Year 2
Welcome to Year 2!
From Mrs Bellas, Mrs Bennett, Mrs Southern and Ms Thomson!
Welcome to our Year 2 class page! In year two, we love making learning fun and are always here to help you on your learning journey. Don't forget that there are many adults in class and around school who are always here to help you, and that God is always here for us too.
On this page you will find all the key information you’ll need throughout the year along with information about our learning.
Key things to remember:
- Homework books will be sent home on Mondays and must be returned to school on Thursdays.
- Reading records must be signed by your parents on a daily basis and returned to school each day.
- On Fridays, we will have arithmetic and spelling tests based on the homework you have completed during the week.
- Friday is our independent reading day. You can bring a book from home to read in class and share with others!
- You will need to wear your PE kit on Fridays this half-term.
Our Mission Statement and school prayer
Religious Education
‘The heavens are telling the glory of God’ (Ps 19:1)
In this branch, pupils will encounter the God who creates and calls a people. They will explore revelation of the Christian belief that all that is comes from God, the Creation accounts in Genesis, and scientific explanations of the process of Creation. They will explore the call of God and his covenantal relationship with his people first through Moses, then through the narrative of the Old Testament.
Writing
During this term we will be focusing on using great language, punctuation and more complex sentences to write fiction and non-fiction texts based on high-quality texts. The texts we will use this term are:
- The Building Boy
- If I were in charge of the world
- How to make a bird feeder
- Meerkat Christmas
We will focus on the structure and elements that are characteristic of each genre (narrative, poetry, instructions and letter writing) in order to ensure each piece of writing is coherent and cohesive. As well as this, throughout their writing, the children will be encouraged to use new language and grammar to make their writing clear and engaging. They will also be taught to re-read their work and begin to check that it makes sense and to find any errors in spelling and punctuation, as well as ensure their presentation is up to a high standard.
We will continue to practise our handwriting and the cursive script, checking that letters are all of a consistent size and ensuring capital letters and ascending letters are much taller and well-formed.
Reading
In Year 2 we begin our transition away from phonics to support us in becoming confident, fluent, life-long readers. For this reason, during the Autumn term, we will have whole-class phonics lesson alongside regular whole-class and small group reading sessions where we begin to think more deeply about the texts we read, as the children develop their fluency, prosody and comprehension skills. This term we will read extracts from a range of books and texts, including:
- The ghost cat who saved my life.
- The owl who was afraid of the dark.
- Dogs in space.
- The snow dragon.
Each day ends with story time, where the children are given the opportunity to immerse themselves in a class book read by the teacher. Children will also have plenty of opportunities to visit our school library, where they can explore a range of genres, discuss books they have read with others and find books written by authors they have discovered during the year.
Please see below a link which will take you to our literacy page. Here you will be able to access a range of documents and videos to help with the pronunciation of phonetical sounds to help your children with their reading.
Mathematics
This term, the children will develop their knowledge and understanding of place value, addition and subtraction and shapes.
Our first unit is Place Value. In this unit, children build on their Year 1 knowledge of numbers by exploring place value up to 100. They will practise counting forwards and backwards, recognising tens and ones, and using number lines to compare and order numbers. The children will also learn to read and write numbers in digits and words, represent numbers in different ways, and develop fluency in partitioning numbers into tens and ones. This unit lays the foundation for later work with addition and subtraction.
Next, the children will develop strategies to add and subtract numbers within 100. They practise using number bonds, fact families and related facts to support their understanding. The children will also explore different methods, such as using number lines, partitioning, and mental strategies, to solve addition and subtraction problems. They will learn to check their answers and apply their skills to reasoning and problem-solving tasks, building confidence and fluency for future learning in mathematics.
Finally, the children will explore the properties of both 2-D and 3-D shapes. They will learn to recognise, name, and sort shapes, count sides, vertices, faces and edges, and begin to draw 2-D shapes accurately. The children will also investigate symmetry by identifying and completing shapes with lines of symmetry. Towards the end of the unit, they will sort and compare shapes and create repeating patterns using both 2-D and 3-D shapes. This block develops their understanding of geometry through lots of practical, hands-on activities.
In Year 2 we use base 10 representations to solve additions and subtractions. Below are two videos which show the method we use in class. When completing homework, please ensure your child uses this method and not others, as it is crucial for them to comprehend the reasoning behind regrouping and exchanging before moving on to using formal methods of addition and subtraction in Year 3.
Addition without regrouping
Addition with regrouping
Subtraction with regrouping
In the website below you will find some great tools to help bring your learning to life using all the manipulatives we use in the classroom at home on your device!
https://whiteroseeducation.com/resources/digital-tools
By the end of Year 2, our children should be fluent in their knowledge of the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication and division facts. Please, ensure you revise these times tables with your child as often as possible to ensure their recollection of these multiplication facts is secure. The website below is free and it's a great way for the children to revise these independently:
Science
This half-term we will be learning about animal, including humans. The children will begin by looking at animal young and comparing them to their adults. They will look at how animals change as they grow and be introduced to the life cycles of several varied common animals, including humans. Children are then introduced to the three basic needs of animals for survival (water, food and air) and they will apply this knowledge, alongside research from secondary sources, to suggest ways to look after pets. Finally, the unit ends with children looking at healthy lifestyles, including the importance of exercise, healthy eating and hygiene.
Other curriculum details
Please see links below for more details about the curriculum
Homework
- Homework books will contain your weekly homework. They will be sent home on Mondays and must be returned to school on Thursdays.
- Phonic books will be sent home every Friday. The children must bring these to school each day for their small group reading sessions. Phonic books will change on a weekly basis.
- Reading records must be signed by your parents on a daily basis and returned to school each day.
- All spelling homework is now set online via Spelling Frame every Thursday. You will find your unique login for this in your reading records. Please make sure you are practising these at home each day to help you learn.
- On Thursdays, we will have arithmetic and spelling tests based on the homework you have completed during the week.
Remember, if you get full marks on your spelling and arithmetic tests, you will earn a save for each!
Helpful links
Click on these extra links below to play some exciting maths games linked to your times tables.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/times-tables/coconut-multiples
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/mental-maths-train
Follow the link below to read free eBooks online on the Oxford Owl library:
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/library-page/
