A very warm welcome to our Year 2 class page. In Year 2, our children are really starting to fly! Building on previous years they will become confident readers, writers and mathematicians. As school life falls into place, they find themselves our oldest infants and begin to develop a real sense of responsibility. I hope that you find all the information useful and if you have any questions I am available after school for a quick chat or you can message me on Seesaw. As you can understand I need to be in class with the children in the mornings, but if you need to speak to me, an appointment can always be made.

Our Year 2 Class

Our Year 2 Class 2023-2024

Class Information

Who's Who

Miss Barton- Year 2 teacher

Mrs Jones- Higher Level Teaching Assistant

Mrs Jackson -  Part-Time Teaching Assistant

Miss Winstanley – 1:1 Teaching Assistant 

In Year 2 PE is on Tuesday and Wednesday, please make sure you send your child in the correct PE kit. 

Reading

The guided reading schemes we use in Year 2 are:

• Read, Write Inc
• Oxford Reading Tree  

Home Reading books

Whilst your child will read regularly in school you can make a big difference by listening to your child read and asking them questions about what they have read for just ten minutes each night. Your child will earn a Reading Ruby each time they read, once they have earned 15 they will receive a token for the reading shop. 

Please note: Your child will only change their books on a Thursday when they will bring a book home to read the following week. This is to allow your child to become a fluent reader and have time to spend discussing the text. 

Phonics

In Year 2 we follow Read, Write Inc

Each day we undertake a RWI lesson. During this time we review the set 2 and 3 sounds and will learn a new sound each day. After the Speed Sounds lesson we look at a key text for the following three days. RWI is really helpful for embedding spellings and during each lesson we come across new 'Red Words' which, we learn how to spell and are encouraged to use in our independent writing. We really enjoy our RWI time (particularly the partner work, actions and rhymes!)

Homework

Homework is sent home on Thursdays and needs to be completed by the following Thursday.

• Spellings will be sent home on paper and will be added to Spelling Shed, a minimum of 5 games need to be played each week.
• A spelling rule video will be uploaded to seesaw with that weeks rule to help with practising at home.
• Handwriting will be sent home in a small yellow book, each week your child will have different letters and words that need to be practised and written out.
• RWI Speedy Sounds videos will be added weekly to watch at home with your child, these will be the same as the Speed Sounds learnt in class that week.
• A maths number bonds sheet will be sent home weekly to work on mastering basic number facts. Maths practise can be completed on Numbots.

Evidence for all homework needs to be added to Seesaw by Thursday each week so that dojos can be awarded to your child.

This half term.... Autumn 2  (October - December 2023)

Over the next half term our topics will be:

• English - To kick start the new term we will be focusing on the Jane Considine non-chronological report unit and the children will write their own report on animals that are nocturnal and animals that hibernate. This links to our Science topic Habitats, as we will look at the habitats of animals that hibernate. We will then read the book Wild by Emily Hughes about a young girl who is left in the woods and is looked after by the wild animals. The children will then write a retell of this story using adjectives and conjunctions.

• Mathematics – In Maths we are continuing with addition and subtraction and moving onto the second power maths unit for this area. The children will progress to addition and subtraction that involves two 2-digit numbers using a number line to find the answer. We will then move onto the properties of shapes and the children will understand what a vertices, side, edge and face are.

• Science – This term in science we are looking at local habitats and the children will be able to understand how animals live in habitats that are suited to their needs. We will be looking at woodlands, ponds, and underground habitats. The children are always very excited about this topic as it involves animals and a trip to Pennington flash to go on a mini-beast hunt.

• RE – The children will be focusing on the Christian event of Christmas and why it is an important event in the Christian calendar. In this unit children will understand the key events leading up to the birth of Jesus and how the good news was shared. The children will be rehearsing for the end of Key Stage one Nativity which will be performed in our very own church, Christ Church Pennington.

• History – Our exciting history topic for this term is the Swinging 60’s. The children will be placing this significant time on a timeline and understanding why it is an historically important. They will be learning about the Mods and Rockers, the Beatles, the clothes worn at this time and the famous dances. We will also be comparing the differences between life then and now. This is always a popular unit with the children and they enjoy dancing along to some famous 60s music.

• DT – This unit of DT is all about puppets! To start, the children will look at the many different types of puppets throughout history and understand how each one is made. They will learn how to do a running stitch and an over stitch and will practise these new skills. Finally, they will design and then make their very own hand puppet from colourful felt.

• Computing- This term we will begin the second unit of Computer systems and networks, focusing on Word Processing. This exciting unit will enable the children to use a keyboard and know the function of each key, how to modify text in a document and how to copy and paste text. We will also look at how we can stay safe online and learn what information is safe to share.       
  
                                                                                           
• HeartSmart – The children will be learning how to ‘Let love in!’ and how they can let love into their own hearts. Each week they will complete a fun and reflective task that helps them understand how they can show love to other people through words and actions. As always Boris the Robot will be there to help them along the way.

• PE- This terms School Games Value is self-belief and Year 2 will be putting this into action in both of out PE units, throwing and catching and target games. Both units will build on the skills and knowledge learnt previously in Autumn term 1 and in year 1. Each week a picture college will be added to Seesaw to showcase our learning.

Autumn Term 1 NEWS!

In Maths we have been mastering place value to 100, using lots of different resources. We have been using the part whole model to partition two-digit numbers into tens and ones and to deepen their understanding of place value. Using this new knowledge, the children order and compare numbers. We then moved onto to counting forwards and backwards in steps of 2, 3, 5 and 10. Once the children have mastered this, we will begin to explore times tables.

In English the children enjoyed reading Poo! Is that you? written by Clare Helen Welsh, the story follows Lenny the lemur on his adventures through the jungle and the animals he meets along the way. The children were able to sequence the main events from the story and retell the story in their own words using adjectives and verbs. The children then wrote an alternative ending for the story of Grandad’s Island Benji Davies. We spent time reading Wild by Emily Hughes about a young girl who grows up in the forest but is then taken away by humans to be looked after. The children really enjoyed this story and the beautiful images. They have been using their predicting and inference skills when reading the story and using clues from the text to help with their understanding. We have been introduced to the 'Writing Rainbow' and the different FANTASTIC symbols, which we included in our retell of the story. We now follow the Read Write Inc spelling scheme and the weekly spelling zone videos have helped the children learn the weekly spelling rule. They have gained lots of new reading skills from following the Read, Write, Inc phonics scheme and improved their sounds knowledge.

In Science, we have discovered how items can be categorised into alive, dead or never alive. The children sorted and compared animals, plants and non-living things to help them create a list of the features of a living thing. The children enjoyed creating lifecycles for different animals and plants, this allowed them to discover that not all offspring resemble their parents at birth. The children loved looking at pictures of themselves as a baby and comparing it to a picture of themselves now to see how they have grown and changed. To complete the unit the children created a mock museum display board and add the facts they had learnt.

In RE we have been seeking the answer to the question Who is a Muslim and how do they live? They have enjoyed learning about the differences and similarities between this religion and Christianity. They have learnt and recited the Shahadah and how this is the most important belief for a person of this faith. They then created some beautiful artwork based on the 99 names of Allah and recreated some of the unique calligraphy.

The class topic in Art was seascapes. Each week the children have looked at artwork by famous artists such as Monet, Turner and Hokusai. They have experimented with shape and tone, painted in the style of Monet and used different materials to make a colourful collage of the sea.

In PE, we have been developing our gymnastic skills by learning new balances, jumps and rolls. Applying all our new skills, we made sequences on the apparatus and on the mats in pairs and in groups. This helped the children to improve their team-work skills and improved their confidence when performing Infront of others.  In our outdoor PE Lessons, we have been getting ready to play tennis so each week the children have learnt new and important skills. They can now hold a bat correctly, drop a ball to the floor and hit it and volley a ball between themselves and a partner. Each week they have improved greatly and really enjoy tennis.

This term we have started a new computing unit called What is a computer? Using the Chrome books the children have been able to identify the different parts of a computer and how the information is input. The children had a lot of fun completing a technology safari around school and finding different examples of technology that as a school is used everyday. The children even got to pretend they were inventors and designed their own invention with a computer inside.

In music the children have been listening to and composing their own folk music. They have developed their listening and thinking skills. The children began playing the recorder, understanding how to hold it correctly, make a good sound and how to play different pitches. They really like to sing and dance along to the folk music!