Welcome to Year 2!

Hello and welcome to our Year 2 page. We have two classes; Violet and Indigo. Mrs Heywood and Miss Richards are our teachers and there are lots of Teaching Assistants that work with us too!

Summer 5

Growth 

This half term we will be learning all about plants and growth. We will be planting our own seeds and bulbs. The children will be: 

• observing and describing how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants
• finding out and describing how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow and stay healthy

We will be conducting a test where we eliminate a vital element that plants need to grow. 1 with no light (in cupboard), 1 with no water, 1 with no soil, 1 with no warmth, 1 with having all of the elements. After several weeks we will see which has faired the best. 

In History we will be learning about the history of aviation. We will be learning about The Wright brothers and the impact of their invention on the global way of life. We will also be looking at the significance of Amelia Earhart. 

This half term we will be having our Forest School sessions. They will be every Thursday. These are held in the corner of our school grounds in our Forest School Area. They should come to school dressed ready for their Forest School sessions, in old clothes you do not mind them getting dirty and trainers. The children will also need full waterproofs and wellies for each session, as we will be going outside in all weather conditions. They are even needed on days when you think the weather is fine because we do use water at Forest School and the children do like playing with mud! Please make sure all these clothes and wellies are labelled and in a bag that can be kept at school.

Spring 4 

This half term is the shortest of the year but there is still lots of learning to be done each and every day! Our topic this half term is Japan! We will be learning about the geography and culture of Japan. In this topic the children will be tasting a Japanese delicacy, sushi! They will be learning some of the language and the things that make it unique. We will be looking at the physical and human features of Japan, including rivers and mountain, and comparing it to the UK. The children will also be learning the 7 continents and 5 oceans. 

In English, the children will be reading 'The Dragon Machine' by Helen Ward. In our first week, we had dragons come and visit us on the playground! The children were mesmerised and could identify using prepositional language, where they had landed. 

Any Japanese artefacts or books your child would like to bring into school to share with the class would be much appreciated. 

Spring 3 

Our topic this term is 'Great Explorers'. We will be learning about significant explorers, who weren't always celebrated or acknowledged in their own time. We will be learning about Matthew Henson who was the first person to go to the North Pole but was overshadowed by Robert Peary. We are learning about Felicity Aston, who was the first solo woman to reach the South Pole. We will compare their expeditions, looking at similarities and differences. We will be learning about the Apollo 11 mission and what the astronauts roles were on the mission. We will be discussing why Neil Armstrong might be remembered more than the other astronauts from the mission. In DT we will be designing and sewing our own dry bag for an expedition. 

Autumn 2

'Once upon a time...' 

This half term we will be looking at traditional tales. The children have learnt that traditional tales are stories that have been told for many years. The children looked back at traditional tales they focused on in Year 1, The Three Little Pigs. We looked at features of traditional tales, such as starting with 'Once upon a time', ending with 'happily ever after', having a good character and a villain. 

When we came to school one day some of the characters and props had escaped from a book! We went to find them on the playground. We saw a pumpkin, red cloak, an apple, gingerbread man cutter and many more! Our model text this half term is Little Red Riding Hood. We will be retelling the story, reading lots of alternative versions and then creating our own version. 

This half term we will be ticking off several items on our Riddings 50 list. Such as, going on a bus and watching the news (Newsround in circle time). We have been lucky enough to have Big on Bikes visit us to help us learn to ride a bike! All children have made amazing progress! 

Our first topic this year is

My Home 

We will be learning all about our local area. We will look at local landmarks, human and physical features and even create our own maps of the local area. As well as this, we will be learning all about our local history. James and Sarah Oakes were very important people to Riddings in the 1800s. They owned local mines and iron works; earning lots of money.  We will discover that they were responsible for building the windmills that are now the emblem on our school jumper.  Did you know they were called James and Sarah after the Oakes family?  We will be going for a walk around Riddings, spotting important places, which will give us clues about the history of the Oakes family. 

Meerkat Mail

Most of our work in English this term will be about a meerkat called Sunny.  He goes on an adventure to try and find the perfect home.  

We are going to write letters from Sunny back to the Meerkat Mob in the Kalahari Desert telling him all about his stay in Riddings. 

Maths!

We will be learning a lot about Place Value this term, looking at the value of each digit in a 2-digit number. 

We will be using lots of different resources to help us including Place Value grids, tens and ones counters, dice, part-part-whole models and arrow cards. 

We will learn how to partition numbers into tens and ones and other ways and compare numbers using the greater than and less than symbols.

The Colour Monster

We read a book all about our emotions called 'The Colour Monster'.  We learnt that we all feel these emotions at different times and that's ok.  We also learnt that it's important to talk about how we're feeling with people that we trust.

Homework

Below are some links to great websites with games and activities you can do at home. We've also attached the Maths homework and Year 1 and 2 common exception words that your child needs to be able to read and spell by the end of Year 2.