Login

Elder Class

Elder Class

 

 

Welcome to Elder class!

 

My name is Mrs Phillips-Buzwell and I teach in Elder class and we are supported by Miss Mumford every morning. Mrs Vander covers me on Tuesdays.

A little bit about me:

I believe in lifelong learning having lived, studied and worked in three different countries across three different continents. Over the years, I have been exploring how drama can help inspire children to write. I also adore sharing stories and poems with children to encourage the love of reading too. I enjoy teaching all subjects especially Maths and Art. When I am not in school, I love swimming, making seasonal wreaths and exploring the great outdoors with my family. I have two primary aged children, aged 7 and 10.

Autumn Term

ENGLISH

In the Autumn term we will be focusing on these Power of Reading books -'The Emperor's Egg' by Martin Jenkins and in the second half term ‘Bear and Rabbit: Rabbit’s Bad Habits’ by Julian Gough and Jim Field. During the term, we will be enjoying reading and writing information facts about penguins and Antarctica, researching and writing facts about rabbits, writing stories and diary entries inspired by our Power of Reading books, and listening to and creating our own poetry.

 

MATHS

Our maths learning will include ordering and sequencing numbers to 100 and beyond, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We will be using place value and number facts to solve problems. We will also be counting in steps of 2, 3 and 5 from 0, and in tens from any number, forward and backward. We will use addition and subtraction facts to 10 and 20 fluently, and derive and use related facts up to 100.

Remember to keep practising your number bonds to 10/20 and 100 and times tables as we work our way through the Times Table Rockstars scheme, starting with 2s, 5s, 10s- and 3-times tables.

 

SCIENCE

In science, we will be learning about ‘Animals and Their Habitats’. We will learn which animals live in each different habitat in our school grounds and how they are adapted to surviving there. We will begin to understand simple food chains and how animals affect each other.

Learning will take place outside as often as possible and children need to be dressed for the weather. Please ensure the children have a shower proof coat and wellies at school as we go out even when it’s raining!

 

READING

It is important for children to read and talk about books every day.  As they become more confident at decoding words, please encourage them to look out for punctuation and begin to read with expression.  In Year 2 we start to focus more on children understanding what they have read and to make plausible predictions about what might happen, based on what they have already read.  We will be sending home a bookmark with question starters to help give you ideas about the kind of questions you can ask your child, to help them to develop their understanding.

Resources to support your child

 

Here are some resources to help you to support your child at home:

 

- ideas for games to play with your child to develop their maths

- the calculation policy which shows you the different calculation approaches taught at each stage in school.

 

Your child also has a login to MyMaths (where there are lots of different activities to practise the topics we teach in class) and Times Tables Rock Stars (where your child can practise their times tables).

 

- Links for Read Write Inc videos on the Ruth Miskin portal so your child can watch video lessons of the sounds they have learnt or are learning at school

 

- You can also find games online for your child to play, to support them with their phonics and decoding.  These two websites  - Phonics Bloom and Phonics Play - have a number of free games your child can play to help them practise reading words with the 'Special friends' they have learnt.  Click on these two links to access them -  Phonics Bloom website and Phonics Play website

 

- If you're looking for suggestions for books your child might enjoy reading (once they're fluent readers) or for you to share with your child, there are two links for websites that have a recommended reading list for six and seven year olds.  Click on the links and they will take you to a list of book titles.

Please see Hawthorn's class page for helpful links for maths, reading and phonics videos.