Friday 24th January 2025

The children have been working really hard in Year 2 this week. Our English focus has again linked with our topic work, where we have been learning all about Mary Seacole. We found out about her achievements in her life and how she was treated differently to Florence Nightingale because of the colour of her skin. The children all agreed that this was not fair and should not have happened. They wrote detailed fact files about Mary's life, explaining what she did to help the soldiers in the Crimean War.

In maths, we completed our work on money and then began our multiplication and division unit. We looked at what is meant by equal and unequal groups and used different equipment to make different groups. We have focussed on how we can match a repeated addition number sentence to an image of equal groups. Our counting in 2s, 5s and 10s skills have come in very handy this week!

In art, we have been studying the artist LS Lowry. We have looked at the colours that he used in his paintings and discovered that he created these using just 5 colours. We then used powder paints to mix our own colours using blue, red, yellow, white and black, then used these colours to try and paint our own seascapes in the style of LS Lowry. 

  

  

Friday 17th January 2025

It has been a busy week in Year 2, with the children working hard. In English, our focus has been on learning about Florence Nightingale. We produced some factual writing about her life and achievements. Then we imagined that we were soldiers in the Crimean War and wrote letters of thanks to Florence, thinking carefully about the changes that she made to the hospitals. Our history lesson focus was also on Florence Nightingale, looking at the main events of her lifetime and how these can be put on a timeline. We looked at how Florence was alive at the same time as Queen Victoria but after the Great Fire of London. We talked about how she was born over 200 years ago. We had to look carefully at the dates on the timeline to know where to order the events. 

In maths, we have continued to look at money. We have revisited last week's work, looking at making different amounts of money. We moved on to look at what happens when you don't have the right money to pay for something and how, if you pay too much, you can be given change. 

In science, we thought of questions that we would like to ask a mother and baby when they come to visit. We were then lucky enough to have a visit from a parent with their baby. He was very well-behaved and the children all thought it was great to see him. They were able to ask their questions and find out more about the baby part of the human life cycle. 

  

Friday 10th January 2025

A Happy New Year to you all! The children have settled in well to the start of their new term and are certainly getting quicker at getting their hat, scarves and gloves on with the extra practice this week!

In English, the children seem to have enjoyed using the clip Lune et L'autre in their learning. There has been a real focus on their descriptive work, looking at whether words are being used to describe a character's look or personality. The children worked hard to think of their own expanded noun phrases linked to the clip and used these to write their own character descriptions.

In maths, our focus has been on money. We looked at the different coins and notes that we have in the UK and then worked on counting sets of them using our counting in 2s, 5s, 10s and even 20s! We then looked at the coins or notes that would be needed to make different amounts of money and looked at how the same amount can be made in different ways. Using play money seems to have really helped us with some of the children saying that they are going to practise this at home. 

In our science work, we have been looking at the human life cycle. We used the story 'Once there were Giants' to help us identify the different stages of the human life cycle. We then worked in groups to think about the sorts of things that people can do during the different stages of the life cycle. Each group then reported back to the class with their ideas.

    

Friday 20th December 2024

A huge well done to all the children for their fantastic performances of The Fleece Force! It was lovely to see the children delivering their lines with confidence and to hear their beautiful singing.

The children (and staff) had a great time at the pantomime, joining in with lots of booing when Captain Hook came on stage. 

The Year 2 Team wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We will see you all in 2025!

Friday 13th December 2024

Time really is flying past! The nativity is going well, and the children are preparing for their audience next week! Trying on costumes created lots of excitement! 

In English, we have been looking at Mog's Christmas Calamity. We have drawn story maps of what is happening, imagined we are Mog the cat and written diary entries and have written character descriptions for Mog. We found the animation of the story very funny! 

In maths, we finished off our shape topic, looking at creating repeating patterns with 3D shapes. We are definitely more confident in naming and describing the properties of the shapes! 

On Wednesday we were busy with our DT project, making puppets! We showed lots of resilience when it came to threading needles and doing our sewing around the edge of the puppets! The children are all looking forward to decorating them next week!

 

  

 

Friday 6th December 2024

December is going at a fast rate! The nativity rehearsals are going well, and the children are getting closer to being performance ready! They are looking forward to putting on their costumes! 

In English, we have looked at the story of Cinderella. We looked at words containing the soft 'c' sound like Cinderella and palace and words containing the hard 'c' sound like castle and wicked, and sorted between the different words and pictures. We have found out about adverbs and how and when they are used and had a go at writing some sentences containing them. Some of us even managed to write some fronted adverbial sentences! 

In maths, our focus has been on 3D shapes and their properties. We have looked at the vocabulary of faces, vertices and edges, understanding what they mean and using them to sort and describe different 3D shapes. 

We have also had a visitor to class this week. We think Santa must have delivered him when he visited at the weekend. We have named the new member of our class Snowy, after a vote for a name. We are not too sure about some of his behaviour! Look what he did to our fruit!

  

Friday 29th November 2024

Just like that, we are at the end of November! The children have continued to work hard this week. The children have all shown determination this week when completing their quizzes, trying hard on what was asked of them. 

In English, we have been looking at acrostic poems. We had a look at what they look like and what is special about them and then thought of some ideas for the different letters of winter. Then we had a go at writing some of our own. We tried hard to include description.      

In maths, we have continued looking at 2D shapes. We found out about vertical lines of symmetry, using mirrors to help us check to see if shapes had a vertical line of symmetry or not. We looked at how shapes can be sorted according to their properties, reviewing the vocabulary of vertices and sides.

In topic this week, the children were developing their atlas skills. They worked hard with Mrs Griffiths to locate different countries around the world where various castles could be found. They then marked these on a world map. 

  

  

Friday 22nd November 2024  

The children have been working hard this week. In maths, we started our new topic of 'Shape'. We looked at recognising different 2D and 3D shapes, going around the school hunting for 2D shapes and building using 3D shapes. We then focused on looking at the sides and vertices of 2D shapes and saying how many different shapes have.

  

  

In English, we have focused on the story of Rapunzel. We answered questions about the story, ordered the main events and then wrote our own retellings. We tried hard to remember to include lots of description too! 

Our focus in PE has been on movement. We have been using our imaginations to think about how different sweets would move if they could. We have been miming out the movements of going to the sweetshop to buy different sweets. This week we linked it to our class text of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, imagining we were Charlie looking for a golden ticket!

 

Friday 15th November 2024

Just like that, it is the middle of November! Time really is flying by! In our English work this week we have been researching different nocturnal animals and writing our own non-chronological report. Using the ipads, we collected our own research. We worked hard to remember the different features that we needed to remember from the work that we did last week! 

   

  

In maths, we have come to the end of our addition and subtraction unit. We have looked at using the greater than, less than and equal to symbols to compare different addition and subtraction calculations. Using our new knowledge of adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers, we were able to find the missing number in different calculations. 

This week has been a Skills For Life focus week, where we have looked at how we can manage hurtful behaviour and bullying. We have looked at what the difference is between hurtful behaviour and bullying and have used the vocabulary of bully, victim and bystander when talking about different bullying situations. The children showed their understanding of whom to talk to if they are worried about bullying when they wrote diary entries in the role of August from the book and film Wonder. We have also looked at cyberbullying and what it means, understanding that this is something that takes place online.

Friday 8th November 2024

The children have settled in quickly to the new half-term, remembering the school routines really well.

This week in English, our focus has been on non-chronological reports. We have been looking at a non-chronological report about a castle, discussing and identifying the different features that we can see. We have had a look at how paragraphs and subheadings are used to support the layout of the report. 

In maths, our focus has been on subtraction. We have looked at how we can subtract two 2-digit numbers and what we have to do to be successful with this. We have used place value grids to help us with this, looking at how we can exchange a ten for ones when there is a need to in the calculation. Our place value work from the start of the year has proven to be very helpful.

In our music session we enjoyed listening to and beginning to learn the songs from this year's nativity. The children are picking these up really well and are looking forward to our future rehearsals!

Thursday 24th October 2024

Just like that, we have made it to the end of the first half-term in Year 2. We have been impressed with how well the children have settled into their new routines and the hard work that they are completing. 

In English, the children really enjoyed the book Small Knight and George and the Royal Chocolate Cake. They have written letters to the King, written invitations to the villagers and described what they can see. We also looked at writing diary entries as one of the characters, describing what it was like to be at the royal party!

In maths, we have continued to look at addition, moving on to adding two 2-digit numbers together using the base 10 equipment to help us. We have looked at what happens when the ones are added together to create a new ten, using the word 'exchange' to describe this. As the week has gone on, we have grown more confident with this. 

During our last topic lesson we looked at the life of Queen Elizabeth II. We talked about what we could remember about her from our lifetimes and then looked at the significant events in her lifetime. Working in small groups, we then ordered the events to create timelines. 

  

Friday 18th October 2024

The end of this half-term is quickly approaching! In our English work, we have continued looking at the book 'Quest'. We imagined that we were one of the characters in the book and wrote our own diary entries in this role. We discovered that Quest is part of a trilogy and looked in groups at Journey and Return, thinking of ideas about what could be happening. 

In maths, we have been looking at subtraction and how number facts that we know can help us in our calculations. We have looked at using our knowledge of number bonds to 10 and place value to help us in our different calculations.

Our science learning involved fun and collaboration! We worked together to find out which materials are waterproof and which are not. In our pairs, one placed the material over our hand and the other put drops of water onto it. We then checked to see if the hand was wet or dry underneath! We talked about how, with our current weather, knowing which materials are waterproof is a useful thing to know!

  

  

Friday 11th October 2024

This half-term really is flying by! This week in our English work we have been looking at the book 'Quest'. It is a wordless book, so we have been working hard to think about what the words could be. We have thought of our own questions based on the front cover, added speech bubbles to some of the images and made predictions about what we think will happen. The children are looking forward to finding out what happens in the rest of the story next week.

In maths, we have been looking at adding to and across the next 10. We have discovered that knowing our number bonds to 10 really helps us with this. We have used number lines, part whole models and base 10 cubes to help us with this tricky concept, but we have shown resilience in our determination to succeed.

We had fun in science exploring which fabric was the stretchiest! We enjoyed exploring stretching the different fabrics first, then made our test fair by making sure that the pieces were the same size. We then worked in pairs to look at which could stretch the most, using a ruler to measure in centimetres to check! We decided as a class that one of the fabrics that we had was used to make tights, and we talked about why this needs to be able to stretch!

  

  

Friday 4th October 2024

It has been a busy week in Year 2 with lots of learning going on. In our English we have been busy using our dragon characters from last week in our own stories. We have planned and then written our own adventures, thinking about whether our dragon character is kind or mean! We have even had a go at trying to edit and improve our writing.

In maths, we have started a new topic called 'Addition and Subtraction'. We have looked at number bonds to 10 and 20 and used part whole models to think about the different facts that we know. We investigated how knowing our number bonds to 10 can help us with making 100 using counting in 10s numbers. 

     

In music this week we focussed on learning our song ready for our harvest celebration next week. It is all about a little hedgehog and is to the tune of 'I'm a Little Teapot'. We enjoyed learning the words and singing them all together. 

Friday 27th September 2024

The children in Year 2 have had another busy week with lots of hard work going on. In our English work, we have read the story of The Dragon Machine. We have looked closely at the character of George and had a go at writing character descriptions. We then designed our own dragon characters and described them. These are then going to feature in our own stories next week. 

In maths, we have looked at counting, ordering and comparing numbers and sets of objects. We have used the greater than and less than symbols to show which number is worth more and have used number lines to look at the order that numbers need to go in. We have also been looking at counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10, practising these skills from Year 1. We then looked at counting in 3s. 

In art, we worked hard to create collage portraits in the cubism style, like Picasso. We used different eyes, mouths, ears and other facial features to cut out and create the portraits. We enjoyed the fact that they could be abstract as we wanted. 

       

 

Friday 20th September 2024

Just like that, another week is complete in Year 2! In our English work we have been looking at nouns, adjectives and verbs and how they are used in different sentences. We had a go at writing our own list poems, using the structure of adjective, noun, verb for each of the lines in the list part of the poem. We imagined that we were in a rainforest and thought about what we might see. 

In maths, we have continued looking at place value. We have looked at how numbers are placed on a number line, looking closely at labelling the tens. We then used this knowledge to think about and estimate where other numbers might go!

In science, we investigated different types of paper to see whether they would absorb water. We enjoyed being scientists and using the pipettes to investigate with water on the different papers. We decided that the kitchen roll worked best because it was absorbent but also flexible! 

  

  

Friday 13th September 2024

It has been a busy week in Year 2.  In our English work we have been continuing with our work on The Paper Bag Princess. We worked hard to order and retell the story.  We have planned and written diary entries in the role of different characters. 

Our maths work focus has continued to be on place value. We have looked at the tens and ones in different numbers and looked at how they can be partitioned in different ways. We enjoyed using equipment to make the various numbers. 

  

In PE, we enjoyed working as a team to play different games. We had to cross the swamp in our groups using stepping stones without anyone falling in the swamp! We used our communication skills well to get to the other side.

Friday 6th September 2024

Welcome to Year 2! The children have had a fantastic first few days in Year 2, settling in well to their new classroom and routines. A huge well done to them all! 

We have spoken about the class rules that we think we need to have this year, with the children having some very thoughtful ideas for these.

Our PE days this term are Monday and Thursday, so please make sure that PE kit is in school.