2023-2024

Welcome to our year 2 class page!

Bumblebee Class

Teacher: Mrs Cousins

TA: Mrs Hanley

Miss Brito (AM) and Miss McCarthy (PM)

This page will become a vital 'pit stop' for you to visit and find out what your child is learning at school. You will find lots of important information about your child's school experiences and photographs of our classroom learning. 

Don't forget to check our Class Dojo page too.

 We share lots of photographs and videos of our learning on Class Dojo, you will get notifications when your child is awarded Dojo points and you can find helpful links for homework, phonics practice and maths games! Class Dojo also has a handy messaging window where you can ask questions about your child's work and we can send reminders and helpful messages about what your child is doing in school.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Our school day begins at 8.45 and finishes at 3.30.

 We will be waiting outside to greet the children and welcome them into class. Please wait by the class area gate at the end of the day, children will be dismissed by staff once we have seen you!

Bumblebee Class will have PE on Thursday and Friday every week. Children should bring a named school PE kit in a PE bag and will be encouraged to change for PE independently. Please tie long hair up and remove any jewelry before attending school. It would be beneficial to your child if they can practice independent dressing skills at home and are able to do their own shirt buttons and shoe laces wherever possible. 

We will visit the school library every Friday. Children will be invited to change their books on a weekly basis.

How can I help my child in Year 2?

Help them understand what they read

Hear your child read often, daily if possible, but also remember it is just as important for your child for you to model reading to them. Children learn a lot from the way we read aloud and we can encourage them to see how the author's use of punctuation changes the way we read their work. Think about pointing out statements, commands, questions or exclamations when reading with your child. You might want to use a range of voices to show how types of sentences and punctuation can be read in different ways.As reading comprehension is so important this year, checking your child's understanding of the book they are reading is an excellent way to support them. Asking questions about the plot such as: 'What might happen next? Why do you think the boy is feeling sad? What sort of mood is being created?' will help them to engage with their reading on a deeper level.

Practise spellings with them

Your child will bring home a list of spellings on Monday that we are focussing on in class for that week, it would be useful to talk through the words with them, which sounds are in them? Do they know what they mean? Can they say they them in the context of a sentence? You could display them in a space where they will look at them everyday such as on a fridge or a bedroom wall.

Real-life maths

Any opportunity to use maths in a real-life context is really useful. For example, ask them to help you pay for goods or calculate change when shopping. This will help to develop their reasoning and problem solving skills. Learning to tell the time, especially to five minutes, is another great way to support your child's learning at home; this also links neatly to their counting in 5s in the 5 times-table.

Perhaps most importantly for maths, you can help your child at home by practising their times tables (2,3,4 5 and 10) regularly. There are many different ways you can do this, but it is beneficial if your child can use and apply this knowledge — for example, not just knowing that 10 x 2 is 20, but also realising that 20 divided by 2 is 10. You could use journey time to school to give your child fun times table challenges. You can also make up word problems relating times-tables facts to real life

Encouraging independence

Finally, you can develop their independence at home by encouraging your child to get ready for school on their own, giving them some responsibilities such as feeding/taking care of pets, tidying up or organising their belongings more independently. This will help enormously as they move up through the school!

Learning for this half term...

Don't forget to look at our class story on Class Dojo, there will be regular updates, photographs and messages shared on our class page. 

Autumn 1

Curriculum Focus:

Human and physical geography in the local area

Animals and their habitats

The Great Fire of London

2022-2023

Summer 2 

Welcome to the new term and the final term in year 2!

This term we will learn about animals including humans, how we grow, mature and change. Our science learning will begin with a trip to Africa Alive! 

We will compare the 3 bridges in Great Yarmouth and learn about the similarities and differences. Do you know the name of the new bridge in Great Yarmouth?

The children will be writing poems and recounts of our trip and then a fantastic character description! 

We have lots to do this term including our fun sports day and transition day to meet our new classes.

Summer 1

This half term we will be learning about the Coronation of King Charles III in our history lessons. We will learn about how he became King and what his duties will be. 

In our science lessons we are learning about living things and their habitats. We will look at food chains, what living things we can find in our school grounds and how they depend on each other. 

Our geography work is based on fieldwork and map skills, we will recap human and physical features and will explore the different types of environments and what might be located there. 

Our maths focus is fractions, multiplication and division and we will revisit previous learning throughout the term.

In literacy lessons we are writing non-chronological reports about plants with a focus on key vocabulary and grammar.

Spring 2

Our history focus this half term is 'How did the Great Fire of London begin?'

Children will learn about the Great Fire, how it started and what happened. By the end of the half term, children should be able to give an account of the event and suggest reasons why it happened.

We will learn about multiplication and division in maths and will consolidate our number knowledge throughout the term. 

Children will learn more about cultural stories in literacy lessons and will read The Street Beneath my Feet, The Rhythm of the Rain and Little People Big Dreams.

In science we will investigate whether seeds can really grow anywhere and will look for seasonal changes in the school grounds. 

Spring Term 1

Who should be most famous?

Our history focus for this half term is learning about significant individuals in history. We will find out who these people are and why they are famous. We will place key events on time lines and use key historical vocabulary to talk about our findings. 

In literacy we are reading poetry and learning how to summarise verses. We will write our own poem and will write reports. We are focusing on recalling CEW spellings and learning some new spelling patterns and rules to help us with our writing.

In maths we will continue with our number focus, looking at measurement, money and time during the half term. 

Our science focus is 'plants' and we will learn about the differences between seeds and bulbs and find out how plants grow in the winter.

Autumn Term 2

October - December

How do the UK and Australia compare?

We are focusing on our geographical learning throughout the half-term. 

Children will learn about the seven continents and 5 oceans of the world. We will compare the human and physical features of both capital cities: London and Canberra. We will investigate weather patterns, similarities and differences and learn about the lifestyles of the people and which animals live in the two locations. 

Our science learning is based on what we need to survive and how we can keep healthy. 

In PE, we will learn how to move with control and practice our gymnastic skills in the hall!

Our RE focus this half term is based on Christianity and why Jesus was called a Saviour.

We are learning about 'bullying' in our RSHE lessons and will try to encourage others to be 'buddies not bullies'.

Our maths lessons will help us to learn about number, compare digits and order on a number line. We will learn addition and subtraction strategies and improve our mental arithmetic. 

We are writing invitations in literacy and will write a story later in the term. Our new guided reading book is called 'Mrs Noah's Pockets' and we will read about Paddington Bear later this term, finishing with The Christmas Pine in December. 

We have a very busy half term because we will also be practising for our Christmas Performance!

What can we locate in Great Yarmouth?

Our first 'big question' focuses on our local area study. We will be learning about the fishing history of Great Yarmouth and will use our geography skills to learn about the different places in the local area. Children will begin by thinking about the places they have visited in their home town and share their experiences with friends in class. We will visit the Time and Tide Museum to learn more about the fishing history and will create timelines and maps to show our learning.

Our literacy work this half term is to develop character descriptions and to learn how to use adjectives in our sentences. We will practice using capital letters and full stops and will develop our spelling awareness in class. 

Maths lessons will include fluency to 20, recognising number order, simple addition and subtraction and children will work on comparing values. 

We are very fortunate to have our PE specialist, Mr Sharpe and our music specialist, Jude to teach the children this year - look out for photos and videos to share our learning throughout the year!