Good afternoon everyone,

Welcome back for our second half term in Year 2. This week’s liturgy in Mass focused upon the story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector, who wasn’t very well liked in his community because he used to steal money from people. Jesus came to visit but Zacchaeus was too small to see so climbed a tree to get a better view. Jesus saw Zacchaeus in the tree and asked to go to his house for food. The other people were furious. Why was a terrible man like Zacchaeus able to spend time with Jesus? Zacchaeus was so overwhelmed at having been chosen by Jesus that he immediately decided to change his ways. He paid back the people he had stolen from four times what he owed them to say sorry and make amends. Jesus’ love of Zacchaeus, no matter what he had done wrong, was enough to make him a better person. This story teaches us that Jesus and God always forgive us, no matter what we have done wrong, so long as we are sorry and try to change our ways. The above quote is very fitting as it shows that God plans for us to love Jesus even before we are born.

English - We have focused upon editing and upleveling our written work. This has been quite tricky for some of us and we have been working to develop our focus and concentration in order to improve our writing. We will continue to develop this important skill throughout Year 2. We have also been ‘publishing’ our work - creating a neat book copy of our familiar setting story, ready for display.

Maths - We have continued to build on our addition and subtraction work with a continued focus upon related facts. We have found it quite tricky to remember that when we subtract we take an amount away from the whole. This means that the whole number always comes just before the subtraction symbol, no matter which way round the equals symbol is. We have also begun to use our related facts and inverse facts knowledge to check whether calculations are correct or incorrect and have used number lines to aid our counting.

RE - We have been doing lots of wondering in RE this week. We have been thinking about difficult questions, which we can call mysteries, that don’t necessarily have an answer. These can be about our world, about our beliefs or about God. Even though we cannot answer these questions, we can still think about them and share our own opinions. We have looked at a selection of mystery questions and shared our ideas about their answers.

Geography - We have begun our work looking at Planet Earth. We recalled the difference between human and physical geographical features and identified some key physical features visible from satellite photographs of Earth. Wealso learned about the Earth’s rotation and how this effects our days and seasons.

PE - We began our new dance unit, At the Seaside. We considered activities we could do on a visit to the seaside and began to create a simple dance sequence acting these out.

Computing - We began to look at algorithms and debugging. We practised logging into computers and opening the scratch program. Next week we will explore the features and controls of a symbol game.

Please continue to practise the Year 1 and 2 Common Exception Words - both reading and spelling!

Please also continue to practise counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.

Other Tasks

Spelling - Common Exception Words Set 4 - Please practise spelling these for a test on Friday.

I am also sending home a workbook with all of the Year 2 common exception words and activities to practise with these. Please work through this with only one or two pages per week. It will help reinforce our learning in class.

English - Editing activity - Rewrite the incorrect sentences accurately.

Maths - Related facts worksheet.

As always, the MOST important way that you can support your child is by reading regularly! Please do this as regularly as possible over the break!