Class Two Newsletter – Summer Term
Summer Newsletter, Year 2
Welcome back for the last term of the year in Fox Class – and welcome back to Miss Sabin too! We have a busy and exciting term ahead, including our visit to Great Notley Country Park for our Explorers Day and Forest School sessions after half term.
We outline below the children’s planned learning for this term.
English
We will be reading this term from the Tales of Beatrix Potter and linking our work, via Mr McGregor’s vegetable garden, to our science work on plants (as well as our own allotment planting). The English curriculum will also include a non-fiction unit on writing to persuade as well as the opportunity to study play scripts, including some drama work as well as writing our own short scripts. We will also be looking at the nonsense poetry of Spike Milligan. Writing skills will continue to focus on basic punctuation (capital letters, full stops and question marks and commas in lists) as well as looking further at the use of the apostrophe, both for possession and contraction, and at the use of speech marks. Spelling and handwriting also form an ongoing part of our learning in English. All children should be showing increasing evidence of a neat and regular handwriting style by the end of Year 2, showing clear ‘ascenders’ and ‘descenders’ as well as accurate use of capital letters; we would be grateful if you could support this at home by making sure your child is forming their letters and numbers correctly – your 1:1 supervision is invaluable in this area.
Please also continue to listen to your child read, discussing their understanding of the texts they are reading. As well as our group, guided reading sessions, we are introducing regular written comprehension activities to prepare the children for Key Stage 2; we encourage the children to find specific evidence and word choices from the texts they have read as well as to read between the lines to answer higher level questions.
Maths
The children will continue to build on their independence and presentation this term as well as developing their times tables knowledge (division facts as well as multiplication). They will continue to practise multiplication and division using bead-lines and grouping, concentrating on understanding the connection between the two operations. The children will also continue to focus on place value, using this to help them add and subtract two-digit numbers and will use a number line and counting on to help them find the difference between two numbers as well as ordering and rounding 2-digit numbers to the nearest 10. They will learn to recognise and know the value of all coins, using them to make amounts. The children will continue to recognise and count in fractions as well as finding fractions of amounts. They will also continue learning to tell the time to the nearest 5-minutes as well as undertaking a range of number puzzles and maths investigations. Their learning will be re-enforced with practical work as well as applying skills to reasoning activities.
Topic (History and Geography)
Our topic this term will have a history focus; we will be learning about significant figures in history, concentrating our learning on explorers such as Christopher Columbus and the children’s author, Beatrix Potter. We will develop the children’s understanding of chronology and will consider the impact that significant figures have had on our lives today. We will be bringing the ‘Explorers’ topic to life with an outdoor experience day at Great Notley Country Park, considering the tools and skills required for explorers and learning to map-read and build our own shelters.
Science
In the first half term, we will explore the world of seeds: learn why plants disperse their seeds and the various clever ways in which they do this. The children will plant seeds and grow a bean using hydroponics and then using their maths skills will watch and record what happens to them. In the second half term, the children will create a class allotment, grow and nurture their own plants by watering and introducing useful mini-beasts. They will also learn how food chains work and understand that energy from the Sun is passed through each link in a food chain.
Computing
We will be using the school laptops and a variety of different programs to learn how to manipulate images. The children will learn how to import, crop, rotate and alter the colour of a chosen picture that links to our art topic. E-safety will continue to be re-enforced when using the internet for research. Developing the children’s fluency in typing continues to be important and regular practise at home will be extremely beneficial.
Art and DT
In art this term we will developing our observational skills, sketching flowers and vegetables as part of our cross-curricular work on allotments and looking at perspective when painting. We will aim to produce simple, sewn collages of an allotment, developing our skills with needle and thread and textiles.
Our DT learning will link with our study of Beatrix Potter and we will make our own puppets to perform our Beatrix Potter-inspired play scripts. We will focus on methods of joining and quality of finish as well as the idea of evaluating and refining our designs.
RE and PSHE
In RE, our focus will be special places, considering how our environment affects our wellbeing and our spirituality in a range of cultures and religions. In PSHE will be examining our emotions and our relationships with others. We will also be learning about growing and changing, recognising our achievements and understanding physical changes as we grow.
Music
In Music, the children will experiment with, create, select and combine sounds to create effects reflecting the seasons, in particular Summer. We will listen to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to inspire our work.
PE
PE will now take place on a Wednesday and a Thursday. We will be improving our athletics skills and learning ball and striking skills in team games. The children will need trainers, together with their school PE shorts and top (and a cap on sunny days), for use outdoors throughout the summer term.
Mrs Rudkin and Miss Sabin