Year 2 weekly newsletter

Can you believe we are already three weeks into our term Y2? It is flying by and we get to celebrate it with a well deserved long weekend off.

In English this week, you have been exploring and analysing our story of 'The king who banned the dark'. We are really enjoying this story and debating whether we think the darkness is good or bad. We have been delving deep into the letter that we received from the king about him banning the dark in his kingdom. You answered some fantastic comprehension questions to show your understanding of the letter. You have also been researching reasons why the darkness is important and what things might not happen if there is no darkness. Did you know they would never be able to see fireworks again? Christmas would never happen as father Christmas only comes and night time and least of all everyone will be exhausted! On Friday, you completed some fantastic role play of being the king and his advisors and arguing for or against darkness. You came up with some brilliant persuasive ideas.

In reading, we have been focusing on reading out loud and focusing on our fluency and accuracy of our reading. In spelling time, we have been learning about the soft 'c'.

In maths this week, we have been immersing ourselves into our fraction topic. We have looked at equal and unequal groups, finding a half or a quarter of an amount and number. We have been very practical with our working out by using counters, beads or blocks to help our understanding. Well done team!

In computing this week, you followed on with your journey with digital music. You learnt that the pulse is a steady beat like a ticking clock or a heartbeat. You then learnt that a rhythm is a pattern of long and short sounds. We created different types of rhythm pieces using body percussion. We then built upon this learning by using the rhythm programme on chrome music lab to create rhythm using percussion instruments. We looked a long and short sounds and high or low sounds. You loved dancing and boogying to your different pieces of music.

This week in athletics we have been learning all about the long jump. We had a beanbag race to warm up and then we talked about how we jump from standing still and land on two feet without toppling over. We used our arms to drive our jumps further and made sure we bent our knees when landed. We then tried to increase the distance of our jumps by adding in a short run-up. After playing some jumping games we had a long jump competition. Pictures 4-7 show the furthest jumpers.

In music this week, we looked at chanted rhythm patterns. To begin with, we found a steady beat to the music, played copycat rhythms by copying a leader. This led us to invent our own rhythms for us to copy. We created rhythms using word phrases next. We then created and performed our own chanted rhythms. We moved on to play our glockenspiels. We played notes F, then F and G followed by F, G and A. Great work Year 2. You worked so hard today!

In art this week, you followed on with your journey about architecture by learning about the architect and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. You learnt that he was an architect from Austria who created some very colourful and bold buildings. You found out that he does not like straight lines is artwork or architecture. You created some fantastic collages to express all of his incredible work.

What is the lifecycle of a plant? You built upon your understanding of plants this week by learning about the lifecycle of a plant and the different stages that happen when you first plant a seed. We found this very exciting and we thought about our own plants in school and what stage of their life cycle they may be at.

In PHSE, you had a session about your feelings and how we should never hide behind our feelings as that would mean you are being fake as we know 'Fake is a mistake'. You all thought carefully about when you may have said you are okay but inside you weren't. You then thought about different feelings and when in your life you have felt these different feelings.

We had a very exciting trip this week as we had a walk down to church to meet reverend Alison. Our lesson for RE was asking the big question 'Why is church a special/holy place?' You learnt when you were at church that church is special because there are many ceremonies that happen here e.g. weddings, baptisms and funerals. You then watched Reverend Alison baptise a baby doll. You found out that the baby will have a cross put on their head with holy oil and then holy water is put on the baby's head three times in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. You then went on a hunt around the church to find different artefacts and objects that make church a special place. You then built upon this learning by finding out how these objects relate to the bible e.g. the altar links to the last supper. What a brilliant trip we had. A huge thank you to Reverend Alison for providing us with a hands on RE lesson. We really appreciate it!

To follow on from your church visit, you created leaflets on what you saw at St. Chad's church. I am so impressed by these leaflets team!

Homework has been given out to children. It is a maths sheet on ½ and ¼ of amounts. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and let's hope this sun comes out again.

See you all on Tuesday,

Miss Haynes