Year 2

What a brilliant day had by all!

We were lucky enough to have a visit from Kwame. The children enjoyed their morning creating masks, elephants and birds out of milk bottles. This taught them about the importance of recycling. They also looked at African art and created their own adrinka designs.

In the afternoon the children learnt some African drumming rhythms and played as a band. Whilst enjoying the African beats they danced in time with the beat of the drums. We were so proud of how confident the children were and everyone tried their best! At the end of the day the children loved showing their parent visitors everything they had learned.

Upcoming dates

We now have our date confirmed for our African workshop with Kwame. This includes a sharing assembly to parents at 2:40pm in the school hall. It really is a great day and it means a lot to the children to share their learning with you.

Parent’s evening- 26^th, 27^th and 28^th March

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to speak to a member of the team.

Florence Nightingale

On Friday 25^th January the children had a visit from Amy. Amy led a workshop to help the children learn all about Florence Nightingale. The children had a brilliant day. Here are some photographs of their day and some of the work produced from the topic.

How to beat a monster

What a busy half term it has been with learning how to write a ‘defeat the monster tale’ to learning about the ‘lady with the lamp,’ Florence Nightingale!

We started the year looking at a model ‘defeat the monster’ text ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ Here are some of the children’s independent stories. We are so proud of their hard work to complete their writing and they should be to!

Jack and the Beanstalk

Happy New Year from all of us in Year 2!

We hope everyone had a lovely Christmas break and enjoyed some special family time. The children appear to have come back that much more mature and ready for the year ahead.

Christmas Home learning

A big thank you and well done to all those children (and parents) who completed the reading challenge and Arctic challenge. We were very impressed with some of your creativity and effort. Here is some of the work below.

Florence Nightingale

To kick start our learning this half term we are learning about ‘woman who made a significant difference’ with a focus on Florence Nightingale. To enhance the children’s learning we have a special visitor, Amy West, who will be learning some exciting workshops and drama and role play.

English

In English the children will be learning how to write a ‘defeat the monster’ story using ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ as a model. Here is our story map and text. Please encourage your child to practise retelling the story at home as we know, the more story features and language they can internalise the better the foundations for future storytelling and writing.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Once not twice, but once upon a time there lived a poor widow who had a son called Jack.

One day she told Jack to sell their cow at the market because they needed more money for food. So Jack quickly walked and he walked until he met a little, old man.

The old man said, “I will give you 5 magic beans if you sell me your cow.” Jack thought to himself, “Should I take the magic beans or should I take the cow to the market?” He walked home with the beans in his hand but his mother angrily threw them out of the window.

Early the next morning, Jack woke up to find that a huge, green beanstalk had grown higher than the sky. So, he climbed and he climbed until he reached the sky where he saw the giant’s colossal sized castle.

Jack cautiously walked until he saw an enormous bag of shiny, golden coins. He went to grab the bag but he suddenly heard loud, rumbling footsteps. Thump, thump, thump! “Fee-fi-fo-fum I smell the blood of an Englishman,” roared the giant. When the giant fell asleep, Jack swiftly grabbed the bag of coins and climbed down the beanstalk. He proudly showed his mother and she was mightily pleased.

The golden coins didn’t last long so Jack climbed and he climbed and he climbed up the beanstalk. He sneaked inside the castle and hid behind an old barrel. Thump, thump, thump! “Fee-fi-fo-fum I smell the blood of an Englishman,” bellowed the giant. He saw that the giant was greedily holding an unusual looking hen. After a while, the giant fell asleep again. Jack sneakily grabbed the hen and ran for the door but on his way out he tripped over a beautiful harp.

All of a sudden, the room erupted with the loud, booming sound of the giant’s deafening voice. Thump, thump, thump! “Fee-fi-fo-fum I smell the blood of an Englishman,” exploded the giant. As Jack climbed down the wobbly beanstalk he started to chop it down with an axe. The giant fell with a loud thump and that was the end of him.

Jack’s mother was thrilled when she saw the magical hen in his arms. They lived happily ever after as rich as can be.

Maths

In Maths the children will be learning to use the known number facts to add 3 numbers together. They will then use various methods to add and subtract two 2 digit numbers where regrouping is required.

Christmas

Don’t Forget…

Hello and welcome back,

We hope everyone had a lovely half term break and is ready for a busy fun filled lead up to Christmas! As always we have lots planned this half term including the Christmas Production where Year 2 take the lead in acting. This is such an exciting opportunity for our children. We encourage every child to get on stage at some point, whether it’s to sing a song with the year group or be a main character in the play. We will try our best to find a role every child is happy with.

English

Whoever heard of a talking Papaya? The chidlren in Year 2 have!

This week we will start our new fiction text ‘The Papaya that Spoke’ with a focus on using speech in a story. The Papaya that Spoke is a ‘journey’ tale where chidlren will have the opportunity to apply their skills in using noun phrases and similes to describe as learnt in our previous unit.

Maths- Fractions

The children will be learning to find one half and one quarter of a shape and a number.
Here is some of their learning so far.

If you would like to continue this learning at home here are some websites to support you.

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/topics/z3rbg82

https://nrich.maths.org/8939

London's Burning

London’s Burning

Thank you to everyone who came to watch our Year 2 children during their assembly today and for all your support with the topic at home. The children have really enjoyed learning about the Great Fire of London and they were especially excited to share their learning with you. For those parents who couldn’t make it, here are some photographs of the event. Unfortunately we are unable to put the video online but if you would like to watch it please come and see a member of the year 2 team.

Talk for Writing

In Year Two we have been looking at a new Talk for Writing text, Cat, Bramble and Heron. Here is a copy of our new story and a picture of the story map. If you ask the children and they should be able to retell the story using the map with the actions we have learnt as a class.

Cat, Bramble and Heron

Once upon a time there were three friends- Cat, Bramble and Heron who lived by a lake.

Early one morning they went out to seek their fortune.

First, Bramble slithered through the grass but all that he found was a pot as black as coal. Next, Cat sneaked along by the wall but all he found was an old fishbone. Finally, Heron flew down the road where he spied a pile of gold.

So Heron, Cat and Bramble divided the gold into not one, not two but three bags. Then they decided to hide their gold.

First, Heron spread out his wings, took the bag in his beak and flew high over the lake. Unfortunately, he saw his reflection in the water below. He thought that it was his brother so he called out, “Hello,” and as soon as he opened his beak, the gold scattered down like rain.

Next, Cat crept along the wall and paused by a small hole. Unfortunately, Mr Mouse sneaked out and stole Cat’s gold.

Finally, Bramble slithered along the hedgerows. Unfortunately, a thief sneaked by and stole Bramble’s bag of gold.

And that is why to this very day, Cat is still waiting outside Mr Mouse’s hole.

And that is why to this very day; Bramble hisses and wraps around your legs as you pass by.

And that is why to this very day, Heron is standing still in the water forever staring, still looking, looking, looking for his lost bag of gold.

Spellings

In Year 2, each week on Friday your child will be sent home with some spellings to practise. Children will then be tested on these the following week and given new spellings as they are ready for them. Here are some spelling games you could play with your children at home to support this.

Look, cover, write and check.

Here you can look at the spelling together (saying the word), then cover it and write it and then check the spelling.

Spelling scribble.

Here you can draw several circles overlapping each other, then in the gaps children can write each word as many times in the gap.

Rainbow writing.

Here children can write their list of words in pencil and then pick a colour to trace over the top, they can then repeat this until each word looks like a rainbow.

Hello and welcome to Year 2.

We hope you all had a happy and relaxing summer. We are so excited about what this year will bring for our children. We have lots of exciting things planned including school trips and visitors from afar!

This term our first topic is ‘The Great Fire of London’. To kick start this topic, we had a visit from the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service on Thursday. They taught us all about staying safe and preventing fires. We had an amazing time playing games, learning rhymes and of course trying on the fire fighter uniform. Sadly, the fire engine was called out on an emergency so we didn’t get to spray the hose this time!

As part of our topic, we are going to re-enact our own version of the Great Fire of London. To do this, each child will need to bring in an empty box (cereal box, shoe box etc.) so they can make their own 1666 house. To celebrate the end of our unit of work we will be inviting our parents and carers in so the children can share their learning with you. This has been booked for Friday 28^th September at 9:30am. We will send a letter nearer the time but we hope to see you there!

PE DAYS

Year 2 have PE on a Tuesday and Friday. Please make sure they keep their PE kits in school as depending on school events these days could change.

As always, if you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to catch a member of the Year Two team at any time, we are always happy to help.

Many thanks

Miss Miller

Year 2 Home Learning

Supporting your children at home with their reading and spelling

Below is a list of words that your child will be learning to read and spell throughout their time in Key Stage One at Warren Park Primary School. They are a mixture of words that we encourage children to use in their writing and words they often misspell. Along with reading at home, we would be grateful if you could support your child to read and spell the words from the lists as part of their home learning.

We will continually assess the children with reading and spelling these key words and send them home with some of the words to practice on a weekly basis.

If you would like any advice on how to practice these spellings please come a see a member of the Year 2 team.

Year 1 Common Exception Words to download and print

Year 2 Common Exception Words to download and print

Supporting your children at home with their number bonds

If you would like to support your child with their learning at home they need to become fluent in recalling their number bonds to 20 and recalling their 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Below are some games you can play to support this.

Number bonds to 20

http://www.ictgames.com/numberFacts.html

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

http://mathszone.co.uk/number-facts/number-bonds-to-10/

Times Tables

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/times-tables

http://www.maths-games.org/times-tables-games.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/ma13tabl-game-tables-grid-find

http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/maths/timestable/interactive.htm