Who has Made A Difference to us?

Our new topic has got off to a great start this week with the children full of questions. The topic is 'I Made A Difference in the Past' and we will be learning which people have made a difference to our lives and how. On Monday Ms Sherlock, Ms Griffiths and Mr Carey dressed up as famous people from the past who have Made A Difference and the children had to ask questions to discover their identities.
They discovered that Ms Sherlock was Jane Goodall who has made a difference to wild animals and encouraged people to look after their environment. Ms Griffiths was J. K. Rowling who has made a difference by making reading exciting for millions of young people, and Mr Carey was one of the Wright Brothers who made a difference by adding a motor to an aeroplane, enabling us all to travel further quickly.

We will now be starting to find out who the Heroines are and why there is a statue of them in Phuket.

Brain Day
On Tuesday we had our Brain Day and learned which foods are 'Brain Foods'. We found out that natural foods are best,  not processed foods and that fish, nuts, avocado's and blueberries are super foods. Ask your child to sing the Brain Food song to you-it's very catchy!

Phonics
This week the children chose which Phonics group they should join. After showing them the different sounds we would be learning in each group they thought about what they needed to learn to develop their reading and writing. We are approaching Phonics teaching in this way to give the children some control over their learning and encourage them to think about their learning and what they need to do to improve. This also means that they are not in an ability group but join a group for specific sounds that they are unsure of. The groups will change each week.   We were thrilled to find that the children approached this very sensibly, choosing appropriately (they joined the groups exactly as we would have placed them!).

Halloween
On Friday it is Halloween. It is also our Golden Time! So we have invited the children to bring in some simple Halloween clothes to wear during Golden Time if they wish to.

Swimming
Please note-there are no swimming lessons for Year 2 this half term. Instead the children have 2 PE lessons each week so please wear PE kits on Mondays and Wednesdays. Children will be doing Fusball and Tennis during these lessons. Please make sure they bring a water bottle and a hat.  Swimming lessons will begin again after Christmas.

Loy Krathong
On Thursday 6th November the school will celebrate Loy Krathong. For this lovely celebration we ask all children to wear traditional Thai clothes. At 10:40am we will be making Krathongs in our classrooms and we invite all parents to come and join in. Following this (around 11:00am) we will walk to the pond in front of the main school building where we will float the Krathongs.

Uniform
Children should wear their school uniform with black shoes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (the days that they don't have PE).  If they need to wear sports clothes for an after school activity they should bring these in their school bag and change before the activity.

Hats

Our school has a rule,  NO HAT = NO PLAY IN THE SUN!
Therefore please make sure that your child has  a hat with their name in it so they will be able to play with their friends outside.

Will you go MAD?

You may have heard that children are going MAD at school. Don't worry-this doesn't mean they are going crazy, it actually means they are doing a good thing - Making A Difference!

MAD means Make A Difference

In Year 2 the children are helping to Make A Difference in our school community. As the children move up through the school they will Make A Difference beyond the school community, with projects across Phuket.

Each week 3 children from each class are randomly chosen to be MAD for the week. They meet up to decide how they can help and follow this up with action. So far the children have read to younger children, taken care of plants in the school environment, recycled rubbish and assisted with Music. There is a noticeboard in the Pod showing which children have gone MAD and what they have been doing so far.

We have intensified the pace of our research into living and non-living things, focussing on the key characteristics shared by all living things. The children have been working hard in their groups to find information. They are becoming aware of the need to find new and even surprising information. It turns out that baby hedgehogs are called hoglets and that horses have amazing memories, even better than elephants it would appear.

We are very pleased with how keen the children are to read at school. Many are using different strategies to help them but most rely on Phonics at this stage-saying the sounds in a word and blending the sounds together. We have noticed that the children are often over-pronouncing sounds which is making it more difficult for them to blend. Children are adding an 'uh' sound to all their letter sounds. The video below explains this and shows the correct pronunciation of English sounds.

If you help your child say the sounds or listen to them please be aware of this.

Thank you to those of you who have kindly offered your spare time to come and read with the students.  The students are really enjoying going out to read with you. 

On Monday there will be a Reading Workshop for parents who want to help children read.

Parent Workshop 'Supporting Reading at School'. All parents who would like to assist with reading in KS1 are welcome to attend. 08:00-09:30. Primary Hall. 

We hope you may consider going along and become interested in Reading with the children at school.