Year 2

Key information for parents:

• Year 2 children come into school at 8.40am and enter school through their classroom door at the back of school.
• Year 2 leave school at 3.15 pm through the same door.
• PE takes place on a Monday and a Wednesday and children should come to school in their PE kit on these days.
• Reading books are usually changed on Wednesdays.

Mrs Bateman, Mrs Kemp and Mrs Cliff look forward to seeing you in Year 2.

What an AMAZING first half term!

Wow - we can't believe it's half term already! We've packed so much in from poetry performances, to Diwali day and everything in between!

We just wanted to say how proud we are of the children for settling in so well to Year 2. They have been a real pleasure and all deserve a wonderful rest. 

We look forward to seeing what we can achieve next half term!

Mrs Kemp and Mrs Bateman

World mental health day! 
 

For world mental health day, year 2 played ‘emotion charades’ where the children had to act out the emotion without using their voice. Some were easier to guess than others… can you guess the emotions from the pictures below? 
We then spoke about how sometimes people’s emotions are obvious and sometimes they are not and how we can help everyone to feel safe to share their emotions in a way that they feel comfortable. 

Making our own paintbrushes!

Last week, Year 2 took inspiration from Lorna Crane, an Australian artist, who uses natural materials she collects from her surroundings to make her own paintbrushes. 

We, therefore, made our paintbrushes and made some abstract pieces of art with them and they were fantastic! Here is a sample of some of the creations we made.

Friday 13th September 2024

Another fantastic week in Year 2! The children are doing so well in all their lessons. Our highlight this week had to be the performance of our class poem, 'Zebra Questions'. Every child joined in so well with the words and the actions and used some fantastic expression in their voices. It was so lovely to see so many parents there to clap and support as well - thank you. 

Looking forward to another fantastic week next week!

Mrs Kemp and Mrs Bateman

Friday 6th September 2024

Well- what a lovely first week back!

The children have settled so well into Year 2.

In English, we have been looking at a poem called ‘Zebra Questions’ and learning to read it aloud with expression and fluency. We then looked at riddles and even managed to write our own riddle poem… can you guess who we are speaking about?

A jolly, present- deliverer

A big cookie muncher

A reindeer rider

In charge of the present wrappers.

Who am I?

In Maths, we have been looking at shapes and recalling the names of 2D and 3D shapes and in Art we have been designing our own paintbrushes made out of natural materials!

Well done Year 2!

  Friday 12th July

What a busy week it has been!  The children have really enjoyed the three mornings spent in Year 3 with Miss Carter and Mrs El getting used to their environment ready for next September.   Miss Carter is very excited about having this super class next year and has said how well behaved they were.   In Maths this week the children have been exploring statistics, looking at tables and pictograms and  how to read and present data in these. In English they have been working hard to write letters in character as Red to persuade a nursery rhyme character to help save the woods so that animals have a safe habitat to thrive in.   In Art, they have been looking at how some famous artists use brushstrokes to create their work.  They have had a go at replicating a part of their work in their sketch books with paint. 

Friday 21st June 

The sun has finally shone meaning we had the opportunity to get out onto the playground with our metre sticks and trundle wheels to measure things around the school grounds as we have been measuring in centimetres and metres in Maths this week.  We have continued to find out about the coastline of the UK in readiness for our visit to New Brighton next week.  We can name the seas and oceans surrounding the UK, name some coastal locations and identify physical and human features of the coast.  We have also been learning about coastal habitats and the history of the seaside.....we can't wait to go!  In writing, we have been writing diary extracts imaging we are an animal in the woods and we have been adding the conjunctions if  and that into our writing.

Friday 14th June

in Science this week the children have been investigating food chains by deciding which plants and animals are producers, predators or prey in different habitats. They have also recalled the different types of habitats that they have learned about and how animals and plants depend upon each other. In English, they have used apostrophes for contraction and adjectives with-er and -est in their writing to describe Little Red’s journey through the woods in our text The Last Wolf. In Art this week they have been exploring primary colours by making patterns with different media. 

Friday 7th June

We’ve made a great start to our final half term in Year 2 and have enjoyed our new class text, ‘The Last Wolf’. We have been thinking of some really interesting alternative verbs to describe Red’s movements through the forest. In Maths, we have been recapping the four operations and solving problems using them as well as continuing to tell the time. We had an interesting afternoon on Thursday thinking and learning about D-Day and placing this event on a timeline of what we have learnt in History this year. Then we tried to crack some Morse code messages and had a go and spelling our names in Morse code! Computing has been all about presenting our ideas in different digital ways such as e-books and digital quizzes; going up to the Computing suite is one of our favourite times of the week!

Friday 17th May

Year 2 have worked really hard this week trying to crack ‘Time’ in Maths. We have focussed on o’clock, half pasts, quarter to and quarter pasts and we have just started to look at increments of five minutes.We have been using analogue clocks and any help telling the time at home will be very much appreciated. We have also been practising our arithmetic skills. In English, we have written an independent piece of diary writing from the point of view of the main characters in our class text, ‘Major Glad, Major Dizzy’, during the Blitz. We have been finding out about the history of flight and the part Staffordshire born, Reginald Mitchell, played. In Computing, we are continuing to find information using simple databases. 

Friday 3rd May 2024

It has been lovely to see some sunshine this week!  The children are enjoying learning all about the Titanic and particularly Edward John Smith who was the captain of the Titanic and born in Staffordshire. We have looked at old photographs and eye witness reports as our sources as well as reading books about the Titanic.  In Computing, we have been using binary trees to help us to sort information to add to simple databases.  Fractions has continued to be our focus in Maths,  and we have been looking at unit fractions and learning the correct mathematical vocabulary - numerator and denominator.  We are enjoying our class text 'Major Glad, Major Dizzy' and have been using it as inspiration for some writing about what it must be like to live under the floorboards!  The children have been writing sentences with 'so that' in.  In Phonics we have been learning all the various graphemes for the <ai> phoneme, who knew there were so many?

Friday 26th April

This Week in Science,  the children have been closely observing the growth of the beans and seeds that they have planted in the last few weeks.  They have been thinking about which are the best conditions for seeds to germinate and grow healthily. We will continue to monitor their growth.   In Maths, they have been continuing work on Fractions, recognising a half and quarter of shapes, objects and numbers.  They have explored some tricky problems for fractions using concrete resources to help them work out the answer.  In English, they have continued to focus on using the past and present tense in sentences to describe a character in the class text. The children are improving their editing skills in our editing of writing activities each week.  They particularly enjoyed the tennis taster session at school on Tuesday exploring new skills and playing games.  In Art, they have been using colour washing techniques and different sized brushes to paint backgrounds ready for the Art competition session next week.

Friday 19th April 

We can't quite believe we're in the Summer term already, let's hope we get the weather to match soon!  This week the children have started their new unit in Maths, Fractions and have been investigating equal parts.  We have some very musical children in Year 2 and were proud of all that showcased their talents this week when performing to the school and to their families/carers.  Back in the classroom, we have been learning to sing traditional songs associated with the British Isles as well as creating a soundscape for the British countryside.  In English, we have started our new class text, 'Major Glad, Major Dizzy' and have been using different verb tenses to write sentences as well as putting commas in lists.  We have been thinking about significant local people from the past, in history,  and finding out about the Captain of the Titanic who was from Stoke on Trent.  We have used photos and asked questions about the past.  In Computing, we have stared to collect and collate data about the different types of homes we live in and we have created digital pictograms. Hopefully we'll be able to set a new date for our Geography fieldwork visit to the Burntwood soon!

Friday 22nd March

As you can see from all the following pictures, we’ve had a very busy last week of term, a dram workshop, testing the strength of shapes and then making a strong structure for baby bear, rounding it all off with a scrummy hot chocolate station! Thank you to the PTFA for organising it for us and, of course, to Hattie for winning it for us. Happy Easter all. 

 Friday 15th March

This week the children have been learning all about plants in our new Science topic.  They have been looking closely at different seeds and finding similarities and differences between them.   They have also thought about what they think make good conditions for a seed to germinate and for a plant to grow and stay healthy.  After Easter they will be investigating this more closely and making observations of seeds that they plant themselves.  In Writing, they have proofread and edited their own and a partners writing to make improvements to their adventure stories.    In Maths, they have continued to work out multiplication problems and have investigated the two times tables as repeated addition.  The children were excited to have a visit on Tuesday from some Stoke City Football Club representatives who have given them the opportunity to acquire tickets to watch a football game with their families.  They have ended the week celebrating Comic Relief Day.

Friday 8th March

A wonderful World Book Day was had by all yesterday. We read (lots), listened to Mr Men stories (our current favourite), took part in a Where’s Wilma scavenger hunt, played the guess the staff’s favourite book quiz, designed book covers and unwrapped our Wonderlicious Wonka bars with Hattie winning a hot chocolate station for the class! The fun continued today as we created character masks and finger puppets, did crosswords and word searches and completed a fairy tale spotter activity. Happy reading over the weekend and Happy Mother’s Day.  

Friday 1st March

This week the children have been starting to write their own adventure stories based on our class text.  They have planned a story with a beginning, middle and an end and created characters such as fairies, robots, monsters and aliens. They have also practised proofreading and editing skills looking for missing words in a text and spelling and punctuation errors. Our spelling focus this week was looking at words ending in -tion.  They have been clapping out the syllables in words to help recognise the patterns.  In Maths, they have been adding equal groups and linking this to multiplication.  In Science, we have been conducting investigations linking to our topic on Animals including humans.  The first one was to investigate the question, 'Do our feet get bigger the older we get?' in which they measured the feet of different children in the school and also some adults to find out the answer.   The second investigation involved finding out about the effects of exericise on our bodies.  There were a lot of tired children after this one!

Friday 23rd February 

We have started our new Geography unit this week and are going to be considering the question ‘why is our world wonderful?’ We have looked at the countries that make up the United Kingdom and located Loggerheads. We have been sorting physical and human features of the UK and have come up with some places we would really love to visit such as the Titanic museum and Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, Ben Nevis in Scotland, Cardiff Castle in Wales and the Tower of London in England. In Maths, we have begun investigating equal groups in preparation for multiplying and dividing, we have been using mathematical vocabulary to describe what we can see. In Computing, we have started using spreadsheet by making a counting machine. PSHE has been all about eating healthily by creating an ‘eat well’ lunch box.  Palm Sunday was the focus of our RE lessons and we made our own palm leaves. We have been making some interesting past tense verb choices to describe the flight of the dragon machine in our writing. 

Friday 2nd February

This week we have continued with our Shape topic in Maths and we have been counting sides and vertices on 2-D shapes as well as using a ruler to draw 2-d shapes (tricky!) We have had fun with the Geo-boards investigating all the 2-d shapes we can make.  In History, we have learnt about the importance of our local area in the fight against TB, we have been finding out why the Cheshire Joint Sanatorium was built in Loggerheads and how they used to treat patients with TB.  Online Safety has been the feature of our computing lessons in preparation for Online Safety day on Tuesday next week.  In Art we have been learning how to use a technique called binding when making our own Worry Dolls.  We have learnt how to play five notes on the glockenspiels in Music and are (mostly) in time with each other. Watch this space for a video of the full performance!

Friday 19th January 

Another very busy week in Year 2.  We have been finding out about Mary Seacole, in History, how she changed nursing, why she is significant and and why we remember her.  In Computing, the children have experimented with a paint program to produce some fabulous masterpieces based on Impressionism and Pointiliist art. We have continued to count, add and find different ways to make  the same amount of money in Maths using notes and coins.  Science has been all about animals including humans and this week, we have been thinking about what humans and animals need to survive.  We have learnt to sing a new song in Music and have been learning about timbre and pulse and playing untuned percussion instruments. In English we have been recognising and writing different types of sentences, such as, command, question, statement and exclamation.

  Friday 12th January 2024

 This week the children have settled back in to school really well and have been eager to learn.   In Writing, they have made some predictions about the characters and story for our new text, 'The Dragon Machine'.  After finding some dragon eggs outside our classroom they were inspired to write some super stories about how they thought the eggs had got there and after finding some cheeky dragons in the classroom they wrote a poster to warn others about them. In Maths, they have been exploring coins and notes for our topic on money, including having a go at some challenging problems.   In Science, the children have been learning about animals including humans and thinking about what they need to survive.

Friday 15th December

It has been another busy week in Year 2.  The children have completed writing their reports about owls using subheadings, they have learnt so many facts about owls that they have been able to use in their reports.   In Maths, they have been subtracting two digit numbers using different methods and tackled some problems in addition and subtraction.  In Design Technology the children have been recapping on the skills that they learnt in Year 1 using sliders for a moving picture.  They have all designed a moving Christmas card that they are looking forward to making next week. We had an exciting visit from Santa on Tuesday, whilst we were on the playground he came flying over in a helicopter waving at us.  He circled our playground a few times before continuing on his journey.

Friday 8th December.

Well, what can we say about the Wriggly Nativity?  We are bursting with pride at how well the children performed in the Nativity; they were clear, confident and consummate professionals!  This week we have also been learning about nursing in the past in History.  The children could think of lots of ways that we find out about the past and we looked at photographs as a historical resource to compare health professionals from the past to those of modern day.  In Maths, we have started to subtract two 2-digit numbers and are using base ten to help us.  The children enjoyed the challenge of solving the riddle to work out the values of the shapes!  In writing we have been using sub-headings and our knowledge about Owls to begin writing our reports about owls.  We have been making sure to include lots of adverbs to make our writing interesting to read.  

Friday 1st December

It has been a very busy week in Year 2 with Nativity rehearsals in full swing. The children were very well behaved when they were having their photos taken with their costumes on. They enjoyed having an extra dress rehearsal in their costumes. They were also super ambassadors for the school when two volunteers from NSPCC came into our class room to talk to them. In writing, the children have started to sort information about owls into groups, thinking about subheadings that they could use in their reports about owls which they will start to write next week. They have become very knowledgeable about owls and are excited about writing their reports. The week was finished off with a super trip to the Panto.

Friday 24th November 

The children in Year 2 are continuing to work hard as well as practising their Nativity. They are doing a great job in rehearsals and we can't wait to share our performance with you all.  In Maths this week the children have been adding two 2-digit numbers using a range of resources to help, base ten, a number line, place value charts and we have had a go at adding in columns just like the year 3s!  In Computing we have been coding to create our own racing games.  We have also been thinking about Road Safety this week and remembering the rules when crossing roads.  Thursday was a very exciting day as it was Christingle day; we listened to stories from the church's Open The Book team, sang hymns, wrote and said our own prayers and we also learned the meaning of Christingle and were lucky enough to make our own.

Odd Sock Day

Poppy Poppy

Poppy Poppy what do you say?

Where me on Remembrance Day.

Poppy Poppy what do you tell?

Many soldiers in battle fell.

Poppy Poppy what should we know?

That peace on earth should

grow, grow, grow!
 

The children did us proud during the Remembrance assembly when they recited the poem, showed off their wax-resist poppies and sang the hymns with gusto!

Friday 27th October 

This week in English the children have been writing their stories based on our class text, Troll Swap. They have spent some time proofreading and editing to try to improve their writing. In Maths they have been adding and subtracting one and ten and explaining their thinking for problems. In Art they have been evaluating their own and other’s work and celebrating their work across the half term. In Science they have conducted an investigation to see which materials could bend, twist, stretch and squash and recorded their findings in a chart. The children have worked really hard this half term and we are proud of them all for their resilience and achievements. They certainly deserve a good rest.

Friday 20th October 2023

The children have been thinking carefully about Rules and also about Racism this week.  We have talked about what Racism looks like and whether to 'think it' or 'say it'; we have decided not to say anything we know will hurt another person's feelings and are trying very hard to stick to this!  In Maths, we have been looking at number bonds to ten and considering related fact by adding bonds to 100 in tens, we have found some surprising patterns.  We have reached the end of our class text and have been busily planning our own story ready to get writing it next week; we are excited to be authors.  There has been some beautiful art work produced in Year 2, this week.  The children have used stunning autumn colours for their wax resist pictures of autumn leaves.

Friday 6th October 

The children in year two have made their teachers very proud with their exemplary behaviour this week! In Maths, we are coming to the end of our unit on Place Value ready to move onto addition and subtraction. We have been comparing numbers using the < , > and = signs and counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. We have been looking for patterns and using our knowledge to solve problems. In English we have been starting to proof read and simply edit our work. We have also been identifying and writing noun phrases ready for letter writing next week. We enjoyed looking at Google Earth in Geography as well as using atlases to locate the Poles and the Equator. Music lessons have had us discussing the tempo and dynamics of pieces of music as well as clapping and repeating rhythms. Coding is still a focus in Computing and our mouse dexterity is definitely improving! 

Friday 29th September 
What a busy week it has been!  In Maths, the children have been ordering numbers on a number line to 100 and solving missing number problems for place value. In Science they have been testing materials in an investigation to see which would be a suitable material for the three little pigs to build a house. They have then written a letter to the pigs telling them what they found out. In Art, the class braved the rain to go outside and collect materials to create a composition in the style of Andy Goldsworthy. 

Friday 22nd September

This week the children have been continuing with Place Value in Maths and have been investigating how to flexibly partition 2-digit numbers in different ways using stem sentences to talk about parts and whole numbers - " 30 is a part and 16 is a part, the whole is 46."  We have retold the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff in Writing and we have also created our own troll ready to write our own troll stories in the future.  We have been using expanded noun phrases, the conjunction 'and' and the correct punctuation in our writing as well as identifying nouns.  In Computing, we have been coding; we have created our own air traffic programs using algorithms. We are still thinking about whether we would prefer to live in a hot or a cold place and this week in Geography we located the Poles and found out what the weather is like and what wildlife live there.  We enjoyed the clip from 'Frozen Planet' but it looked extremely cold!

  Friday 15th September

This week the children have been making predictions about their new class text, 'Troll Swap'.   They have written descriptions of the main characters and the setting using noun phrases.  In Maths, they have been reviewing Place Value by looking at different ways of representing numbers in tens and ones and they have started to explain their answers to simple problems.    In Science, the children have recapped on what they learned about Materials in Year 1, including what objects are made from and what properties they have.  They have enjoyed exploring the class Science discovery area to investigate materials further.   In Art, we have looked at the work of artists, Andy Goldsworthy and Nicola White,  discussing how they explore and collect materials for their work.  It has been lovely to hear that some children have gone home and already started to make their own art work using natural materials that they have found.

Friday 8th September 

We have had a great start to the term and have been super impressed with the way the children have come back to school and settled back in so quickly. Despite the heat, they have worked really hard and we can’t wait to see what they achieve during the rest of the term.

Friday 14th July

This week we have been using stem sentences in Maths to talk about volume and capacity. We have been reading scales to measure volume in millilitres; we are definitely a ‘glass half full’ kind of class! In Writing, we have chosen some important people to write to. After looking at the features of letters we have started to write our own to persuade important people to plant more trees to protect our environment.  We have also been thinking about our environment in PSHE and have pledged to do more to preserve it.  In Computer, we have been learning how to effectively and safely use the internet to search for information. We found out about dinosaurs and then completed a quiz to test our knowledge.

Friday 30th June

This week in Year 2, we have been excited to be keeping an eye on the weather to answer the question, 'do we live in a hot or cold place?' We managed to collect 4mm of rain in 24 hours and we read the temperature outside on Thursday afternoon of 24 degrees centigrade. We have been able to compare where we live to what we have found out about Antarctica and Kenya. In English, we have started a new text, 'The Last Wolf' and have realised it reminds us of 'Little Red Riding Hood.' We have investigated using apostrophes for contractions such as 'don't' and 'shouldn't' and then used some of these in our instructions to the character of Red as she heads into the forest searching for the last wolf. In Maths, we have started our new topic of mass, capacity and temperature and have been reading scales and comparing the mass of objects in grams and Kgs. 

Friday 16th June

A hot but busy and productive week in Year 2. We have been continuing to investigate Fractions in Maths, this week focussing on finding, recognising and making thirds of shapes and quantities. We started our new topic in Science, Living things and their habitats and we are growing plants again in the classroom. In Computing, we completed our Questioning block by using databases to find information by using the search tool. We wrote letters based on our class text, ‘Major Glad, Major Dizzy’ and have been identifying features of a diary in preparation for writing our own. We enjoyed welcoming many of you to Sports Day and everyone participated with respect and resilience! We were lucky, on Thursday, to welcome the church members into school to teach us all about the Holy Trinity. We saw the Open the Book team retell the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, then they helped us to create our own fish before we joined the rest of the school for an assembly and a very rousing rendition of ‘Here I am Lord’ giving Mrs Hibbert goose bumps! 

  Friday 9th June

In Maths this week the children have been exploring position and direction. They have been using maths vocabulary: up, down, backwards, forwards, left, right, clockwise, anticlockwise, quarter turn and half turn to describe movement on a grid and have been solving problems and giving directions.  In English, they have been practising joins of three letters in handwriting and writing them in words and then in writing they have used the conjunctions 'so that' and 'when' to write a letter to a relative about toys in the past.  In Science the children have all planted a sunflower seed and are eagerly waiting for them to germinate.  They have then written instructions for planting seeds using sequencing words and bossy verbs.  On Friday, we had a visit from a Fire Engine at school which the children really enjoyed.

Thursday 25th May 2023

We just wanted to say how proud we are of each and every one of our Year 2 children for their hard work and excellent attitude to all the tests and Statutory assessments they have completed over the last couple of weeks.  We have also been busy learning, in Science, we acted out the life cycle of a sunflower.  We finished our comparative tests to find out the best conditions for seeds to grow and we have also been comparing our sunflowers and our cress.  In Maths, we have been drawing and interpreting pictograms, as well as looking at intervals of time, reading time to 5 minutes, solving problems involving the number of hours in a day and working out the number of minutes in an hour. 

Friday 12th May

Another short but jam packed week in Year 2!  In Maths, we have continued our work on fractions by looking at and identifying quarters as well as revisiting our arithmetic skills.  We have been creating binary trees in Computing by physically sorting animal avatars into two categories each time a question was asked, this is preparing us for  database work in Year 3.  In Geography, we have continued to consider the question 'would you like to live in a hot or a cold place?' by locating the North and South Poles and finding out what animals live in these places and what the climate and landscapes are like. We have also learnt the four main compass points and helped King Charles reach his throne by giving him directions! In Writing this week, we have used -er and -est to compare when writing about a school sports day and we have used the past tense to describe Amelia from our class text, 'Major Glad, Major Dizzy.'

Friday 5th May

This week the children enjoyed reading a story about toys that they looked at in Year 1 and have been retelling it, making sure that they included all the skills that we have been learning in writing.  In Maths, they have started looking at fractions, identifying a half in shapes, numbers and patterns.  In Science, they have been learning about germination and have continued to observe the seeds and bulbs that they have planted.  In Spelling they have explored the words that end in al and il and in phonics they have looked at words ending in sure.  

Friday 28th April 2023

More planting again this week as the children have planted cress seeds and beans in Science.  We are eagerly observing them every morning for any little changes.  We have continued with our class text in English. 'Major Glad, Major dizzy' and have been using past tense verbs to write about trains rumbling past.  The children also retold a story about toys using noun phrases and past tense verbs.  In Computing, the children continued to prepare for database work by thinking about the collection of data and efficient questioning, they enjoyed a game of 'Guess Who' using Purple Mash avatars. We have started our new Geography topic, 'Some Like it Hot!' by considering the question 'would you prefer to live in a cold or hot place?' This week's lesson was a recap of locating and naming the seven continents and remembering which continent we live in.  We also had the opportunity to use atlases, maps and the globe to locate the continents.  

Friday 21st April 2023

It has been a very busy first week back. The children enjoyed the Quidditch challenge games on Monday in which they had to put their running, dodging and throwing skills to the test. Continuing our Science Week activities, we made the most of the nice weather and planted some pants in the school grounds after making predictions about what might happen to them. The children were excited to see that the daffodils and tulips that they had planted had really blossomed over the holidays, they made some observational drawings of them and completed a bar chart to show the rate of growth. In Maths they investigated sharing, using the division symbol, into different numbers of groups and began to tackle problems relating to division. In English, the children were introduced to our new class text, Major Glad, Major Dizzy. The story is about toys so the children started by ordering some old toys by date and exploring which toys have been popular over the decades. 

Friday 31st March 2023

We've had a very exciting end to the Spring term this week.  The children had a visit to church where they sang hymns, listened to an Open the Book story, took part in a treasure hunt around the church and created some Easter crafts.  On Thursday afternoon, the children used their map skills for our Easter fieldwork challenge; they used an aerial photograph of the school grounds to find Easter pictures hidden at numbered points on the map.  All the children worked collaboratively with a partner and were super quick at finding the clues.  In English, they listened to the story of St.George before retelling it and impressing us with their use of noun phrases, conjunctions and exclamation sentences!  Maths has been all about multiplication this week with a focus on the 2s, 5s and 10 times tables so, any practice at home over the Easter holidays will be greatly appreciated. 

Friday 10th March

This week the children have been sequencing our class text, 'The Dragon Machine,' into the beginning, middle and end of the story.  They have then used this to plan their own story about a character who builds a machine.  They are excited about writing their stories and have been sharing their ideas in class.  In Maths, they have been using coins to find different ways of making a pound, adding different amounts of coins and beginning to find change from a pound.  In phonics they have been looking at all the different ways of making the 's' sound. (s, ss, st, sc, c, ce, se) and trying to find examples of words with these sounds. In spelling they have been focussing on the suffix -ful and identifying the key spelling rules for adding this suffix to root words.  In Science this week the children have been recapping on different types of foods, which foods we should eat a lot of , some of or a little of and planning a healthy menu making choices about which foods to include.

Friday 3rd March

We all thoroughly enjoyed World Book Day. We started the day with some fun word searches and designed our own book marks. Then, we played ‘The Masked Reader’ and were delighted to discover that David Attenborough was the masked reader reading one of our favourites, ‘Owl Babies’. We re-enacted the story using stick puppets we’d made as well as rewriting the blurb to entice new readers to read the story.  We have recreated the front cover in 3-D. We were introduced to Mrs Hibbert’s favourite children’s author, Lauren Child. Our favourite fact about her is that she has guinea pigs! We loved listening to Mrs Hibbert read Lauren Child’s book, ‘Beware of the Big Bad Book’ and were very good at guessing the fairytale characters.  We then shared more books by Lauren Child.  We went to the library in the afternoon (it was Mrs Hibbert’s and Mrs Bateman’s classroom when they taught Year 3), we took part in a scavenger hunt to find story book characters, books with dragons or owls in and any written by Lauren Child, lots of team points were won! The book fair has arrived in school and we were lucky to be the first class to visit it, carefully handling the books and choosing those we might like to purchase or borrow from the library. 

Friday 9th February 

There has been much excitement in Year 2 with a Purim Party in RE!. The children heard the story of Purim, made shakers and wrote invitations for their party (a special guest did turn up!); then they shook their shakers every time the baddie's name was mentioned in the story. They had Ozne Haman biscuits and every child tried them. In Computing, we have been looking at Spreadsheets, familiarsing ourselves with the vocabulary of column, row and cell and then colouring the cells as well as adding and dragging images into the cells. We have continued to think about significant people in History and have focused on the life of the nurse Mary Seacole this week.  In Maths, we have been counting and using coins and adding by exchanging ten ones for one ten.  It has also been Mental Health week with a focus on 'Let's Connect'; the children have taken part in various activities across the week such as, appreciation circles, super hero qualities, recipes for a perfect day, class connections and even a dance routine!

Friday 27th January 2023

We've had a very exciting week making fruit salads in DT; we've been learning how to chop, peel and grate different fruits. We were very proud of how sensible the children were and mightily relieved that they all went home with all their fingers!  In Computing we have continued with our coding skills by debugging some programs. The children  have continued to investigate measures in Maths as well as finding 10 more and 10 less and finding patterns within these numbers to discover that the ones always stay the same.  Florence Nightingale was the focus of our historical enquiry this week as we found out how she had improved nursing.  The children impressed us with their knowledge of nursing and the NHS.  In Writing, we have been looking at different sentence types and when to use them as well as spelling and writing compound words. 

Friday 20th January

Despite the snow causing so much chaos we have had a very productive week in Year 2.  The children have talked about where fruit and vegetables grow and conducted a taste test of different types of fruit.  Well done to all those children who tried a fruit that they hadn't had before!   They have completed their shopping lists ready for making their own fruit salads next week.  There was much excitement at the beginning of the week as we discovered that a dragon had laid some eggs in a nest right outside our classroom door.  Luckily we brought them inside before it snowed and are looking after them until the dragon comes back.  This has got everyone thinking about dragons and we have been making predictions and asking questions about our new class text, 'The Dragon Machine'.  The children have written a short story about dragons in their free write session and have used commands to explain what happened when they found dragons hiding in our classroom. In Spelling they have been learning some more common exception words and in phonics they have looked at words with the suffixes -er and -est. In Maths, they have enjoyed working in partners or groups to measure items around the classroom in metres.  The children enjoying playing outside in the snow at playtimes and have built some super snowmen.

Friday 13th January 2023

This week, as you may have noticed, has been all about moving vehicles as part our DT project.  We have designed and made our own moving vehicles and used technical vocabulary to describe them.  The results have been fab as we're sure you'll agree!  In Maths, we have been getting to grips with using a ruler to measure things in centimeters, it can be quite tricky! We have also been adding three 1-digit numbers and trying to spot any bonds to ten to make it easier as well as adding larger numbers to the next ten, for example, 43 + 7 = 50.  We enjoyed a story about a Chinese Dragon and then wrote our own versions of the story. In History we have been learning about the ill-fated first voyage of the Titanic and were surprised to find out that the captain, John Edward Smith lived just down the road in Stoke-on -Trent.  We have enjoyed coding our own games in Computing using 'buttons' and singing rock songs in Music.