Summer 1

Another incredible half term in Year 2, the children have worked so hard and we are very proud of them! In English the children started off by becoming authors, the children carefully published their innovated story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Using their best editing skills Year 2 self-assessed and peer-assessed each other’s stories, they corrected mistakes and looked for ways to up level their work.  Once they published their stories, Year 2 took part in a storytelling afternoon where they read their stories to each other.

In project we loved working on WE ARE Super Humans. The children researched different ways humans can be healthy and why it is important. In groups Year 2 created high quality posters to promote healthy eating and well-being. Venture class showed off all their wonderful learning about health humans, in their class assembly, which they through enjoyed.

In Year 2 we learnt about the famous, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. She is sometimes known as ‘the princess of polka dots.’ Yayoi creates different types of arts but they all have one thing in common - DOTS! As we learnt about healthy eating and how to be a super human. We were so inspired by Yayoi’s work, we decided to create a piece of artwork based on fruit using Yayoi’s technique. We really enjoyed using bright bold colours as well as applying lots of dots.

Year 2 worked extremely hard in the month of May as Secret Agents in Training! Every child completed their mission by finishing their SATs, we are so proud of the hard work and focus the children put in. Great work Year 2!

AUTUMN 2

Another incredible half term in Year 2 with some exciting and interesting learning that has taken place! In English the children immersed themselves into the wonderful story Lila and the Secret of Rain. The children used clues to make clear predictions about the story. From this, Year 2 completed some wonderful learning about droughts and who can be affected by it. The children then worked hard on their own alternative ending to the story. The children carefully planned their ending using ambitious vocabulary and adjectives to make their writing interesting.  The children also spent time working and developing their punctuation and grammar, we were very impressed with how well the children have used this to develop their writing.  Well done year 2!

In Maths the children have built on their knowledge of place value to add and subtract numbers. Year 2 stated off using concrete resources to add and subtract 2-digit and 1-digit numbers. The children then moved on to using different methods to solve missing number problems. Year 2 learnt and practiced using the counting back, counting forwards and inverse method to find missing numbers in a calculation. To build on their bank of strategies the children also used column method to add and subtract 2-digit by 2-digit, some children also completed 3-digit by 3-digit calculations! To consolidate all their learning in maths this half term the children completed addition and subtraction word problems, choosing the method they were most comfortable with to solve the problems.
 

Our PBL learning has been incredible! Our project was WE ARE Time Travellers and the children seriously took themselves back in time to find out about what schools were like during the Victorian times. Year 2 explored primary and secondary sources to gather information as part of their research. The children got in groups and found out what Victorian school children wore to school, what Victorian school children learnt at school and what rules they had to follow. Using all the information they gathered year 2 were able to compare life as a Victorian school child compared to school life now. The children wrote a detailed comparison and concluded that there are far more differences than similarities in school life then compared to now. Year 2 done a great a job to use all their research to plan and execute a Victorian school day that we all got to experience!

Year 2 have worked scientifically by looking into what the best conditions are for a bean to grow. The children made their predictions and made observations as the bean changed. Finally the children wrote an explanation of their findings of the experiment.  

As part of our Religious Education learning, year 2 went to the Church were they found out more about Christianity and the Holy Bible. Year 2 were so well behaved and respectful, they were able to share so much of what they had learnt.

Well done Venture and Challenge class for all your hard work this Autumn term and thank you parents for all your continued support. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

AUTUMN 1

What an amazing start to the year! The children came back from their summer holidays so settled and ready to begin Year 2! This half term in English we have been exploring the book 'The Day the Crayons Quit'. Through our exploration we were able to understand the feelings of the characters and engage in some amazing writing from the characters' perspectives. WE wrote a letter with all the features a letter should have and composed our own diary entries. Following on from this amazing story, we then started reading 'Leaf' - a story about a lost polar bear who feels alone in the forest and wants to get home. We explored the setting of a forest and used our senses to investigate what we could see, hear, smell and feel. 

In Maths, we have covered place value and number - recapping our ones, tens and hundreds and understanding how we can use this knowledge to order and compare numbers. We have used physical resources such as dienes and numicon to represent numbers of varying amounts. Additionally, the children were so excited about learning their 2D and 3D shapes. We explored the school looking for items that represent different shapes such as circles, rectangles, hexagons, cylinders and cuboids! The children know these shapes really well and can even describe them by their properties!

Our PBL (Project Based Learning) project this half term has been 'Worth Repeating'. The children have had the chance to explore the work of three different famous artists who use repeated patterns in their artwork! These artists were Kandinsky, Mondrian and Tingatinga. We took notes and investigated their artwork thoroughly to allow us to begin to crate our own art in the style of these pioneers. The exploration didn't stop these though! The children investigated patterns in the natural world around us and incorporated this into their final pieces of art! This project also allowed us to work as scientists when exploring the natural world. We identified and classified different object as alive, dead or never alive and then sorted living animals into their own specific habitats! Amazing learning Year 2!