Year 2

AUTUMN TERM Learning

English

Our theme in Autumn One is ‘A Twist in the Tale.’ We will be reading ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ by Lauren Child, ‘Me and You’ by Anthony Browne and ‘Goldilocks and Just the One Bear’ by Leigh Hodgkinson. We will use these texts as inspiration for a range of writing, including wanted posters, letters, retellings from another point of view, lists and composing sequel story. This will be followed by reading ‘Wolves’ by Emily Gravett which will support learning centring around captions, information writing and comparisons. In Autumn Two our theme changes to ‘Creation & conservation’. We will be reading ‘The Journey Home’ by Frann Preston-Gannon and ‘We are Water Protectors’ by Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade. These books will provide us with a focus for writing wanted posters, lists, postcards, short stories, poems, non-chronological reports (on animals) and chronological reports (on life-cycles).

During whole class reading and phonics, we will be developing comprehension and reading skills as well as working on the spelling and grammar curriculum for Year 2.  There will continue to be a weekly spelling test on Fridays. Finally, we will also be working on writing in pre-cursive and cursive script during our handwriting lessons.

Maths

This term the children will focus on looking at numbers from 1-100, fluently adding and subtracting within 10 and then moving on to looking at calculations within 20. Later on in the term we will move on to adding and subtracting two digit numbers up to 100.

Science

Our science topic this half term is ‘Habitats’ and we will explore the habitats of both plants and animals. This topic will evolve into Microhabitats in Autumn Two as we study minibeasts and the role of botanists.  

Computing

We will be focussing on computer systems in Autumn One, including differentiating between hardware and software and exploring the role of computers in the wider world. In Autumn Two we will progress onto algorithms and look at both building our own and debugging, broken, existing algorithms.  

Geography

We are studying Geography in Autumn One this term and we will be exploring whether we would rather live in hot or cold places. We will learn to locate extreme environments, recognising consistent features between them, and through practical field work, compare these locations to the UK.

History

When we do History in Autumn Two, we will be exploring how schools have changed over time. We will learn to place photographs accurately on a timeline and draw comparisons between them and what schools are like now. There will be an emphasis on learning to interpret evidence from the time and afterwards, examining whether the sources are reliable.

Art/DT

Art will be taught by a specialist Art teacher this year. In Autumn One, the children will be learning how they can interpret small stimuli to generate much bigger ideas. By using a range of media, and examining the work of a number of artists, they will use drawing to start to tell stories. In Autumn Two, when they study DT, the children will be making fairground wheels. This will include considering the materials, shape, construction and mechanisms of a wheel. They will practise testing, evaluating and adapting their designs.

PSHE

We will be focusing on Families and Relationships in Autumn One. In Autumn Two we will move onto Health and Wellbeing which links directly to the Mind Up programme the children will continue to participate in this year.

Music

Our learning in Autumn One will centre around call and response songs using animals as the theme. We will listen to and discuss songs, as well as take part in musical activities to build understanding and work towards an in-class performance encompassing both voice and instruments. After the half term, our learning will be focused on orchestral instruments and we will explore how music can depict emotion in story telling. 

PE

In Autumn One, sessions will focus on ball skills (Monday with Mr Haughton) and team building (Thursday). In Autumn Two, sessions will focus on invasion games (Monday with Mr Haughton) and fundamental skills (Thursday).

RE

This term, we will start by exploring why we need to give thanks. In lessons, we will explore thanks in everybody’s day-to-day lives, before considering Christian and Hindu festivals in which giving thanks plays a part. After half term, we will discuss candles. Again, we will examine why people use candles in everyday life, as well as the role of candles in Diwali, Advent and Hanukkah.  

Reminders

Children to come into school in their PE kits on their P.E. days – Monday and Thursday.  If you haven’t got the school PE kit and/or tracksuit, the kit should be non-branded in blue and white. Children should keep all reading books in their books bags at all times and please continue to read daily with them as it is invaluable to developing their spelling, comprehension and storytelling skills. For playtimes, children should only be bringing in fruit as a snack. All children should be aiming to stay in the Green Zone on Doodle maths.