Welcome to Elder class!
My name is Mrs Lopez and I teach in Elder class and we are supported by Mrs Van Wyk de Vries every morning. I will be covered by Mrs Saker on a Wednesday morning when I have my planning time. We will be doing outdoor PE on a Thursday afternoon and Indoor PE on a Friday morning. Elder's Library time slot is on a Friday afternoon.
A little bit about me:
I have taught at Holy Trinity for the past 10 years and I have been in Reception, Year 1 and Year 3. I am very pleased to be working in Year 2 this year.
I have two daughters who are 14 and 16 (where does the time go!).
I love spending time with my family and our pet dog Basil.
My favourite subjects are History, Art and PE. I really enjoy making pottery in my spare time and I have a pottery wheel that I use regularly. We play tennis a lot as a family and I like to play netball. One of my other interests is Interior Design and I am currently doing an online course.
I am really looking forward to getting to know the children in September and I am looking forward to teaching in Year 2!
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.
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.
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!
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.