Year 2 Class 20 – 21 – Clearwater Academy

Welcome to our Class Page

Please have a look at what we will be learning about this term: Y2 Curriculum Map Summer 2 2021

To access your child’s home learning via the Class Dojo, please copy and paste the following link: https://home.classdojo.com/#/login?redirectTo=%2Fstory

16th July 2021

What an incredible year! We are so proud of our amazing class. It has been wonderful reflecting on all of their special memories and achievements. Enrichment Week has also been a wonderful opportunity to work together in new and exciting ways.

Everyone helped to make a clay bowl. The cracks embraced the idea that flaws and imperfections can create a stronger, more beautiful piece of art. A great metaphor to help children recognise that sometimes in the process of repairing things that have broken, we actually create something more resilient.

Our learning values, particularly perseverance, have been on display during our fabric weaving and when we added the finishing touches to our moving vehicle.

At the end of the week, we took part in joyful African dancing and fully appreciate how important this is to many African cultures. Children discovered more new facts about places and animals in Africa. We also made an African elephant from recycled materials, tasted delicious Kenyan style biscuits and created bracelets. Later in the week, we thoughtfully discussed the picture book story, Galimoto set in Malawi and recognised the resourcefulness of the main character.

Finally, another highlight was gazing at the stars and learning all about dinosaurs during our Planetarium visit!! Enjoy these photos and thanks again for your tremendous support this year.

9th July 2021

It has been another lovely week in Year 2. In ICT we have enjoyed learning more about coding! Children worked together in small groups to programme a Bee-Bot. The Bee-Bot can remember up to 40 commands consisting of forward, backwards, left and right movements to manoeuvre around. Everyone discovered that giving precise instructions is very important!

Our Science plant experiment is going well, with daily observations being made. Children recorded a range of comparisons between the plants in different conditions, e.g. colour, droopiness, height, number of leaves. Here they are after one week…

We have explored lots of different types of music this week, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to taking part in an African music workshop. The African themed workshop was a fantastic experience, children created lots of different rhythms from a range of instruments. Drumming was definitely our favourite! Also, in RE, we compared the music in a church to the prayer call used in a mosque.

As part of Literacy this week, we have been working hard to edit and uplevel our Big Writes. It was great to see children working so independently, using word banks, storymaps and remembering all of our Year 2 targets. The quality and creativity of the Big Writes have been a joy to read.

The class are excited about the Move Up Afternoon! Have a great weekend and fingers crossed for Sunday!

2nd July 2021

What a brilliant week in Year 2!

We started the week with our incredible Wow assembly. All the children were fantastic – they remembered all their lines and expressed these wonderfully to an excited audience, with their various props! We are so proud of everyone! Thank you for joining us on the live performance. If you’ve not managed to enjoy it yet, we have posted a link on Class Dojo.

Next, the rain stayed away, the children were smiling and there were lots of fun activities for our Sports Day on Tuesday. The children participated in football dribbling, hop races, throwing games and so many more. We had so much fun working together to complete the variety of obstacle challenges. Great teamwork was on display!

In Maths, we have been recapping on 3D shape properties. Children have been counting the number of vertices, edges and faces to identify different shapes. It is pleasing to see the class use their knowledge of 2D shape to help them. Using our Learning Power, Cool Concentration, children were able to spot differences and similarities between shapes to sort them into groups. Please ask children about this Learning Power so they can share other top tips, including the importance of sleep and water.

In Science, we have been observing and describing how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants. This will help children to investigate what plants need to survive. Year 2 asked great questions to support this learning journey: How long can plants last without water/light? Does it matter if the plant is inside or outside? How will less light affect the plant? We are looking forward to measuring the plants over time using simple equipment, including cameras, rulers, measuring tape and magnifiers!

Have a great and hopefully restful weekend!

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

25th June 2021

What another busy week in Year 2! We have been so impressed by their positive attitude to recent assessments and are delighted with their amazing progress.

We have been busy preparing for our ‘Wow Assembly’ which we will perform on Monday 28th of June. They are confident in their lines and are excited about using all the different props for their big performance.

On Tuesday, we had so much fun taking our Maths learning outside. We drew around our partner then practised turning in different directions. We labelled the movements we had made. The children used lots of positional language, such as ‘quarter-turn clockwise’ and ‘half-turn anti-clockwise’. In the classroom, we applied all of these skills to solve a mix of worded problems, some included car routes on a map.

In Literacy, we have been learning our story map based on the book, ‘Grace and Family’ off by heart. Children have been working well in groups to retell this story with lovely expression and actions.

We continue to deepen our understanding about different sacred places. This week we have been comparing the similarities between a mosque and a church. Children enjoyed exploring some local buildings and identified lots of features that help with worship, as well as explaining why these buildings are important to Muslims and Christians.

Finally, we loved taking part in the Young Leader Award challenges this week. This is a school-based programme aimed to equip young children with leadership skills and provides opportunities to engage with the community. In the sunshine, children worked together collaboratively, completing various physical activities. They held hands in a circle and were tasked with passing around a hoop without breaking the chain! Some shared tips on how to pass it when they noticed a friend beside them needed help. Great words of encouragement were also on display, ‘If I can do it, you can do it too!’

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis

18th June 2021

We’ve had another great week with children showing all of our creative learning powers. Our highlight was enjoying a responsible walk around our local community to promote the Walk to School Campaign.

Year 2 have continued to use possessive apostrophes in lots of different types of writing this week, including character descriptions, diary entries and football commentary. I was impressed with the application of our other targets such as expanded noun phrases and conjunctions.

In Maths, we have been learning how to calculate change from 50p and £1 in real life problems. It was great to see children sharing lots of different strategies to calculate the answer, such as number lines and jottings. We’ve also been revising number bonds within 20, telling the time and identifying fractions.

In Science, we learned to describe seed development and dispersal. Year 2 used fantastic scientific vocabulary such as: seed, disperse, wind and pollination. It was fun examining different types of seeds and testing our seed helicopter outside!

We have started a new topic in RE beginning with exploring and comparing sacred places. Yesterday, children sorted and matched photos of parts of a church, synagogue and mosque to the correct world religion. Some brilliant thoughtful questions were asked during our discussions.

Children have all brought home the lines that they need to practise for our wow assembly. Please can you support them practising these over the weekend. Thanks again!

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

11th June 2021

We’ve had such a brilliant week. In the glorious weather, we loved playing with the playpod equipment. Just take a look at the fun we had below!

In Literacy, we’ve started reading the fabulous, ‘James and the Giant Peach’ by Roald Dahl – the class are hooked with the storyline already. It has inspired lots of descriptive writing, including our main learning target – singular possessive apostrophes (e.g. the ladybird’s spots).

There was lots of energy and movement shown in our Music lesson and in Science we identified various common plants, including garden plants, wild plants and trees. Take a look at our plant headbands following our leaf hunt around the school.

We are showing a better understanding of reading the time to the nearest 15 minutes and will continue to work on reading the time on a clock to the nearest 5 minutes.

The class are super excited about the Euro kick-off this weekend! Enjoy!

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis 🙂

28th May 2021

We are at the end of another busy half term and the children have been making AMAZING progress with their learning. They were glowing with pride as they worked so hard to complete their fabulous Big Writes and Maths challenges. Everyone has achieved so many of our Year 2 targets.

In Art, the Children were learning to mix colours and recreated Claude Monet’s water-lily painting – have a look at the results!

During Collective Worship children were introduced to Kasulu Primary School in Tanzania as we are developing a partnership with this school. We explored lots of photographs to understand what life is like in Tanzania. As the school doesn’t have a lot of teaching resources, we shared lots of ideas about how we could raise some money. Well done Year 2!

Thanks again for all your hard work this half-term. Enjoy this break!

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove & Mrs Lewis

21st May 2021

Wow Year 2, another incredible week! We are looking forward to reading your finished instructions – so far, such creativity and ideas shared to hook the reader. Everyone displayed our learning power by ‘Not Giving Up’ and rightly earned certificates for lovely handwriting and improvements in mental arithmetic scores. We’ve read so many stories this week on this theme, including, ‘Here Comes Frankie’ a lovely story about a young boy not giving up on his dreams to play the trumpet.

Y2 loved using our laptops to take part in a big survey to play their role as active citizens! This is a national survey for young people that has been created by The Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza. She was keen to hear from young people about the things that make them happy, that worry them and what they would like to see in the future. The Commissioner will use the information show the Government what children and young people think and what they need to live happier lives. We also discovered lots about the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

In RE, we’ve started to understand the symbolism of prayer candles and have deepened our thinking about the meaning of peace. We read, ‘Malala’s Magic pencil ‘ an inspiring book about Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. This supported Year 2 to understand that anyone can make a real difference to the world we live in. I was so impressed with their ideas for small actions that can create big change!

Finally, in PSHE we now recognise how to care for a baby. We know they need lots of love when they are upset and that a newborn baby is very demanding, with many rounds of feeding and changing. We put these caring responsibilities into action and showed how expertly we can change a nappy!

Give yourselves a huge pat on the back Year 2 and enjoy the weekend!

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis

14th May 2021

What a rather rain filled week! However, this did not stop lots of learning taking place. We’ve started to recap our learning on the features of instructions in Literacy. First, the children loved identifying Hoppity’s mistakes – his instructions were not precise enough for Mrs Pearson to make a simple paper plane! The class were keen to share improvements and much better examples from home, including their favourite recipes and LEGO instructions. We had great fun and showed perseverance making an origami fortune teller. Our written instructions on how to make this paper model were a delight to read – clear, sequenced steps with headings and bossy verbs.

We are now deep in our fabulous history topic. This week we explored different artefacts, including photos to speculate about Walter Tull’s childhood and the challenges of his key life events. Year 2 also used their enquiry and evaluation skills to spot the differences between Walter’s life and the lives of footballers today.

In Art, we learned to mix colours to match those of the natural world. We created many different shades of blues and greens, as well as different brushstrokes.

Finally, we’ve started a fabulous class novel, ‘Flat Stanley’. In groups, Year 2 expressed their views about the different characters and considered how the main character copes with being flat.

Fingers crossed for a few dry spells this weekend.

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis

7th May 2021

Our enthusiasm for Science is abundantly clear in Year 2! At the beginning of the week, we became nature detectives at Forest School. Working together in groups, children explored micro-habitats and identified a variety of plants and animals using their close observation skills. What a wonderful school environment we have! Children also embraced our school value – Respect – by ensuring that all living things were safely returned to their habitat.

In Literacy, we have been applying our understanding of contractions in different types of writing, including speech. We can now identify the words to be contracted and the letters that need to be removed (e.g. was not = wasn’t). We have also celebrated some excellent improvements in spelling, handwriting and general presentation of work. This will continue to be a big focus throughout all our interesting subjects during the rest of this term. I’ve also noticed some lovely expression when children have been confidently reading aloud different stories, poems and texts.

Our understanding of missing number problems in Maths has improved, as has our quick recall of number bonds and times tables. What great fun we had measuring the capacity of various containers with a focus on litres. Reading the time on an analogue clock is still a bit tricky so any extra practice at home would support our revision in class. Here are some online games that might help:

http://Clock demonstrator (ictgames.com)

http://Hickory Dickory Clock: A tell the time game (ictgames.com)

Finally, I’ve been impressed with such thoughtful reflection. During our brainstorming to prepare for entering a Heroes Royal Mail stamp competition, children identified many volunteers, frontline and keyworkers who have done extraordinary work during the coronavirus pandemic. In Religious Education, we have described what peace means to Christians and discussed a good news story about forgiveness. We shared so many lovely ideas and opinions about why we should forgive. Lots of concentration was involved typing up prayer on this theme of Good News on our laptops. Our word processing skills continue to develop but it was satisfying for children to find all the right keys to type up a few sentences!

Enjoy the weekend.

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

30th April 2021

What a great week beginning with National Numeracy Day. Year 2 became AMAZING mathematicians and shop owners for the day. What a great celebration of the place numbers take in everyday life! We worked together in groups and solved real life money problems using addition and subtraction. It was great to see children confidently use all the different calculating methods, for example using number lines, jottings and pictures

In Literacy, we continued our learning about past and present tenses. We were delighted with their beautifully presented replies to Sir David Attenborough and descriptions of colourful frogs. We worked hard to use expanded noun phrases and the correct verb endings. For example, we can now identify this sentence as the present tense: The baby frog is hiding in the bright, pink flower.

Children are also hooked on our new Art and RE topics this term. We are developing our understanding of Christian beliefs and exploring the ‘good news’ Christians believe Jesus brings. This week we discussed the story of Zacchaeus the Tax Collector. It had a clear moral about forgiveness that I think children will remember.

In Art, we revisited the key life events of Andy Warhol. Year 2 were very interested in his pop art and printing techniques. We also made many tones of one colour using primary colours and white. There were some lovely descriptions of colour too, including sunshine yellow and raspberry pink!

Finally, please ask children about all the incredible bird life we have spotted this week, including four pheasants in one day! Their fiery copper-red and chestnut-brown plumage is wonderful for children to admire – perhaps a writing opportunity for later this term.

Enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend! Hopefully the weather will be kind.

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

23rd April 2021

Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed a lovely and restful break. The Easter bunny delivered an abundance of chocolate goodies at our homes!

It is hard to believe that we are now in our final term. We are looking forward to new exciting topics and revisiting some previous learning.

Our classroom teddy, Hoppity inspired our writing in Literacy this week, as we described his actions in the past and present tense.

We had some interesting discussions during our History lesson. We made inferences about photographs related to Walter Tull, a professional footballer player and a soldier during World War One.

We have been so busy in Maths this week! The class have started to learn about Data Handling, including interpreting pictograms and constructing a tally chart. We have continued with our learning on Money and successfully calculated change from 50p and £1. This week we have also been revisiting Addition and Multiplication to consolidate and show even more confidence with our arithmetic methods.

In Science, we had great fun grouping animals according to what they eat and identified a variety of common animals that are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. We also loved acting out a wonderful picture book, ‘Tuesday’ by David Wiesner – children were amazed with the colourful pictures of frogs flying on lily pads.

Well done Year 2 – you have all worked so hard. Enjoy the glorious sunshine this weekend.

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

1st April 2021

Wow Y2…we made it and the Easter holidays are finally here! You have all worked so incredibly hard this term and we are so proud of you.

This week we have been enjoying the lovely sunny weather. We have been seizing the opportunity to read outside and even had our PE lesson with Montague in the bright sunshine.

In Literacy, we have written our own versions of The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark. We have very creatively written about foxes, badgers, fireflies and even hamsters that are all afraid of the dark. We have included so many of our Year Two skills such as expanded noun phrases, exclamation sentences and commas in a list.

In Maths, we have been developing our understanding of money. We can now add different amounts of pence and know that different combinations of coins can add up the same value. This is going to be very useful when the shops open back up!

This term we have been learning about the continents and oceans. We have learned two very catchy songs to help us remember these. You can watch them here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/K6DSMZ8b3LE

https://www.youtube.com/embed/X6BE4VcYngQ

We have loved having everyone back together this term. We cannot wait to see you all again after a well-earned break. Have a lovely Easter holiday.

PS: We have set some Spelling, Maths and optional Art homework for the holidays. Please only do what your child is comfortable with but obviously anything they do will be beneficial. They will be in your child’s orange Homework folder.

See you in the summer Year Two!!!

Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Pearson

26th March 2021

Year 2 have been so hardworking this week – completing reading assessments, story writing and developing our understanding of Time a bit more. We are becoming money experts in Maths as well, adding two items together using coins and notes.

In RE, we can retell the main events in Holy Week and can now recognise the meaning behind lots of different Easter traditions. This week we are also considering the question, ‘What do Christians believe Jesus thought about caring?’ The story of the Good Samaritan supported this learning journey. Our reflections were thoughtful, compassionate and kind.

Mrs Lewis has been busy supporting everyone make a felt puppet. They are AMAZING! Children have learned so many practical skills during this Design and Technology project, including sewing. I can’t wait until Year 2 use these to perform ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ poem and bring these wonderful characters to life!

As part of our Geography learning about Asia, we enjoyed tasting delicious fruits. What a positive attitude to learning this week Year 2!

Finally, it has been great to catch up on your child’s progress this week. Please look out for an envelope containing examples of your child’s work and a few resources to help your child reach their learning targets.

We appreciate all your continued support and hope the lovely weather continues into the weekend.

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

11th December 2020

One week to go!!!! We’ve certainly been counting down the days to Christmas this week!

Year Two have had a lovely week full of activities.

In DT we learned about how Christmas is celebrated around the world and what different foods are eaten to mark this special occasion. Marika’s mum kindly made a delicious Polish vegetable salad and lots of us thought it was delicious. Ben’s mum also made a delicious Victoria Sponge cake…that didn’t last long!

We were very shocked on Monday to discover a letter from Father Christmas saying Christmas was CANCELLED!!! Apparently he is too busy and has to stay home to trim his beard and cook a turkey dinner for Mrs Claus! Well we decided this simply would not do…so we wrote back to him. Our class elf Pickle delivered him our letters and thankfully they were so convincing he has decided not to cancel Christmas after all!! Phew!

In Maths, we have been practising multiplication and division methods. We’ve learned that these can be represented as arrays or as repeated additions/subtractions. Keep practising those recall of the 2x, 5x and 10x tables at home where possible please.

Next week will be our last week in Olympus Park as we prepare for the big move into our forever home. Although it’s the end of an era, we are very excited! We will be doing lots of Christmas activities and will have our party on Tuesday afternoon. Ho Ho Ho!

Enjoy your weekends and see you next week for some festive fun.

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis

4th December 2020

Another week has flown past as we head towards the final month of the year!

It feels like Christmas in Y2 with our decorations and our cheeky elf, Pickle making mischief in the classroom! The children have had an opportunity to practise for our Class Dojo video. We were all very impressed by word perfect lines so thanks for your support with this. Please keep practising these over the weekend.

Our Literacy this week was also based on a Christmas theme. Pickle surprised the children with a letter from Mrs Moss who was considering keeping the school open over the holidays! Thankfully, Year 2 wrote a convincing reply and persuaded her to reconsider using their excellent writing skills. Phew!
In Maths, we have covered a range of skills this week. The children have thought carefully about how to find equal groups of numbers and associated multiplication facts. They used counters and created arrays for different groups from a set of 10 (2 groups of 5, 5 lots of 2) and 20 (5 groups of 4, 4 lots of 5, 2 groups of 10, and 10 lots of 2). We have also been exploring directional language and talking about a whole turn, half turn and a quarter turn.

We are deep in our Geography topic now and have been busy creating fact files on Edinburgh and London. The class were fascinated by the facts and figures about different landmarks and rivers. Did you know that the River Thames has over 150 species of fish? We also discovered that ‘population’ means the number of people living in a country, city or area.

Finally, we enjoyed a lovely RE discussion about why gifts are given at this time of year. Children recognise that many Christians believe Jesus is the most precious gift. We suggested many thoughtful present ideas and recognised that a gift doesn’t always need to be something that costs money or is bought from a shop.

Enjoy your weekend and see you next week!

Mrs Pearson

27th November 2020

This week, Year 2 have had a big focus on Anti-Bullying. We talked about what bullying is and what we can do if we see someone being bullied. We thought of many kind and unkind behaviours and decided it was better to be kind because being unkind can hurt people both on the inside and the outside. This was made even clearer to us when Mrs Pritlove showed us two identical apples. We said kind words to one apple and unkind words to the other. Although the apples looked the same on the outside, inside the bullied apple was all bruised and damaged! We decided we all have choices to make and made lots of sensible suggestions as to how we can unite together against bullying. These included things such as making sure no one is left out and not laughing at people if they are different to us. We have learned a lot about who we can turn to if we are feeling a victim of bullying or if we see someone being unkind.

In Literacy this week, we have been perfecting the skill of writing exclamation sentences. We watched an old McDonald’s advert where Santa’s reindeers were not left any carrots. We wrote some excellent exclamation sentences such as: How hungry they must be! What rumbly tummies they must have!

In Maths, we have started to recap 3D shape. We have been describing the properties of cylinders and cones using the vocabulary of vertices, faces and edges. I wonder if you can find any cones and cylinders in your home Year 2?

Next week, the countdown to Christmas officially begins as it will be the start of December! We hope the Christmas elves visit and make our classroom all Christmasy…We’ll have to wait and see!

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis

20th November 2020

What a fantastic week we have had in Year 2!

Our highlight this week was Wheelie Day, despite the wet weather! We all loved learning a song with the lyrics – Stop, Look, Listen, Think. We also recognised different safe places to cross and the the importance of securely fastening our helmets. We read ‘Tumble Ted’ – a story about a teddy that didn’t sit in his car seat safely. When the car stopped suddenly he fell on the floor, tore his stitches and his stuffing came out. We discussed and identified with the important safety message. In the afternoon, we made badges with warnings and designed reflective outfits. We hope that the children found it fun and valuable.

In Literacy, we learned how to construct an exclamation sentence. This type of sentence always begins with ‘what’ or ‘how.’ A short video clip, ‘The Clocktower’ inspired some very impressive exclamation sentences:

• How emotional the pretty dancer must feel!
• What a sad moment that was!
• How incredible to gaze at the colourful balloons!

It was amazing how much children inferred about the meaning of this story, despite there being no words in this lovely animation.

During phonics we worked together to identify the sounds and sorted groups of words with the same spelling. Each group shared their findings with the rest of the class. One group discovered that ‘oi’ is usually used in the middle of a word as in ‘coin’ and ‘oy’ is used at the end of word as in ‘enjoy.’

The main focus in Maths this week was subtraction and developing the skill of rounding a 2-digit number to the nearest multiple of ten. We continue to improve the recall of our times tables each week.

In Geography, we identified that the United Kingdom is made up of four nations. We carefully located each country and capital city on a map, as well as sharing some interesting facts about national flags and national emblems. The picture books, ‘Katie in London’ and ‘Katie in Scotland’ by James Mayhew have helped us to explore and recognise some key UK landmarks.

We hope you have a wonderful and restful weekend.

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

13th November 2020

This week has been full of fun. The class has been making us smile every day!

Our Montague PE session was great on Tuesday. We had a surprise visitor called Alan who coaches Aston Villa FC! He showed us how to dribble and stop the ball as well as score some goals.

On Wednesday, we all sat silently for 2 minutes at 11am to remember the soldiers who have fought in wars in the past and who are still fighting today. We watched the Remembrance service live and talked very sensitively about people in our family who are in the Armed Forces. Miss Bratt took our beautiful wreath to St James’ Church and laid it beside the cenotaph for the community to enjoy.

In our Maths lessons, we have continued to develop our subtraction skills. We are now getting very good at using jottings to help us calculate.

During Literacy lessons, we have perfected the skill of writing commands. We know it means you have to use bossy verbs and order someone to do something. We made some crowns and then wrote commands explaining how to make one.

Thank you for all the baby pictures that have been sent in for our Science topic ‘Animals including humans’. They have been put on display in the classroom and the children are loving guessing who is who.

Last Friday Miss Moosajee came to talk to us about Islam. We have been learning about Islam for weeks and it was really good to be able to ask her questions and hear about what her religion means to her. She showed us the special movements that Muslims perform before prayer and we even tried on some traditional Islamic headwear. Thank you Miss Moosajee!

Don’t forget…next Wednesday is Wheely Day. We look forward to seeing you on your vehicles. Please remember your helmet!

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis

6th November 2020

We’ve had a great first week back after half-term with everyone showing our school values and working well together. Well done Year 2!

In our Maths lessons, we have started to deepen our understanding of subtraction and have enjoyed learning new strategies to solve problems. We continue to supplement our daily lessons with fluency work in number bonds, times tables and doubles. Our quick recall is certainly improving so thanks for your continued support on this!

In Guided Reading, we have been studying the text, ‘The Princess and the White Bear King.’ This was so much fun as the children used ‘hot seating’ to interview one of the characters. There were so many interesting questions and answers!

The class were excited to start our new topics, including our Geography topic on ‘UK Capital Cities’ and ‘Animals including Humans’ in Science. The knowledge organisers are accessible on Class Dojo via the Class Story page. Please take a look at this information with your child as it shows the key knowledge and vocabulary that we will develop this term.

Finally, in Art we discussed the significance of the poppy on Remembrance Day and then created beautiful poppies to recognise this important event.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

23rd October 2020

Wow, we’ve reached the end of the half term! Where has the time gone? This week has been full of fun.

In Art, we have finished looking at the work of Vincent Van Gogh. We used collage techniques to create our own versions of Boats at Sainte Marie. Did you know that in June 1888, Van Gogh took a 30-mile stagecoach trip to the sea-side fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the South of France. Van Gogh’s week-long trip was taken to recover from his health problems and make some seaside paintings and drawings. At that time, Saintes-Maries was a small fishing village with under a hundred homes. He drew the fishing boats whilst at the beach. We loved learning all about Van Gogh’s life and creating our own versions of his famous painting.

In Maths, we have been practising our addition skills. We found this really hard at the start of the week but have finally cracked it! We used all our Learning Powers and it worked as now we can add two 2 digit numbers like pros.

Are you kept awake at night by the sound of spiders building webs? Or zombies growling? If you are, you need to read the instructions we have been writing this week! We have worked really hard to write clear, detailed instructions on how to trap all manner of different creatures. Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Pearson have been so impressed with our writing as we’ve remembered to include all our targets such as expanded noun phrases and conjunctions.

Year Two you have been working so hard all term so really deserve a rest. Enjoy your half term holiday and see you when you get back.

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Lewis.

16th October 2020

It’s been another super week of learning in Year Two.

In Maths, we have been working really hard on using our knowledge of number bonds to solve trickier addition problems. We have added three single digit numbers successfully. For example, in 4 + 6 + 9 we noticed that adding the numbers 4 + 6 together first makes it much easier to then add 9. We also added multiples of 10 to two-digit numbers (e.g. 33 + 20; 25 + 40) and used base ten blocks to help with our understanding.

In Literacy, we have been learning how to trap a dragon. We discovered that a delicious piece of meat works as an excellent lure when placed over a camouflaged hole in the ground! Following this we wrote clear instructions on how to trap an angry giant and applied lots of writing skills. We continue to enjoy reading classic tales in class as they are full of description and have wonderful characters. We have smiled during our Winnie the Pooh reading adventures and love all the thoughtful things that Pooh Bear does. We also discovered some great links to our local area during our reading of ‘The Tailor of Gloucester’ by Beatrix Potter, as well as the importance of showing kindness. Children loved learning about the mice who set about helping the tailor with his work.

It was a delight to have our show and tell reward this week after earning so many pom poms for our classroom jar. What a variety of special items we discussed! Children were similarly thoughtful during our class discussion about the Qu’ran. In RE, children reflected on what they treat with respect and had many ideas for rules that would help to make the world a better place.

We have completed our Science Investigation. We concluded that the best material for Hoppity’s bag was plastic because it was strong and waterproof. Though we did recognise that this material is not the best for our environment. In History, we have been busy making narrowboat models and look forward to completing these next week.

Homework

We will post some optional history homework on Class Dojo. Thank you for continuing to complete our weekly spellings, maths and reading.

Well done Year Two another great week. We hope you all have a restful weekend.

Mrs Pritlove, Mrs Pearson & Mrs Lewis

9th October 2020

What an incredible week of fun and learning!

In History, we have ordered a variety of canal boats and spectacular ships according to when they were built. We identified their features and thoughtfully considered the purpose of each vessel – impressive Historians in the making! Children showed super teamwork to create a further historical timeline for the display. We were surprised to learn that the first canal boats were horse-drawn. We also marked key buildings and different areas of Gloucester Docks on a map. This was tricky but using the ‘Maps’ tool on our iPads helped everyone to complete this activity successfully.

This linked well with our ICT as we explored how technology can be used safely to help learning. Later in the week, we also used our iPads to discover and read information about Canal Wildlife on the Canal River Trust website.

It would be great if you could share how technology is used in your job or day-to-day routine so children recognise other benefits beyond school.

Our Science was such fun this week too! We planned an investigation to test the absorbency of materials. We made fantastic predictions and discussed how to make the experiment a fair test, such as using the same amount of water to test each material.

In our Literacy lessons, we have continued to learn how to use conjunctions (and, so, but, or, because) in our sentences. We are proud that children have started to use these independently. Finally, there have been some brilliant discussions during Maths on what the best strategies are for adding numbers. Children worked hard to recall their number bonds up to 20 (14 +6), doubles (7 +7) and near doubles (7 + 8).

Thanks to everyone for signing up to ClassDojo. We have been so impressed by the fantastic effort to upload homework related pictures and videos!

Well done Year 2, such a positive attitude shown again this week. We hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Pearson, Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Lewis

2nd October 2020

What a busy week we’ve had in Year Two this week. With Flu immunisations and Harvest Festival rehearsals we’ve been working non stop!

If you haven’t signed up to Class Dojo yet, please check your emails as you should have received an invite. Our Harvest Festival celebrations will be posted on there on Monday so watch this space!

In Maths this week, we have been learning all about 3D shapes. We have learned to describe these shapes using language such as vertices, edges and faces. Why not go on a 3D shape hunt at home and post photos of what you find on Dojo…

We have learned to use a new skill in Literacy called ‘co-ordinating conjunctions’. We found out that these are words such as but, and, so, because and or. They join clauses together. On Wednesday, our class teddy Hoppity made an awful jam sandwich that had jam and butter on the outside and inside of the bread! So we wrote instructions to help him next time he makes one. We thought hard about including conjunctions in our writing such as ‘Then spread jam on the bread but be careful not to cut yourself with the knife.’

We enjoyed becoming artists this week and have designed a bird table for Kier. They have promised to build one for us at the new school. Hopefully they like our designs.

We look forward to celebrating Harvest Festival with you on Monday. Remember to check Dojo for our video. 😊

25th September 2020

We have had a fabulous week in Year Two.

Our Maths this week has been focusing on shape. We can now identify pentagons, hexagons and octagons and know the difference between regular and irregular shapes. Challenge us to point some out around the home!

We continued to practise using expanded noun phrases in our writing. We read a very funny version of The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig and wrote some amazing setting descriptions. Mrs Pritlove was particularly impressed by phrases such as ‘bright, glowing sparks exploded from the drill’ and ‘bits of muddy, lumpy dirt sprayed up into the pig’s face’. Our writing is beginning to sound really interesting.

During Science we really enjoyed finding out how material’s changed by bending, squashing, twisting or stretching. We were surprised by see that the metal spoon did bend a little bit. We had an interesting discussion about how some materials shape change forever once a force is applied, whereas others just bounce back.

In RE we have been learning about Islam. We enjoyed exploring the Islamic artefacts and are excited to find out what Muslims use them all for.

Homework:

I hope you have all received the letter about Class Dojo from your children. I have posted some Art homework on there this week and look forward to seeing your child’s masterpiece soon. Have a go at uploading a photo of their finished work.

18th September 2020

What another wonderful week we have had in Year Two!

In Maths we have starting to learn all about a greedy alligator that likes to eat larger numbers. Watch the funny song we learned and play some games here: https://www.education.com/game/alligator-greater-than-less-than/

We have been learning a new skill called ‘expanded noun phrases’ in Literacy. Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Pearson have been very impressed with the wonderful adjectives we have been using in our written work. Well done to all those children who have been reading lots at home too!

Thank you for providing the objects from home for our Science lesson this week. We had some interesting discussions about materials objects are made from and how they are used at school and in the home.

In Art, we became Vincent Van Gogh and used pastels to create our own Starry Night pictures. We think they look just like it, don’t you?

11th September 2020

What a busy week we have had this week in Year Two! Mrs Pritlove and Mrs Pearson have both been so impressed with our fantastic attitudes to learning. If this continues, we are going to have the best year ever!

In Literacy we have been remembering how to use capital letters, full stops and finger spaces correctly. We’ve learned about proper nouns and how they too need a capital letter. We wrote some very interesting sentences about the teachers and remembered to use all the correct punctuation.

In Maths we learned how to partition numbers and are beginning to understand that 2 digit numbers can be split up in all sorts of ways.

We started our Science topic on Materials. We went on a material hunt around the classroom and learned lots of new words to describe their properties. Try asking us what rigid, stiff or stretchy means… Next Monday we will be comparing the materials of objects found at home to objects found at school. For this activity, can your child please bring in an object of their choice. It can be anything they like such as a toy, a piece of cutlery or crockery, some clothes…anything really. It will stay in their bag all day and only they will touch it in order to show the class.

We were very excited to have the Montagu coaches back in this week. They played lots of games with us outside including one where we had to balance cones on our heads! Our co-ordination and control was really tested!

We cannot wait for another week of learning next week. We have really shown that we are up to the new challenges of Year Two so can’t wait to see what next week brings.

A couple of reminders:

Some of the children’s feet have grown lots in the holidays. Please can you check their PE shoes still fit as some were a bit of a squeeze this week.
Please remember to read at least 3x a week at home and record in the reading Record when you do. If your child reads 5x they enter the Regular Reader draw to win a book.
Don’t forget your item from home for our Science lesson on Monday.

Thank you