Year2

1 week ago

Year 2 Mini Trip Fun!

As part of our ‘Beauty Inside and Out’ project this half term, geography has been a key focus for us. We have been looking at our school grounds and the Danebury Road area immediately out the front of the school. Next week, we will be going for a walk around the Hatch Warren area to look at what human and physical features we can identify and develop the children’s fieldwork skills. The children will be out exploring for no longer than one hour. Please keep an eye on the weather forecast for the day and ensure your children has a warm or waterproof coat, as is necessary.

As this is a local walk, we do not require further consent as this is covered under the original consent forms that you have already signed. If you have any questions about these walks, please do speak to your class teacher. The walks will take place on the following dates:

2BT- Tuesday 12^th October 2021

2B- Tuesday 12^th October 2021

2R- Wednesday 13^th October 2021

2R will have PE as usual on Wednesday afternoon but should come in wearing normal school uniform rather than their PE kit.

We are really looking forward to discovering the beauty outside of our school and will share our learning with you about our Geography, and other aspects of our curriculum, next week.

Have a lovely weekend! 😊

September 10, 2021

Welcome to Year 2!

What a wonderful start we’ve had to Year 2! The children are settling in well and are beginning to get used to the new routines of Year 2. They have enjoyed getting to know new friends and their teachers, and have loved being able to meet all of their friends across Year 2 at playtimes and lunchtimes. We have also been lucky enough to have had two Year Group worships where we were all able to meet in the hall and see each other in person rather than on a screen. A further excitement, was being able to sing together; something we have all missed and really enjoyed!

We have begun our new topic, ‘Beauty Inside and Out‘, where we have started with the geography part of our topic work by learning about our local area. So far, we have explored inside our school grounds and located features of our school grounds on aerial photographs and maps. Later, in the half term, we will have a ‘mini trip’ out around Hatch Warren to explore the beauty in our local environment and to complete our mapwork. We will also link in our science work on materials, and carry out investigations on the properties of materials, to pick the most suitable materials for items that we need to take on our trip with us. Please see our Knowledge Organiser and Topic Web below for more details:

Year 2 Beauty Inside and Out Topic Web

Year 2 Knowledge Organiser Autumn 1

A couple of notes:

Homework will be set on Google Classroom in your child’s class. This will begin on Friday 17th September and children will be given a week to complete it. This will be a mixture of Numbots, BugClub and maths/reading tasks.
Work for children who are isolating (but well enough to complete work) will be found on the Year 2 page of Google Classroom. Please note that we will get this online as quickly as we can once we are aware of your circumstances.
PE starts on Wednesday 15th September for Year 2- the children should come into school in their PE kit each Wednesday.
Children will be issued with reading books each week and will visit the library each week to pick a library book on a Monday.
RWI book bag books matched to each child’s phonic learning will come home from Monday 20th September, once we have begun our RWI lessons. These lessons will be in addition to our whole class phonics sessions that are already happening twice each day.
Please make sure your child’s reading books are in school everyday so that they can be read with.
Please make sure that children bring a coat into school each day as the weather is very changeable and we do our best to get outside as much as possible even on wet days.

We have all really enjoyed our first week back and look forward to getting to know both you and the children better in the coming weeks. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns, using the year group email: year2@stmarksce.org.uk

Thanks for your support,

Mrs Rosso, Miss Burgess, Mrs Brackenridge and Mrs Tickle

June 11, 2021

Our Amazing World

What a fun week we’ve had in Year 2! We’ve begun learning about ‘Big Cats’ in our English work and are having lots of fun learning about Leopards, Cheetahs and Tigers! We can’t wait to write our own non-chronological reports to share with you. Please see our Knowledge Organiser and Topic Web below for more details of our new topic : Our Amazing World!

Knowledge Organiser Our Amazing World Summer 2

Our Amazing World Topic Web

The children have settled back into school really well and we can hardly believe that this is our last half term with them all. It’s been an unusual year but it does seem to be flying by.

In Computing, we are going to be linking our learning about habitats with a very different type of habitat: Space and the International Space Station. We started to look at this during the week and next week we will begin using the new school Chromebooks to further explore this topic. To complete this, the children will need to be able to log into their Google Classroom accounts. Please can you make sure the children know their login details for Google Classroom (or write them on a piece of paper to go in their book bags). We will be using them on Tuesday next week and every Tuesday until the end of term. If you can’t remember them, then please see use the link on our Google Classroom login page to help you reset it https://www.stmarksprimary.net/gc/. There is a useful video here too.

Numbots: We have introduced a new challenge to Year 2 to go on Numbots for at least 20 minutes per week. If they do this, they will receive a special shiny Numbots sticker. We will also give out our usual certificates each week for when they complete each challenge and for special effort or achievement.

TT Rockstars: This is a great way for your child to learn their times tables and we ask that they go onto TTRockstars for half an hour for their homework this week. You can access it via our website using the same login details and password that the children have for Numbots.

Bug Club: Please can children aim to read at least one book per week on Bug club and to complete the related quiz. This is another useful tool to support children’s reading and understanding.

Spelling Shed: Remember, we test the children on their spellings each week. These spellings should also be practised at home and are available via Google Classroom on your class page or on Spelling Shed.

We have a fun few weeks coming up with lots going on. We look forward to sharing the children’s work and experiences with you. As ever, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us using our email address: year2@st.marksce.org.uk

We hope you enjoy the good weather over the coming weekend. Please send your children in with sun cream, water bottles and sunhats next week as it looks like we will have a warm start to the week.

Kind Regards,

The Year 2 Team

May 19, 2021

Year 2 Garden and Project Fun

Year 2 have been having lots of fun and have been working hard this half term with our project: Beauty on our doorstep. We have linked our geography and science topics to explore our school grounds and local area. We have learnt what plants need to grow well. We did this through our experiments and through watching the germination process as we grew our beans. Well done to 2B who grew their plants the fastest; by growing them indoors with the warmer temperatures. 2R were second; they grew their beans outdoors in brighter light but with cooler temperatures. 2BT’s are growing well now after a slower start due to lower light conditions. We have put our learning into practise in our new school bed, where we are now growing other plants from seed which we shall plant after half term. We think you will agree that the children have done an amazing job adding beauty to the area outside of Year 2. We would like to thank Reece and Mrs Coomber for the generous donation of plants and bird feeders for this area and other parts of our school grounds. Year 2 will continue to look after this area and add to it as we go through the rest of the term.

Other updates:

Reading Challenge: We have launched a reading challenge for each week. We would like children to read at least 4 times per week at home as reading is extremely important for your child’s learning and development. You will find a card to record reading sessions in your child’s plastic reading folder. Please tick to record any reading. If children read 4 times per week, they will receive a sticker and an extra recognition point. Please ensure the reading record card is in school on a Friday as this is when we will check them. This is the same time as our library book change.
Bug Club: We would also like your child to access Bug Club each week to support both reading and comprehension. The quizzes are an excellent way of checking their understanding of what they read and support the skills needed to develop effective reading comprehension. Each week, in our celebration worship, two children from each class will receive a certificate for their efforts. Passwords can be found on your class stream on Google Classroom.
NumBots: We would also like each child to access NumBots for at least 20 minutes per week to support children’s mental recall of maths facts. It’s great fun and you can really tell the children who have been using it regularly due to their quick mental recall. Again certificates are awarded each week. Passwords for Numbots have been given out and should be in the front or back of your child’s homework book.
Spellings and Spelling Shed: Children in Year 2 need to spell many words correctly. You will find a list of the Year R, 1 & 2 spellings that children should know by the end of Year 2 on Google Classroom. Your child’s class teacher will speak to you about spelling at parent’s evening if this is an issue for your child. A handy list of fun spelling activities is also included on this post. Each week, we also post weekly spellings linked to the spelling rules children must learn. Please ensure children practise these at home. They are also available on Spelling Shed.
Speedy Tables: In class, Year 2 children are being introduced to speedy tables. Children need to know the 2, 5 and 10 times tables and division facts, both in an out of order, by the end of Year 2. These are also available to practise on ttRockstars (using the same login details as Numbots). Certificates will be awarded for these after half term.
Maths homework: is set every two weeks and will be available on Google Classroom too. Any sheets given can be kept at home and stuck in homework books. Answers will be put up for children to check their answers on the hand in date.
This week’s homework 21.5.21: For this week we are asking that children complete at least half an hour on Numbots and/or ttRockstars.
Coats: The weather is very unpredictable at the moment so please ensure that your children bring a suitable coat to school as we try to go out in all weathers.

We want to thank everyone who has attended or is intending to join us for parent’s evening. Whilst this is slightly trickier with the technology, we really do value the opportunity to share with you your child’s many successes, along with their next steps. If you have not yet made an appointment (thankfully only a minority), then please do contact the school office and we will try to fit you in. Your children are all working exceptionally hard and we are very proud of them. In all areas, we can see huge improvements in what they can do which is even more amazing given the challenges of the last few months. We hope you will enjoy seeing the recent writing that is being sent home.

Please do contact us if you have any questions or concerns. You may be able to catch your child’s teacher at the classroom door but for any bigger concerns we ask that you use the year group email year2@stmarksce.org.uk and then your child’s teacher will get back to you as quickly as they can.

We hope you all have a wonderful half term break and we look forward to sharing our new topic and work with you after half term.

The Year 2 Team

April 19, 2021

Year 2: Beauty On My Doorstep

Welcome Back! We hope you all had a wonderful break over the Easter holidays- we were very lucky with the weather! We can’t believe that we are already in the summer term- time is really flying by!

This half term, our topic is based around the ‘Beauty On Our Doorstep’. We will be learning about our local geography and about plants and what they need to grow well. Our central focus, will be around appreciating the world that we live in and enjoying the beauty that is all around us. We will be asking what we can do to contribute to and look after our environment and will think about how we can make our local environment even better. Those of you who drop off in the morning, may have noticed that we have begun brightening up the area outside of year 2 and this will continue through our current project. We will be using what we learn about plants to help us grow things for our year 2 bed.

As part of our learning, we will be growing beans and we are asking the children to bring in the bottom part of a clear plastic bottle: either a squash, soft drink or water bottle 500ml- 2L in size (See the picture below). We will start our bean planting on Wednesday this week (21.4.21) so it would be lovely if they can bring it in by then. If this is not possible, please let your class teacher know and we will find an alternative.

You can find out more information about our Summer 1 topic here:

Year 2 Summer 1 Beauty On My Doorstep Knowledge Organiser

Year 2 Summer 1 Beauty On My Doorstep Topic Web

Thursday, this week, is also ‘Earth Day’ so the children will complete some additional work and activities to encourage them to think about our responsibilities in our world and how we can treat our environment with respect. Please do talk to your children about what they have learnt and about how, in our small way, we can each make a difference.

We are pleased that the children have settled back in well this week, and we are really proud of how they have worked throughout this challenging and unusual year. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions via our email: year2@stmarksce.org.uk or by speaking to your class teacher. Thank you for your continued support.

The Year 2 Team

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