Welcome to Year 2
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 and Mrs Ebling.
Welcome back!
We are so excited to be back in school, ready for a new school year!
The topic for this term is "Life On the Ocean Wave", We will be exploring this topic in lots of exciting ways in all our subjects. For example, we will investigate habitats and food chains in science; learn about continents and oceans in geography; research Captain Scott in History and learn lots of facts about different polar animals. We will also explore a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts in English. Later in the term, we will have a Polar Explorer day and not forgetting our pantomime!
Please see our curriculum map below for more specific details in each of the subject areas. We also hope to see as many parents as possible at our curriculum meeting on September 17th.
General Routines
PE will be on Mondays and Wednesdays. In the first half term we will be focussing on hockey and dance. 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 starting from the third week of term. The homework this term will consist of practising a specific approach to learning spellings, in preparation for sending sets of spellings home to learn after Christmas.
Shortly after introducing the spelling homework, we will also be sending home individual logins for the children to access MyMaths. This is an online resource which will be used to set weekly maths homework tasks to consolidate what we have been learning in class.
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.
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 - Retrieving information. When you are reading at home, if your child is reading their book fluently and confidently, stop them to ask questions about what they have read or ask them to recount the story/information after they have finished. 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' to add information to a sentence. Using capital letters for the names of people and places.
Maths - Ordering 2-digit numbers. Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s.
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.