Year 2

Staff
Mrs Woodman (Monday-Wednesday)
Miss Sandy (Thursday-Friday)
Teaching Assistants:
Mrs Gaynor, Mrs Elliott, Miss Elliot, Mrs Tibbetts, Miss Hannis
Our topic this half term is:
Pirates
This half term the children will be learning about what real life pirates were like in the past and learning about some famous pirates from history. There will also be a focus on physical and human features of environments and will use this knowledge to create their own treasure maps.

Weekly Spellings
Here are the spelling lists for Year 2. There will be weekly tests on a Friday:
Children should also be able to read and write the Common Exception Words by the end of Year 2. Please find a full list of these here:
Termly Letters
English
In English we will be reading The Bog Baby, working towards writing our own versions of the story. We will also be doing some non-fiction writing about pirates.

Science
We are learning about:
This half term we are learning about plants and growing. The children will be planting their own beans and monitoring how they grow throughout the half term. They will also be looking at what plants need to grow as well as learning about the life cycle of a plant, identifying common plants and trees and labelling the parts of a seed.


This half term PE will take place on a FRIDAY morning – please note this is a change to the usual timetable. The children will benefit from the expertise of a sports coach for this session. They will continue to swim on a Tuesday morning for the first 4 weeks of the term, after which their Monday afternoon PE session will resume. Mrs Woodman will send an email nearer the time to remind you when it changes back!

There will be no Forest School this half term.
Maths Games
Topmarks is a website with lots of good games children can play to hep them with their maths. Hit the Button is a great one for times tables.
Hit the Button – Quick fire maths practise for 6-11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk)
Times Table Rock Stars is also up and running. All children will receive a username and log in.
Take a look at our photos!
Fun at Forest School








Exploring Puppets
We borrowed a box of puppets from The Wilson. There were puppets from around the world and they all worked in different ways. We explored how we could make them move and talked about the similarities and differences between them.



















Making our puppets
We tried some different types of stitch using the binca, including a whip/wrap around stitch and a running stitch. We designed our own hand puppets and then made them using felt and lots of other materials. We had so much fun!
Thank you so much to all of the fantastic volunteers who kindly gave up their time and helped us by gathering resources to make our DT mornings such a success – we couldn’t have done it without you! We are so lucky to be part of such a caring and enthusiastic community.




















Our finished puppets
Aren’t they amazing?!






















Fruit Smoothies




Firework pictures



















Poppy Art!




Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles
We have looked at Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles painting and used it as inspiration for our calendar pictures this year. We used watercolours and focused on ensuring we didn’t have two sections touching each other the same colour.




Fun in the snow!
















Christmas 2022!









































Visit from Gloucestershire Fire Service
We were very lucky to have a visit from the Gloucestershire Fire Service to support our work on The Great Fire of London. The firefighters talked to us about The Great Fire of London and about the work they do as firefighters. They also talked about how they can stay safe at home. After that we went to see the fire engine and were all allowed to go in and then have a go firing the hose!

















Making Tudor Houses
We used cereal boxes to make Tudor houses with working doors in DT as part of our work on The Great Fire of London.



























Silhouette Pictures
Following an Art lesson on colour mixing, the children used the techniques they learned to create a fiery background for these Great Fire of London inspired silhouette pictures.








World Book Day 2023












Trip to Berkeley Castle
To finish our Kings and Queens topic we have taken a trip to Berkeley Castle! We had a guided tour around the castle, completed a trail around the gardens and made stained glass windows.












