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.

We are researchers

Firstly the children should be congratulated on making an amazing start to their homework.  We have seen some interesting and creative ways to tackle the tasks.  The children are extremely proud and have been communicating their ideas and have enjoyed sharing their work in front of the class.  We hope that the other children now have some ideas for how they would like to present their ideas. Keep going Year 2!

 Armed with their notebooks the children have started their research into Living Things, working in small teams based on the area they have chosen. Over the next few weeks they will be encouraged to think about how they will find the answers to their questions and record these in notes. Later they will think about how they will show what they have found out.

Mr Carey, Ms Griffiths and Ms Sherlock are researching 'Humans' alongside the children and are trying to find out how humans grow and  how we breathe, amongst other things. The children helped out with some suggestions such as....

'We grow when we hiccup',  ' We grow on our birthday' and ' Children grow taller but adults grow wider!'.

Thanks for these ideas. We are going to find out if these are true. It's Tegan's birthday soon so we will be measuring her before, during and after her birthday. Also watch out anyone with hiccups-we will measure you! We believe the third idea may be true and the teachers may be proof of this!

The children will be researching using books, the internet, observing and asking questions. When using the internet to research we will be finding appropriate websites for the children to use. We do not advise children using search engines on their own as content should be carefully checked. We will be adding appropriate information texts and images to "Edmodo' for children to use.

The children will all be bringing home an edmodo login card. This will be attached to their Reading Diaries. We will be logging in and using edmodo at school to help research and they can also do this at home. As well as research there are games for children to practice skills.

Here is a video showing you how to use edmodo.

http://youtu.be/jCk1bOunPxg

Thank you for all the beautiful flowers given today for 'Wai Kru' day.  We hope the children enjoyed their assembly and well done to those who performed the terrific Thai dance.

On Tuesday 7th October the children will be taking part in the cross country at school. All children will need a colour team shirt for this event- these are available from the school shop. Check your class noticeboard or ask your child which colour team they are in.

The secret of life!

This week the children have been busy considering what all Living Things have in common. They were asked to finish the statement 'All Living Things...".   This prompted lots of discussions, explanations and questions. We finally all agreed on 7 different things that all living things do.

The children have now chosen their area for research and next week will be starting by thinking about what they already know and what they want to find out. Many children seem particularly interested in reproduction!

In Maths  we have started to look closely at number bonds, finding different ways to make a number using addition. We will continue working on this next week using practical equipment to see patterns and recording using the + symbol. Children will be learning and hopefully remembering  the number bonds for all numbers up to ten and then extend this to working with numbers up to 20 and 100 (in multiples of ten).

We have all been reading the story of the Enormous Turnip this week, acting it out, finding adjectives and noticing verbs in sentences. We will be continuing to look at verbs and how they change to form the past tense. Children have started  to write their own stories by introducing and describing their character. Next they will describe the setting in their story.

Illustrating adjectives using playdough.

2JS noticed that there was an unusual visitor in school on Wednesday so we crept off to have a little peak. The children used lots of adjectives to describe him!

Prickles the hedgehog.

The children have thoroughly been enjoying their golden time on Fridays. This time is a reward time for following the Golden Rules. It is always interesting to see what the children choose to do. Model making, using the ipads and creating games with toys brought from home have been popular so far.

Proclaiming their love of school and forming a
Dance Club during Golden Time

Next Friday is the Wai Kru assembly. This is always a lovely day where the children show respect to their teachers.


Well done to the Year 2 stars of this week. 

Are we alive?

This is the question that Year 2 tried to answer this week. It seems a simple question but we had many answers particularly when children tried to explain what makes us living.

The children have now managed to sort objects into sets of Living, Once living and Never Living. We will be making a display outside the Year 2 classrooms for children to add objects or pictures of objects to under these headings.

Making sets of Living and Non-living things

Next week we will be trying to identify the specific characteristics of all living things ready for our research projects.

In Maths this week 'Hundreds, Tens and Units' have been our key words.

'Farmer Duck' by Martin Waddell  has been a hit text this week and has encouraged children to think of 'Amazing Adjectives' to describe the characters and setting. Children have also worked in teams, pretending to be the animals and forming a plan to help the duck.

The children are loving the chance to read independently, to each other in class and with their Year 6 buddies in the library.  This is fantastic to see, please continue to encourage them to enjoy reading.

Next week Activities will begin. Please make sure you have checked which activities your child is signed up for and where the pick-up points are. If you need to make any changes please either contact the activity teacher if it is a paid activity or the Primary Office if it is a school activity.

On Monday we will be sending home the Homework grid for this half term. We are looking forward to seeing the variety of ideas that come from homework tasks.

Classes 2KG and 2CC are still needing  Class Representatives - please let Ms Griffiths or Mr Carey know if you would like to help. We would also love to have any parents come in and help with Reading!

A HUGE Well Done to all our new students that have joined Year 2 this year. They have all settled into their new school lives so quickly and confidently and we love having them in Year 2. They all received a Star of the Week certificate this week for their efforts.

Have a lovely weekend
The Year 2 Team

Have a dream!

This was good advice from Zico today when he visited Year 2 to talk to us about how to be the best- and he should know!

Yes, Zico, (previously a striker for the Thai National Football team and now Head Coach for the under 23 team) and two of his team mates were our surprise visitors today.



Zico told the children that to be the best they should practice every day and never give up, have a dream and set goals to work towards. He also said that it is important not to win all the time but to make mistakes and learn from them. This makes him a better player. He certainly never cries when he loses! Zico also told the children that it is important to keep healthy, eat well and get lots of sleep.

Zico showed us how to Head the ball with strength and power and some of the children had a go.

A big Thank You to Zico for this great advice and good luck in the upcoming game against Quatar.

Parents Meetings

Thanks to all the parents who attended the meetings today. We hope they helped you understand more about the learning in Year 2. Soon we will share more detailed  curriculum information. Below is the link to the article on how to ask your child about school. I wonder if these questions will help the children think and respond more?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-evans/25-ways-to-ask-your-kids-so-how-was-school-today-without-asking-them-so-how-was-school-today_b_5738338.html '

Start of Week 2

Dear Parents,

If you are reading this then congratulations-you have managed to navigate to our blog!

Please don't forget to  sign up with your e-mail address on the right. You will then be asked to type the code shown. After this you will receive an email. Simply click on the link in the email and you will then be signed up to receive alerts each time new information is added. It is important that you do this so that you don't miss any information.

As a team of teachers we are new to blogging! Hopefully you will see our progress as we learn more to make the blog more interesting with a range of content.

Tomorrow is the Year 2 parents meeting. This is at 2:45pm in your child's classroom. We are looking forward to seeing you all there.

We have a surprise for the children tomorrow. We are sure you will hear about it when your child comes home from school. We may even get some photos of what happened on this blog.

Below are the Year 2 teachers email addresses should you need to contact us. Please bear in mind that we don't spend much time checking mail during the day so if it is urgent-give the office a call instead.

Jane Sherlock (2JS) - jsherlock@bisphuket.ac.th
Kat Griffiths (2KG) - kgriffiths@bisphuket.ac.th
Chris Carey (2CC) - ccarey@bisphuket.ac.th


Best wishes
The Year 2 Team

First week back

We have had a great week learning together and having fun. The children worked together enthusiastically and confidently. Well done everyone!

Year 2 team building activities.
As part of our introductory Super Learner theme the children worked in mixed class teams to solve challenges and have fun!