Welcome to Year 2. I hope you all had a happy holiday. This is a brief outline of the activities and topics that we hope to cover this term.

English

Our English activities take place on a daily basis and will include phonics, grammar, handwriting, shared text work, guided reading and spelling. We will be spending a considerable amount of time on phonic work as this is a major tool in enabling the children to read fluently and spell confidently. Each child will be given a spelling book containing half termly lists of words that will be focussed on in class. As the term progresses the children will be given more details about how these books should be used at home. The word lists will also provide the opportunity for revision throughout the year. We will also be working on identifying reasons for events in stories, recognising the difference between fact and fiction, discussing familiar story themes and using descriptive language in stories to enhance the quality of the writing.

Reading scheme books will be changed weekly if your child is ready to progress to the next book. It is very important that your child has the opportunity to practise these books at home regularly as reading progress is much quicker if the children are supported in this way. Your comments in reading diaries are also very useful in monitoring progress and are much appreciated. Any additional books read at home may also be listed in these dairies.

Maths

The programme of study for maths will carry on from work covered in Year 1. We will be practising counting in 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100 and working on addition, subtraction and number bonds to 10. Other number topics to be covered are place-value, number patterns, ordering and multiplication. We will be working with money, to be able to recognise coins, add them together and progress to working out the amount of change required from a certain sum of money. We will also be spending time focussing on tens and units. Emphasis will be placed on mental arithmetic to try and encourage the use of certain strategies to work out answers.

The children will also be given the opportunity to respond to oral questions to enable them to understand mathematical language, assimilate information and work out answers. The chance to discuss mathematical terms will be given to the children, which, it is hoped, will enhance their knowledge of mathematical language, which will be used in our day-to-day numeracy activities.

Science

We will be studying two topics this term. The first topic is entitled Heath and Growth and is primarily concerned with how we stay healthy to live. We will be working on the necessity of a healthy diet and also the need for exercise. This will be accompanied in class with discussions, various activities and a TV programme called “Thinking about Science”. The second topic is about plants and animals in the local environment and we will be studying contrasting areas and the differences between habitats.

ICT

The children now have access to our new inter-active whiteboards in the classroom and are given the opportunity to contribute to class lessons by writing on them. Each class is timetabled to use the laptops and we will be following a scheme of work which includes – using a word processor to enter text through a keyboard and learning the purpose of various keys such as enter/return and shift.

Humanities

Our Geography topic is entitled “Contrasting Localities” and concentrates on a remote Scottish Island called Struay, which is depicted in the Katie Morag books. We will be comparing the way in which the islanders live with our way of life. Our History work centres on the life of Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth 1, Louis Braille and Samuel Pepys and why they were famous.

R.E.

Our programme of study for R.E. will commence with work on Harvest. We will also be thinking about prayer and the way in which we pray. Another focus this term will be the Muslim faith to include The Crescent Moon and Star, Eid Ul Fitr, the Pilgrimage to Mecca and Ramadan. The term’s work will conclude with the meaning of Christmas and the Nativity.

Art

The art lessons for the first half of the term will be based on our Geography topic. The children will be working with paint and collage materials to create a large wall frieze depicting maps of The Isle of Struay and Whetstone to illustrate the differences between these two localities. In conjunction with this project, Year 2 will also be making a Harvest picture for display at the Harvest Festival. In the second half of the term we will be focussing on seasonal artwork.

Music

Mrs Mack has returned this term and will continue to take the class for this subject on Wednesday mornings. Some of her time with the children will be spent learning about rhythm, and later on in the term work on the Nativity Play will begin.

P.E.

We will be concentrating on body and spatial awareness this term. The children will have the opportunity to work with large and small apparatus and some dance sessions will be taken from the BBC programme “Time to Move”. As dancing has proved to be so popular in the past there will be the opportunity to learn other styles of dance including country dancing.

P.H.S.E.

Most of the sessions will take the form of whole class discussions, which it is hoped will help the children to cope with certain situations that they may encounter. We hope that it will help them to have a better understanding of why things have happened and to become more sensitive to the needs of others. Some of the topics to be covered this term are “How we can help each other”, “Feeling Good, Feeling Bad”, Keeping Clean” and “Healthy or Not”.

We would be grateful if the donation of £5.00, as given in YN, YR and Y1, could be made by each child to class funds. This money is used to buy additional materials for art and craft and seasonal activities.

This completes the forecast for this term and I look forward to a productive and happy term working with your children.

MRS S FRY

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