Year 2 News

This week we started by exploring World Mental Health day, and talked lots about how to look after our minds, bodies and hearts to be happy and healthy. Across the week we have been learning how to use first-person perspective in our writing, as we imagined we were Florence Nightingale and wrote up our diary. In Maths, we have been adding and subtracting numbers using number lines and ten frames to help us understand how to make bridges across a ten. In History, we earned about Mary Seacole and how she was both similar and different to Florence Nightingale. Finally, we have finished the week by making a material monster, which the children have decorated wonderfully. We were also lucky enough to have a visitor to tell us all about Diwali and let the children dress up and take part in the story he told about the origins of the holiday.

This week the children have been telling us all about how to use adjectives to describe characters from ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’ – “Gerald is a silly, crazy giraffe with long bendy legs.” In Maths they have been reviewing some of the learning from the last few weeks, which includes counting in 2s,3s,5s and 10s, as well as understanding what makes 2 digit numbers and how we can partition them in different ways. In Science we have explored how many materials we can find around the school, and talked about why we use these materials differently. We explored the word significant in History, and drew some images of people we thought were significant to us and the world around us. In Computing we have explored the idea of an algorithm being a way of giving instructions to a computer, and in R.E. we have started to investigate why a church is a special place for Christians. The children have been very settled when moving around the school and going into different classrooms for various Reading, Spelling or Phonics groups, and we hope that you find practising reading and spellings at home with your children is a success.

This week we have been reading Meerkat Mail in English and writing letters and postcard inspired by the book.  In Maths we have been learning to use more efficient strategies for adding and subtracting and building on our mental maths.

In our Geography topic we have been learning about the Kalhari Desert and what animals and plants live there.  We also researched how animals and plants have adapted in order to survive there.  In Science, we have been looking at microhabitats and investigated ones in school to see what insects we could find.  In RE we have been looking at different festivals that Muslims celebrate such as Ramadan and Eid.

This week Year 2 all had a fantastic trip to Shrek Adventure!  The children boarded the magical bus to travel to Far Far Away.  We got to meet lots of fairytale creatures and immerse ourselves into the story.  The children had to collect ingredients needed in order to find Shrek and make it home safely.  We then participated in an English workshop to learn about how fairytale are constructed and about the key characters in fairytales.  We then continued this work in our English lessons throughout the week.

Topaz Class also enjoyed a trip to Pizza Express where they learnt how to make their very own pizzas.  Buttercup Class and Yellow Class are looking forward to going there soon!

In Maths we have been using bar models and number facts to solve problems.  In Computing the children recapped their coding skills using Scratch and learnt how to change, edit and program Sprites.

This week in Year 2, we have been reading the book 'George and the Dragon'. We have written instructions of how to look after a dragon, written a character description and created missing posters. 

In Maths, we have recapped the four operations, measurement and statistics. 

In Science, we have written up our findings from our investigation of what plants needed to grow and in History, we have explored how the Great Fire changed London. 

It has been lovely to have all the children back after the Easter holidays.  We have been impressed at how quickly they have settled back into class.

In English we have been reading Sammy the Street Dog.  It tells the story of the Great Fire of London through the eyes of Sammy.  We have been using suffix words to up-level our writing, using a range of conjunctions and using possessive apostrophes. 

In Maths we have been looking at capacity and volume.  We have been learning how to read scales and measure in millilitres and litres.

In RE we have begun learning about Islam and have learnt that there are 99 names for Allah.  In Science we have been learning about what plants need in order to grow and in Computing we learnt about how to program a sprite.