Welcome to Robin Class!

Ms Ailsa Lamble

Year 2 Leader

Robin Class Teacher

Mrs Rachael Edwards

Learning Support Assistant

If you would like to contact your child's class teacher, please feel free to email:

robin@shakespeare-inf.hants.sch.uk

News: Week beginning 22^nd April

Highlights from this week:

• Discussing ‘Earth Day’ in We Care Time.
• An introduction to samba drumming in music. (Office staff have been offered ear protection!)
• Multiplying and dividing in maths.
• Learning our model text – ‘Visit the Waitomo Glow-worm Caves’
• A super successful visit from Kelly Simm who led an energetic, noisy and fun workout for each class.

News: Week beginning 25^th March

Highlights from this week:

• Discussing the Hindu festival of ‘Holi’ in We Care Time.
• Finalising our compositions and performing songs in music (singing).
• Investigating symmetry and finding halves and quarters of shapes.
• Sharing our ‘Defeating the Monster’ with Year R.
• Evaluating our minibeast hotels.
• Considering happy and sad aspects of the Easter story.

News: Week beginning 18^th March

Highlights from this week:

• Another big week for the The Big Walk and Wheel – We are currently one of the best performing schools in Hampshire and 7^th small primary in the whole country for active travel!
• Discussing democracy in We Care Time.
• Composing and performing songs in music (singing).
• Practicing the obstacle course in readiness for sports day.
• Telling the time in maths – aiming for ¼ to and ¼ past knowledge.
• Completing our ‘Defeating the Monster’ tales in writing ready to share with Year R and writing recounts of our minibeast hunt.
• Making and installing our minibeast hotels in the woodland minibeast hotels.

News: Week beginning 11^th March

Highlights from this week:

• A massive response for The Big Walk and Wheel – We are currently one of the best performing schools in Hampshire for active travel!
• Practicing middle distance running in readiness for sports day.
• Telling the time in maths – aiming for ¼ to and ¼ past knowledge.
• Completing our ‘Defeating the Monster’ tales in writing ready to share with Year R.
• Learning and understanding poetry – A Dragonfly by Eleanor Farjeon
• Planning Minibeast hotels ready to make next week.

News: Week beginning 4^th March

It’s been another fun packed week so far and we are managing well with lots of wet plays and wet lunchtime but very thankful for a bit of sunny weather.

Highlights from this week:

• Our very own vet, Annika, came to see us and looked at all of our made up animal ideas for her book. She also admired our clay animal sculptures and even answered a few very interesting and sensible questions from the children.
• Practicing skipping and obstacle courses in readiness for sports day.
• Subtracting across multiples of 10 (bridging).
• Preparing to write ‘defeating the monster tales’ that will be shared with Year R later in the term.
• World Book Day! It was a huge success enjoyed by adults and children alike. Thank you to all those who sewed, glued, painted and ‘Amazoned’! Thanks also to Ms Lamble for all of her enthusiasm and energy in leading it.
• International Women’s Day. A great many of our girls (joined by Mr Byrom and Mr Ortner, our sports coach) took part in a football session as part of the Let Girls Play campaign. To coincide with International Women’s Day, a record-breaking 465,000 girls from 5000 schools across England took part in the FA’s third Biggest Ever Football Session!

News: Week beginning 26^th February

The Minibeast Quest project is in full swing at Shakespeare Infant School!

Highlights from this week:

• Creating our own compositions in music.
• The start of our athletics, and send and receive units in PE.
• Trying different strategies to bridge 10 and adding 10s to two digit numbers.
• Learning our model text for use in writing a ‘defeating the monster tale’ for Year R
• Welcoming parents in to classes on Monday for Shakespeare Loves Reading.
• Writing a design criteria for a bug hotel in DT.
• Girls’ football goes from strength to strength on Thursday Lunchtime.

News: Week beginning 5^th February

This week the children are really shining across all subjects. They are bringing together so much great learning as we come to the end of our Sprit of the Wild project.

Highlights from this week:

• Ascending and descending singing pitch in music.
• Improving throwing techniques on Wednesday and performing gymnastics routines on Thursday.
• Adding 10s and 1s to 2 digit numbers in maths.
• Completing our information texts in writing ready for Annika the vet to read over half term.
• Celebrating a huge proportion of our children’s progress in reading, some moving to new reading groups. Keep up the good work at home!

News: Week beginning 29th January

This week alongside our project learning, we have been assessing the children’s progress in maths, writing and reading. It’s such a valuable time for us to see how they are doing and plan the next steps in their learning.

Highlights from this week:

• All children motivated and proud to show off their current attainment.
• Improving jumping techniques on Wednesday and continuing with gymnastics on Thursday.
• Interpreting statistics in maths.
• Creating amazing clay animal sculptures techniques in art.
• Making links and spotting similarities and differences between our focus text, ‘Mr. Tiger’ and ‘Wild’ by Emily Hughes.

News: Week beginning 22nd January

We are now in the middle of our Spirit of the Wild project and the children’s enthusiasm is growing daily.

Highlights from this week:

• In PE we continue our athletics unit of work concentrating on standing long jump technique on Wednesday and continuing with gymnastics on Thursday.
• Interpreting statistics in maths.
• Practicing clay sculpture techniques in art – carving and adding detail with tools.
• Answering inference and retrieval type questions about our reading comprehension text, Mr. Tiger.
• Starting to write our made up pets information texts.
• Launching the RSPB Garden Bird Watch.

Please find time to join in with the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend, the children have been so interested in our assembly and We Care Time activities. Find out more here - https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/big-garden-birdwatch/submission

News: Week beginning 15^th January

We are already halfway through this half term and it’s been another busy week!

• In PE we have started an athletics unit of work concentrating on speed control and running form and continuing with gymnastics.
• Improving addition and subtraction in maths.
• Practicing clay sculpture techniques in art.
• Exploring adventurous vocabulary through our reading comprehension text, Mr. Tiger.
• Creating and describing our made up pets in writing.
• Discussing the life of Dr Martin Luther King in We Care time.

Please have a look at our home learning task for this term if you’ve not done so already. https://www.shakespeareinfantschool.co.uk/year-2-home-learning-2/

News: Week beginning 8^th January

On Monday in our first full week of the term, the children thoroughly enjoyed meeting an amazing array of wild animals when Ben from Spirit of the Wild visited us. Some couldn’t wait to handle and get an up close view of all the animals and some faced their fears with the less cuddly and cute visitors. We all left the experience feeling inspired to continue our writing, science and art focussed project.

In addition to this, the excitement continued with:

• Counting in 3s in maths.
• Appreciating the work of our focus artist, Simone Leigh.
• Making predictions about our reading comprehension text, Mr. Tiger.
• Thinking about animal classification in science
• Considering the rule of Law in We Care time.

Please have a look at our home learning task for this term if you’ve not done so already. https://www.shakespeareinfantschool.co.uk/year-2-home-learning-2/

News: Week beginning 1^st January

The children have returned from the Christmas holiday well rested and eager to learn. Alongside our usual timetable of subjects, they completed an RE unit of work examining the concept of belonging within the context of the Sikh faith.

The children began by thinking about the concept of ‘Belonging’ and how it relates to them and then they discovered the different ways in which Sikhs can show they belong, including by wearing ‘The 5 Ks’ and celebrating Vaisakhi.

By the end of the week they were able to:

•          Explain in the meaning of belonging.

•          Describe their response to belonging experiences.

•          Identify examples of how their responses to belonging relate to their own and others’ lives.

•          Discuss how we know when we are part of a group and does the group of people that are in that group effect our feelings/behaviours?

•          Discuss if they belong to more than one group and how that makes them feel.

•          Describe ways in which Sikhs have a sense of belonging especially in relation to wearing the 5 K’s and during Vaisakhi.

•          Describe in simple terms the value of belonging to our own lives and to the lives of Sikhs.

News: Week beginning 11th December

In their final week of 2023, the Year 2 children have ‘shone’ throughout their Candlelight mini project. They have…

• Practised counting in 5s in maths.
• Thought about the symbolism of candles in RE.
• Enjoyed a morning of Christmas fun in class.
• Watched the beautiful Year R Nativity performance.
• All pitched in on a whole school clean up.
• Practised Christmas gymnastics with our sports coaches.

We wish you a wonderful holiday and look forward to seeing you all in January!

News: Week beginning 4th December

 During the last week of our ‘Iceberg Ahead’ project:

• We have finished our information texts and answered the key question, ‘Why are ships safer now?’.

• We have made the finishing touches to our very atmospheric seascapes in the style of Turner.

(Look out for both of these super bits of work in our museum next week!)

• We have been continuing our work on handwriting consistency in our daily practise sessions.

• We practiced throwing and rolling balls to a target in PE.

• We performed a number of songs to proud parents and carers in our Christmas ukulele concert.

• We had a visit from an NHS hero who showed us how to keep bugs at bay by practising proper handwashing and a visit from a very special man in red!

• We continued our introduction to multiplication by adding groups of 2.

Iceberg Ahead Home Learning

Look at these AMAZING videos Rose and Lottie made to share their home learning. The Robins loved watching these. Well done Rose and Lottie! 

News Week Beginning November 27th

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Year 2 as we finished the week with our Christmas craft/Christmas jumper day! The children were super excited, they all looked great and they took great care to produce some Christmas themed collages. We ended the day with a year group assembly reading and discussing the poem, ‘The Night Before Christmas’.

But before that...

• In maths, we practiced counting in multiples of 10 and writing multiplication sentences.
• In English, we’ve started our Titanic information texts
• In music, we polished up our ukulele skills in readiness to welcoming you to the Christmas performance next week.
• Our PE coach, Mr Drewitt led us in a throwing and catching lesson followed by some very competitive bowling.

On Friday 24th November, Robin class had a BRILLIANT time visiting Eastleigh Library. We met the librarians, did a scavenger hunt for different types of books and read stories! We'd love our grown-ups to take us to one of the amazing free activities the library offers, or to borrow books to read at home. Did you know that we can borrow up to 20 at one time! For free! Thanks so much Eastleigh Library, we love you <3

News: Week Beginning 20th November

On Monday 21st November, Year 2 had an AMAZING time at SeaCity Museum! We explored the Titanic exhibition and did a workshop with Andy. We learnt so much - ask us what we know about the Titanic disaster! Thanks to SeaCity Museum for hosting us and giving us such a deep learning experience, and thanks to our grown-ups at home for funding it. :-)

There has been lots going on in addition to that:

• Money with addition in maths.
• Writing our recount of the SeaCity trip.
• The start of the PE ‘Run, Jump, Throw’ unit.
• Non-fiction book features.
• Ukulele practice (with some Christmas songs!)

On Monday 21st November, Robin class had an AMAZING time at SeaCity Museum! We explored the Titanic exhibition and did a workshop with Andy. We learnt so much - ask us what we know about the Titanic disaster! Thanks to SeaCity Museum for hosting us and giving us such a deep learning experience, and thanks to our grown-ups at home for funding it. :-)

News: Week beginning 13^th November

This week, The Otter Class had their chance to visit Eastleigh library. They listened to three super stories read by Sara the librarian and they also completed a fun library scavenger hunt. On our walk back to school the children enthused about how they would like to visit the library and read even more great books. We we're helped by two volunteers and we were so proud to walk through Eastleigh with our polite, well behaved children. Robin Class will have their chance to visit the library next week.

This week, we have also been learning about:

• Money with addition.
• A model information text in readiness for our Titanic writing.
• Attacking and defending games
• Joseph Turner watercolour and oil paintings
• Glossaries in non-fiction texts
• More ukulele practise!

News: Week Beginning 6th November 2023

This week Year 2 started their ‘Iceberg Ahead!’ Titanic project with great enthusiasm from all. They have learnt about cause and consequence and answered the question ‘Are ships safer now because of the Titanic disaster?’.

The highlight for many this week has been our skipping workshop, which was run by the fantastic skipping coach, Mary. All classes took part enthusiastically and the event was finished off with a super skipping display that involved some specially selected children performing for the whole school!

Other highlights this week:

• Non-fiction reading comprehension focus: Titanic – Disaster at Sea
• Maths measurement – money
• Ukelele practise for Christmas concert
• Digital artwork
• Rememebrance asemly
• Relationshhip and health education – teamwork
• PE – dance and attack/defend games

Storm Ciaran Home Learning - 2.11.23

Dear Robins, 

We’re sad not to see you in school today but we hope that you make the most of your days at home with your family.. 

Of course continue to read with your family members and, as you’ve had your book for a few weeks now, why not ask your adult to have a look at the comprehension questions in the back? If you’re looking for something different, remember that you have your library book. Perhaps you could read to a family pet or even your cuddly toys!

It looks like it’s going to get a bit windy this afternoon so take a look out of your window. You might be inspired to get creative like Chrissy and write a poem, a description or create some artwork about stormy weather.

Finally, as we’ve been showing off our 2 digit addition and subtraction knowledge this week, you could set some questions for one of your family members. Remember to teach them your efficient methods first - a number line or a drawing. Is there anything at home you could use instead of Deines?

As always, if you’d like to share any home learning, you can send photos in to our class email address - robin@shakespeare-inf.hants.sch.uk

News: Week beginning 16th October

What an end to a great half term! The children have really ‘stepped up’ to Year 2 in the last few weeks and shone!

This week they have:

• Completed our RE focus of ‘Special Books’ within the context of the Sikh sacred text - The Guru Granth Sahib.
• Continued to build fluency in addition and subtraction using 2 digit numbers.
• Cleaned up the school grounds.
• Said a heartfelt goodbye to two, long serving and much loved Shakespeare teachers.

The Year 2 team at Shakespeare Infant School would like to say a big well done to all the children for their hard work this half term! Also, another big thank you to all the adults who came to the Year 2 story share last week, we really appreciate it! 

From all of us here at Year 2, we wish you all a lovely half term!

News: Week beginning 9th October

1. The children used their creative skills and geographic knowledge to plot their journey tail maps complete with key, compass rose and a route for our main character Mimi.

2. They have completed their journey tales based on our model text, Little Red Riding hood.

3. They will (on Friday the 13^th) complete their moving book covers and assemble their books ready to share with their adults. Don’t forget, classes will be open from 3:15 on Friday 13^th of October for parent drop ins. If you can’t make this please reassure your child that you be able to see their hard work another time. 

4. They are coming to the end of their attack and defend unit of work in PE. All have made good progress across a range of invasion game skills.

5. They also continue to practise ukulele with Hampshire Music Service. These sessions are so fun, it is amazing what they can achieve together in such a short time!

NEWS: Week Beginning 2nd October

This week the children in Year2 have been:

• Writing the opening and build-up of their journey tales.
• Adding 10 to two digit numbers.
• Practising cooperation and communication in PE.
• Immersing themselves in poetry with the theme ‘refuge’. This was as part of National Poetry day.
• Exploring map features and compass directions.

NEWS: Week Beginning 18th September

This week, year 2 were able to visit the school library and change their sharing books. They really enjoyed choosing interesting books to share with you! We will be visiting the school library every Thursday from now on.

This week, we have also been:

• Making bonds  (numbers that make 5 and 10).
• Constructing pivots and levers.
• Playing ukuleles.
• Attacking and defending in football.

We are also AMAZING at retelling our journey tale - ask us to perform it for you!

NEWS: Week Beginning 11th September.

Year 2 had a fantastic start to our 'Storytellers' project as we were visited by author and illustrator Simon Chadwick.

Simon gave a fascinating presentation about his life as an author and illustrator and did a live drawing of a character using suggestions from the children.

This week, the children have explored stories old and new based on Little Red Riding Hood. They will be writing thier own versions in the coming weeks using the character co-created with Simon during his visit.

NEWS: Week beginning 4th September 2023

Year 2 have had a fantastic start to their year (despite the overwhelming heat)!

We have welcomed each other beautifully, getting to know our new classmates and school adults. In RHE, we have discussed how we want our classes to be and thought carefully about our Golden Rules.

In art, we have been developing portrait drawing skills, using chalk pastels to blend and improve composition and proportion.

We have also been working on our presentation skills in maths, making the transition to squared paper in our books.