Welcome to Year 2!

31st January 2025

Busy, Busy!

We have had a busy two weeks which began with a visit from the Life Space. We enjoyed meeting Katy, Nancy and Harold and learning about our feelings. We also spent time thinking about our bodies and how we can keep our bodies healthy. The children were very knowledgeable and enjoyed sharing their ideas.

We also had a visit from Alan from ECP Safeguarding, who came to talk to us about keeping safe online. We learnt that we must never become friends with people we don’t know and also the importance of keeping our personal information safe. Please speak to the school if you need any support at home with keeping your child safe online or visit the website www.kidsonlineworld.com which has lots of useful information.

In computing, we have been using a program to create our own music. The children absolutely loved sharing their melodies with each other, as well as with their teachers. Thankfully the headphones that they brought in meant we could listen to them one at a time and not all at once!!

This week, we have also been continuing with our learning about the Great Fire of London. We have looked at the reasons why the fire spread so quickly and have looked at a map of the city of London to see how much of the city was burnt. The children have also enjoyed making their Tudor houses, which they can’t wait to show you!

We are looking forward to welcoming you into class next Thursday and sharing our work with you so we hope to see you then.

17th January 2025

Year 2 Having a Great Time!

Welcome 2025 and a Happy New Year to all our families!

The new year has sparked lots of conversation about time and how we measure it. We linked this to our maths learning and have been talking about the different units of time. The children impressed us with their knowledge of time measurements, including decades, centuries and millennia. We have also been learning to tell the time on an analogue clock and have been practising with our clocks to tell the time to o’clock, half past and quarter to/quarter past. Please keep working on this at home as there is never enough time to do it at school (excuse the pun!)

This term’s topic sees us going back in time as we begin to study the events of The Great Fire of London. The children are already immersed in their learning, even choosing to create related work during their free time. Many are particularly enjoying the role play corner, pretending to be bakers and using playdough to create bread rolls.

Last week, we learned about Samuel Pepys and his diary, and how important it was in helping us to know what happened in 1666. We also created pictures of the scene using paint and collage to imitate London’s skyline.

In science, we have started our Materials unit. We began by identifying different materials around the school, and their uses, and then thought about their different properties. This week we are going to begin to use our new scientific vocabulary to describe why certain materials are more suitable than others for particular uses.

20th December 2024

Little Angel Gets Her Wings!

We hope you enjoyed watching the children perform in our Christmas show last week. We were very proud of how they worked hard to bring it all together, learning their lines and the words for the songs. They were such excellent performances – well done to you all!

In English, we have started our new book, The Emperor’s Egg. From this book, we collected a variety of exciting facts about penguins and sorted them into different groups - diet, habitat, life cycle, and physical appearance. However, we did not quite have enough information! The children became researchers and worked together to find out as much as they could. Once they had all their information, they wrote out their non-fiction text using a heading and sub-headings.

We have also enjoyed drawing penguins and the children particularly liked drawing a mixture of different penguins. They thoroughly enjoyed sketching, drawing, and colouring them in. They were brilliant!

We took an exciting visit to Antarctica but before we went, we had to make sure we packed a suitable bag! For the expedition, the children came up with a variety of items perfect for our trip – clothes, a map, a compass, a torch, a teddy, gloves, and of course woolly socks! The children were fascinated to hear of explorers who spent years trying to reach the South Pole!

During our geography lessons, we have explored the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic with a focus on animals, and humans, as well as where they are located on the globe. From this, the children explored the two polar habitats. They identified which animal lives where and how they have adapted to suit the cold and icy conditions.

We want to wish you all a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope you all have a lovely break and we look forward to seeing you in January.

6th December 2024

Carriages Fit for Royalty

Although we have been very busy rehearsing for our Christmas performance, we have also managed to squeeze in all of the other curriculum areas! We will definitely need a well-deserved rest very soon!

Our history topic on the monarchy is now drawing to a close. We have especially enjoyed our DT project on axles and although they have been quite a challenge, we have finally finished our royal carriages. We have also been comparing the lives of two very important queens, Victoria and Elizabeth II—two women who have both certainly made their mark in history.

We have also finished our work on the book, The Pet Potato, in English. The children loved making their own pet potatoes and wrote brilliant stories about them. We are now moving onto our new topic, Pole to Pole, where we will begin to develop our non-fiction writing.

In maths, we have been continuing with arithmetic and have been focusing on subtraction. In Year 2, the children begin to move away from relying on concrete resources and start to develop strategies using pictorial representations. It has been a little tricky but we are definitely starting to build our confidence!

Finally, as already mentioned, we have been gearing up for our performance next week of Little Angel Gets Her Wings. The children have worked so hard to learn their lines and also learn all of the songs. It really will be a spectacular show and we can’t wait to show you! We hope to see you there!

15th November 2024

Bonjour!

We started the half term with our new history topic, Monarchy. We have been finding out about the role of a monarch, thinking about what makes a good monarch, and deciding what we would do if we were king or queen. We certainly enjoyed wearing our crowns for the day and having lots of kings and queens in the classroom. Over the next couple of weeks, we will move on to designing and making royal carriages for our DT topic on Wheels and Axles.

The children had a lovely day on Wednesday last week discovering their own interests and hobbies as well as their friends around them. There was a buzz in the air whilst the children emptied their All About Me bags and shared many fun and interesting facts about themselves. It was lovely to see such a variety of items brought in and we got the chance to find out more about the children. From this, the children used their bag of things to write a detailed narrative all about them. They were brilliant!

We ended the week with such excitement – French Day. We were blown away by the number of entries for the Eiffel Tower competition! They are all incredible and so unique! We started the day with a tasting of some French food – un croissant and l’confiture –  and we taught the children how to ask for the food and how to say thank you in French. We then completed some artwork inspired by artists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. During golden time, some of the children created their own French flags and artwork.

25th October 2024

Busy, Busy, Busy!

After travelling from England to Wales and then from Scotland to Northern Ireland, we have finally finished our tour of the UK. During our tours of these counties and their capital cities we have sampled some traditional foods and have learnt about each country’s traditional dress and compared their national flowers, animals and flags.

Maths over the last few weeks has seen us build on our knowledge of number bonds to 10 and start to apply our knowledge to learn our number bonds to 20. We then began to think about fact families and how knowing one fact can help us with others, such as 2+8=10 and 10-8=2.

In computing, we have been looking at creating pictures and have learned about different painting styles such as impressionism, pointillism and also abstract art. We have looked at the work of the artists Monet, Seurat, Mondrian and William Morris and have tried hard to create our own pictures using drawing tools on the computer which have allowed us to imitate each artist’s style. The children have really enjoyed this series of lessons.

We enjoyed our first visit out when we visited All Saints Church for Harvest Festival. The children tried their best to join in with the songs and our Year 2 readers, Harry and Juno, deserve an extra special mention for their superb performance at the front of the entire congregation. What stars!

We have had a wonderful but tiring first half term. The children have settled in well to the new routines of Year 2 and are starting to grow in independence. We would like to wish you all a fantastic half term break and look forward to seeing back for another busy and hopefully merry half term!

11th October 2024

Abracadabra! 

What an exciting week we have had in Year 2! 

The children entered their spooky classrooms to find things covered in cobwebs and spiders and there were two witches - Witch Fuat and Witch Roach. We had a magical morning creating potions and spells and watching them bubble and boil in their cauldrons while wearing our witches' hats. We had the wing of a Pegasus, a snake skin, the slime of a toad, a wolf's fang, and many other gruesome ingredients. From this, the children worked collaboratively to draft their poems before writing them up, which they will put into a book of spells next week. 

In geography, we have started our UK tour. We have looked at the four countries of the UK and their capital cities. We began in England, where the children learnt about the rose being the national flower, the capital city, and some famous landmarks—while eating a crumpet, with butter! Next week, we will be heading to Wales! 

Following this, we have been looking at a sculptor - Antony Gormley, who is most famous for his creation, 'The Angel of the North'. In our art lessons, the children have been working on their drawing skills and practised drawing some of his work. Antony has a particular focus on the human body and the children worked together to draw their bodies in different positions all inspired by him. They were brilliant! 

In maths, we have been working on place value within 100. The children have been estimating numbers on a number line and comparing objects using symbols <, >, and =. Next week, we will recap counting in 2s, 5s, and 10s before moving on to addition and subtraction. 

20 September 2024

All Aboard the Year 2 Train!

What a great start to Year 2 we have had! The children have settled so well into class and have already begun to develop their independence by taking on new responsibilities. We have been having fun doing team building activities such as constructing towers and bridges with straws and have also enjoyed making friendship boats.

This week we were excited to board the ‘Year 2 Express’ train to London, which was a great start to our new topic – The UK. We will be taking a tour of the four countries of the United Kingdom and locating them along with their capital cities on a map. We will also be learning about their similarities and differences between each country, including traditional food, dance, legends and landmarks.

Our focus book in English is a new take on the traditional tale, Rapunzel. We have already began our work by completing character studies of Rapunzel and the Witch. This is not only a good starting point for our writing but will help us with writing in role later in the sequence.

In maths we have been revising our numbers to 100 and the children have been challenged to think about how they can partition numbers into tens and ones.

In science our topic this half term is Animals Including Humans and we have been looking at how all animals have the same basic needs of air, food, water and shelter. We then thought more closely about how these differ depending on whether the animal is a carnivore or herbivore and whether the animal is wild or a pet.