Hi Year 2! We miss you all and have been thinking about each and every one of you. We hope you are staying safe and enjoying the little bits of extra freedom that we have been granted. We are one tiny step closer to getting back to normal and that is a good thing to keep hold of. Remember that God loves us and will guide us through this difficult time.

We are now approaching week 8 of our Home Learning Projects. Week 8! Can you believe it!? The time seems to have gone so quickly somehow! It’s been lovely to see lots of your wonderful work through Class Dojo and be able to keep up to date with all the excellent learning you are doing at home.

My first challenge this week is a bit different. It is a Kindness Challenge. I want you - at some point this week - to do something kind for someone else. It might be your brother, your sister, your mum, dad, grandma or grandad or someone else who cares for you. I want you to write down on a little piece of paper what kind thing you did and how it made that person feel. I then want you to write down how you felt because you made that person feel so good! You can do this as many times as you want. If we all spread kindness to others then we can make a massive difference at a time when we might feel a little small and hopeless! Give it a go :)

Week 8’s Home Learning Project is all about Famous and Significant People. We will learn about people from the past who are important to us today. There is plenty of scope for writing activities this week and research into a number of people mentioned in the plan….such as Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Elizabeth 1. This will be great for us in Year 2 as we have learned all about FLorence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, Edith Cavell, Grace Darling as well as thinking about what make someone significant. The plan this week is a little different, and I hope a little easier, as it is split into days for each of the main parts (Reading, Writing, Spelling, Maths). The types of activity your child will be doing are similar but I hope this helps to give more structure to your day. They can be completed in any order though but this is the one I recommend. I have also added a few additional/replacement activities for if your child finishes quickly or doesn’t quite fancy what is available on a particular day.

I recommend using BBC bitesize for support with significant people as there are a huge range of videos and activities to support learning in this area. There are also plenty of daily lessons and activities suited specifically for Year 2 and Key Stage 1.

I have noticed that the Oxford Owl website has plenty of activities to support reading at home (and there are many others in the learning project pack), including an ebook pack for if you get bored of the books at home or finish the ones in your packs quickly.

Please also continue to use the Read Write Inc phonics video to support phonics work. Practising this for about 5-10 minutes daily will have a huge impact on children’s ability to read and write effectively. Here are Set 1. Set 2/3. Set 3.

Please also continue to look at Fr Jim’s Children’s Page on the church website. There are plenty of interesting resources to aid with RE learning at home. Ms Haggerty also uploads a daily prayer on the general page of our school blog so keep an eye on this. Perhaps you could say the prayers in the morning as a family for a period of reflection?

I would like to say a huge thank you for all the work I have been sent over Class Dojo. I always try to feature at least one piece of work from each learner for our Learner of the Week picture gallery at the end of each blog. If you are signed up to Class Dojo, please continue to send me some of the pieces of work your child completes that you would like me to look at. If you have not yet gotten round to signing up for the app, please either send me an email with your email address to year2@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk or ring the school office who have a list of the codes needed to sign up to our Year 2 section of the app. Class Dojo is also a fantastic tool for keeping in touch and asking me any questions you may have via the message section of the app. Thanks again to all those who have sent me work so far.

Speaking of Class Dojo, we have two children who have joined the One Hundred Club by getting 100 Dojo Points for the work they have sent. Well done to Amelia and Jacob! Keep working hard :)

In terms of getting the Home Learning Project to you this week, I have tried something different by trying to zip all the files together in a compressed file to make it much easier to download. This is in two parts (due to limits on file sizes on our website) so please download the Project first then both parts 1 and 2. These can be opened from most computers and laptops and most phones are also able to do this. On computers you need a program such as winrar or winzip which most computers have naturally. If you have any problems, do let me know and I will send you the link to them.

Here is the Home Learning Project Week 8 File.

Here is Part 1 of the Resources (Reading, Maths, Spelling)

Here is Part 2 of the Resources (Writing, Science, PE, Geography)

Finally, here is our Learners of the Week Gallery.