Our Year 2 Class    

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 before and after school for a quick chat.  

Our Year 2 Class 2024-2025

Class Information

Who's Who

Miss Barton- Year 2 Class Teacher

Mrs Jackson -  Part-Time Teaching Assistant

Mrs Holmes – Part-Time Teaching Assistant 

Mrs Casilli - Inclusion Teaching Assistant

Supply - Inclusion Teaching Assistant

In Year 2 PE is on Tuesday and Friday, 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 bring home a reading journal, please update this each time they read at home. Children need to read 5 times a week at home to earn a stamp in their reading journal. 

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.
• 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 Term 2  (October - December 2024)

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 – in RE this term the children will continue with the topic, What is the ‘good news’ Christians believe Jesus brings? The children will look at art work by Hannah Dunnett who is a Christian artist from Cornwall, write their own prayers and develop a further understanding of the Gospel. 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 sewing and the children will make their own pouches. They will learn how to do a running stitch, how to create a template for their pouch and cut it out and how to use this type of stitch to sew two pieces of material together. Once they have done this they will then decorate their pouches.     
       
• Computing- This term the children will begin to learn how to program. They will learn that an algorithm is an instruction and how computers use algorithms to make predictions. They will place games that allow them to program algorithms for characters to follow and debug any errors in the code.    
          
• Music - The children will listen with concentration to the music, Short Ride In A Fast Machine.  They will learn about the composer, John Adams, and the story behind the music.  They will watch an orchestra play the piece and start to recognise some orchestral instruments.  The children will recognise the sound of the woodblock and the importance of the pulse.  They will start to tap along to the pulse of the music.  The children will be given the opportunity to compose their own short rhythms linked with worded phrases from the story.  The children will start to understand the difference between pulse and rhythm.
       
• PE indoor - This term our PE unit is Dance! The children will be learning to explore space and how they can move their bodies to express a feeling, idea, mood or character. They will use counts of 8 to keep in time with the music and their partner. The two dance themes are Secret Garden and Jack Frost. 
• PE Outdoor – Our next unit of PE is ball skills. The children will develop their fundamental ball skills such as throwing, catching, rolling hitting a target, dribbling with both hands and feet and kicking. They will learnt to perform these skills with increasing accuracy and control. The children will work independently and in small groups.    
        
• Our sporting value this half term is SELF-BELIEF

Autumn Term 1 NEWS! (September - October 2024)

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 wrote a letter independently based on the book Grandad’s Island by Benji Davies. 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 letter. We read lots of wonderful books this term by Benji Davies and lots of other Authors, our class book was The 13 Storey Treehouse.

In Science, we have discovered what makes things 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.  

In RE we have been learning about the ‘Good News’ Christians believe that Jesus brings. In this unit the children learnt about the concept of ‘Gospel’ and the good news of forgiveness, peace and love. They learnt about Matthew the Tax Collector and how Christians believe that Jesus offers forgiveness, looking at their heart rather than what they have done in the past. The children learnt about the instructions that Jesus gives in the Bible and how Christians follow his example and these instructions in order to behave in a Christ like way.

The class topic in Art was Drawing to tell a story. The children learnt how to draw with charcoal, techniques to create textures and draw expression on faces. They did an observational drawing of a teddy bear and used the techniques they had learnt to add texture to the fur. Using Grandad’s Island as a stimulus the children created their own story book and character.

Our outdoor PE unit was Fundamentals. In the lessons the children learnt the fundamental skills of how to run, balance, jump, hop, skip and change direction. They took part in many activities to develop these skills, some independently and in small groups. The children learnt why exercise is important and how their body feels during and after exercise.

Our indoor PE unit was Gymnastics. The children learnt to explore and develop basic gymnastic skills, on the floor and using apparatus. They developed their balancing, jumping, rolling and travelling skills. They worked together to create short sequences including different shapes, levels and directions.

In Computing the unit the children have been learning about is Computing systems and networks, what is a computer? First they learnt about the different components of a computer and how they are controlled. They learnt what an input is and what an output is. They designed their own computer and decided what they wanted it to do, they then added how they would control it through inputs and outputs. In the last lesson the children took part in a supermarket role play.

 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.