Author: Mrs Oughton

What a wonderful year I have had with your lovely children, I will miss seeing them every day. Thank you for all of your cards, gifts and kind words this week. I hope that you and your families have a wonderful summer!

Mrs Oughton x

We’re looking forward to our Sports Day next Monday (27th June!). An email has been sent to Year 2 parents with other details. 

In maths this week, we have been learning about money using notes and coins. Some children have enjoyed this activity: https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/coinCalculator/index.html 

At home, you could practise making totals of coins (how many ways can you show 50p), buying and selling objects at a pretend shop etc. 

In literacy we have been thinking about character descriptions. We have looked at Roald Dahl’s Miss Trunchbull and used descriptive language to create our own mean characters.

Huge thanks to the visitors from the Dorset Heath Partnership who came in today. The children had a fantastic time learning about wildlife on the heathlands in Dorset and the threats that they face. The children enjoyed seeing and stroking a smooth snake. (The staff hold a license to capture and handle these snakes which are a rare and protected species).

We had a great time making our own muffin pizzas, we especially enjoyed eating them afterwards!

It’s starting to feel much warmer now as we approach the end of this half term. We have one week left before a half term break and have been very busy with our secret agent work! 

We’ve created identity badges, taken finger prints, danced, designed secret gadgets and taken part in some maths and reading challenges too! 

In PE we have been practising some athletic races and in music we started learning a new song and had time playing some ukuleles!

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We’re celebrating the Golden Jubilee next Friday 27th May. A home learning challenge and information about a decade dress-up opportunity has been sent home but please see below for more details:

We have been enjoying the return of the sunshine, it is beginning to warm up but don’t forget to send a coat in case of occasional showers!

We have been enjoying reading a book called ‘The Promise’. You might want to read it at home (adults please check the link first) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynMTWupOQJ4. We have been exploring the use of colour the author and illustrator have used in the book and using these to add descriptive similes such as the wind was scratching the buildings like an angry cat… The girl’s heart was as red as a shiny ruby.

In maths, we have been busy continuing our learning about fractions. We have been exploring counting in halves from zero and beginning to find a fraction of an amount similar to the questions below. I wonder where you might see examples of fractions around the home?

Finally, a message from Mr Moore and the School Council

Damers children will be taking part in the Dorset Sunflower Superhighway. The sunflower seeds are from Maiden Castle Farm who put together a Sunflower trail last year.  Sunflowers are a positive, happy plant that strengthens our connection with being outdoors. Sunflowers also save green species which include bees, starlings and hedgehogs. They have also become a support for Ukraine too. 

Each class in the school will grow 15 sunflowers at school to create a Damers Sunflower Trail and each child will plant another sunflower each that they will take home before they break up for May Half Term. Parents will be asked to take photos of their child’s sunflower and send it to the Harmony email address. harmony@damers.dorset.sch.uk

When the sunflower dies we will keep the sunflower seeds so we can do the project again next year, giving out seeds we have to other schools, community groups, businesses to grow our Sunflower Super Highway. 

The planted sunflower seeds will go home before May Half Term. 

It’s the Easter break – where has the time gone?! We will be back on Monday 25th April after what we hope is a happy and healthy break for you all. 

This week we’ve continued thinking about fractions of a shape and adding fractions to make a whole. E.g ¼ + ¾ = 1 whole. Can you think of any other examples? 

We have been enjoying learning about butterfly life cycles in science and literacy too. We’ve read this book and learnt lots of facts about them:

We’ve used this research to start writing our own books about a butterfly’s life cycle.

Our week 01.04.22

It’s hard to believe that we’re in April already! We’ve seen lots of warm weather followed by some more chilly weather which has caused us to see some more wildlife like bees and butterflies during those sunny spells! 

We’ve enjoyed learning about the Bog Baby story and have created suitable habitats for a Bog Baby creature. This week we have been writing some instructions for how to care for them too! We’ve learnt the importance of leaving wildlife in its natural habitat and making sure it has everything it needs to survive. 

We were particularly excited to discover the chrysalis of a Privet Hawk Moth in the school grounds. This moth will have a wingspan of 10cm when it emerges. We have enjoyed researching what butterflies and moths need to survive and plan to grow some flowers suitable for both.

In maths we have been learning about fractions and have started focusing on halves and quarters so far. At home, you might like to practise finding halves and quarters of different objects. You could move on to thirds and fifths too. We have been using shapes to begin with but have started exploring finding fractions of numbers and linking this with division. E.g. Finding half of 12 is like dividing by 2. ¼ of 20 is 20 divided into 4 equal parts. 

In science we have been learning about animals including humans. Here’s a breakdown of our topic: 

Over the Easter break, there is a competition for writing, illustrating or speaking with our Dorchester Area Schools Partnership (DASP). Please see the poster below for more details: 

It has finally begun to feel like Spring with this warmer sunshine! 

We began exploring our new text in Literacy, Bog Baby. We have enjoyed creating some expanded noun phrases to describe What the Bog Baby looks like and to describe his new habitat in the bucket that he was carried back home in. 

In Maths we have been looking at picture graphs and using tally charts to record information we have found out. For example we recorded the different modes of transport we took to get to school in the morning and then used this information to create our own tally chart to find out which mode was the most popular. We have also been exploring picture graphs with different keys, meaning each representation might be worth 2 or 5 instead of 1, which has tried to trick us! 

In science we have begun to look at different life cycles. This week we thought about the life cycle of a duck, how it changes and the stages it goes through. We also learnt a new tricky word.

Finally a message from Miss Baker:

A message has been shared via parentmail, please refer to this if you would like more information.

Next week is the start of Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel event (previously called Big Pedal). The event will run for 2 weeks from Monday 21st March through to Friday 1st April. 

Encourage your child(ren) to walk, use a wheelchair, scoot or cycle to school on as many days as possible during the event. Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel is a great way to build physical activity in children’s daily routine which is important for their physical health and mental wellbeing. Plus there are some great prizes to be won every day if we get enough children taking part!

To help you prepare, Sustrans has developed a handy free guide packed with advice, games and challenges to help you have hassle-free cycle, walk or scoot to school. 

 For more information about the event go to www.bigwalkandwheel.org.uk. Enjoy the challenge!

We have been looking at temperature in maths this week and have enjoyed recording and comparing the temperatures around the school. We have talked about what temperatures could be linked to the words, cold, cool, warm and hot too.

In writing, we have continued looking at poetry. We have enjoyed looking at the language used to describe the wind and the effect that this has. We also enjoyed writing our own poems about winter and writing them up neatly – we are really proud of our poems.

We enjoyed exploring the school grounds and seeing what colours we noticed in preparation for creating our own butterfly which would be suited to live in the school grounds. We also talked about the different cycles that we see in nature such as the water cycle, the butterfly life cycle and the life cycle of a tree. We also enjoyed finding out about the lifecycle of a cardboard box in a story. If you would like to find out more, have a look at this link https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zxfrwmn/articles/zfbnscw