Hopefully all parents are aware of this site now but don’t worry if you’re not, just let me known and I’ll give you your child’s login details.

Useful websites:

• https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ – Phonics learning website.
• http://www.ictgames.com/ – Maths and Literacy game website
• https://ttrockstars.com. – Times table and division learning website. Children have a username and password to get on this site, which are attached to the inside front cover of their Reading Records.
• http://teachyourmonstertoread.com – phonics learning site. Children have a username and password to get on this site, which are attached to the inside front cover of their Reading Records.

School Year 2020/21

Please see below what our children have been doing during the academic year.

Maths

We have been learning about shapes.

Forest Quest

Birds of Prey

School Year 2019/2020

Please see below what our children did during last year, both home learning and back in Autumn and early Spring in school.

Riley has been busy at home and he has made a table! Brilliant work using that drill Riley. Well done!

Finley has been having a busy time at home. As well as writing poetry and completing maths tasks he has been doing lots of baking and cooking. Keep up the good work Finley!

Isabel and her hatching stick insects! How exciting! What a wonderful present to receive.

Alfie has produced more excellent detailed diagrams and wonderful work. Well done Alfie!

I wonder who won the Bake Off between Isabel and George! Well done George showing your support for the NHS. Brilliant!

Olivia researched and then created an elephant and the habitat in which it lives. Lovely job using paper mache!

Isabel has been getting stuck into some fun activities. I like your use of adjectives and adverbs to describe your mouse..

A good idea to build a bug hotel Finley. What a great job you have done!

Here are some lovely photos of Macee and Esme working practically. Well done girls!

Tilly has had fun and has got stuck in to a lot of tasks. Super work Tilly!

Olivia has been getting stuck in to many tasks over Easter. It looks like you are having lots of fun. I very much like your 2d shape geoboard work. Well done Olivia!

Daniel has been busy baking and planting. It’s wonderful to see photos of the children doing so much. I think Daniel needs a keeper between the sticks Mrs B!

I really like your Easter card Caitlin. Eggs with teeth, Arrrgh!

Alfie has designed a new school uniform and Coat of Arms. I’m not sure where we’d get yellow trousers from, but I like it!

It’s great to see that Daniel has carried on his excellent hard working habits to home. Have a super Easter!

Caitlin has had another busy week and got top marks on her spellings. She has also produced some super art work and made a ginormous chocolate cake! Wow, that looks lovely!

It has been great to see photos of the children learning ‘life skills’ during their time away from school. Here is Finley putting the finishing touches to his baking. Well done Finley!

Isabel enjoyed listening to Anthony Browne’s Voices in The Park and choose to make a dog mask! As well as completing many tasks this week Isabel has produced her own Huby Flag. Does Nicholas think Unicorns are a good idea Isabel?

Tilly has been inspired by reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid, producing some lovely detailed drawings.

I’m really impressed with how hard some children are working! Olivia has been learning about Easingwold in the past and comparing the town to life now. She has also been learning about the 4 compass points. It looks like you’re having great fun!

A proud George showing a fantastic Family Crest!

Calum has had a productive week. Amongst doing many tasks, Calum has recreated his Motel in Huby. Cheer up Calum!

It was great to see what Tilly has been up to over the last few days. As always Tilly is still working hard! Fantastic answers to your calculations Tilly!

Jack has been working hard at home and completed a lovely family tree! Well done Jack. Top marks at Spellings too!

Olivia has sent me some lovely pictures in what looks like a very productive week. Well done for keeping up your high standards of handwriting Olivia!

Caitlin has had a busy first week at home designing her own coat of arms and producing a super family tree, as well as beating her best score at BIG Maths Beat That! Well done Caitlin!

George has been putting his practical skills to good use. Well done George this looks amazing!

Well done Tilly B for having a productive week! Below is some of Tilly’s work. She also got top marks on her Spellings too!

Isabel in sent me a lovely poem that she wrote today. She would like to share it with you! It made me chuckle…

Bella the Cat                                                                        

By Isabel

Bella the cat

Sat on the mat

When suddenly…

She saw a RAT!

The cat chased the rat

And went pat, pat, pat.

She jumped on the rat

And the rat went splat!

Bella the cat went back

To the mat

And sat, sat, sat.

Useful Websites

Useful websites for Home Learning:

Joe Wicks (9am daily exercise)- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAxW1XT0iEJo0TYlRfn6rYQ
Steve Backshall (9.30am learn all about wildlife)- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm-URP49TgSgyIU1rgh2m7A/
Maddie Moate (11am daily science) – https://www.youtube.com/user/maddiemoate
Carol Vorderman (free access to maths) – https://www.themathsfactor.com/
Myleen’s Music Klass (twice a week)- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQh2wgJ5tOrixYBn6jFXsXQ
David Walliams (story time daily) –https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/elevenses/ Learning games especially good for children with special educational needs; https://www.helpkidzlearn.com/

Spring Term 2020

Science Week

Related to recent flooding in the UK, the children learned about the absorbency of different materials. The classroom, and some children, ended up a little wet but the children enjoyed making predictions and carrying out their own experiments.

Bolton Castle Educational visit

All KS1 children had a very exciting day at Bolton Castle, Wensleydale. Despite the very cold weather the children enjoyed many different activities, including, medieval dancing, quill pen writing and handling artifacts. Thank you to the parent volunteers who came with us and to Dave Manning at the castle who organised a wonderful day.

World Book Day

The children enjoyed dressing up as their favourite characters and having the opportunity to purchase new books.

Class 2’s Castle Cake!

Class 2 enjoyed baking their Castle Cake. It didn’t have as many tiers as last time but we did end up using 13 eggs! The cake was so huge it took 1 hour 25 minutes to cook!

Internet Safety Day

The children have been learning about how to stay safe when using the internet and we have discussed some of the potential dangers out there.

Multi Skills at the Galtres Centre

Year 2 children in our Cluster enjoyed Multi skills activities at the Galtres Centre run by Outwood Academy, Easingwold. Thank you to Miss Robson and the Young Leaders at Outwood for organising and running the event. Our children had a great time!

Religious Education

In RE the children have been learning about stories that Jesus told. Class 2 chose the story The Kind Stranger to learn and then act out in Assembly in front of the school.

Gymnastics

The children have enjoyed trying out new moves in their gymnastic sessions with Mrs Broadhurst.

Numeracy

Class 2 have started off the term learning our times tables in different ways, including practically and playing games.

Science

Class 2 are learning all about Forces as part of their science topic this term and we have many exciting experiments planned. The children started off learning about pushes, pulls and twists. See our Science Page for more pictures!

Autumn Term 2019

Five tier Race for Life cake

For our class treat the children chose to bake a 5 tier cake! We decided to make it blue and pink to coincide with Race for Life we are all running in. They worked in small groups and the children’s maths skills were put to the test carefully measuring the ingredients.

History

The children have been learning about how school life has changed in the last 50 years. The children seem to definitely prefer life at school now!

The children had a great time quizzing Mrs Wootton about school life 50 years ago! Thank you Mrs Wootton for answering our many questions!

Numeracy

We have started the term comparing numbers and learning about their value.

Physical Education

The children have enjoyed Yoga so far this term! It is great to see them try something new.

Science

In science the children have been learning about the topic Light and Dark. We made ‘light boxes’ and placed reflective and non reflective objects inside to demonstrate how much more visible reflective objects are.

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