2021-2022 Year 2 Learning

End of Term 6

 We are so proud of all the progress our lovely Year 2's have made. This term has been jam-packed with exciting and engaging experiences. We started off the term with exploring our wilderness hunting for minibeasts, making nature bracelets and we even got to roast some marshmallows on a fire! Carrying on the theme of food, we desgined and made our own treats for the 'King of Tiny Things' as part of our DT project. We really enjoyed deciding on our different toppings and they tasted great. To deepen our understanding of our living world, we went to Westonbirt Arboretum and walked through the Superworm trail, visited the Gruffalo wood and searched for exciting mini-beats. We even found a milipede! To end the term we were lucky to have the opportunity to practice our scooter skills to become more confident. The teachers wish everyone a happy holiday and look forward to seeing you in September. 

Term 6

For our last term in Year 2 we will be learning all about Our Living World! We'll be finding out about minibeasts and their habitats, having forest school sessions where we'll get to play in nature and even go on a school trip to Westonbirt Arboretum. We'll be reading The King of Tiny Things by Jeanne Willis, Superworm by Julia Donaldson and also Caterpillar Butterfly by our focus author, Vivian French. In science we'll be watching caterpillars changing into butterflies as part of our work on life cycles. We're very excited for this amazing term!

End of Term 5

What a fantastic term we have had! We have really enjoyed learning all about nocturnal animals and finding out the nocturnal animals and human and physical features of spectacular Kenya. The highlight of the term has been the wonderful owls who came to visit us and who brought along a very cute surprise guest - a Corsac fox cub. We were excited to find out about the nocturnal animals that visit our playground at night and loved reading and writing about Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl.

Term 5 - Nocturnal Animals

In this term’s learning, the children will build on their previous learning on bird habitats. Children will carry out a focused study on nocturnal animals living in local woodlands, part of this will be children will set up a webcam in our wooded area to find out what comes out at night! They will compare this through their geography study of nocturnal animals living in Kenya. While in English, they will start the term reading "Fantastic Mr. Fox" by Roald Dahl along with acting out the classic poem "The Owl and the Pussycat". To excite the children  further and to learn more interesting facts, we will be having a nocturnal animal workshop. Watch this space for photos! 

End of Term 4

Arrrgghhh scallywags! What a fantastic term we have had in Year 2.  The children have loved learning about Pirates and amazing engineers. The trip was a huge success and the children really enjoyed exploring the SS Great Britain. We started off exploring the dockyard museum and imagined what life was like on the boat while dressing up as a Victorian and steering the ship. On deck, the Year 2's saw animals that would of been aboard while the SS Great Britain was sailing. Below deck, we explored the passenger quarters where chidlren found out gruesome facts and got to experience life as a first class Victorain passenger. At the end of the day, Year 2 loved going to the 'Being Brunel' museum and got an opportunity to see inside the mind of the great engineer. 

Term 4

Our topic will be 'Sailing the Seas and Amazing Engineers' this term and we are all SO excited! As well as learning lots of fascinating pirate facts, we will also be finding out about amazing achievements in engineering. Year 2 children get to add to their amazing knowledge by visiting the SS Great Britain (please see newsletter for dates). 

Don't forget the first week back it will be World Book Day where we will have a special day called "Story Telling Day" and the chance to dress up as your favourite book character. Who will you dress up as? 

Please keep an eye on this webpage for more photos of us having fun while learning in Year 2. 

End of Term 3

We have reached the end of Term 3 and the children have been fully immersed in fun space facts and are experts at designing and building moon buggies. Have a look at the pictures below! 

For our Design Technology day children had to design and make moon buggies for Bob to transport tourists around the rocky and dusty moon. Children had to work in small groups and really think about the exterior and interior of the moon buggies. We had lots of discussion around having strong large wheels to get in and out of craters and extremely comfy seats for tourists to relax and enjoy the rocky ride ride! Using these ideas, children then designed and made their own moon buggies using recycled materials. Later in the day, children then got to test their moon buggies by rolling them down the tunnel in the playground. Nearly all of the buggies survived and most tourists satyed in their seats! The Year 2 children are so proud of their moon buggies and are so happy that Reception will be using them to kickstart their Space topic next term. 

The children also had their first experience of the explorer dome! The children were mesmerised with the wonder of space and really enjoyed learning facts about the  earth, moon, sun and stars. They could recognise that the sun is a star, find out why the sun moves across the sky, look for different phases of the moon and discover how to spot the pictures and stories in the stars. 

Term 3

Our topic is 'A Journey into Space'. Throughout the topic we will be reading a lot of space themed stories including books by Alexis Deacon and Simon Bartram supporting children to write their own innovated space stories and some exciting non-fiction writing! Our maths learning focuses on multiplication and division as well as a recap into place value and measure. 

In history we will be supporting our space topic by finding out about the space race and looking into the history of space travel and exploration focusing in on Mae Jemison and Katherine Johnson. We have an exciting visit from the Explorer Dome planned for the children to feel really immersed in their space exploration! For Term 3 our science topic will see us exploring everyday materials looking in depth at their properties and conducting some experiments to answer questions such as 'which materials stretches the most?'

The end of Term 2

We have reached the end of Term 2! We had a term full of lots of exciting explorations including our Superhero DT day and our Great Fire of London day. Have a look at the pictures below to see what we got up to!

Our Superhero day was a lot of fun for all involved! Everyone put in so much effort and came as their favourite superheroes or their own innovated character. We spent the day designing a badge for our superhero thinking carefully about their logo and how to make it function as a badge. We then got to creating our badge focusing on using recycled junk and cardboard to make it so that we didn't create any additional waste! We had such a fun day and really enjoyed evaluating our friends badges, giving them positive comments and reflecting on any changes we would make to our badge. 

Term 2

Our topic this term is 'Superheroes'. We will be exploring the characteristics of Superheroes, reading lots of Superhero stories including books by Bob Graham, Giles Andrae and Mini Grey. The children will create their own Superhero stories and have the opportunity to come to school dressed as a Superhero on 'Superhero Day'. This term the focus for our Maths learning will be exploring addition and subtraction as well as place value and shape. 

Our science topic is animals including humans where we’ll be finding out what animals and humans need to survive. We’ll also be learning about how humans grow and what food, exercise and hygiene we need to stay super!

What a great start to the year, we are so impressed with how well our wonderful children have settled in to Year 2, they are all brilliant!

Term 1

This term our topic has been 'Our Wider World' and the children have shown great interest in finding out about ways we help our world from recycling to protecting wildlife. 

In English we have been researching endangered polar creatures and learnt so many facts about blue whales and polar bears and wrote amazing information texts all about them! Did you know a blue whale’s heart can be as big as a car? We also imagined that we had explored the Arctic and discovered a mythical polar creature that we wrote wonderful reports about.

We have also been finding out about the amazing life of Mary Seacole, as part of Black History Month, and imagined what a day in her life during the Crimean War would be like so that we could write a diary entry from her point of view. What an incredible lady!

Our WOW world day was a super day for everyone! We all chose a country and dressed in a way that represented it – we had koalas, pandas, children in traditional dress and children wearing all colours of the rainbow to represent the flags of their countries. We researched our chosen country, finding out where it is in the world, what animals live there and their traditional food. Because we have been finding out about ways to help our world, we then made wishes for the future of our world and recycled junk to make new things.

This term we welcomed Richard, a volunteer from Greenpeace. He spoke to the children about endangered animals and the children learned how we can help to protect the world's Orangutan population by only using products with sustainably produced palm oil. 

In maths, we have been revisiting place value and number facts and have been using a range of practical resources to secure our understanding of the place value of 2-digit numbers. We’ve also been discovering how to use our knowledge of small number facts to help us know the number facts of much bigger numbers. For instance, if I know that 4 + 6 = 10 then I also know that 14+6 = 20 and 40 +60 = 100!

We’ve been learning all about the continents of the world in geography and finding out about the 7 wonders of the world. We have mapped the continents, the oceans and the equator and learnt where to find cold, temperate, warm and tropical climates and what sort of animals live there. In addition, we have been learning about compass directions and used them to direct our partners on a trip around the world!

We conducted an experiment in science to find out what plants really need to grow and made some very interesting discoveries! Did you know that a seed can germinate and grow without soil? We have grown our own sunflowers and French beans from seeds, found out about how plants spread their seeds and why leaves are green! We have been practising the scientific skills of observing, making predictions and thinking about ways to ensure a fair test.