Welcome to Zebra Class!

Welcome Back!

We hope that you had a lovely half term and are all well rested. We are pleased to be welcoming back our young zebras and starting our new topic ‘Magic and Potions’. Here is an overview of our learning this term.

English: together we will be reading ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ by Roald Dahl and using the themes to create a wide range of writing opportunities.

Reading: Children will continue to attend three Little Wandle sessions per week. In Guided Reading we will share ‘Leon and the Place between’ and ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. Children will improve their abilities to summarise, select and retrieve information from the text and respond to questions as a reader.

Science: Forces- Pushes and Pulls

History: We will be studying Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale and their influences today. Our key question is ‘Who is more significant, Mary Seacole or Florence Nightingale?’

RE:  Our theme is ‘welcoming’ and we will be learning about Palm Sunday.

PE: Sessions taught by myself will be Mini-Tennis and playground games and our PE coach will be delivering sessions focusing on basketball.PE days will be Mondays and Tuesdays this half term.

Art: We will be exploring the illustrator/artist ‘Quentin Blake’ and creating pieces using our drawing, painting and sculpting skills.

Computing: We are learning to use pictograms.

DT: We will be learning about food and how to obtain a healthy diet.

Music: Pitch

PSHE: Boundaries (our value for this half term).

Polite Reminders

In order to continue supporting your child’s reading- please sit and read with them as frequently as possible. Homework choices are (in their books) ready for this half term, choose at least three that suit your child’s interests to complete. This is a great way of spending time together and allowing them to share what they have been learning. It also hugely benefits their ability to retain the learning by sharing it with others.

The children have spent the last half term learning how to form their letters to begin joining their handwriting- and they are doing a fantastic job! It is an important part of their learning journey ahead of joining Key Stage Two and therefore we would be extremely grateful if this could be encouraged at home- please feel free to speak to me if you would like me to provide practice activities for home.

We hope that you enjoyed a wonderful Christmas break and wish you all the very best for a happy and healthy 2024! The children are now settling back into their first half of spring term. Our topic is ‘Fractured Fairytales’ please read on to find out what we will be covering over the next few weeks.

English: We will be recapping the story of The Three Little pigs before reading ‘The true story of the 3 little pigs’ – Jon Scieszka.

Reading: We will be reading and ‘Little Red and the very hungry lion’ and ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book?’ followed by learning how to select and retrieve key information in order to respond to text-related questions.

Science: Pushes and Pulls (forces)

Geography: We will be studying our capital city ‘London’ and exploring the four countries within the UK. Our key question is ‘What is special about The United Kingdom?’

RE:  Authority- Key Events in Jesus’ Life

PE: Sessions taught by myself will be dance and our PE coach will be delivering sessions focusing on net and wall games (tennis). PE days will be Mondays and Tuesdays this half term.

Art: We will be discovering the artist Jennie Maizels and sharing our thoughts on her artwork as well as refining our drawing and painting skills.

Computing: Robot algorithms

DT: Making structures- Baby Bear’s chair

Music: Timbre and texture

PSHE: Focus (our value for this half term).

Polite Reminders

In order to continue supporting your child’s reading- please sit and read with them as frequently as possible. Homework choices are (in their books) ready for this half term, choose at least three that suit your child’s interests to complete. This is a great way of spending time together and allowing them to share what they have been learning. It also hugely benefits their ability to retain the learning by sharing it with others.

Welcome to Zebra Class!

It has been wonderful getting to know our lovely Zebras and they have adapted extremely well to different routines

and the new learning in which they have already started!

Autumn 2

Welcome Back!

I hope you enjoyed a relaxing half-term break. We are now into our second half term of Year Two and I am sure that the Christmas Countdown has begun in many households! Our zebras have settled back into our routines and we are excited to be starting our new learning. This half term, our topic will be history-based as we discover ‘The Great Fire of London’ and answer our key question “Why did the Great fire of London cause so much damage and what happened as a result?”

Here are the areas of learning which will be covered during this half term:

English- our main text driver is “Vlad-Kate Cunningham” and we will be exploring poetry and practicing our non-fiction writing using the theme of ‘Bonfire Night’.

RE- light as a symbol (advent and Hanukah)

PE- multi-skills and invasion games

Our PE days will be Tuesdays (with Mr Brown) and Wednesdays with myself.

Science- changing materials

Art- Sam Cunningham (drawing, painting and collage)

Computing- digital photography

Music- pitch and duration

PSHE- self regulation

Reading at Home

It is lovely to see just how much progress the children are making during our reading sessions. To accelerate their progress in both reading and writing, please ensure that the children are reading at home as much as possible as this really aids their fluency, understanding and inference skills. Not only that, it is a great way of taking time out of our busy days and having 1:1 time with our young people. Reading diaries must also be in school every day so that we can record our Little Wandle reading sessions.

Our topic this half term is ‘On Safari’

In English, this half term we will begin to explore acrostic poems. Our core texts are ‘Giraffes can’t dance’- Giles Andreae and ‘Meerkat Mail’-Emily Gravett.

In Maths we will be deepening our understanding of place value through fluency, reasoning and problem solving.

What will be covering in this topic?

Science –  animals and their lifecycles

Computing –  using computers

PSHE – respect

Geography –  Kenya

Art – painting, drawing and printing

Music –  Dragons (dynamics and tempo)

RE – Why do people follow Jesus?

DT – moving mechanisms

Homework

A menu of homework choices (that are cross curricular) have been given out in pupils’ homework books- a minimum of 3 pieces need to be handed in this half term please! Also, please try to ensure that an adult at home reads for a few minutes each day with their child as this will hugely improve the quality of their learning in all subject areas.

Values

The value that we are concentrating on this half term is respect. Who will be our champion? We need to continue to demonstrate our other values: Self-regulation, Focus, Boundaries, Resilience and Independence. We are celebrating our in-class achievements using Class Dojo. As a class, we need to work together to achieve our class stars. Finally, please share with us any ‘Outside School Achievements’ as we would love to celebrate these in school!

PE

This term, Year 2 have PE on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. PE kits needs to be in school on these day but it is recommended that it stays in school all week and goes home on Fridays to be washed. Correct kit consists of a white t-shirt, black or dark shorts / leggings / jogging bottoms and trainers or plimsolls. Longer hair needs to be tied up and earrings removed or covered.

Many thanks,

Mrs Bowles