Friday 25th April 2025

Welcome back to the summer term. We hope that you all had an enjoyable Easter break. The children have settled in well ready for their final term of Year 2! 

In English, we have been looking at writing explanation texts which we have linked to our learning in science, looking at the life cycles of caterpillars, frogs and ducks. We have used different stories, like Tadpole's Promise, to help explain the life cycles and, of course, our real-life experiences of seeing the ducklings for ourselves!

In maths, we began work on our 'fractions' topic, looking initially at equal and unequal and what these mean in terms of parts of a shape or sets of objects. We know that for fractions the parts need to be equal. 

We took our science out into the sunshine for our learning this week, investigating different microhabitats. Armed with magnifying glasses, we went out to the school's new wildlife area to see what microhabitats we could find and what we could discover living there. We also visited the courtyard in the middle of the school and explored there too! We found woodlice, spiders, worms, ladybirds, ants, snails, beetles and many more too!

  

  

Friday 4th April 2025

Just like that, another term is over! The children have continued with their hard work this week. In English, we have continued looking at instructions and used our fruit smoothie experience from last week to have a go at writing our own! We have produced some very detailed instructions for the steps that we had to follow. 

In maths, our focus has been on learning about capacity and volume. We investigated to find out which containers had the largest capacity, working in groups to place these in order. Then we used coloured water to measure out specific measurements in millilitres. 

   

In RE, we created our own stained-glass windows linked to Easter. We had to follow the instructions carefully. Look at some of our finished windows!

   

We would like to wish you all a lovely Easter break. 

Friday 28th March 2025

It has been another busy week in Year 2 with lots of learning taking place. We have started to look at instructions in English, looking at the different features that they need to be in. We have ordered instructions and know that they have to be done in a particular order to get to the outcome that you are trying to achieve. 

In maths, we began to look at our Mass, Capacity and Temperature unit. Our focus so far has been on mass. We used the bucket balances to investigate with objects to find out the heaviest and lightest, then moved on to looking at how many cubes an object is equal to. Next, we looked at using grams as a standard unit of measure and how this can look on different scales.

  

  

Yesterday, the children all enjoyed making their smoothies. They cut the fruit carefully into smaller pieces before placing it all in a blender and whizzing it up. When it came to tasting time, there were some mixed reviews; some loved them and others decided they were disgusting! Keep your eyes peeled for some photos on SeeSaw. 

Friday 21st March 2025

This term really is racing away! This week has been STEM week and a week with lots of quizzes. The children have all been fantastic in the resilience that they have shown during these and have all been awarded lots of house points! 

During our STEM week we looked at 'Keeping Healthy', planning and creating our own information leaflets linked to the work that we have done on this so far in science and in skills for life.  The children enjoyed creating the different leaflets, selecting their information carefully about what to include. In maths, we have looked at some different investigations, starting with one looking at how different houses could be sorted on a street. Continuing with the house theme, we then looked at how the teddies living in Toy Town could organise themselves so that the house and bear combinations were all different! 

A highlight of our last couple of weeks has been getting to see the ducklings hatch and grow. The children loved having the opportunity to touch and hold the ducklings this week. There has been much excitement and I am sure the ducklings will be missed! 

   

 

Friday 14th March 2025

The weeks are flying past! In English this week we looked at researching our own chosen animal and then having a go at writing a riddle for them. We then planned and wrote riddles for different characters from traditional tales. We enjoyed working together to write one for The Gingerbread Man. 

In maths, we have looked at measuring in metres. We took the metre sticks outside and had a go at using them to measure different objects and playground lines. We worked well in our groups to do this, recording our measurements using ipads. We have also looked at comparing and ordering different lengths and heights. 

  

In DT, we were very excited to explore and taste fruit smoothies. We tasted 5 different types. Some of us enjoyed it more than others! 

  

 

Friday 7th March 2025

The children in Year 2 have had lots of fun this week. They enjoyed dressing up for World Book Day and completing the different activities, based on the book Jonty Gentoo. The Year 2 team were very impressed with all the costumes! 

In English, we have been looking at riddles. We have looked at what they are, reading different riddles and trying to work out what they are describing. We have identified the main features and had a go at writing our own for different pieces of fruit. 

In maths, we have looked at measuring in centimetres using a ruler. We had to make sure we were using the ruler correctly and that we were keeping it still when we were drawing different lines of specific lengths. We then looked at metres and went on a hunt to find things that were taller, shorter and about the same as a metre. 

    

    

Friday 28th February 2025

The children have all settled quickly into their new half-term, and are trying really hard with the presentation of their work. In our English this week, we have looked at different monster poems. The children have worked hard to identify different rhyming words and words with the same meaning and have discussed their likes and dislikes of different poems. The children enjoyed creating lost posters for different monsters before turning these into poems. Lots of monsters seemed to be hiding in Miss Poole's house, according to the children!

In maths, we have been looking at the 5 times table. We have looked at how to multiply by 5 and to divide by 5. We have then been putting our multiplying and division skills to the test by looking at using the 2, 5 and 10 times tables! We have all done really well at remembering what we need to count in!

In science, we looked at healthy eating and the need to have a selection of foods from different food groups. We worked together as a class to sort foods into the food groups and then sorted images of different foods by ourselves. Some of us even designed our own healthy meal!

  

 Friday 14th February 2025

We have made it to half-term! We have all been working hard in class this week. We have been busy looking at the story of 'Hansel and Gretel' and writing our own retellings of it. We have focussed on adding plenty of description and also on making sure that we have punctuation and capital letters in the correct place. 

In maths, we have continued to look at multiplication and division. We have looked in more detail at the 2 and 10 times tables, looking at both multiplication and division facts for them. We have seen how multiplication by 2 links to doubling and dividing by 2 links to halving. We have also looked at odd and even numbers and made the connection that when multiplying by 2 the answer will always be even.

In PE, we looked at putting the skills we have been practising this half-term onto the apparatus. We created our own zigzag and curved pathways in and out of the apparatus, including the wall bars. The children were very creative in the ways they chose to travel. 

  

      

Friday 7th February 2025

We have worked hard in class this week. We have been busy writing our stories about our different thieves. The thieves in the stories have been up to lots of mischief! We have been focussing on making sure that we include lots of description within our writing, including similes.

In maths, we have continued to look at multiplication and division. We used sharing to help us to look at the beginnings of division. We looked at finding out how many groups of the same number could be made and then looked at how we can share a number into a given number of groups. We have looked in more detail at the 2 times tables, looking at both multiplication and division facts for them. We have seen how multiplication by 2 links to doubling. 

 This week we have had a Skills For Life focus on 'Know Yourself, Grow Yourself'. We have discussed the different emotions and talked about times when we have experienced them. We have found the Inside Out characters helpful when it comes to talking about our feelings. We explored ways of relaxing through art and yoga. 

  

 

Friday 31st January 2025

The children have continued to work hard to get lots of work done. In our English work we have been looking at the story of 'The Tear Thief'. We started off by looking at the main character and making predictions about her and what she might be doing in different images from the book. Then we looked at her in more detail, looking at description, including using similes. Then we had a go at designing our own characters which next week we will be including in our own stories! We have all sorts of characters, including the money, chocolate and pet thieves!

In maths, we have continued to work on our new unit of multiplication and division. We looked at the 'x' symbol and what it means and how it can be used. We have drawn pictures to show different representations and have been busy looking at arrays. We used cubes and counters to make some of our own arrays, looking carefully to work out what they were showing us. 

  

In computing, our unit is all about digital photography. This week we investigated the importance of light when taking photos. We took photographs with the light on, the light off, the blinds closed, the blinds open and one of an object under the table. We then gave each of our photos a rating out of 10 for how clear it was. We found out that the lighter places were better.

 

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.