Summer Term Highlights from Year 2

It has been a busy Summer term for Year 2. The children have continued to show persistence and dedication throughout the end of key stage period.

Writing

In English, we explored poems about animals, studying different types of poems and rhyming words, and then wrote one of our own. We also read the story ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ by Roald Dahl, which tells the tale of George and his Grandma. When he can't stand her bad habits any longer, he decides to cure her nastiness for good. He concocts a very special medicine which is as nasty as she is – with explosive results. Children were able to draw conclusions about how the story could end, and they wrote book reviews about our class text.

We also examined non-chronological reports about our favourite animals. Children were able to include all the necessary features such as clear subheadings and factual vocabulary to describe their animal.

Maths

In Maths, we covered several tricky concepts. We learnt how to recognise and find halves, quarters, three-quarters, and thirds of shapes and numbers, as well as understanding turns clockwise and anticlockwise. We also grasped the difference between unit and non-unit fractions, and the equivalence between a half and two quarters.

Mrs Stark was impressed with our time-telling skills. We started with quarter past and quarter to, but then focused on telling the time to the nearest five minutes. It can be tricky to decide if it is past the hour or to the next hour, but with a bit of practice every day, we will get the hang of it!

Science

In Science, we had a lot of fun exploring growing plants and seeds. We conducted experiments to find out how long different seeds take to grow and whether sunlight and darkness influence the growth of our plants. We also linked our plant studies with our "Seeds to Supper" initiative and discussed which plants we could eat. We even made healthy sandwiches using the cress that we grew.

Geography and History

We thoroughly enjoyed our Geography topics this term, focusing on our local area, creating maps and keys, and identifying landmarks in London. This tied in beautifully with our History topic about "The Great Fire of London" and its impact since 1666. We were privileged to go on a school trip to London where we saw some of these landmarks ourselves and used our map of London to navigate the streets. Year 2 would like to extend a big thanks to every parent for their contribution and support during our cake sale, which made this experience come to life. We had the best time on our trip!

Art

This term, we explored various art techniques, including manipulating clay to create different textures in our designs, inspired by Emma Bridgewater pottery. We also enjoyed painting for pleasure, with our most challenging activity being painting using our mouths, as part of celebrating Diversity Week.

DT (Design and Technology)

In DT, we focused on resilience while constructing drawbridges. We explored the history of bridges and learned about the structural concepts behind their construction. Using different recyclable materials, we successfully built working drawbridges.

I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching the Year 2 class this year and it has been fantastic getting to know each one of you. Have a wonderful summer holiday and all the best for Year 3.