We’ve had a great start to the Summer term here in Year 2. Pupils are really enjoying their  learning journeys and are making a lot of progress all round.

English

In English, we have had a big focus on how to form a sentence and improving our handwriting. We have been developing our understanding of different sentence types and we are starting to use them within our writing. It is important for us to remember the different punctuation to use. We have started to learn how to write in some different styles of writing. An activity we really enjoyed was adapting the story ‘George and the dragon’. We wrote our own stories using our own characters and settings. It was great fun sharing these with the class.  We are now learning to write instructions.  We will write our own set of instructions on how to catch a dragon.

Maths

During our Maths lessons we have had lots of fun recapping the four operations and using those skills to solve tricky problems. We have also spent time developing our use of mathematical vocabulary and ensuring that we use this when explaining our reasoning behind our answers. When we looked at fractions we were able to discuss the different fractions and what they mean, then apply this knowledge to find fractions of shapes and amounts. We have started looking at time. We are beginning to develop skills such as remembering the difference between the minute and hour hand, identifying half past, quarter past and quarter to.

Topic

We have absolutely enjoyed learning Ghana in our Geography lessons. We looked at the world map and located where Ghana is. We also identified some physical and human features of Ghana and UK. Our next topic is ‘Seaside in the past’.

We cannot believe that the spring term is over. It has gone so quickly. We have been very proud  of the children and the hard work that have done.

English

The children completed their own guides to looking after a monster. Here are some examples below:

We then moved onto study a poem called ‘Into the blue’ by Hilda Offen. This was about a balloon travelling over the towns and countryside. The children then imagined they were holding a balloon and floating across the sky. We were so impressed with the work they produced that we are creating a display in the corridor for all to see. Here is a sneak peak.

Maths

The children have been looking at measurements. They have enjoyed measuring the hall and comparing the capacity of different containers.

Geography

We have moved on to compare the UK with Ghana. The children first looked at human and physical features of any country before moving onto compare those of the UK and Ghana.

DT

The children got straight to work in our Design and Technology lesson as we taste tested different fruits for our fruit kebabs. We tried to decide which of the fruits we would recommend to our client and why. We practiced cutting the different pieces of fruit to get to grips with different tools. We soon discovered that some techniques just made juice fly everywhere! Then the children designed and made their own fruit kebabs. They were given a selection of fruit to choose from and then threaded them on a skewer. The best part was that they got to eat the kebab. They then had to evaluate their product. When asked what they would do to improve their kebab nearly everyone said they would include more fruit.

Here are some examples.

The year 2 team hope you have a great Easter

See you in the summer term.

We cannot believe that it is march already. The children have been working extremely hard.

English

In English we have started our new topic of explanation text. We have been reading Monsters: An owner’s Guide by by Jonathan Emmett and Mark Oliver. The children had to write a description on one of the monsters and the rest of the class had to guess which monster they were describing.

Maths

The children have been investigating the topic of multiplication and division. They have been using inverse operations to work out missing numbers in a calculation.

Geography

We have started our new topic of Around the World. We started by identifying the 7 continents and the 5 oceans of the world before looking at the locations of the hot and cold areas of the planet.

Art 

ENGLISH: In English, the children have been looking at list poems. They read a poem ‘Things a princess fears’ by Clare Bevan and identified all the adjectives. The children then chose their own character, nouns and adjectives and wrote their own list poem.

We have started our new unit ‘ Overcoming a villain’ story. To hook us into the unit, we designed our own superhero masks and chose our super powers.

MATHS: In Maths, we have been adding and subtracting in tens and ones using a selection of concrete objects. We have also been looking at reasoning questions and using sentence stems to explain or answers.

TOPIC: We had an amazing day going back in time to the year 1666. We became apprentices in different workshops learning to be bakers, weavers, writers and surgeons. we enjoyed the day very much!

SCIENCE: We have started our new topic, ‘Every day Materials’ and wrote questions that we would like to find out about as we investigate different materials and their uses. We will also look at how materials can be grouped using their properties.

Welcome to the first year 2 blog of the school year.

All the children in Poplar, Rowan and Yew have settled into year 2 brilliantly. They have been enthusiastic in lessons and have started well on their learning journey for this year. Here are just a few highlights of what they have been finding out about so far.

English

The children have been looking at the story “Meerkat Mail”.

We have been looking at the author’s use of alliteration, conjunctions to join sentences, adjectives that add impact and how exciting verbs show movement by the characters. They wrote their own page of the story where Sunny visited another place, he did not want to live in. Why not ask your child what habitat they wrote about?

We have just started our next topic of non-chronological reports. The children started by having some information about meercats that they had to sort into sentences.

The children will be working towards writing their own report about an exotic animal.

Maths

We have been looking at place value. The children have been investigating number bonds to 10 and 100, counting in 2s,3s,5s and 10s, looking at how to tell if an amount is greater than, less than or equal to another amount before moving onto ordering numbers in ascending and descending order. Have a look at some of the work they have been doing.

The children have just now started to look at addition and subtraction. They have been looking at related facts, for example:-

9 + 8 = 17          17 – 8 = 9

8 + 9 = 17          17 – 9 = 8

17 = 9 + 8           9 = 17 – 8

17 = 8 + 9           8 = 17 – 9

History

Our topic at the moment is The Great Fire of London.

We have been finding out what caused the fire, why it spread so quickly and how it eventually went out. The children have looked at sources of evidence that tell us about the fire and are excited to continue with the topic after half term when they will be having a visit from the Local Fire Service and creating some art linked to the topic.

RE

In RE we have been looking at special books from a range of religions. The children have been finding out what makes the books special and how they are looked after. They were all keen to share their own special books and the reasons why they were important to them. The children then wrote a set of rules for how their book should be looked after.

These are just a selection of the books the children brought in.

Reading

The children have enjoyed our first shared reading book of the year. They found out lots of interesting facts about space and next week they will be finding out about our Black History Month person, Mae Jemison, who was the inspiration of the child in the book. Why not ask you child who Mae is.

Reminders

Reading is very important. Please spend some time every day listening to your child read and sharing books with them. The children need to have their reading books and records in school every Tuesday and Friday.

The children are able to visit the school library and borrow books from there to take home. Year 2 visit on a Tuesday.

Finally, we cannot believe how quickly this half term has gone and are looking forward to sharing the highlights with you at parents evening next week.

Thank you for all your support and if there are any questions, please ask one of the year 2 team.

Mrs Owen, Miss Gilbert and Mrs Bainbridge

We have had a jubilant start to our final term in Year 2!

English

We have been having lots of writing opportunities. We enjoyed writing our own versions of the stories of Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. We then used our own imaginations to write an adventure story about Ted (the teddy) who got left behind. Ted had an adventure trying to find his way home.

Maths

In maths we have been working on telling the time. We are practising using o’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to the hour. We have been working practically using small clocks to help us. We have also been able to play some challenging games. We are moving on to reading the time to the nearest 5 minutes and looking at the duration of events.

In other subjects…

In topic we have been on a virtual visit to Clacton-on-Sea. We used this information to write a letter to our friend pretending we had been on a day trip to the beach. This is in anticipation of our up coming trip to experience the seaside for real. We hope you are looking forward to it.

In Science we have written an information text about an ocean animal. We included titles and subtitles, facts and technical vocabulary. We have learnt a lot about ocean animals and we enjoyed writing our texts pretending to be a professor!

Coming up before the end of term …

• Solving word problems in maths, putting to use everything we’ve learnt this year to help us solve everyday mathematical challenges.
• Sewing puppets in DT.
• Making clay sea creatures and
• Our trip to the seaside!

It has been a FANTASTIC start to the Summer Term for the children in Year 2. Everyone has been working tremendously hard!

English:

We have began our new topic in English. On Monday, we came to a disheveled classroom and went on a trail to find out who did it. We discovered some clues whilst walking ‘in the woods’. A red cloak, a basket filled with delicious food and some large pawprints with claws were spotted.

Our intrepid investigators quickly worked out our new story was ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

Please find attached our Story Map below:

Watch out for more exciting updates!

Marvelous Maths:

In Maths, children have been recognising 2D shapes. Children will be counting the sides and vertices on 2D shapes.

Super Scientists:

In Science we are learning all about “Ocean Animals” this half term. Children will think about what an ocean is before thinking about which animals live in oceans and which don’t. They will then start to identify a variety of ocean animals. They will also look at different broad groups of animals, such as mammals, fish and birds, and consider why some are suited to living in the ocean and others aren’t.

Topic:

Our new topic for this term is “Seaside Holidays in the Past”. This week children have been identifying the human and physical features of a seaside holiday. We have been using photographs to find clues as to what seaside holidays were like in the past. We will be finding out when and how seaside holidays became popular. We will also be ordering seaside
holidays in chronological order.

We are working tremendously hard preparing the Year 2 children for SATs. These will be taking place week beginning Monday 16th May 2022.

Please find attached a link to the KS1 SATs 2022 Parents Guide in case you missed out on Parents Evening: https://www.theschoolrun.com/system/files/attachments/articles/ks1_sats_2022_guide_for_parents.pdf

For KS1 SATs Past Papers click on the following link to download past papers: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum-assessments-practice-materials#key-stage-1-past-papers

On a final note, for any other questions that you may have please feel free to speak to your child’s class teacher. We thank you for your continued support with your child’s learning.

Many thanks,

The Year 2 Team.