Year 2

Welcome to Year 2!

We hope that you’ve had a great summer and that you are ready to learn!

This term we will be looking at our new topic of Scotland. As a part of this topic, we will be looking at the ways in which Scotland is different from England, listening to some traditional Scottish music and even designing our own tartan! We’ll be continuing our Scottish theme in English, where we will be focusing on the Katie Morag books by Mairi Hedderwick.

We will also be learning about how plants grow and experimenting to find out about the properties of different materials in Science. In Art, we will look at the colour wheel and blending colours to create watercolour paintings!

PE will be on a Wednesday so please ensure children are sent in wearing full (outdoor) PE kit. Home learning will continue to take place in the form of reading at least 3 x per week at home with an adult signature, 30 minutes of Numbots and spellings. These will be given out on a Friday and tested the following Friday.

If you have any questions, please contact year2@shephalburypark.herts.sch.uk

Miss Kenyon, Mrs Collarbone and Mrs Bond

Our first full week back has gone by so fast! We've had a wonderful time this week in Year 2. We started off in Maths by looking at tens and ones, the children used blocks and counters to explore all the different ways numbers could be represented. Then, in English we looked at 'Katie Morag Delivers the Mail' by Mairi Hedderwick and created freeze-frames of a scene in the book where Katie slips over. In Science, we started our plants topic by looking closely at the sunflowers the children planted in Year 1 and measuring the length of their leaves. They have grown huge! 

Thank you for a great first week in Year 2, I look forward to seeing you all on Monday. 

Miss Kenyon

We've had another busy week in Year 2!

In Maths we have been looking at using place value charts to partition numbers into ones and tens. We also had a look at part-whole models and experimented with different ways to split numbers. In English we have started to write our own version of Katie Morag Delivers the Mail. The children have been working incredibly hard at including full-stops and capital letters in their writing. We were looking at compass directions this week in Geography. We went outside onto the field and practiced walking, skipping and jumping north, east, south and west. In Science this week we started to plant some bulbs and seeds, we can't wait to observe them grow over the coming months! 

Enjoy your weekends,

Miss Kenyon

We've had a brilliant week of learning and trying our best in Year 2! In English, we've been looking at Cinderella and had fun exploring the story with puppets and masks. We have moved onto addition and subtraction in Maths, everyone has been trying their hardest to complete some challenging questions on inverse. In Science, our plants have started to grow and we've been using our rulers to measure them. October is Black History Month in the UK and in Year 2 we looked at Marcus Rashford and the fantastic things he has done to raise money and provide food to children over lock down. We had a look at his mural in Manchester and created our own in the hallway. 

Welcome back Year 2! 

I hope you've all had a great half term break. We started our new half term with a wonderful Diwali learning day. The children enjoyed creating symmetrical Rangoli patterns in Maths and looking at the story of Rama and Sita in English. Then, in the afternoon, we created diya lamps from playdoh and tea lights. Diwali is the festival of light so we went outside and the adults tried to light the candles but it was too windy! We used our imagination and pretended our tea lights were lit. 

We have been learning how to add by making 10, it has been quite tricky but by using base 10 and counters we have been Shephalbury Learners and have solved lots of questions. 

We created some fantastic art this week in our lessons about the colour wheel and tints and tones. We discussed the primary colours (red, yellow and blue), and experimented to make the secondary colours (orange, purple and green). Then, we added white and black to create lighter and darker tints and tones of the different colours. 

On Friday afternoon we enjoyed playing some different games, like 'heads down - thumbs up' and 'charades' in preparation for our new English unit on recount writing. I look forward to our English lesson on Monday, when we will try and write down our memories. 

What a busy November we've had in Year 2!

Last Friday, we had a brilliant ramble around Shephalbury Park in aid of Children in Need. We had a great time and even tried spotting any clues Pudsey might have left behind!

In English, over the last two weeks, we've been looking at recount writing and have worked really hard to write our own recount. We've tried to include time connectives, conjunctions and answer the 5W questions. 

In Maths, we've been great Shephalbury LEARNERS and risked making mistakes by taking on the tricky challenge of formal written addition and subtraction. Everyone in Year 2 has grown in their ability to use the column method and should be very proud of the progress they have made. Well done!

We've had some great fun in Science, looking at materials and their properties. We had a go at asking scientific questions and even feeling some different objects to decide what properties they had. 

This week, we completed our Katie Morag water colour pictures. We have been looking at the illustration style of Mairi Hedderwick and painted our own scene in her art style. We used a technique of blending with water to create a beautiful skyline, before adding in our characters. 

Wb 31st January 2022

We've had another exciting week in Year 2. In English we began our new unit on instructions. First, we all had a go at following some bad instructions, where we ended up with totally different results! Then, we independently followed some good, clear instructions and made our very own paper plate pet. In maths we have been continuing on with our Multiplication and Division unit, this week looking at using the 'x' symbol. In Topic, we have been learning all about the Great Fire of London and we wrote a diary entry as if we were living in the 1600s!

This week in Year 2, we have been continuing our work on instruction texts. We looked at the structure of instructions and focused on the pictures and 'You will need' section. We had a go at following picture only instructions to make a pirate hat - it was very tricky! Then we wrote the ingredients and equipment needed to make a cup of tea. 

In Maths we continued our work on Multiplication and Division - we're being Shephalbury Learners and getting better everyday! We looked at grouping and sharing, using counters to help us answer challenging extension questions.

In Creative Curriculum this week we looked at the Great Plague. We became historians as we examined picture artifacts from the Plague and extracted new knowledge from them. Some of us finished up our Great Fire of London paintings and we all had a go at writing our name using a quill and ink. We imagined how Samuel Peyps would have felt writing his famous diary about the Great Fire of London. It was quite difficult writing with the quill and we had to keep dipping it in the ink.

Have a wonderful half-term, Year 2 - I look forward to seeing you on Monday the 21st!

What a wonderful first two weeks we have had this half-term!

In maths, we finished our unit on Statistics - where we covered tally charts and pictograms. We used counters and drawings to convert tally charts to pictograms with a partner. We have now moved onto Properties of Shape - we've been exploring the school to find as many 2D and 3D shapes as possible.

In English, we have started our new topic of 'Warning stories'. We are looking at Little Red Riding Hood and are exploring contractions and adverbs. 

In PE, we are looking at Invasion Games and growing our attacking and defending skills. 

We had a fantastic World Book Day and all dressed up as our favourite book characters. In English, we created our own book characters and drew them. Then we wrote a short story about them and shared this with our friends. 

We enjoyed our Ramadan Learning Day this Monday. We learnt about how Muslims celebrate Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr. Here are some photos of us creating firework inspired finger-paintings of the Crescent and Star symbol.

Wb 25th April 2022

In Year 2, we have had a jam-packed start to out Summer term over the last two weeks! We have been continuing our learning on fractions in maths. In English, we have been honing our writing skills by studying non-chronological reports. We even had a go at writing our own one about gorillas! In Science this week, we had a look at a variety of items and tried to categorise them as living, dead or never alive. The PE unit we are starting this term is Athletics. We had an exciting lesson trying to beat our personal best lap times!

In Art, we started our Secret Garden topic by exploring the Land Art of Andy Goldsworthy. We looked at recreating some of his natural art work with materials found around our playground. Then, we used this as inspiration to create our own Land Art pieces.