Savannah Base Dear Parents, The summer term has arrived already. This is an important term in Year 2 so we’re looking forward to a busy and hard working term ahead of us. We are starting this half term with a topic called ‘What’s in your garden?’ where the children will be investigating how to grow plants as well as finding out about what people grow in their gardens around the world. They will use plants and flowers as the inspiration for artwork. They will develop skills as geographers looking at being able to draw plans and use plan view. The children will learn about what they might find in a garden during literacy through reading and writing non-chronological reports. Keep an eye on the space outside our classroom as we apply our knowledge in designing and growing our own Year 2 garden! After half term the topic will change to ‘The places people go’. This topic will look at holiday destinations and compare different locations thinking about what makes places popular places to go. We will also look at what holidays were like in the past. I think this should help prepare us for our holidays! We will link the topic in with RE learning about the places people go to worship. During the daily numeracy lessons children are going to be extending their skills in adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing numbers learning and using new strategies to help them solve calculations. They will continue to look at partitioning numbers to help them as well as understanding how subtraction is the opposite of addition and how division is the inverse of multiplying. The children should be able to count confidently in jumps of 2, 5 and 10 and be able to recall times table facts for these numbers. The children will continue to learn about 2D and 3D shapes naming and describing them looking at regular and irregular shapes. Please use the home learning and numeracy page on the class blog for ideas about what your child has been doing and how you can support them at home. There are many links to web sites on the blog that your child can make use of. The children are enjoying Reading Eggs comparing how many eggs they’ve got! This is a great tool for helping them with developing reading and spelling skills. Please keep up with reading with your child regularly and recording this in their reading diary. We are coming to the end of Letters & Sounds and will then start looking at learning spelling rules and patterns such as word endings for past and present tense. The children will continue to be reminded of phonics and encouraged to continue to use them to help read and spell words. We have been impressed with how many of the children have made a huge effort to improve their handwriting, we are seeing some superb joined script in their written work. Keep up the super handwriting!
As the weather gets warmer we will be making use of the outdoors more for PE. Please ensure your child has a complete and named PE kit in school each day. We will be working towards Sports Day this half term practising athletics skills and then developing skills to play bat and ball skills like tennis and cricket. Thank you for your support in encouraging children to come into school more independently. This will help them prepare to be ready for Year 3 where they should be much more independent. We are available for a brief chat just before and after school if you ever need to discuss anything with us. Best wishes
Julia Ives, Mel O’Brien, Lynne Hargreaves, Sharna Wirtzfeld and Charlotte Casley