Year 2 – Holly Class
What We’ve Been Up To This Term
Romans in Britain
We will be discovering what the Romans did in Britain. The children will get to investigate about Roman life and go on an exciting school trip to explore the past!
Books your child could read at home:
- How to was a woolly Mammoth by Michelle Robinson
- Monsters- An owners guided by Jonathan Emmett
- Roman Life in Britain: (Collins Big Cat)
- What the Romans did for us by Alison Hawes
- How to Draw a Self Portrait for Kids by Devera Jones
- Incredible Living Things (Extreme Science) by Rob Colson
What are we doing at the moment?
In Year 2 we have been learning about our topic of trees. The class has created art work using water colours, tree rubbing and collage. We have also been developing our sketching skills to draw trees in our school grounds. In PSHE we have been discussing how we can be a good friend and make positive friendships. We created a jigsaw about all of the important things about us and our friends. This week in science we have been learning about different types of trees and the seeds they produce. We planted acorns and concurs in soil and will watch them shoot over the coming months. In previous lesson we went out and measured the trees to work out how old they are.
Autumn Term 1 – Holly Class
English
The children’s learning will be linked to the core text Rapunzel by Bethan Woollvin. They will be encouraged to recognise the key ideas in the text and make predictions about events in the story and the characters’ actions. The children will be given opportunities to retell the story in more detail with a focus on developing characters and setting. They will also create comparisons against other books. The focus will be on using different tenses, re-reading their work to check for grammar and punctuation errors and to use a range of sentence types. The children will be revising the Phase 5 phonemes with a focus on applying them correctly in their writing.
Maths
The children will be recapping previous learning on place value from the end of year 1. They will then move on to develop their knowledge in addition and subtraction. They will be considering how fact families are made up and looking at number bonds to 20. They will also be learning a variety of methods to solve addition and subtraction problems including using partitioning and a number line.
RE
The children will be considering the key questions ‘What do Christians believe God is like?’ & ‘Who made the world?’ To do this the children will recognise that people have different beliefs and learn about how they express them.
They will also listen to Christian stories and infer information about what is God like. They will have the opportunity to think, talk and reflect on the lessons.
They will also listen to Christian stories and infer information about what is God like. They will have the opportunity to think, talk and reflect on the lessons.
Science
We will be focusing on learning about how plants grow. Children will have the opportunity to investigate and compare the difference in plants. They will find out about the different environments some plants need and what they need to grow. Children will have opportunities to learn key vocabulary to describe the parts of flowers and plants.
PE
The children will be focusing on developing their rolling and stopping skills. This will include sending and receiving and striking a ball with an object. In addition there will be a focus on developing their agility, balance and coordination.
PSHE
The children will be considering their friends and how to be caring towards each other. They will learn how important friendships are in making them feel happy and secure and how people choose and make friends. They will learn how to recognise and ask for help if they are unhappy.
Art
The children will be looking at art inspired from patterns on trees and using a range of artistic methods to represent this. They will explore how to mix colour to create a background.
Autumn Term 2 – Holly Class
English
The children’s learning will be linked to the core text Voices in the park by Anthony Browne. They will be encouraged to recognise the key ideas in the text, sequence the story and identify the characters’ perspectives. Children will be given opportunities to retell the story in more detail with a focus on developing characters and setting. They will consider how the book portrays characters from different perspectives. The focus will be on writing recounts, re-reading our work to check for grammar and punctuation errors and to use a range of sentence types. The children will be revising the Phase 5 phonemes.
Maths
The children will be considering subtraction and addition across tens. They will then move on to develop their knowledge of money recognition and solving money problems. They will learn to recognise and know the value of different demonations of coins. They will use their knowldge of place value to match coins with equivalent values. They will be considering the different ways to make whole totals. The children will also be learning about multiplication and division. They will be creating number sentences and division word problems.
RE
The children will be learning about ‘Incarnation’. They will consider the key question ‘Why does Christmas matter to Christians?’
The children will be able to give a clear, simple account of the story of Jesus’ birth and why Jesus is important for Christians.
The children will recognise that stories of Jesus’ life come from the Gospels. They will be able to give examples of ways in which
Christians use the story of the nativity to guide their beliefs and actions at Christmas. The children will decide what they personally have to be thankful for at Christmas time.
The children will be able to give a clear, simple account of the story of Jesus’ birth and why Jesus is important for Christians.
The children will recognise that stories of Jesus’ life come from the Gospels. They will be able to give examples of ways in which
Christians use the story of the nativity to guide their beliefs and actions at Christmas. The children will decide what they personally have to be thankful for at Christmas time.
History
We will be focusing on learning about Rosa Park and Amelia Earhart. They will be identifying their achievements and learning about their perspectives. Children will have the opportunity to investigate and compare how perspectives have changed and the challenges they faced their lives. They will be learning about the contributions they made to the world and the rights they had. The children will identify what rights they have and create a fact file about the women’s greatest achievements.
PE
The children will be continuing to develop their football skills. They will be developing their passing, co-ordination and movement skills. The children will be developing their team work and learning how to effectively works as a team.
PSHE
The children will be learning about respecting themselves and others. They will learn about the things they have in common with their friends, classmates, and other people. They will consider people’s differences and similarities, learning to create similar interests. The children will be learning about what safe relationships are and how to positively create them. The children will be leaning these new skills and finding practical ways to apply them. The children will explore how to play and work cooperatively in different groups and situations. They will learn how to share their ideas and listen to others and take part in discussions.
DT
The children will be designing and building Amelia Earhart’s plane, creating designs and modelling them on her original plane. Also, they will be creating their own binoculars, with different colour lenses to represent how people perspective change how they view events. The children will develop their planning and peer reviewing skills, to improve work and future ideas.
Music
The children will be learning a new song ‘HO HO HO’ which links to Christmas. They will be appraising the music, identifying instruments and learning about a range of music genre.
Spring Term 1 – Holly Class
English
The children’s learning will be linked to the core text Wild by Emily Hughes. They will be encouraged to retell the key events in the text and make inference throughout the story. Children will be given opportunities to compare differences and salaries between familiar stories and discuss the characters feelings. They will also create instructions for the character and fact files of different animals. The focus will be on writing descriptive sentences using appropriate adjectives, extending sentences using conjunctions and to edit work. The children will be focusing on spelling common exceptions words and adding suffixes –ing, -ed, -er, -est, -y, -es, -ful, -less and -ly to the end of words.
Maths
The children will be developing their knowledge in money, multiplication and division. They will be identifying and comparing amounts using coins and notes and looking at giving change. They will also look at finding different combinations of coins that equal the same amount of money. They will also be learning a variety of methods to solve multiplication and division problems including arrays, times tables and repeated addition.
RE
The children will be considering the key question ‘What is the good news that Jesus brings?’ To do this children will describe how Christians show their beliefs; by thanking God in a prayer. They will also give accounts of ways in which Christians use Bible stories and texts to guide their beliefs about prayer, in their church communities and their own lives. They will have the opportunity to think, talk and ask questions about whether Jesus’ ‘good news’ matters to anyone other than Christians.
Science
We will be focusing on living things and their habitats. Children will have the opportunity to explore and compare the differences between things that’s are living, dead, and things that have never been alive. They will find out about different habitats and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different animals and plants. Children will also describe how animals obtain their food and create simple food chains.
PE
In gymnastics the children will be refining their jumping and rolling skills alongside learning how to co-ordinate their body in different ways. They will also be introduced to racket skills.
PSHE
The children will exploring what respect means and how this can be shown in multiple situations. They will also focus on self-respect and the positive implications this has on the mind.
Art
The children will using a range of materials creatively to design and make products. They will design and create a show box habitat for a chosen group of animals.
Computing
The children will learn how to use technology safely and respectfully, keeping personal information private; identify where to go for help and support when they have concerns about content or contact on the internet or other online technologies.
Spring Term 1 – Holly Class
English
In English, we will be focusing on two books ‘How to catch a star’ and ‘The Great fire London’. The children will be writing stories, describing what is happening and inferring character’s feelings. The key focus will be developing spelling, punctuation and handwriting. They will be using joined handwriting and learning to extend their writing to use paragraphs. Furthermore, the children will create a newspaper article linked to The Great fire of London and sequencing the events of the story in order. They will be learning how to check their learning to identify nouns, adjectives and other key elements.
Maths
The children will be recapping previous topics to consolidate our learning with a focus on building problem solving skills and addressing any gaps. They will then move on to measurements, where they will learn about length and height. The children will learn about units of measurement including centimetres, meters and litres. In geometry, the children will be learning about position and direction. This will expand their vocabulary and help them describe movement.
RE
The children will be considering the key question ‘What is Sikhism?’ To do this, the children will be introduced to Sikhism and learn about the key values of the religion. They will look at the key beliefs and develop an understanding and a respect for how every person has different beliefs. The children will consider how these key beliefs impact a Sikh’s like and outlook, understanding the practices and lifestyles involved in belonging to a faith community. They will discover about the 5K’s in a fun and creative way. The children will learn about the religious symbols and how Sikhs celebrate their religion.
DT
In design and technology we will be planning, designing and making our own historic houses of London. The children will use their knowledge of materials from the previous half term to create their houses. This project will span over the 7 weeks and develop the children’s understanding of structures, design and feasibility to create it. The children will measure and mark out to the nearest millimeter and learn how to strengthen materials using suitable techniques. They will practice a range of cutting, shaping and joining techniques such as gluing or hinges to combine materials.
PE
The children will be focusing on throwing a ball towards a target. They will have the opportunity to develop their skills of throwing/ catching and rolling/ stopping. They will also practice striking a small ball with an object (cricket bat, tennis racket).
PSHE
The children will be learning about how to conduct a healthy lifestyle with a focus on keeping both their minds and bodies healthy. We will be promoting awareness linked to positive mental health. The children will learn about the ‘eat well plate’ and understand how they can make healthy choices for their bodies. This will link with our next topic of life education, which will help the children understand the wider world and how to be safe. This will be an important topic as it will focus on everyday things, key daily skills and making friends (which links to our music topic).
History
The children will learn about who Queen Victoria was, they will learn about the historic timeline of monarchs before and after her. They will consider what life was like for Victorian children and how they lived in London. They will develop their investigation skills to use historic evidence to ask questions and find answers to questions about the past. The children learn how to use timelines and extend their vocabulary to describe events linked to our topic. This topic will link to our book in English, The Great Fire of London, where they will learn about a key event in history.
Music
We will be learning a new song ‘The friendship Song’. The children will be developing new listening and appraisal skills through new warm-up games. The children will also develop their improvisation and composition skills!
Spring Term 1 – Holly Class
English
The children will have the exciting opportunity to create instruction writing based on the book ‘How to wash a woolly mammoth’. This will help build writing confidence and improve knowledge of suffixes, punctuation and different sentences structures. The children will then be creating extended writing around the book ‘Monsters’. The children will focus on compose varying sentence types. They will learn how to design and describe their own monsters, using noun phrases to add more detail to their work. The children will also be focusing on writing in paragraphs and developing cursive handwriting.
Maths
The children will be learning about time, they will be learning how to read to quarter past and quarter too. As well as how to read an analogue clock. The children will be covering the topic of mass, capacity and temperature. They will have a creative lesson to learn this new topic and build on previous learning in year 1. The children will have the opportunity to recap any previous learning which has been missed during lockdown. This will be a good opportunity to gap fill any misconceptions the children may have.
RE
The children will be continuing to learn about Sikhism and learning the key values of the religion. They will be learning about God and Sikhs belief towards Gurus. The children will be engaged in discussions to learn about how God is represented in different religions. The children will create a factual presentation to share the knowledge they have learned. They will also create art work centered around Sikh symbols.
Science
The children will learn about living things and their environments. They will build on previous knowledge about animals and habitats. The children will understand the difference between things that are alive, dead and inanimate. Asking questions about the differences between these things will help children to think scientifically. The children will build on their knowledge of animals as they learn about habitats including rainforest’s, deserts, meadows and underground habitats. The children will aim to create a fact file of their knowledge and use their writing and presentation skills to share their information.
PE
In PE the children will be enjoying Athletics. They will access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others. They will engage in competitive and cooperative physical activities.
PSHE
The children will be focusing on improving understanding on mental health and learning how to balance their emotions. During the RSE sessions they will learn about about the scientific names for body parts and understanding gender. When we teach this topic a letter will go home in advance to guide parents about what will be covered in the lessons. We will also be teaching about good medications and how they impact our body. You will receive a letter before we teach this topic.
Art
The children will focus on creating portraits and self portraits, they will be using a range of techniques. They will be learning about Leonardo Da Vinci, Holbein, Hogarth, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Kahlo, Picasso, and Gentileschi.
They will be focusing on the concepts of portraits vs self-portraits, representation in portraits, proportions of a face and cubism. They will develop their skills in planning and drawing a face, drawing a profile, mixing skin tones and drawing with oil pastels to improve their skills.
They will be focusing on the concepts of portraits vs self-portraits, representation in portraits, proportions of a face and cubism. They will develop their skills in planning and drawing a face, drawing a profile, mixing skin tones and drawing with oil pastels to improve their skills.
Music
The children will be learning a new song ”Revisit, rewind and reflect’. They will be developing new listen and appraisal skills. Using new progressive warm-up games, flexible games and improvisation skills. The children will also develop their composition skills!
