Year 2

Hello everyone and welcome to Year 2- it is lovely to see all the children settled back in and ready for the new school year!

We have started off with lots of lessons based around getting to know each other, setting out our rules and routines, making plans for our reward days and recapping on our learning from Year 1.  We have shared books based around the theme of well-being, such as: Colour Me Happy, The Jar of Happiness, Silly Billy and The Big Bag of Worries, using them as a starting point for discussions, writing and creative activities.

In Maths we are also building on work that the children did in Year 1. The focus this half term is ‘Place Value’, working with numbers up to one hundred: counting, ordering, estimating, adding and subtracting.

 Practising ‘Basic Skills’ forms part of our daily Maths lessons, with lots of opportunity for counting forwards and backwards in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s as well as revising number bonds and other previously taught facts.

Our topic work for this half term has a Geography focus, comparing and contrasting our locality with Kampong Ayer.  We will begin by studying where we live, before locating countries outside the U.K. focussing on Brunei.  The children will use maps, atlases, globes and aerial photographs to identify and then compare and contrast physical and human features, describing and explaining their findings.

In English lessons we will be using different versions of The Three Little Pigs as a starting point for a range of writing, before moving onto some lovely non-fiction texts about homes around the world, linked to our Geography topic.  We will continue to enjoy a wide range of stories, poems and non-fiction texts on a daily basis, nurturing a love for books and recognising the importance of reading for pleasure.

The work that we will do in both Geography and English ties in with our Science topic: Everyday Materials, where we will be identifying and comparing the suitability of different materials for particular uses e.g. bricks (rather than straw or sticks!) for building and glass for windows.  The children will get to be ‘hands on’ with different materials, exploring how the shapes of some solid objects can be changed by bending, twisting and stretching them.

We are very excited to be welcoming back Mrs Higson, who will be teaming up with Mr Martin for whole school singing assemblies every Friday morning.  She will also be staying on to teach Music throughout the day, with our lessons in Y2 taking place every Friday afternoon.

The children are already enjoying weekly PE lessons with Coach Jasmine; developing computing skills with Miss Finch and developing their drawing skills in Tuesday’s Art lessons.  We also continue to have weekly RE lessons, with this half term’s focus being ‘Who is Muslim and how do they live?’

These are just the main subject focuses for the half term; there are so many additional things going on from day to day so please do keep checking Class Dojo for updates!

Mrs Smith, Miss Finch, Mrs Stewart and Miss Johnson