Welcome to Year 2.
Our Teachers are Miss D’Souza, Mrs Carter and Mrs Garcia and our Teaching Assistants are Miss Kotrcova and Mrs Kohli.
Dec 082023
Christmas countdown!
We have been having lots of fun with our ‘Active Advent’. Each day we add on a new active movement (things like: 10 jumping jacks, balance a book on your head, dance like an elf). It has been a great way to work together, have a movement break and get more activity into the day.
It has been all about the festive season in English too. We have read ‘Meerkat Christmas’ and have been writing a diary of Sunny the Meerkat’s adventures, in search of his perfect Christmas. At the moment, Sunny is still seraching for snow, decorations, a big pile of presents, brussel sprouts and Christmas carols. Hopefully he’ll find them next week!
This week in Maths we have been weighing and measuring. It has been a fun, practical week estimating weights and lengths and using the weighing scales and measuring tools. We estimated and measured the length of the corridor with metre sticks and a measuring wheel.
In DT we started making pop up cards, which was really fun.
Please listen to the spotify playlist of songs that the children are enjoying singing in music and will perform to you next tuesday (19th) morning. The playlist link is in this week’s homework folder on Google Classroom.
Looking forward to a fun week next week, with the Christmas lunch on Wednesday and the pantomime on Thursday.
Have a fabulous weekend.
The Year 2 Team
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Dec 012023
It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas …
With non-school uniform today, the Christmas fair tomorrow and temperatures dropping, it is is starting to feel a lot like Christmas!
Year 2 keep on going with their amazing learning though and this week in English we have seen the completion of our instruction writing. A class book of creative potions is in the making!
In Maths we have been working with money again and the week started with role play shops in the classrooms. Children priced up items for less than 30p and had to add up their purchases. Some of us have been trying to work out what change we would receive too!
In RE we are digging deeper into the Christmas story and this week thought about the question ‘Why do you think gold was given to Jesus as a gift?’ Everyone has been very thoughtful with their responses.
It’s all about feelings and emotions in PSHE this term, and we’ve been considering how our bodies feel and show different emotions (e.g. shaking, feel hot, butterflies in our tummy). We used facial expressions to show different feelings. Can you guess what emotion they all are?
Hope to see lots of you having fun at the Christmas fair tomorrow. Ho ho ho!
The Year 2 Team
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Nov 242023
Imaginative potions galore!
We have had so much fun in English this week creating imaginative magic potions. The children have really enjoyed planning what they will add to theirs (including 10 drops of tiger’s blood, a green slimy snake, half a biscuit from the toilet and wriggling orange worms, to name a few!). We are writing instructions for how to make them and will complete the ‘what you need to do’ section next week.
In Maths we have been using money and adding up the cost of two items from a shop, and for even more of a challenge have been using subtraction to work out how much money we will have left after spending some from a given amount.
In DT we followed our designs to make our moving mechanisms. These were very successful and we are proud of how they turned out.
We have been getting into the spirit of Christmas in Music and have been practising our songs for our Christmas concert. We will be putting a spotify link on to Google Classroom soon, so that they can be practised at home too.
Remember to keep reading and logging onto TTRockstars.
Have a lovely weekend.
The Year 2 Team
Nov 172023
No bullies here – thanks to Year 2’s super powers!
Who would think it was so exciting to wear your own clothes to school!! Well it is, and we have had lots of fun today for Children in Need to end a busy week in Year 2.
In English we have written our own version of Rapunzel. Everyone has been very imaginative and we have had all sorts of characters stepping into our stories (bunnies with long ears, knights with shiny armour, turtles with long stretchy arms, evil goblins, you name it!). We have written a beginning, middle and end to our stories and they are very impressive!
In Maths we have continued adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers and have used our strategies to try to answer word problems.
Our History lesson came alive in the classroom this week with various role plays of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole set up around the room. We cleaned the hospital, bandaged wounded soldiers and sailed across the sea from Jamaica to the Crimea in a boat. It was a great afternoon and we talked about the similarities and differences between these two significant figures.
Scarlet class were lucky to have a visit from Forest class who shared their dreidal spinning tops that they had made in RE. It was a lovely opportunity for the Year 5s to explain to the younger children how to play with them.
With it being National Anti-bullying week, we have talked a lot about being kind to each other and how we should talk to an adult if we need to. We created posters and superheroes to combat bullying.
It has been lovely to catch up with you all at parent’s evening this week. We hope you enjoyed looking through your child’s books and seeing how hard they have been working.
Please read with your child at least 3 times a week and have a go at TTRockstars (x2, x5 and x10).
We hope you all have a good weekend.
The Year 2 team.
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Nov 102023
Happy Diwali!
This week Year 2 have had great fun in English with the story Rapunzel. We have drawn a class story map and made up actions to help us with the sequence and descriptions. Next week, we will innovate the story and make it our own.
In Maths we have been trying out a range of strategies for adding two digit numbers together, including exchanging ones for tens when needed (e.g. 36 + 47 = ).
In History we learnt about Florence Nightingale’s life and all her achievements. We noticed there were a few similarities between her and Mary Seacole, and next week we will investigate this further!
We found out all about how how Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs prepare for and celebrate Diwali, in RE. We made some beautiful rangoli patterns and have displayed them on the window. Happy Diwali!
Have you seen Year 2’s displays in the ‘shared area’? One shows last term’s Geography mapwork and the other our Andy Goldsworthy inspired Art.
Remember to read 3x a week and practise your 2x, 5x and 10x tables on TTRockstars.
Have a great weekend.
The Year 2 Team
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Nov 032023
Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair!
Welcome back to school after half term. We hope you all enjoyed the break.
Year 2 have come back with lots of enthusiasm and energy and have had a full week of fun and learning.
In English we have read an alternative version of Rapunzel by Bethan Woolvin. During the week we have made predictions of what we thought the story was going to be about from looking at the mysterious cover and written some great character descriptions of Rapunzel and the witch.
In Maths we have been placing numbers on number lines by working out what the benchmarks are. We have also been using the greater than and less than signs. We have done really well with our Maths this week.
In RE we have found out all about Diwali and the story of Rama and Sita and had a fabulous time making puppets and bringing the story to life in a group puppet show.
We made some super lever mechanisms with cardboard and split pins in Design and Technology. There were some very creative ideas, including: waving hands, moving pumpkins, jumping cats and mini hoovers!! Next week we will create a design for a different one.
Year 2 are enjoying their library time, in our lovely school library. It is a perfect time to spread out, choose a book and enjoy a peaceful read!
Don’t forget your homework on Google Classroom and always remember to read your books 3x a week. Login to TTRockstars too and spend some time practising your timestables (2x, 5x and 10x).Have a lovely weekend.The Year 2 Team-
Oct 202023
Wow! It’s half term already!
Well done to everyone for making it through to half term! It’s a big jump from Year 1 to 2 and everyone has risen to the challenge. We all definitely deserve a week off!
The week has been as busy as ever.
In English, we have written our own stories of Jack and the Beanstalk. We are trying to use adjectives to add interest for the reader and a range of conjunctions to extend our sentences. We are very proud of our stories and our stamina for writing is really improving.
In Maths we have been regrouping ones into tens as a strategy for adding up two digit numbers. We used dienes equipment to help us. We are really starting to get the hang of it.
In Geography we have drawn maps of our local area, looking carefully at the shape of the school building and playground and where Hatfield Road runs in front of the school.
In Art we have finished our beautiful Autumn wreaths. We thought carefully about the Autumn colours and used our cutting skills to cut out leaves, pine cones and flowers to add to them. Aren’t they beautiful?
Homework for half term will be learning spellings and to compete in the TTRockstars Challenge (Yr2 vs Yr3!). Please check out Google Classroom for more details. Keep reading too! 🙂
We really hope you have a peaceful, fun half term break and look forward to seeing you all back on Monday 30th October.
The Year 2 Team
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Oct 132023
Fi fi fo fum…
“… I smell the blood of an Englishman!”
You can guess what story we have been reading in English this week, to link with our Science topic of plants and growing. Yes, Jack and the Beanstalk. We have sequenced pictures of the story, created a story mountain, acted out different scenes and now we are all ready to write our own versions next week, where we will be thinking hard about our sentence structure and use of punctuation.
This week in Maths we have focused on money. We are able to recognise the different coins and understand how to try to use as few coins as possible to make an amount, relating it to regrouping tens and ones.
In our Computing lessons this week we have really enjoyed learning how to edit photos by cropping and changing the colour.
In Geography we all had fun looking at an aerial photo and map of school and the surrounding area. We even located where our classrooms are.
In Art we are continuing our theme of nature and Andy Goldsworthy and started making an autumn wreath. We thought about appropriate autumn colours to use and enjoyed collaging a background.
We can’t believe we only have one week left of the first half term. It’s gone so quickly.
Have a lovely weekend and see you next week.
The Year 2 Team.
Oct 062023
Land Art in the playground!
In Maths this week we have been using a range of strategies to find the difference between two numbers. We have tried solving problems by counting on and subtracting and have used multi-links, bead strings and number lines.
In English we read Jasper’s Beanstalk and have used conjunctions to join two shorter sentences together. We enjoyed playing a conjunctions board game to give us practise extending our sentences, before writing our own. Our writing is really improving.
For Art we were lucky the weather allowed us to create natural land art outside, in the style of Andy Goldsworthy. We worked really well with our partners and enjoyed the process and results (although we were battling with the wind towards the end!).
We were very interested to find out about some Hindu symbols in RE and were particularly fascinated by the lotus flower which grew from muddy waters.
Times Tables Rock Stars: Children should practise their times tables on the Times Tables Rock Stars website. In Year 2, we focus on 2x, 5x and 10x. Certificates are awarded for the highest scorers! Please let us know if you are not able to access Times Tables Rock Stars at home.
It looks like the sun is going to shine for us and we hope you all enjoy the weekend.
The Year 2 Team
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Sep 292023
Buenas tardes!
What another busy week we have had!Tuesday was European Languages Day and started with an assembly where lots of children bravely stood up and proudly spoke a different language to the whole school. We all answered the register in Spanish and enjoyed a special school lunch. Thank you to parents who cam in and spoke about their own language and where they come from.
We all went on a walk to the churchyard to collect natural things to use for our Andy Goldsworthy sculptures that we will create in Art next week. We found twigs, sycamore ‘helicopters’, conkers, acorns, leaves and feathers. Again, thank you to all the parents who came with us 🙂
In English we have retold our class book ‘The Pirates Who Lived Next Door’. We thought about the beginning, middle and end of the story and tried to add interest by using adjectives (and of course remembered our capital letters and full stops!). If you ask your child to explain what a noun, verb and adjective is, hopefully they should be able to tell you.In Maths we have been using the method of ‘Think 10’ to help us with addition and subtraction (e.g. 9 + 4 = 10 + 3). We have used tens frames and cuisinaire rods to help.In Geography we have been introduced to Mary Seacole. We discussed all her achievements in her life and how she ignored prejudice and helped wounded solidiers.Another well-deserved rest this weekend. Enjoy the sunshine.The Year 2 Team-
