This page will become a vital 'pit stop' for you to visit and find out what your child is learning at school. You'll find lots of important information about your child's school experiences and photographs of our classroom learning.
Let's start with some key information about our school week...
Children should arrive at the class gate at 8.50am and will need to sanitise their hands on entering the classroom.
Elm Class children will have PE lessons on both Tuesday and Friday each week. Children are required to arrive at school wearing their school PE kits.
Elm Class children are to be collected from the class gate at 3.20pm.
Welcome to the new Spring term!
This half term we will be learning about mini-beasts and microhabitats!
Our topic is called...
Who lives in a house like this?
Begin our topic with a nature walk - go on a min-beast hunt and look for their microhabitats...where will you find a spider or a worm? Will you find any caterpillars, ants or ladybirds? Why are there not lots of butterflies yet?
Mini-beast hunt
Look at some of the mini-beasts we found in the wildlife area!
On Thursday the 25th of February 2021, we celebrated our first ever
RAINBOW SUPERHERO DAY
The aim was to thank our community's key workers....
The children wore their Rainbow Superhero Costumes and sent messages of 'thanks' via Class Dojo, Twitter and of course, our class webpage!
YOU ARE OUR RAINBOW SUPERHEROES!
YOU'VE GOT THIS!
Rainbow Superhero Day!
Thank you Rainbow Superheroes!
Some of the children have made video messages for our Rainbow Superheroes!
100 for a hero!
We have celebrated Captain Sir Tom Moore's achievements...the children took on the '100 for a hero' challenge. They chose from activities such as: run 100 laps of your gardens, do 100 star jumps and clap your hands 100 times!
The children shared photographs and videos on Class Dojo!
Captain Sir Tom Moore
100 for a hero!
100 for a hero!
What will my child do in Year 2?
Developing literacy skills
In English, the children will continue to work on the phonics they have learned in Year 1, aiming to read words by sight without having to sound them out individually. They will learn further spelling patterns and rules, and begin to apply those in their writing. They will look at the possessive apostrophe, homophones and near homophones and suffixes.
There will be a more detailed focus on handwriting, with children encouraged to form their letters correctly, learn which letters are to be joined and make letters a consistent size. Children will learn to write for a range of purposes including stories, poetry and real events.
Grammar
Grammar is a hot topic in Year 2! Children this age are expected to understand the following terms, to be able to spot them in their reading and apply them in their writing:
Noun, adjective, adverb, suffix, subordination, noun phrase, past tense, present tense, statement, question, exclamation, command, capital letter, full stop, question mark, exclamation mark, compound sentence and expanded noun phrase.
Maths
Pupils will be expected to know the number bonds to 20 and be precise in using and understanding place value. They will learn to add and subtract with numbers up to 1000. They will learn multiplication and division facts for the 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 times-tables. In fractions, they will find 1/3, 1/4 1/2 and 3/4 of a shape or a quantity of objects. They will study measures, including weight, capacity and length, and they will learn to tell the time to five minutes. They will also study properties of 2D and 3D shapes, as well as a range of data-handling methods such as bar charts and pictograms. The new curriculum ‘mastery’ style of teaching concentrates on breadth of knowledge and children will be encouraged to use their understanding of the new concepts to solve challenges to deepen their understanding.
Science
Science in Year 2 is engaging and fun. Expect your child to learn about living things and their habitats, plants, animals (including humans) and uses of everyday materials. They will also learn how to work scientifically, how to observe closely, and how to record their observations.
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!
Previous topics and class learning...
Spring term 1
Who should be more famous?
Captain Sir Tom Moore, Ed Sheeran or Horatio Nelson?
The Duchess of Cambridge, Lionel Messi, Rosa Parks, Emily Davison or Florence Nightingale?
Look through the photographs and the videos of your amazing project work completed over our home learning period! You all worked so hard!
Who should be more famous?
Autumn Term 2
November - December 2020
Where would you rather live.....
Greenland or Kenya?
Where would you choose?
Did your grandparents play on an X Box?
Our main topic focus for Autumn Term 1 (September - October) was history based. We learnt about developments in technology, changes in favourite toys and read a range of traditional fairy tales.
Children interviewed a visiting 'grandparent' (via Teams) about her childhood, her favourite toys and games and what she did for entertainment to pass the time. The children were really interested in learning about Granny Patricia's childhood and surprised when she told us about Meccano, Hot Wheels cars and Tiny Tears dolls as the children had also played with these toys! We found out about some playground games and have been playing them in the playground with Mrs Goodger too!
Our first week in school focused on supporting the children's emotional well-being. We spent time talking about our experiences and feelings. Children had time to rebuild friendships, familiarise with new staff and become confident with our new class rules and expectations.
During this week we based our learning on a book written by the children's author, Oliver Jeffers. The book, HERE WE ARE, engaged children in discussions about the world we live in, it offered time for reflection and learning through a range of subjects including: art, science, geography, poetry, dialogue and literacy. This was a whole school project, developing our sense of community and belonging, with each class creating work for a school display. The children settled into school well and have shown such great resilience in a difficult, changing time.
