Mrs Sim

🌟 Year 1/2 Weekly Newsletter – Week 2 🌟

Dear Parents,

It was wonderful to see so many of you at school yesterday. Thank you for joining the curriculum meeting -I hope you found it both informative and helpful.

We’ve had a very busy and exciting Week 2 in Year 1/2! Here’s a little peek into our learning:

🔢 Maths

The children have been working hard and are getting used to our maths rotations. There’s been lots of hands-on learning using manipulatives, and today we even tried out Sumdog, our online maths programme. The children had great fun reviewing the week’s objectives.

Year 1 have been working on:

Representing objects

Recognising numbers as words

Counting on from any number

Finding 1 more

Counting backwards within 10

Year 2 have been working on:

Recognising tens and ones

Using a place value chart

Partitioning numbers to 100

Writing numbers to 100 in words

Flexibly partitioning numbers to 100

✍️ Literacy

In Literacy, we’ve been busy designing our own trolls ready for next week’s writing activity.

Year 1 have been practising capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, and using the connective ‘and’.

Year 2 have been improving their sentences by adding expanded noun phrases to describe Timothy the Troll from our story Troll Swap.

We’re looking forward to reading more of the book next week!

🧠 IPC – Learning About the Brain

This week our IPC focus has been the brain. The children loved creating posters of the different parts and exploring how memory works by playing fun memory games.

We also investigated the cerebellum by doing an experiment: children threw sponges at the glass door while their partners stood behind it, checking if they blinked or flinched! We then tried out some balance and coordination exercises to test if our cerebellums were working well.

We also learned about the amygdala (our “shark alarm”) and how it keeps us safe. Together we drew a large body outline and marked the different stress responses on it.

👉 Next week, we’ll explore the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in more detail to see how they help us with learning and memory.

🧥 A Little Reminder

Please send in a sweater or cardigan for your child to keep in the classroom if you haven’t already. Even though the air conditioning is set to 26°C, a few children still feel chilly at times. Thank you for helping keep everyone comfortable.

It’s been a fantastic week of learning, and I’m so proud of how hard the children are working.
Wishing you all a restful weekend!

Warm regards,

Mrs Sim

Dear Parents,

It has been such a lovely week welcoming all the students back to school after the summer break. We have had lots of fun settling into our new class, and I have really enjoyed getting to know the children. This week, I have focused on building connections with the students and introducing our classroom routines. I have been so impressed with the kindness they have shown each other. They are already working together beautifully as a team – it has been wonderful to see.

Our Class Agreement

One of our first activities was creating our Class Agreement. Together, we thought about the kind of classroom we want to have and how we should speak and treat one another.

We read the story “Our Class is a Family” and talked about how our class is like a little school family, one where we show respect and care for everyone. To celebrate this idea, we made special bracelets so that we all have our very own “class family” bracelets.

In our classroom, I want every child to know “We all belong here.” This is very important to me, and I will work hard to make sure all the children feel loved, safe, and happy at school.

Each day this week, we burst a balloon with a child’s name inside. The class then shared kind words and wrote positive messages on a poster for that child. This has been a wonderful way to celebrate each student and remind them how special they are.

Learning This Week

The Year 2 students completed two assessments this week-one for Literacy and one for Maths. These will help us as we prepare to start phonics and Maths groups next week.

We also jumped into our learning:

In Maths, we began work on Wednesday. Year 1 students learned the following objectives:

Aut.1.1 – Sort objects
Aut.1.2 – Count objects
Aut.1.3 – Count objects from a larger group

Year 2 objectives:

Aut.1.1 – Numbers to 20
Aut.1.2 – Count objects to 100 by making 10s (Friday we had the assessment so only 2 objectives were taught)

In Literacy, we started reading our new book, “Troll Swap,” which the children are already enjoying. I dressed up as a troll and we received a letter from the Troll himself. It was a nice introduction to the unit.

Homework

Homework was sent home today along with library books in a yellow file. The students have one week to complete it and should return it along with the library books next Friday.

Reminders
P.E.

Children have P.E. on Mondays and Fridays. Please make sure they wear comfortable clothes and suitable shoes on those days.

Water Bottles

Please ensure your child brings a water bottle to school each day so they can stay hydrated.

Air Conditioning

Some students have mentioned feeling a little cold in class. If your child would like to, please send a light jacket or sweater to keep in their bag. It’s difficult to find a temperature that works for everyone, especially while the hot weather continues, so this will help them feel comfortable.

Upcoming Event

I am looking forward to seeing you all at our Information Session on Thursday 4th September at 2:45pm. It will be a lovely chance to meet properly and share more about the year ahead.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Thank you for your support, and I look forward to another great week together on Monday!

Take care,
Mrs Sim 🌸

Dear Parents,

Welcome to Year 1/2! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful summer, filled with the things you love. 😊

I’m so excited to welcome your child to my class this year. For those who are new, here’s a little bit about me below. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

I’ll be in touch again soon to invite you to our Curriculum Meeting – it’s always a great way to start the year and a lovely opportunity to get to know each other.

Kind regards,

Mrs Sim