Shirley Community Primary & Preschool

Year 2 Blog 2023 - 2024

WB: 18-9-2023

Welcome to the Year 2 class blog. We are really pleased to say Nightingale and Kingfisher classes are settling into their new year group really well. The children are learning the new routines and getting to know the adults in the year group. Well done everyone! The teachers are really enjoying getting to know you all.

This half term in RE we are learning about Harvest Time. Last week we learnt how important it was to harvest food for winter in past times and about how food is harvested in the present day. We discussed how our food now comes from around the world, but didn't in the past.

This week we learnt about how Christians celebrate Harvest Festival. We learnt about why they thank god for the harvest, how they decorate their churches, pray and give gifts of food. 

We talked about Harvest time happening in the Autumn and made an Autumn Wreath to celebrate Harvest.

WB: 3.7.2023

This week in maths we have been continuing to learn about statistics. We have used our knowledge of how to create a tally chart to then create a Block Diagram. 

Once we had created a block diagram we answered questions about the data we had compiled. We compared columns, added columns and worked out which were the most and least popular columns, and which item had the fewest blocks in our diagram. Using these mathematical descriptions enabled us to talk accurately about the statistics we were analysing. 

WB: 19.6.23 International Week

For International Week, Kingfishers were learning all about South Korea. Activities included:

• Learning about the flag and making our own
• Learning to count up to 10 in Korean
• Reading the fairytale ‘The Korean Princess’ and comparing it to the English version
• Writing character descriptions of the Korean Cinderella
• Learning to sing the rhyme ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ in Korean
• Interviewing a Korean visitor and finding out about traditional food, animals and games in South Korea
• Creating our own information posters sharing all the information we have learnt about Korea

5-6-2023

This week in English we started a new text. The children have really enjoyed this rhyming text and have been getting very good at remembering it and joining in with the refrains. We talked about what type of text this is and have been identifying it's rhyming words. The children played lots of rhyming games and generated real and nonsense rhymes for given words. We look forward to exploring this genre further and will eventually be writing our own poems. 

26.05.23 Diversity Week

This week, it has been Diversity Week throughout the school. In Year 2, we have been learning about the Windrush generation where lots of people came from the Caribbean to Britain after World War II. We learnt that lots of these people settled in Notting Hill, which at the time was primarily a neighborhood made up of white people. Some of the people who came from the Caribbean experienced racism. A few years later, the Notting Hill Carnival was created to celebrate everything good about Carribean culture e.g. food and music. We looked at some costume designs and were in awe of the fabulous costumes. We designed our own inspired by them. Take a look at our designs.

16.05.23 French

This half term in French, we have been learning about seasons. Have a listen to us say the season names. Can you try?

Autumn = en automne

Winter = en hiver

Spring = au printemps

Summer = en été

2-5-202

This week in maths we have been working hard on two skills. We have been solving subtraction maths problems that involve exchanging a ten and we have also been using jottings to solve the problems. 

You can see below how we draw the first number of our subtraction problem using tens and ones. Then we cross out the ten when we exchange it into ten ones that we then add to the ones column.  We don't need to do this for every problem but for example if we doing: 23-14=  you can see that we can't subtract the 4 from the 3 and so we exchange. 

This is a tricky skill to master, so well done Year 2 for working so hard!

25.04.23 Planting!

The start of our annual sunflower competition!

This week in class, we planted our own sunflower seed. First, we had to carefully measure out 3 spoons of soil into a tiny pot. Then we planted the seed. Did you know that the pointy bit of a sunflower seed should be planted into the soil first? We then watered our soil; we had to make sure we didn’t wet the soil too much! After our planting, we wrote our very instructions explaining how to plant a seed. Why don’t you have a go planting a sunflower seed at home?

Now we are going to wait and watch it grow!

BRITISH SCIENCE WEEK

13-6-23

In Design and technology, we have been learning about lever mechanisms. Today, we made our own in order to get Jack to go up the beanstalk. There were a few different steps to do this. 

6-3-2023

This half term we have been working hard learning about fractions. We have been learning that a half is one of two equal parts, a quarter is one of four equal parts, and  this week, we learnt a third is one of three equal parts of the whole. 

The children have been learning to recognise when a shape or group has been divided into equal parts / groups. They have colouring shapes to represent the fractions they have been asked to show or diving groups into halves, quarters or thirds. They have been finding what a third, half or quarter of a number is. They have been learning how  to write and recognise fractions and they have also been solving reasoning problems using fractions.  What a lot of work they have been doing! We are really impressed by their enthusiasm. Well done everyone. 

28-02-23

In English, we have been reading the story, Tadpole’s Promise. We’ve had great fun exploring character feelings and emotions, and role playing different roles. The children all unanimously agreed the butterfly was a mean character because of her unkind behaviour towards her friend, the caterpillar. We wrote character descriptions of the two main characters. Have a read through them below. Next week, we will be writing our own version of this story. Wonder what changes the little authors will make!

27-2-2023

This week in Year 2, we have had a very exciting week. 
Both classes visited the Life Education Centre where we talked about how to keep healthy. We discussed how we need food, water and oxygen. After, we helped Harold the giraffe who was feeling unwell and also helped solve some friendship problems. Here are some pictures from the bus. 

6-2-2023

Safety Week

This week we have been learning all about different ways to stay safe at school and at home. We have learnt all about how to identify our feelings and signs in our body that we may be in an unsafe situation. On Wednesday we learnt all about the different devices that can connect to the internet and how we can make sure that we are being safe online. We all created our own safety circles which include our trusted adults both at home and at school. 

On Thursday we were very lucky to meet some real firefighters from Cambridge Fire Station. They talked to us about how we can keep ourselves safe from fire and we got to see inside a real life fire engine!  

2-2-2023

We have been continuing to enjoy learning French and we are now learning about animals. This week we learnt to say and write about which animals we liked and which we didn't. The children were introduced the the phrases "j'aime" (I like) and "je n'aime pas" (I don't like) and combined these with the animal names they had already learnt to make sentences. We used our new knowledge to make some books in French about the animals and wrote our sentences under our illustrations. 

13-01-2023

In English, we have been looking at recounts. We went on a tour of the school last week and this week, we have been writing about it. 

8-12-2022

This half term in RE we have been learning about how Christians celebrate Christmas. We have learnt about the Nativity Story and that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. We have looked at how Christians celebrate at home and at church and how Christmas is celebrated around the world with family and friends. We talked about how we celebrate many things in our lives and how many religions also have significant celebrations. 

29.11.22

Toys!

Our topic in French this half term is toys. We started off by making our own teddy bear and using it to sing a sing called nounours. Listen to our song!

We have also been talking about our jouet préfère; our favourite toys. We drew a picture of it, practiced saying it in French and then labelled it. Can you read the labels?

18.11.22

Anti - bullying week

This week, we have really enjoyed our PSHE lessons focused on Anti-bullying week. We have learnt what bullying behaviour is. We have learnt that it has to be repetitive and intentional and how it can often involve an inbalance of power (where the person who is on the receiving end of bullying behaviour feels like they can't do anything about it). We listened to the story Willy the wimp. We thought about how he felt and how unkind the suburban gorilla gang were to him. On Thursday, we created our own anti-bullying superheroes who had powers to stop bullying behaviour e.g.  say stop, walk away from a situation. Today, we created reach out window displays where we thought about how we could reach out to others to check that they are ok and feel supported.

8-11-2022

This week in maths we have been finding that when we add two numbers it is quicker to add to the nearest 10 and then add the remaining ones. 

We have been manipulating Dienes (tens and ones) to work out our maths problems and by using practical resources it is easier to understand how the strategy works. 

01.11.22

This week in class, we were very intrigued by the tail and footsteps we found when we entered our classroom. Whoever could it belong to, we wondered. Upon following the trail of footsteps, we found a story with a note that said, ‘Read Me’. It was called ‘The Dragon Machine’ by Helen Ward. We started the week by completing a Tell Me Grid where we discussed our likes and dislikes about the story. We also talked about what this story reminds us of. Read through some of our great responses! We had fun story mapping the main events and acting out the story. Ask your child to perform it to you at home. Next week, we will be designing our own dragon and writing about it. We can’t wait!

4.10.2022

Writing about Seasonal Changes.

We have been continuing our work in science on Seasonal Changes by looking at how animals have to adapt to each season. We looked at the robin, as robins stay in the UK all year round. 

We learnt that they live alone in the winter, seek a mate in the spring by singing and feeding her, raise chicks in the summer and separate again into their own territories in the autumn. 

We talked about seeking food in the winter time and how robins are often seen at bird tables or feeders and we talked about the challenges of staying warm. 

The children took inspiration from seasonal pictures of robins and wrote about what they had learnt.

27.09.2022

Science Seasons Walk!

This half term, we have been learning about seasons, the different weather during each season and the tell-tale signs of each season. We were very excited to be able to explore our playground this afternoon and spot things in our playground which indicated it was the Autumn season. We were pleased to find lots of signs, including brown leaves, dead berries, yellow grass blades and helicopter seeds.

We’re looking forward to exploring the playground in a few weeks’ time to see if there are any changes!

23.09.2022

Nightingales and Kingfishers have settled in really well to Year 2. We started our year with discussion around our feelings and how to recognise different emotions. The children created their own emotion plates which help us when we feel all 'mixed up' like the colour monster! 

In Geography we have started our Australia topic... Nightingales and Kingfishers had a special delivery to class full of interesting items including an awesome animal fact file, an Australian hat and a letter from 'Sheila' who lives in Winton. The children drew pictures to show what they would pack into their suitcases and have learnt about different Australian animals, making fact files on an animal of their choice. 

We are looking forward to all of the learning and fun that we will be doing in Year 2 this year!  

Year 2 2021 - 2022

Eco-week week beginning 27th June 2022

It's so important we think about ways of helping the environment. We spent a whole week learning about and coming up with ways of being more eco-friendly. The teachers were asked not to print anything and we even had a whole day without the lights on in the classrooms! In Year 2, we read a special book about a group of people in Gambia who made purses out of plastic bags. We also had some special artists come and help us make art in nature.  Finally, we designed functional items using materials like cardboard and paper that wasn't being used anymore. We hope we made a difference!

Jubilee week - week beginning 6th June 2022

This week, we have had atleast one lesson each day focusing on the Jubilee. We have learnt to sing the song 'We're all having a street party' and enjoyed singing this to our special visitors on Friday in the hall. We visited a mini museum in the school with items from the 1950s- we really enjoyed this, we particularly loved the push along toy dog! On Friday afternoon, we made our own commemorative plates to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee.

Diversity week - week beginning 23rd May 2022

In Year 2, we are exploring Disability during diversity week. We spoke about what some different disabilities are and how some disabilities can be hidden. We thought about how it might be to be blind or have reduced vision. We worked in pairs using a jumper to blindfold us and having a partner to guide us to a tree.

During the week, we had a visitor called Glynn who came to Year 2. Glynn is an amputee. The children thought of lots of questions to ask Glynn which he answered. He shared how he is able to do lots of things still like playing sports and representing the country at this. He also is a keen cyclist and goes on many, long bike rides! Glynn showed the children the artificial leg that he uses for sports and the children were able to see and hold this. The children really enjoyed his visit - thank you Glynn. 

Science Week - week beginning 7th March

This week in Year 2, we have been looking at Habitats during Science week. First of all, we learnt what a habitat is. It is the natural home of a plant or an animal. We explored the school grounds to see what plants and animals we could find. Then, we thought about animals that live in other habitats like in the Artic. Take a look at some of our work! 

World Book Day - 3rd March

We loved seeing the children dressing up as book characters on World Book Day. A few children came dressed as characters from our Reading text 'Hotel Flamingo'. All their costumes were lovely - thank you parents and carers. The children enjoyed learning about The Owl who was afraid of the dark during the day.

Safety week, wc 7th February

This week we have been learning about different ways to stay safe, both in school and out in the community.  We started the week with an assembly led by Mrs Roe, all about Safer Internet Day and we had the chance to discuss how we can keep ourselves safe online.

During the week we took part in activities in class about the safety around medicines and we thought about how to keep small children safe at home, when there are all sorts of medicines around. We made posters to show how we might do this.

Later in the week we had two special visitors - policemen - who came to talk to use about the Safety Circle and people we can trust in the community. We made our own Safety Circles and talked about how the police can help us if we are out in the community and we feel unsafe.