Year 2

2020-2021

We hope you enjoy looking below at all the exciting things we have been learning about this year!

Summer Term

Number Day

The children really enjoyed celebrating Number Day to raise money for the NSPCC.

They completed different indoor and outdoor challenges to practice their counting, number recognition, place value, addition and subtraction skills. 

Below you can find this term's knowledge organisers which show what the children will be learning about in each subject.

Spring Term

During 'Cultural Week' we have been learning all about Native America.

Watch our video below to see what we've learnt and created:

Science Week

Here you can see some of our exciting investigations that we did for this year's Science Week. We used our predicting, testing, observing and recording skills to help us. 

World Book Day

We have really enjoyed studying the text 'Beegu'. For world book day, we have created our own adventures for Beegu and we have brought them to life, using Stop Motion Video. 

Children's Mental Health Week

 The children at home and in school have completed different challenges to focus on their mental health this week.  

Below you can find this term's knowledge organisers which show what the children will be learning about in each subject.

Autumn Term

Below you can find this term's knowledge organisers which show what the children will be learning about in each subject.

The children in Year 2 have continued to work extremely hard in the second half of the Autumn term. We have made fruit sculptures and dioramas in DT, we have enjoyed lots of different Forest School activities and we have been learning about the Nativity story in RE, as well as working really hard in English and Maths.  

Below you can see a video of all of the things that we have been doing; we hope you enjoy watching it.

The children have settled into Year 2 beautifully and I am very proud of what they've achieved so far.

Below is a video of this half term's highlights; we hope that you enjoy seeing what we have been doing. 

This term the children in Year 2 will be learning lots of new things. In History, we will be learning about significant people from the past. These people are all heroes who have made a difference to how we live our lives today. In Geography, we will be practicing drawing plans and maps of our school, community and an invented island. We will also try to include a key on our work. In Art and Design we are creating portraits. We are going to practice creating self-portraits before exploring the work of some famous artists. In Design and Technology we will be creating a diorama with moving parts. In Computing we will be writing and testing algorithms and in Music we will be exploring the inter-related dimensions. In Science, we are going to be applying our knowledge of materials and their properties. 

2019 - 2020

Spring Term

In Science, we have been learning about different animals from around the world; their habitats and how they adapt to survive. We are now learning about the local habitats and the micro habitats within them. Today, the children researched how we can attract more wildlife to our outdoor areas and they have designed bug hotels. 

In Music, we have started to use our voices expressively and sing songs with more than one part. 

This week, to tie in to our History work, we have been singing London's Burning as a round. 

Year two really enjoyed World Book Day this year!

 In the morning, we did different activities surrounding different books; using small world to retell stories, making moving pictures, asking and answering questions and creating sequencing cards.

 We then used what we had found out about some of our favourite stories to plan our own adventures.

 In the afternoon, we created stop motion videos of our stories, which we used to write a story the week later.

In Maths, we have been measuring length, mass and capacity. We have completed different practical activities to help us to understand how to read scales. 

Here you can see us working hard and having fun!

As part of 'Wellbeing Week', we have been thinking about the different ways that we can keep calm and be reflective. We have talked about how important it is for us to know what helps us to be calm and that different people try to relax in different ways. 

Here you can see the children partaking in some yoga and meditation. 

As part of our Science topic about animals, including humans, we have been exploring the affect that different exercises have on our body. 

Here you can see us trying out different movements as part of our investigation. 

The children have been working very hard at home over the past few weeks to complete a project.

The children were asked to fins something out about London and to display it however they wanted. Once the children had completed their projects, they brought them in to teach the rest of the class. I'm sure you'll agree that they look spectacular! 

In English, we have been reading 'All About Paddington' by Michael Bond. We have spent two weeks predicting the ending to a chapter, by using our imaginations to decide what will happen next. We had to think about what might go wrong when Paddington has a bath for the first time and how Paddington might cope when he is alone in London Underground. 

This week, we have started to write our own Paddington stories. To do this, we first gathered ideas from the Paddington picture books. We found out the characters, settings, reoccurring language, problems and solutions within the stories and then used some of these ideas to plan our own Paddington adventures. 

Here you can see us working hard in groups to gather our ideas. 

Check again to see our finished stories. 

In PE, we are really enjoying our striking and fielding unit. We have been learning how to throw overarm and how to hit a tennis ball. We have had lots of fun playing different games to apply what we have learnt. 

The children have continued to apply their collage skills by creating landscape collages in groups.

They planned out the order that they would need to add things in first to create the different layers.

After they had done this, the children were each given an individual piece of the collage to try and improve. Here you can see us hard at work!

Year 2 have settled back into school really well after the Christmas break and we have started our new topic ‘Our Capital City’.

In English, we started our topic by doing some research about London; its landmarks, transport and what you can see and do. We then used this to write information texts.

In Art and Design, we have begun learning about collage. We created experimental pieces by using skills like ripping, curling, twisting, layering, folding and cutting. Once we were familiar with the technique, we applied our skills to create some of our favourite London landmarks.

Here you can see some of our Information texts and collages on our classroom displays:

Autumn Term

In RE, we have been learning about the story of the First Christmas; particularly the good news brought by the angels and the journey that Mary and Joseph took. 

As part of our work, we have acted out the angels visiting the shepherds and we have made angels, by looking at artist's impressions and thinking carefully about what we think that they look like. Here are our creative talents:

The children loved this year's Christmas Performance - The Match Girl's Christmas. They worked extremely hard to rehearse their lines for their spoken parts and songs.

Quite a few members of our class also stunned the audiences with their solo and duet numbers. 

Here you can see us in our costumes, ready for the show:

In Design and Technology, we have made dioramas. We started our topic by choosing and researching a theme for our diorama and using the internet to find pictures to inspire our designs. Then we explored the different mechanisms which we could use and selected the ones which we wanted to use in our product.  After this we followed our designs, making changes were necessary, to make our final product.

Here are some of our dioramas:

In Geography, we have been learning about the countries, capital cities and surrounding seas of the United Kingdom. 

Here you can see us working as part of a team to carry out research to present to the rest of the class about one of the countries. 

We love to use our outside areas to enhance our learning in our lessons or through our challenges. 

Here you can see us thinking of instructions for an obstacle course, creating self portraits and retelling some of our favourite stories:

In Art and Design, we have completed our drawing unit; we began our unit by thinking about the shape and position of facial features to draw self-portraits. Then we studied the work of Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso to inspire us to draw portraits in different ways. 

Here are some of our portraits:

We really enjoyed our visit from the Life Education Team. We learnt about the different parts of our bodies and how to look after them.

We also thought about our feelings and recognising how other people are feeling. The children offered Harold the giraffe some great advice about how to help his friends at the party. 

In Computing, we have been learning about algorithms. We have been doing 'unplugged' lessons to get us used to testing and 'debugging' our algorithms. We have written algorithms on how to draw pictures and how to form numerals, using only forwards and backwards movements and left and right turns. We will now apply our skills to making Beebots move successfully and by programming simple computer programs. Our favourite lesson so far, was when we created and tested algorithms for a dance; here are some pictures of us hard at work:

The children in Year 2 have had an enjoyable summer break and have settled well back into school.

We have started the terms English work, with writing based upon the book Billy’s Bucket. In the story, all Billy wants for his birthday is a bucket, which his parents find quite peculiar.

Billy hunts around for the perfect bucket, rushes home and fills it with water. He is then surrounded by a magical world of sea animals; he tries to tell his mum and dad about this but they don’t believe him. We have had great fun designing and writing about the contents of our own magical buckets, based on space, candy land, a zoo and many more.

At the end of the story dad uses Billy’s Bucket to wash his car, which results in his car getting squashed by a whale. We have used this to inspire us in writing newspaper articles. The children decided who was using their bucket and what could go wrong.

Here are some of our newspaper reports:

2018 - 2019

Summer Term

Year 2 have been very busy recently but we have enjoyed the last few weeks of term. 

In History, we have been learning all about the Titanic; we have found out about the disaster, why so many people died and what the ship and its passengers were like.  In our most recent piece of writing we have imagined that we were on the ship when it crashed in first or third class, we have written some excellent descriptive texts. 

In Music, we have been learning to play tuned instruments. We have improvised, composed and performed different compositions and added musical percussion to the songs which we learnt to sing last term. 

In Science, we have been thinking about the properties of materials and why certain materials are suited to different things. After we learnt about materials' properties, we put our knowledge to the test to complete design challenges. We have made beach huts, which had to be waterproof, and boats, which had to be strong enough to hold the most treasure. 

In Art and Design, we have created mixed media pieces. We began our unit by drawing shells from observation and adding marks to show texture and shade. We then used viewfinders to choose an area for our abstract compositions, before exploring different medias and discussing what we like and dislike about them. 

In PE, we have been doing gymnastics. We have been practicing rolls, balances, travelling, shapes and jumps and using these to create routines, on mats and on equipment. 

A few weeks ago, we enjoyed celebrating National Cricket Week - we practiced our racket skills on our playground and then applied our skills in a simple game of cricket; we had a great time!

Below you can some of the exciting things that we have been doing. 

On Friday 24th May, Year 2 had a fantastic time celebrating this term's Outdoor Classroom Day. 

Below you can see us orienteering, practicing our positional language and creating different forms of natural art. We have created observational drawings, made paintbrushes and mud paint and formed natural sculptures. 

When we got back from our trip to Southport, we reflected upon what we had learnt about the different British seaside towns and we what like and dislike about them. We then used this information to work in groups to design our own seaside towns, making sure that there was something in our towns for all ages. 

On Wednesday 8^th May, Year 2 went on a trip to Southport. Although the weather was rather miserable, we didn’t let it stop us from having a good time.

We went to enhance our seaside topic; by investigating the geographical features of a seaside town and finding out about what it was like in Victorian times.

When we arrived, we were shown around the facilities in the Eco Centre, before boarding a public bus into the town centre. We were all very excited to go on our exploration. We began our tour, stopping at different places on a walk back to the Eco Centre to look at photographs and draw comparisons between the past and the present.

After lunch, we took part in a quiz about what we had learnt on our tour in the morning. We then left the Eco Centre to go to the beach. We had a brilliant time playing football and tennis, building sandcastles and collecting shells.

A great day was had by all!

This term our topic is 'All at Sea'. In Geography, we will be finding out about the geographical features of the seaside and progressing to practice our mapping skills. In History, we will find out about how seaside towns have developed since the Victoria Era and we will learn about the events of The Titanic and the heroic story of Grace Darling. 

Spring Term

We had a great day celebrating World Book Day; we did lots of different activities linked to some of our favorite stories. 

At first, the children created question mats and sequencing cards for a chosen book. Then our class' attention turned to the Horrid Henry series; we spent time investigating the key characters, events and settings of the books and used this to create our own Horrid Henry story plans. In the afternoon, we used 2CreateaStory on Purple Mash to bring our stories to life, adding text, images, animations and sound effects. 

Year Two are enjoying their topic ‘Our Capital City’. This topic is all about exploring London and comparing London to other places around the world.

In History, we are learning about what life was like in London in the 17^th Century. We studied what the conditions were like and the jobs people had. We then moved on to look at key events in London’s History: The Great Plague and The Great Fire of London. We have thought about what it would’ve been like for the people living there and the difficult decisions which they would have to make.

In Geography, we have been exploring the key human and physical features of London and how London is different to Bickershaw. We then, with the approach of Chinese New Year, turned our focus to China; we explored the country as a whole, before investigating the human and physical features of Beijing. We found out that London and Beijing are very similar, however there are some differences.

We have also used our topic and Chinese New Year to influence our work for Art and Design. We have learnt many different collage techniques and tried these out to create key London landmarks; thinking carefully about which techniques would suit the different textures. We then looked at different collaged Chinese dragons as stimulus and had a go at recreating the collages, thinking carefully about which of our skills we would need. The children then thought about which aspects of each they liked the most to design and create their own Chinese dragon collage.

In English, the children have thoroughly enjoyed reading about the adventures of Paddington. They have continued parts of the story and have worked on creating their own mini adventure story as part of the picture book range.

Autumn Term

Year 2 really enjoyed the festive period and once again pulled off, along with the other infant children, another fabulous Christmas Performance. We also enjoyed our Christmas Party, with a very special visitor, the pantomime and the Christingle Service.

In RE, we have been learning about The Christmas Story; reflecting upon the reactions of the characters and retelling the story from different points of view.

In DT we have been exploring mechanisms with levers and sliders. We have used these to create a diorama. To begin, each child decided upon a theme, they then carried out research to help them with their design. Finally, they used what they had explored about mechanisms to create their final pieces.

Below you can see some of our completed dioramas:

We really enjoyed taking part in this term's outdoor classroom day. 

We completed times table hunts around our outside area, built shelters for small world animals and retold some of our favorite stories using clay and the natural environment. 

Here you can see us having fun!

Our Topic this term has been ‘Historical Heroes’. We have thought about what makes someone a hero and the qualities they must have. We then used this to investigate superheroes throughout history, including significant soldiers and nurses around Remembrance Day. 

In Maths, we have been using our number and place value knowledge to help us to add and subtract two 2 digit numbers, within one hundred.

The children are very proud of how their handwriting has improved. We have been doing a lot of practice and their handwriting books look superb. Now, we need to show off our fabulous handwriting in our longer pieces of writing.

In Art, we have been studying portraits. We have studied the work of Picasso and created different pieces, where we have tried to replicate his style with bright colours, unusually shaped features and distorted positions of features.

Below you can see some examples of our art work. 

The new Year 2 class had a great transition afternoon; getting used to their surroundings and meeting their new teacher. They were set the challenge of working in a group to design and make an indoor kite that would glide. They worked together excellently and showed excellent communication and problem solving skills to complete the challenge. 

These pictures show them hard at work; I'm looking forward to September and seeing them applying these superb skills further!

2017 - 2018

Summer Term

All at Sea

We have had a very enjoyable last few weeks before the Summer break; school has been very busy! 

In Science we have been carrying out investigations to apply our knowledge of the properties of materials, in Maths we have been making games to consolidate our knowledge and in DT we have been designing and making our own modern day bathing machines.

We also loved watching the Year 5/6 production and taking part in an Outdoor Pursuits day with Mountain Monkeys. 

Here are some pictures to show you what we've been doing:

On Tuesday 1^st May, Year 2 went on a trip to Southport. We went to enhance our seaside topic; by investigating the geographical features of a seaside town and finding out about what it was like in Victorian times.

When we arrived, we were shown around the facilities in the Eco Centre, before boarding a public bus into the town centre. We were all very excited to go on our exploration. As we got off the bus and began our tour, people stopped us to see what school we had come from and praised our superb behaviour, this was very pleasing to hear! We then began our tour, we stopped at different places on a walk back to the Eco Centre to look at photographs and draw comparisons between the past and the present.

After lunch, we left the Eco Centre to go to the beach. We had a brilliant time playing football, building sandcastles and collecting shells.

A great day was had by all!

The children in Year 2 have enjoyed their topic, ‘All at Sea’. We started our topic by looking at photographs and asking questions to find out about the Victorian seaside. We then started to compare past and present seaside towns in Britain, trying to explore which things have changed and what remains today. We have found out that bathing machines and wearing formal clothing to the beach are a thing of the past; whilst building sandcastles, piers and donkey rides remain in our most loved seaside towns.

In our other subject areas, our topic work continued. In Geography we have learnt about human and physical geography features and which of these we will find in seaside towns in our country. In English we have used our topic work to write stories as though we have visited a town; we have really hard to include description within our writing. In Art and Design, we have been drawing from observation, trying to look at the shapes of lines carefully within shells and adding marks to reflect texture and shade.

Spring 2

Our Place in Space

Year 2 have had yet another busy half term and they have been working really hard!

In DT we have been inspired by the story 'The Way Back Home' to create dioramas, with moving parts, about space, real or imaginary. 

In Geography, we are finding out about the continents and oceans of the world. We have completed lots of activities to help us to name and locate them.

As part of our wider topic, we have been finding out about how to protect some aspects of the world around us. We have thought about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling and how this can help endangered and rainforest animals. We have also learnt about the effects of deforestation. We enjoyed debating about why it should and should not happen.

This has led on to our artwork in which we have been creating collaged animals. We each have chosen an endangered or rainforest animal which we want to help protect. We have then tried to include recycled items in our collages. We have had to think carefully about the different layers; working from the background to the foreground.

We are working really hard in English at the moment. World Book Day inspired a love of the Horrid Henry series, so the children have really worked hard at practicing their reading skills. Our writing skills are also really improving and Miss Waltho is very impressed with our work. We have been writing explanation texts so we have been trying really hard to include conjunctions in our writing.

Spring 1

Houses and Homes

Year 2 really enjoyed their most recent topic about houses and homes.

They found finding out about the Great Fire of London particularly interesting; especially the ways in which life in London was so different, compared to how it is now. As part of our visit by poet Paul Jenkins, the children wrote their own poems about the fire; describing why the fire spread, the damage which must have been caused and how people must have reacted to the event.

In DT the children have made photograph frames and in Art and Design, they have selected a printing method to use to create wallpaper. 

They also enjoyed learning about habitats. We have learnt about world and local habitats, explored our school grounds and designed bug hotels which will encourage more wildlife to our outside area. 

Autumn 2

Remember Remember...

What a busy half term we've had in Year 2! Our topic this half term was mainly focused around Remembrance Day and the life of Walter Tull in the first World War. In Art we developed our clay techniques to lead up to our final piece; a clay poppy sculpture, whilst we were developing our techniques, we also designed and made clay medals for the people who survived the conflict of war.  

In Science, we have found out about animals, including humans. We have done lots of classification work to sort animals based on their physical features, what they eat, whether they are a vertebrate and we have looked at the 5 main groups of vertebrates and thought about why they have been classified in that way. 

In Geography, we have focused on the school and surrounding area to develop our map skills. 

Below you can see some of the exciting things we got up to towards the end of the half term as the festivities began. 

In DT, we designed and made fabric Christmas decorations. We first researched existing products and then used key elements which we liked to add to our design, before we could begin. We also all tie dyed some material, which had to be included somewhere within the design. The children were extremely proud of what they had made. 

All of the children worked incredibly hard on this year's Christmas performance, so they were rewarded with a party. You can see them eagerly making treats to eat after they'd finished dancing. 

In Computing, the children made digital Christmas cards. For the front cover of our cards the children used a green screen to take photographs with their friends, before choosing their favourite festive background. 

Autumn 1

Superheroes

The new Year Two children have settled well back into school and their relationships with others are continuing to grow. They have enjoyed our ‘Superheroes’ topic were we have found out about significant people who have shaped our History. In English, our topic continued. We read the story 'Supertato'; the children have enjoyed making posters and predicting different endings. They have also altered the story to help them to plan writing a comic strip and we made animated story books of our sequel.

Here are some pictures to show us hard at work in our first few weeks back at school.  

We have done lots of challenges were we had to work as a team to achieve a goal; here you can see us celebrating other's achievements, helping eachother and persevering. What a great start to a new year!