Welcome to Year 2. Spring 2020
The teachers in year 2 this year are, Miss Anderson (2L), Miss Handley (2T) and Miss Whitney (2P). You may also work with Miss Patterson, Mrs Cruikshank, Miss Darnbrough, Mrs Heard, Mrs Hussain and Mrs Ebling.
Happy New year!
We hope everyone had a lovely, relaxing break.
The topic for this term is "Dungeons and Dragons", We will be exploring this topic in lots of exciting ways in all our subjects. For example, we will learn all about castles in history; locate some famous castles in geography; apply to King Arthur's court in English and learn lots of facts about dragons. We will also explore a range of fiction and non-fiction about wolves. Are wolves always bad? Let's find out!
Please see our curriculum map below for more specific details in each of the subject areas. Looking ahead, there will be a meeting for parents about the assessment process in Year 2, including information about SATs.
General Routines
PE will be on Mondays and Wednesdays. In the first half term we will be focussing on hockey and playground games. We would ask you to ensure that your PE kit is in school at all times and that children have footwear suitable for being outside.
We will be giving out spelling homework every week on a Friday. The homework will be to learn a set of words ahead of a spelling test the following week. This will be supported by spelling activities set on Spelling Shed.
Maths homework will continue to be set on a Friday and will be online via MyMaths. During this half term, we will also be sending home usewrnames and passwords for the children to access Times Table Rockstars. This is an online resource which allows children to practise their times tables while earning points to set up their own rock band.
We will continue to have daily guided reading sessions (ensuring every child receives a guided reading session with the teacher once a week). Books can be changed at any time and we will be encouraging the Year 2s to do this independently once they have read their book at home.
We will also be sending home the guided reading book that they have read with their teacher, and we ask that this could be used to explore questions around comprehension of the text. Information and examples of these questions have been added as a bookmark to your child's reading record.
Further support at home
Any extra support that you can give your child at home to support their learning is fantastic. We know that it can sometimes be hard to know what to focus on or what activities to do. We encourage you to come in and have a chat if you are unsure but below are just a few ideas that we know really help the children at school.
Target areas for this term
Reading - Infering information. When you are reading at home, if your child is reading their book fluently and confidently, stop them to ask questions about how different characters may be feeling and what has made them think that. Stickers will be given for children who have read 3 or more times in a week with an adult.
Writing- Consistent use of capital letters and full stops. Using 'and' 'but' 'so' and 'or' to add information to a sentence. Using capital letters for the names of people and places. Using apostrophes for omission (e.g. don't, I'm, can't) and posession (e.g. Jack's hat, Grandma's house)
Maths - Counting in 2s, 5s, 10s and 3s. Recognising and finding 1/2, 1/4 and 1/3 of shapes and quantities.
General support
Times tables and divisions - we focus on 2, 3, 5 and 10 in Year 2.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/times-tables
Time - being able to read a clock to the nearest quarter of an hour but mainly o'clock and half past. For Greater Depth children will be expected to tell the time to 5 minutes.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=telling+time
Reading - many studies have concluded that 10 minutes reading a day has a huge positive impact on a child's educational development, as well as being a fun activity to do!
https://www.nala.ie/news/reading-your-child-10-minutes-day-can-make-huge-difference-0
Handwriting - we use the Cursive writing style. Please see the attached information for how to log on to LetterJoin. The website has lots of interactive activities that the children can use to practise their handwriting.