Welcome to Hedgehog class! Our teacher is Mrs Jackson, who lots of us know really well, as she taught us in Nursery. She has been teaching for 14 years, and has worked at Bedwell for the last 4. Her favourite things are Lindt chocolate and reading her Kindle. She doesn’t like running very much, and is scared of spiders!

• All about Year 2 - our class presentation
• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest class newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Poppy and Max 

Home learning ideas:

• We have started using Google Classroom in class, and we should now all be familiar with it as a platform for learning beyond school.
• We are regularly set maths tasks and challenges via Mathletics, and should all know how to log in - let your teacher know if you can't get on.
• Try to spot where we use maths skills in everyday life – whenever something needs sharing between family members (sweets, biscuits, grapes etc), practice sharing them out one at a time, making sure each person has an equal amount - is there a remainder, or does the number share perfectly? 
• Practice counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. When you reach a number (eg. 20) ask how many 2s there are in that number? How many 5s? Encourage your child to use drawings, fingers or number lines to work it out. 
• Constant practice of reading and phonics is just about the most valuable thing you can do at home. Try to read with your child as often as possible and talk to them about what they’ve read. There’s guidance on supporting phonics availabe on the Ruth Miskin site, here.    
  
• In history, we’re learning about explorers, so try finding out about more of these great characters – they might be space explorers like Neil Armstrong, jungle explorers like David Livingstone, globetrotters like Ibn Battuta or British sailors like James Cook. You could watch video clips, read about their adventures or find some of the places that they went to on a map or a globe. There are some resources (aimed at KS2, but they work here) to get you started here on the BBC Bitesize website. 
  
• Understanding the difference between living, dead and never alive is a key part of our next science topic, so go on a search around the garden or park to see what you can find that fits in each group, and talk about how you know which category they go in. There are loads of useful resources to support you on the Oak Academy site, too.

Our latest news:

• In science this term, we have been learning about materials. We have investigated what floats and what sinks (playdoh doesn't float - we were surprised), tested the strength of different materials by building bridges (uncooked spaghetti is surprisingly strong) and this week we explored different ways to change the shape of materials. We tried stretching, squeezing, twisting and bending - and, as you can see here, we tried very hard to find out what you can (and cannot) cut through!  
 

 
• School Council elections - One of our first tasks this term was to elect our new School Councillors. We thought carefully about the skills we thought a good class representative should have, what we liked about our school and how it could be improved further. Building on this, we then drew on all our understanding to write speeches (with a bit of help from our mums and dads), ’selling’ ourselves to the rest of our class and showing why we’d be the perfect Councillor. It was a tough choice, with loads of us making fantastic speeches, but once voting was complete and all the ballots had been counted, we elected Poppy and Max. You can read their speeches here.     
 
• In the Spring, were lucky to be invited to an Athletics competition at Stevenage Leisure Centre with Rising Stars where we had fun with 3 other schools. We were able to compete in different activities such as obstacle courses, long jump, javelin and relay. We had lots of fun the whole morning where our behaviour was impeccable, and we all received a certificate for our hard work.
 

We have been learning about... 

Computing - We have been developing our art skills in computing this term as well as successfully learning how to login independently, save our work and print it. We have enjoyed exploring different artists and using some of their artistic techniques on the computer.

English - Over the past half term we have thoroughly enjoyed learning the story of the Magic Porridge Pot. We couldn’t believe it back in January when we came into class and found a miniature town had been flooded on the carpet in wet, sticky porridge... It was quite a sight! 

History - Following on from our English unit we have been learning all about the Great Fire of London. We think you’ll agree that we have picked up a huge amount of information and really enjoyed retelling what happened and how it started. The houses we made for homework were fantastic and have taken pride of place in our library area and classrooms.

This term's topics

English - We will be learning the story of The Magic Porridge Pot at the start of the term, memorising it by heart to help us to use its structure and language to create our own stories. We will explore the original text, answering comprehension questions, looking at similarities to other stories we already know and discussing the way that the author has made key moments particularly exciting. Throughout our work, we will continue to develop our basic sentence punctuation skills, ensuring that all our sentences make sense and are grammatically accurate.

Maths - We will be focussing on division and multiplication next term, relating this learning to counting in multiples of 2, 5 and 10, as well as exploring the connection between the 10 times table and place value. We will also learn how to solve two-step problems using objects and drawings to explain our thinking. In addition, we will be developing our understanding of place value, and will use this to support the addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers.

Science - We will be continuing to explore living things and their habitats. We will identify differences between things that are living, dead or have never been alive, and learn about the key features that all living things share. We will explore the places where particular animals live, and think about the ways in which these are linked to their characteristics.

Humanities - We will be finding out what ‘explorers’ are and what they do. We will also begin to find out how the way they explore (and the equipment they used) has changed over time. We will look at historical maps and use them to recognise that in the past the entire world was not ‘known’ or mapped. We will think about how these discoveries of new places might have changed the world. Building on this, we will then focus on the lives and achievements of Christopher Columbus.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.