Welcome to Year 2.
Our Teachers are Miss D’Souza, Mrs Moore and Mrs Garcia and our Teaching Assistants are Miss Moss, Mrs Middleton and Mrs Parikh.
Jan 102025
Happy New Year!
We hope you have all had a good break and are happy to be back in the new year’s routine. The children have been brilliant in their first week back and we’ve had a great week.
In English we have started looking at a non-chronological report about a creature called a ‘Tigglewump’. We have considered the features of a non-chronological report (title, introduction, sub headings and pictures) and are learning the text by creating actions. We aren’t sure if the Tigglewump is real as not many have been spotted and there are no photographs of them to be found! Hopefully we will find out more about them next week!
In Maths we have had some fun with information in tables, tally charts and block graphs. Lots of interest and enthusiasm was sparked when we were reading tables containing football statistics! We have created a bar graph of our favourite animals.
In Science we predicted and tested the absorbency of different kitchen towels, ready for this term’s topic on materials.
In RE we had some wonderful discussions about how different religions give thanks to God and we loved hearing children’s own personal experiences and traditions, including a demonstration about the use of a prayer mat.
This term in Art we are looking at how music can inspire people’s artwork. Today we did some close observational drawings (of 3D paper shapes – scrunched, folded, spiralled). As we drew we listened to a slow beat of a metronome to slow us down. It definitely made us feel calm, slow and more thoughtful.
Hope you all have a great weekend.
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Dec 192024
HAPPY CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS!
Wow, what a lovely busy term we have had in Year 2. There are so many fun things to look back at throughout this term from the visit of Animal Man, raising money to support environmental issues to proudly performing in front of families. Everyone has worked so hard and we hope that you all get some rest over this winter break.
To end this term we have completed some practical activities like estimating and measuring capacity, weighing out the ingredients for our cakes and making a cup box from a net.
Obviously, the Panto and Christmas lunch have also been highlights for this week!
It has been a truly wonderful first term in Year 2 and we are really looking forward to seeing how the children continue to flourish next term.
Scarlet class said farewell to Mrs Moore who is off to start a new adventure in Cornwall with her family. She will be really missed by us all.
We would like to say massive thank you for all the generous gifts, cards and kind words and wish you all a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR!
See you in 2025!
Best wishes
The Year 2 team
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Dec 132024
Measuring, meerkats, micro-habitats and merriment!
Christmas has arrived and it is looking particularly festive in the Year 2 classrooms. To continue with the festive theme, we have started to look at Meerkat Christmas. The children will be using the adventures of Sunny to write diary entries. The children’s writing has got better and better as the week has progressed.
In maths, we have continued to explore worded problems that involve adding amounts together and taking away to give change. When solving problems there are a lot of things to get your head around, from understanding what the problem is asking, choosing the correct operation, then deciding on the best method to use before actually solving it. We have also been using scales and rulers to measure weight and length. We had fun comparing weights and lengths of various things in the classroom. We have been very impressed with the children this week. Keep up the good work Year 2.
This week in science, we completed our microhabitats by adding interesting facts around our shoeboxes to teach others. Below are a few of the facts we researched and then wrote in our own words!
We are starting to have fun with Christmas activities and are looking forward to a fun and festive week next week.
Tuesday – Panto
Wednesday – Christmas lunch (children can bring a Christmas jumper and/or headband if they like)
Thursday – Year 2 Concert, at 9a.m (Christmas head gear encouraged!) It would be great if the children could have a little practice of this song at home…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57vrqCENNPc
Have a lovely weekend.
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Dec 062024
Shoe box habitats, suffixes and the Salvation Army
This week in English, we have been exploring root words and the -er, -est suffixes in more detail. We learnt rules that involve listening out for long vowel sounds and short vowel sounds in the root word to help us decide if we need to just add the suffix or change something before adding it i.e. slow (long vowel sound) – slower or big (short vowel sound) – biggest.
In Maths we have been finding missing numbers in a range of contexts, including measures and money. We spent some time looking at coins and thinking about how to make an amount in different ways (e.g. 32p = 3x 10p and 1x 2p or 6x 5p and 2x 1p).
In Science, we used a mix of natural resources and other materials to create a habitat. We thought carefully about what makes our habitat great for specific animals and why they do so well to survive in them.
In RE we thought about how lucky we are and how we should be thankful for what we have. We talked about the Salvation Army and how they help people who are less fortunate than us. We made Christmas cards to go with the toys collected for the Salvation Army, that we are sure will be gratefully received together with the gifts.
On Wednesday, our wonderful junior choir sang at St Peter’s Church. The congregation were delighted with their enthusiastic performance and they brought lots of smiles to people’s faces.
Going back a few weeks to when Scarlet class did their sponsored run, we would like to proudly announce that we raised £158.50 for the Trees for Life charity. This money will go towards planting trees in the Caledonian Forest to help address the climate crisis and provide habitat for native wildlife. This money will fund 26 trees to be planted. Well done Scarlet class! https://treesforlife.org.uk/groves/193000/
We have heard that lots of Christmas trees will be going up in your homes this weekend, so have fun decorating them and getting into the festive spirit. We have started the fun in the classrooms this week!
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Nov 292024
A week of impressive story writing!
This week, in English, we have been changing parts of the familiar story Rapunzel to create our own version i.e. changing Rapunzel into a snake, the tower into a clock tower and the witch into a wizard. We thought carefully about our sentence structures, adding in adjectives to help create noun phrases. We have been very impressed with the children’s writing.
In Maths, we realised that by knowing one addition or subtraction calculation means we actually know three more i.e. 3 + 7 = 10 which means 7 + 3 = 10, 10 – 7 = 3, 10 -3 = 7. We then used this understanding to help us work out missing numbers within calculations and also answer word problems.
We have been exploring microhabitats in more detail during our science lessons. With a partner we used secondary resources to research and then design our own microhabitat, thinking about key features that help different animals survive, as well as which animals would live in our habitat.
NOTE: Please could we have some shoeboxes for our Science lesson next week. The children will be making their habitats that they have designed. We will need about 15 shoeboxes for each class.
In History we have loved finding out all about Mary Seacole and what a selfless person she was. We can’t believe she saved up her own money to travel to Crimea to help care for soldiers.
The end of the week saw us making our lever mechanisms. We used split pins and are so pleased with how they have turned out and how our chosen things move from side to side.
Looking forward to seeing you at the Christmas fair tomorrow, to help get us into the festive mood.
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Nov 252024
Sequencing, snakes and strategies!
Our English lessons have been fun this week as we absorbed ourselves in Bethan Woolvin’s version of Rapunzel. We have designed ‘wanted’ posters to find the evil witch, sequenced the story onto a story mountain, created a visual story map and retold the story by using actions. We feel ready to write our own version of the story next week.
Maths has involved recapping on different strategies we can use to answer a given calculation, and deciding which one works best for us. We have used regrouping, near doubles, using practical equipment and rebalancing.
One of the highlights this week was on Wednesday when ‘Animal Man – Ranger Stu’ came to visit, with lots of animals from his zoo. This fitted in perfectly with our rainforest and habitats topics. Some of us even stroked a snake and held a tarantula!
Have a lovely weekend and keep warm!
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Nov 152024
Rapunzel, regrouping and relaxing in our PJs!
Today has felt like a very cosy type of day and we have all loved wearing our PJs and lounge wear. Thank you for supporting Children in Need.
Fairy Tales is the focus in English for the next three weeks. We have started the unit exploring the original version of Rapunzel as well as reading a slightly different version too! Our descriptive writing has been out in full force and we have been writing some super sentences.
Knowing our multiples of 10 has helped us in our maths this week. We know that any number ending with a zero is a multiple of 10, even 1,000,000! We used this understanding to explore numbers to 100, identifying which multiple is the nearest. Any number with 5 ones means you go on to the next multiple. We have also been regrouping 2-digit numbers to help with our addition.
Using adjectives in Science, we were able to identify and classify features of different habitats and the animals that might live in them. We worked hard to use more scientific adjectives rather than the general ones we know, like damp, moist, dry, humid, dense, vast.
We spent some time acknowledging anti-bullying week and Scarlet Class thought about different acts of kindness that they are going to try and complete throughout the rest of this term. We hope you can spot some of these acts at home and in clubs outside of school too! We also designed superheros with super powers to deal with bullies.
Have a great weekend.
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Nov 082024
Living or dead?
It has been great to see everyone back and eager to learn after the half term break.
In Science, we have started the unit Living Things and their Habitats. This week, we identified a specific criteria that allowed us to scientifically identify if something is living, dead or never alive. We now know that for something to be living it needs to move, eat, grow, use air, excrete waste and reproduce! We had to really think about items that were made out of wood i.e. a bench. Would you say it is dead or never alive? Why?
In Maths, we have been exploring number bonds to ten and then using this information to help us recognise number bonds to 100. For example, if we already know 8 + 2 = 10, then we also know that 80 + 20 = 100. Using a bead string we were able to use three numbers to make 100 i.e. 30 + 50 + 20 = 100. I wonder what we would need to do if we wanted to use this understanding to make 1000!
This week we have finished writing the instructions of ‘How to make a deadly potion’. We have used time connectives such as first, then, after that, eventually and also bossy verbs to tell people exactly what to do. It has been great fun using our imaginations to make our potions as yucky as possible!
Mrs Kohli (Sky class TA) spoke to us about Diwali and how she celebrated it last week. It was lovely to see her own rangoli patterns that she created in her home and how she puts on and wears her sari. Thank you to Mrs Kohli for making what we had already learnt really come to life.
Thank you to those in Scarlet class who have brought in their sponsorship money. Please give your collected money to Mrs Garcia or Mrs Moore. The deadline for handing in the money is next Thursday (14th Nov), so that we can pass on the money to the charity and get some trees planted.
Have a great weekend.
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Oct 252024
Fabulous learners!
Well that’s the first half term of Year 2 complete and what a great half term it has been. The children have been fabulous learners and worked so hard. Thank you for all your support with their learning at home – it makes a big difference.
In English, we have started to explore instruction writing, identifying key features before having a go at planning and writing our own. In this set of instructions there is a Halloween theme, meaning we have been able to be creative with adjectives and nouns when creating our own potion! Fancy some pink, wriggling worms or the eye of a huge, wild tiger?
Sorting and classifying, has been the focus in Science this week. Delving deeper into healthy living, we explored a balanced diet by categorising different foods. We were able to see which foods we should have more off and discussed why we think this is.
In Art this week we celebrated this term’s amazing artwork. We set up an ‘art gallery’ in the classroom and enjoyed looking back on what we have done this term. We spoke about aspects of each other’s work that we enjoyed and remembered different drawing techniques we have used. Here is a very small selection of some of our sketchbook work and art gallery. We feel very proud of our drawings.
Diwali, the festival of light, is next week and we learnt how Hindus (and other religions) celebrate. We were fascinated watching the creation of rangoli patterns, and created our own to brighten up our classroom windows. We love the colours when the light shines through!
Scarlet Class have taken their sponsored run very seriously and are very pleased to be raising money for the Caledonian Forest. They have shown compassion, resilience and enthusiasm. Thank you for your generous donations, which we will be collecting after the holidays.
Over the half term holidays we would like the children to practice their times tables by logging into TTRockstars (login details can be found in the front of their reading record) and also completing a few timetables on google classroom. There are also some spellings to learn and the usual reading.
We hope you all have a wonderful half term break and hope that the sun makes an appearance for us all!
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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Oct 182024
Pirate adventure stories
In English, we have been writing descriptive stories about pirates! Our stories have really come together and we have produced some amazing writing. Have a look in our English books during soft start if you would like to read them.
Ordering and comparing different measures has been our maths focus this week. On Monday we explored length. Using a ruler, we measured different lengths of paper before ordering them. We then created our own mathematical statements.
In R.E this week, we listened to the Hindu story of Rama and Sita. We enjoyed role-playing the story and ordering the events. We have considered why this story is important to Hindu people and how it is linked to the celebration of Diwali.
Art has seen some beautiful giant floor leaf drawings. We worked in pairs to create a composition on the page. We used charcoal for the first time. We listened to music whilst drawing and had a very peaceful, creative time.
Scarlet class have brought home a sponsorship form for you to pass around to family or friends. They want to raise a few pennies for tree planting in the Caledonian Forest as we have been learning about the effects of deforestation. As a class we decided we would like to do a sponsored run. We will do the run next week, before half term. https://treesforlife.org.uk/groves/193000/
Have a great weekend.
Best wishes
The Year 2 Team
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