Welcome to Year 2

Frequently Asked Questions

faqs for year 2 parents 2024.pdf

 

Term 1 Topic Map

Year 2 Learning Cafe

year 2 learning cafe monday 23rd september 9am.pdf

 

Term 1 

Across the oceans and under mossy logs! This term, our learning has taken us on local adventures around the school site, where we observed microhabitats and the living things found within them. As scientists, we even thought about habitats found around the world and have started to construct simple food chains. As geographers, we have been exploring some of the countries found in Europe. We can name their capital cities and are regularly comparing the weather in these places to the weather we are experiencing in the United Kingdom. We have been learning how to use a compass and have written our own riddles. Can you follow the clues to solve this one?

I am located in the northern hemisphere. I am north of Africa. I am a continent.

In art, we began the term by developing our sketching skills and have had a go at illustrating our own simple story. We know how to add detail to show expressions and have been using scuffling and scumbling pencil techniques to add texture and pattern to our pictures.

In maths, we have been using our knowledge of known number facts to add and subtract efficiently. We have explored odd and even numbers, number bonds and doubles. We have been using number lines and part part whole models to support our calculation strategies.

Our citizenship lessons focused on friendship. We have thought carefully about how to build new friendships and identified the qualities we might look for in a friend. These lessons helped us to make inferences about the characters in our class book, ‘Troll Swap’. In this story we met Timothy and Tabitha who were feeling lonely at first, but don’t worry the story has a happy ending. Whilst exploring this text, we wrote letters, diary entries and even our very own version of the story. We hope you get to come and look at our wonderful work at the next walk in Wednesday.

Term 2

We are living in a material world and we have been exploring. This term, we have used observational skills to look closely at materials and their properties. We now know what suitability means and can understand why materials are used in certain ways. As scientists we decided to investigate the question, ‘which materials are used inside our classroom and which materials are used in our outdoor environment?’ We recorded our findings carefully. What do you think we found out?

Over the last 7 weeks we have been busy learning about life in London in 1666. We can talk about what it was like to live in the city, as well as what society was like at the time. We have learnt how to examine different sources for information on the Great Fire of London and can explain where it began and why it spread so rapidly.

In design technology lessons, we have learnt how to join two pieces of fabric together. After practising a range of techniques, we designed and made our own colourful hand puppets and are very proud of the finished product. Remember to look up when you visit us for walk in Wednesday, as they are displayed along our class washing lines.

In maths, we have been learning to count in 2s, 5s and 10s. This number knowledge has been an important step into the world of multiplication. We have explored what happens when multiplying by zero and one, and have learnt to use some important mathematical terms such as, product, factor and commutativity. When multiplying, we can now use a range of strategies. These include skip counting along number lines, and using bar models and part part whole models to support repeated addition.

English has been a hoot! Throughout the term we have been getting to know Plop, a baby barn owl who was afraid of the dark. His story took us on an adventure of fireworks, friendships and family. Along the way, we learnt lots of information about owls and wrote our own fact files to share these with others. We are now able to include conjunctions like and, but and or in our writing, and can use commas in a list of adjectives when describing.

To end the term, we have performed our own version of the Nativity story. Stepping into a variety of roles by singing, dancing and acting in full costume. We have made our teachers very proud.

Term 3

This term has been a whirlwind of discovery and creativity! In art, the children were captivated by the architecture of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, designing and building their own "funky" structures in his distinctive style. Our geography lessons took us outdoors, where we practiced map skills and conducted fieldwork, identifying human and physical features around the school and considering populations. Music was filled with rhythm and imagination, as the children learned to read musical notation, including rests, and composed pieces inspired by myths and legends. In RE, we explored ethical questions about caring for the world and each other, focusing on the universal "Golden Rule". Finally, in science, the children gained a deeper understanding of the basic survival needs of animals, including humans, and explored the life cycle, learning how animals and humans grow from offspring to adults.

Term 4