Welcome to Year 2!

2023-24

In Year 2, our teachers are Mr Cameron, Miss Ferguson, and Miss Tullet. We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistants (LSAs): Mrs Muller and Mrs Clarkson. 

If you have any questions, please speak with your child's class teacher. You can speak to your child’s class teacher by phoning the school and requesting an appointment if they are not around at pick-up.

Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning. 

Curriculum Newsletters

• Year 2 Curriculum Newsletter - Summer 2024
• Year 2 Curriculum Newsletter - Spring 2024
• Year 2 Curriculum Newsletter - Autumn 2023

Updated - Friday 5th July 2024

Science

This week, the children started to make their cards with a moving mechanism.  They used the plans they created last week to help them.

History

As we approached the end of our history topic, the children played a quiz to see what they remembered about the different monarchs they had been learning about.

DT

For DT this week, the children have begun adding embellishments to their bag labels. They referred to their earlier designs to help them.

Updated - Friday 28th June 2024

English

On Monday, we were shocked to discover that Imagination Land had decided to quit. We were sent a letter explaining why they had decided to quit, and we were given the task of writing a persuasive letter to convince them to come back.

Science

This week, we discussed different card designs that used various mechanisms. We then had to examine one of the designs and decide how we could improve it.

History

In history, we have been finishing off our board games.  We completed our playing cards and will be bringing the game home soon.  The children can share some facts they have been learning about. We also used oil pastels to draw portraits of different monarchs.

DT

This week, we started making our luggage labels. We used our sewing skills, including a running stitch, to attach two pieces of binca together.

Update - Friday 21st June 2024

Science

In science, we have continued to examine how mechanisms work. This week, we are examining ‘linkages’. The children watched a video explaining how' linkages’ work. We then worked together to make a moving picture that uses a ‘linkage’ mechanism to make the parts move.

History

This week in history, we have been applying our knowledge from the past term to help us make a board game about monarchs.  The children had to identify certain monarchs' positive and negative impacts on the country.  They also had to use their knowledge of royal residences to create game cards.

Pirate Vs Mermaids

This week, we began learning our songs for our performance. We will continue going through the songs regularly. It would be appreciated if you could help the children with any lines they have been given.

Updated - Friday 14th June 2024

In art this week, we continued using iPads to draw themselves as monarchs.

In DT, we continued studying different mechanisms. This week, we examined how things move with ‘slider’ and ‘lever’ mechanisms. The children enjoyed using their skills to create their own moving pictures.

As part of our English class, we came to school this week to find that all our books had decided to quit!! Using the skills and knowledge we gained, we were asked to write a letter to persuade them to return. 

In history, we learned about Queen Elizabeth II. We were then given the task of ranking some of her life achievements. We then discussed our answers as a class. 

Update - Friday 7th June 2024

DT

During the week, the children have been exploring the meaning of embellishment. They have then used the knowledge they have gained to practise some embellishment techniques.

Art

In art this week, the children used their portraits to create a picture of themselves as monarchs. They also considered what clothing and jewellery they would wear.

Science

In science, the children went outside to see the mini beast hotels they had created before half term.  The children explored what creatures were living in them. We then discussed how we could attract more creatures to our hotels if we were to build them again.

English

When the children returned on Monday, they found that all the coloured pencils had disappeared. To encourage them to return, they had to use ‘persuasive language’. This unit will focus on persuasive language and how it can be used in various ways.

Update - Friday 24th May 2024

This week in science each class was finally able to build their bug hotels! We had gathered up cardboard boxes, bottles, sticks and logs - we put these together to create some new homes for our bug friends. 

During science, we examined different animals and their lifestyles. We learned some new vocabulary, including metamorphosis, hatchling, pupa, and pupation. We were able to create life cycles for animals such as the 'American mink, small-spotted catshark, woodpigeon, saltwater crocodile, and swallowtail butterfly'.

Update - Friday 17th May 2024

Year 2 has continued to learn 'The Barnabus Project' story, and they are ready for their final piece next week! We broke the story into two parts. Children had to order pictures chronologically and then match the correct sentences to these pictures. Afterwards, they read the story back to each other and added actions to help get the story stuck in their heads!

During art lessons this week, children let their creative juices flow and became a mixture of photographers and monarchs! They took pictures of each other and had to edit the photos to turn themselves into kings or queens. They drew crowns, orbs, sceptres and even thrones in the background!

Finally, during our DT lessons, we tried sewing! We are creating bag tags, so before our final piece, we needed to perfect our stitch!

Update - Friday 10th May 2024

This week, the year 2 team started their new book - The Barnabus Project. They listened to the story and found out they would retell it but with their own failed projects! 

During history, we recalled 8 monarchs and had to sort them to match the image to their names. We then challenged them to research the historical periods that the monarchs reigned in and the dates they were on the throne!

In DT, we had our first practice at making bag tags - this week, it was a paper version, but soon, it will be a felt version that we'll have to sow! We followed instructions and helped each other before designing them and taking them home.

Update - Friday 3rd May 2024

This week Year 2 have been working hard through their science lessons. We have been learning about animals, their needs and where they live. 

To start with, we talked about invertebrates and the different groups found within them. We then tried matching animals into their correct groups before coming back together to check if we were right! In the next lesson, we recapped what animals need before moving on to habitats and microhabitats. We then went on an investigation around the school grounds to see if we could find any microhabitats—it was very exciting! 

This week, during English, we finished our Matilda unit by writing our final character descriptions for Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull. We tried to incorporate as many key skills as we could, including capital letters, full stops, noun phrases, adjectives, and more!

Next week we are looking forward to starting our new English topic - We will be reading 'The Barnabus Project'. 

Update - Friday 26th April 2024

Year 2 has had a second fun week back! 

In art, we bring in some objects from home to represent a hobby or something we love. We sketched each other in different poses to prepare for our monarch poses next week!

We also celebrated Earth Day with some fun activities! We filled a bottle with plastic to create an Eco Bottle Brick, decorated sections of Earth for a large display, and created posters to help protect the planet.

Update - Friday 19th April 2024

Year 2 has had a busy first week back!

They were introduced to some brand-new topic words for our History driver topic - Magnificent Monarchs. They had to work in teams to sort out words to their definitions. They saw words such as monarch, reign, hierarchy, AD, century and timeline.

For English, we are writing character descriptions for a theatre programme. We are focussing on Matilda! To start, we enjoyed watching 'Matilda: The Musical.' We then worked on understanding each character and what makes them special. We thought about their personality, appearance, likes, and dislikes. To expand our vocabulary, we looked at verbs and adverbs to use within our descriptive sentences.  

Update - Thursday 28th March 2024

This week, we came to the end of our text ‘The Man on the Moon’. We wrote a diary entry, pretending to be an alien the day we met Bob the astronaut. We were challenged to include prepositions, suffixes and subordinating conjunctions to impress Bob with how well aliens know English. 

In maths, we have now completed our unit on mass, capacity and temperature. We have used our knowledge of skip counting to help us read scales on ruler, weighing scales and thermometers.

As we have come to the end of our ‘Plant Survival’ learning in science, we have learnt so much about how plants grow and what they need to be healthy. We looked back at all of our previous learning to answer some quiz questions.

Update - Friday 22nd March 2024

In DT, we finished our innovative project of building our beach huts! We used a range of materials and colours to make our huts attractive. We had to ensure that our beach huts met the design criteria, especially that they were strong. In the end, we evaluated our work and considered what went well and what we would try to do differently if we were to do it again.

We considered a healthy diet in PSHE by reviewing our previous learning about food groups. We were challenged to design healthy snacks and explain how we know they are healthy. We thought carefully about why eating healthy snacks is important and what it does for our bodies, especially when growing.

Update - Friday 15th March 2024

This week, we have continued to watch our different plants grow, including our grass samples, which we keep in different conditions. Our bean and pea seeds have finally started germinating. This has shown us that different seeds take different lengths to start growing.

In DT, we are coming to the end of our spring unit, ‘Beach Huts’. We have successfully sawed all of the required pieces out of wood and used our knowledge of joining and strengthening techniques to build the 3D structure. We cannot wait to show you what they look like when finished!

In geography, we were challenged to create our coastal towns by designing a map and key to describe and locate what there would be. We had to think carefully about including an RNLI station so people would be safe and various tourist attractions so people would come to visit.

Update - Friday 8th March 2024

In health and wellbeing, the children have been thinking about what it means to be healthy. We have thought about what we can do to stay healthy, like exercise, brush our teeth, and drink water. We also discussed why medicine is important and the different types we might need. We reminded ourselves about taking medicine with an adult and only when we are poorly.

In art, we have now come to the end of our ‘Flower Heads’ unit and have completed our innovative challenge to make our own flower-inspired piece out of clay. This was carried out over several weeks, and after leaving to dry, the children were able to paint their final pieces with bright colours while considering patterns.

In science, we continue to watch our cress plants grow while looking at different types of seeds. Each class has planted its own bean and pea plants to observe how long these take to grow and whether different conditions are needed for the plants to grow healthy. We have also taken grass samples and are investigating what happens when there is not enough sunlight or water over time.

Update - Friday 1st March 2024

Year 2 has been so busy getting stuck into their new learning units.

This week we have continued, in English, looking at our text ‘The Beast Feast’ and we have written letters to Beast persuading him not to cook Dinner for his friends. We have looked at how apostrophes can be used to contract words and show possession.

Celebrating Science Week has been so much fun. We did a variety of investigations and had a go at applying our science knowledge to predict what might happen. Each class has also planted their seeds, which we will watch grow over the next few weeks, thinking carefully about what a plant needs to grow healthy.

In art, we had a go at creating own on flower art from clay, being inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s naturalist style. So far, we have shaped our clay by rolling, pinching and squashing. Once cry we will paint them to make it bright and create patterns.

Update - Friday 23rd February 2024

Welcome back to Spring 2!

The children have settled back into routine and have loved beginning our new text in English ‘The Beast Feast”. This week, we have started reading the story and uncovered letters from Beast’s friends. We have thought about how the characters feel and what they might think at different story points. On Wednesday, we created our beasts to trick the others to save Dinner from being eaten.

In art, we have continued our unit on ‘Flower Heads’ and, this week, have studied the artist Yayoi Kusama. We have discovered her inspirations for her artwork and how she enjoys using colours and patterns to bring her natural pieces to life. We thought back to using our different skills to create shapes, textures and patterns and how Yayoi Kusama uses these in her work.

In geography, we took a trip into the past to look at the coastal town of Whitby and how it has changed over time. We looked closely at the buildings and shorelines and noticed that these have changed due to people and natural causes like erosion. The jobs of the people in Whitby were also different over 100 years ago, including shipbuilders and factory workers.

Update - Friday 9th February 2024

In English, I wrote a fact file about the Chinese New Year based on everything we have been learning about during the past three weeks.

In art, we used felt tips to explore colour and pattern. We coloured and sprayed our flowers with water to watch our patterns blend and grow.

Update - Friday 2nd February 2024

In geography this week, the children have spotted dangers at the beach.  They worked with a partner to identify all the potential dangers they could see.

In art this week, the children have been exploring texture.  They first covered the card in glue, then layered strips and small pieces of tissue paper over the glue.  After that, they used a paintbrush to create soft folds and wrinkles in the tissue, then continued to add more layers and left it to dry.

On Friday, the children enjoyed number day.  In the morning, they worked with a partner to complete several maths activities.

Update - Friday 19th January 2024

In geography this week, the children looked at erosion and how it can affect coastal areas. We experimented in our classrooms by creating two coastal boxes.  We filled the first box with sand and pimpled it high to represent the land.  We placed an object by the edge of the land to represent a home.  We then poured water into our coastal boxes and created waves to show how the water can erode.  We then repeated the experiment in our second box and used stones at the base of the sand.  We discussed why the coastal box with stones took longer to cause erosion. 

In DT this week, we started to use junior hacksaws to cut wood.  As a group, we cut out four pieces of wood. We then joined the corners together to make a rectangle.

In English, we looked at the difference between good and bad instructions.  We discussed how our instructions need to be clear and concise so that they can be followed more easily.  The teachers read out some wrong instructions, which resulted in everyone coming up with something different.  We then looked at a clearer set of instructions and found those easier to follow.

Update- Friday 12th January 2024

In DT this week, the children have been exploring strengthening a structure.  They learned how to enhance cards, fold cards and join cards together.  In small groups, they used this knowledge to make a beach.

In English, we have continued to learn about instructional language.  We looked at what noun phrases, verbs, adverbs and adjectives are to help us think about the instructions we can give.  On Friday, we role-played different verbs, and next week, we will try to guess what action is being done in the photographs.

During maths, we have continued to look at the use of money and solve various problems.

Update - Friday 6th January 2024

In maths, the children have been learning all coin and note denominations. They have then used this knowledge to answer problem-solving questions.

In English, we started our new unit based on the story of ‘How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth’. The children have used this text to explore instructional writing. The unit started with the children giving their teachers instructions on how to make a jam sandwich. The children realised if they did not give clear instructions, mistakes could be made.

For art, our unit started by looking at flower heads and exploring their different colours and shapes. The children then sketched and coloured different parts of a flower.

This week, we started our DT unit on beach houses. In the first lesson, the children explored different types of beach houses and labelled different parts of them.

Update - Friday 8th December 2023

Another very busy week in Year 2.  We had our first Dress rehearsal for our Nativity performance.  All went well and the children are really looking forward to performing in front of their parents and other family members.  Also, during the week, we finished our History, learning all about significant activists.  We especially focussed on the story of Malala Yousafzai and how she fought for the right of all girls in Pakistan to be educated.  In Art, the children completed our final Still Life artwork using watercolours and all our skills to mix the different hues to create the colours we wanted.  

Update - Friday 1st December 2023

It has been a rather busy week in Year 2.  We are fully immersed in our nativity rehearsals for "It a Baby".  All the children have been practising the songs and dances.  Soon, we will begin to start rehearsing in the hall.   In maths, we started a new topic on Shapes.  So far, we looked at recognising 2D and 3D shapes.  We have learnt how many sides and vertices each 2D shape should have.  This week, we focused on significant 'Activists' throughout history.  They were Rosa Parks,  William Wilberforce, Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Malala Yousafzai.

Update - Friday 24th November 2023

Another busy week in Year 2.  In English, the children worked very hard to finish their version of a story following the format of The Bear and the Piano.  We had many stories ranging from The Dog and the Drum, The Fox and the Guitar, The Panda and the Harp.  The children used lots of adverbs to help with their descriptive writing.  In art this week all of Year 2 took part in a carousel of activities across all classrooms. They had 30 minutes in each classroom to draw, paint or use clay to sculpt still-life items displayed on the tables. We were all very impressed with their effort and designs. 

Update - Friday 17th November 2023

It was a busy week in Year 2, celebrating Children in Need by wearing odd socks and Interfaith Week.  In their RE lesson, the children discussed some of the main faiths from around the world and that everyone, no matter what faith, belongs on this earth.

Update - Friday 10th November 2023

This week in Year 2, we have been concentrating on our addition skills in maths.  We have been using Base Ten to help us understand what happens when we need to exchange 10 ones into a ten.  In History this week, we learnt all about Neil Armstrong.  We chose 6 key facts about his life. Here are some of our favourites:

• His footsteps are still on the surface of the moon
• When he first stepped on the moon he said “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!)
• He was only 16 when he got his pilot license.
• He spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the moon.

Update - Friday 3rd November 2023

In year 2, we have started our new English topic.  It is based on the story of “The Bear and the Piano” by David Litchfield.  We have done our best to learn the story by heart. 

This week, we have learned all about Christopher Columbus and how he was the first European to discover the Americas.  He originally thought he was travelling to India but instead discovered the Americas.  In geography, we have looked closely at the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Update - Friday 20th October 2023

In year 2, this week, we finished off Black History Month by completing our final piece of writing on Mary Seacole.  We learnt how she bravely cared for wounded soldiers during the Crimea War and even went onto the Battlefield to look after them.  We finished our ‘Black History’ month by listening to the autobiography “Coming To England” by Floella Benjamin.   Check out “Read with me” to hear the story at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFuFc_xuOUU

Update - Friday 13th October 2023

This week in geography, we have been learning all about the equator.  We now know where the equator is and what it is like to live near it.  We know that countries that sit above the equator are in the Northern Hemisphere.  And the countries below the equator are in the Southern Hemisphere.  

Update - Friday 6th October 2023

This week, the children in Y2 have started their new English unit.  The children will learn about Mary Seacole, ready for Black History Month.  We have been reading her biography and learning about her life in some of our lessons, putting events in her life into order.

Update - Friday 29th September 2023

In year 2, this week, we participated in a Science experience investigating the best way to clean the bacteria off our hands. We used cooking oil to represent the bacteria.  Test 1 used oil and water. Test 2 used oil, soap and cold water. Test 3 used oil, soap and warm water.  We discovered that soap and warm water were the best way to remove bacteria (oil).

In DT this week, we learned that cooking root vegetables and pulses changes their texture by making them softer.

Update - Monday 25th September 2023

Year 2 has had an exciting week this week.  On Thursday, a representative from Hampshire Fire Service came to speak to the children about fire safety.  The children learned some important messages about staying safe and what to do if a fire occurs.  

In DT this week, the children have also looked at Kitchen tools and how to use them.  We learned how to safely peel with a peeler, what knife to use to spread butter, what knife to use to slice food items into small pieces, and how to grate cheese with a grater safely.  The children did well.

Update- Friday 15th September 2023

In History this week, we learnt all about a local significant person. Jane Austin.  We learned about her life and why she was a significant person in history.  We looked at pictures of her and learnt that there is a statue of her in Basingstoke town centre.  We found out that she lived in a village near Basingstoke called Chawton.

In science, we have been learning about what a healthy, balanced diet consists of.  We learnt all about the main food groups and the eat well plate.  

Update - Thursday 14th September 2023

The children are all settling into their new classes and routines.  We have begun the first week by getting straight into our curriculum.   In English this term we have started to learn of by heart an alternative story to Little Red Riding Hood.  The children have been using drama and actions to learn the story ready for when they complete their own story.