Year 2

This week we were lucky enough to work with Les and Pat from Godly Play back to Year Two.

In this session the children were introduced to the story of the Good Samaritan, they reenacted the story, made crafts and played games all linked to the key idea of friendship, peace and help.

In Maths this term we are focusing on addition and subtraction.

We use our place value grids to ensure the children understand the physical nature of ‘tens and ones’ before we move onto the pictorial, and finally the number digits.

Here is our first step of adding numbers:

In our first week back we have been looking at where we belong in our Wonderful World.

We began by looking at google maps, exploring what Earth looked like from space.. we then slowly worked our way in through continents, countries, counties, towns and finally streets .. all the way to St Nicholas Primary Academy.

The children are learning new vocabulary and the sense of scale.

We created our own little booklets which the children were thrilled to take home.

Welcome to Term 2

Our Christmas term is often one of the busiest in the school calendar with many events in the first few weeks, and then an exciting month in the run up to Sparkle and Nativity bonanza!

This term is titles ‘Why is our World Wonderful?’ we will be looking at this through a Geographical lens, but it weaves through our English, RE and Wellbeing too.

Please find attached our Curriculum Overview for the term and this terms’ KIRFs.

We really appreciate all your support to push both reading and Numbots at home, both create such important foundations for our young people.

Curriculum Web Term 2 Why is our world wonderful

Term 2 KIRFS Year 2

Wow – What a term! The children have loved learning about all things 1666.

Our History topic has been so popular with the children, they are able to recall key facts about the Great Fire, but also have been investigating how we can look at different pieces of evidence from the past to explore what happened. We’ve read diaries and newspaper articles. Had boxes of evidence delivered directly from London and looked at paintings to learn more about Samuel Pepys, Thomas Farrier and Sir Christopher Wren.

We’ve written instructions to make rolls from the famous bakery on Pudding Lane and written a diary entry as someone who was there on Pudding Lane on the night the fire started. We had a drama workshop with Ian from Kic theatre company too!

In DT we have built houses to replicate those from 1666, burnt them to see how quickly the fire spread and finally designed a new London.

Here are some photos of our learning this term.

This week saw our first of our  6 days across the school year ‘off timetable’ celebrating our ‘6 Ways to Wellbeing.

Each class has chosen an artist and an environmentalist through which we will be learning, connecting, giving and more!

Looking at Rachel Carson’s work about pesticides in our water systems

Combing Monet’s artwork with that of Rachel Carson’s favourite environment

Linked to our History topic of the Great Fire of London this term we will be making and testing structures.

To begin our topic we have looked at the terms ‘stable’ and ‘structure’. We made different 3D shapes and tested them to see which was the strongest. With this knowledge we then worked together in teams to try to make the most stable structure. We used books to test how strong each structure was.

This term we are learning about different materials. We have learnt how to sort, describe and test different materials for different purposes.

It’s been lovely to see the children link their learning across subjects. For example we learnt that in 1666 they used leather buckets for carrying water, our Year 2 children came up with many alternative materials that would be better for this product.

Here are Fox Class sorting objects:

We were then learning about investigations. This year we will look at, and complete many investigations. We will build up to completing our own investigations by the end of the year.

Testing our shoe on stone.

Testing our shoes on grass

Testing our shoe on carpet.

Testing our shoes on lino

Year Two have been learning about the Creation. They sequences what God made on each day and had to guess what might be created on day 6. We used water colours to paint pictures of what they believed God created and we then wrote about these too.

Their learning moves on now to look at how to protect and look after our planet that Christian’s believe God created. How we are all responsible and advocates for our Earth. This has linked well to our Worship about Harvest and our Wellbeing day where we looked at the natural world.

To start this term we will be looking at Place Value.

In our first few lessons of Year Two we have been exploring how we can make teen numbers using a range of manipulatives. We will recap learning from Year One and identify our small steps of learning.

You can log in now to Numbots to continue practicing addition and subtraction challenges

In the afternoons we also help secure our number knowledge through Mastering Number this is a programme which helps

• Pupils develop and demonstrate good number sense
• Pupils build firm mathematical foundations
• Support children’s understanding and use of appropriate manipulatives to support mathematical structures

Mastering number has some links to Numberblocks; videos can be found here: