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- Jarrow Cross C of E Primary School
Value in Everyone
Year 2
September
Welcome to a brand new year in Year 2 at Jarrow Cross. We are very pleased to welcome you all to this year group. We have had an excellent start to the new year and are looking forward to lots of lovely activities this month, which include a trip to a zoo!
Our topic this term is called Africa and we have begun our English lessons with a story called The Papaya That Spoke. One of the activities we have really enjoyed was when we created a story river and then used this 'river' to retell the story. We are going to write our own stories, based on this story.
In maths, we always start the year off with looking at place value. In maths, we will use lots of different equipment (manipulatives) to help us learn.
In RE we are learning about why Moses is special to Jewish people. For our science lessons we are looking at living things and their habitats. Geography will cover learning about the continents, the North and South Poles and whether we'd like to live in a hot or cold climate. Mrs Watson will be teaching dance in PE and Miss Glen will be teaching Computing - Looking at IT around us.
We have introduced Peer Massage to the children. We do this after lunch time as an aid to help with transition from the play ground to the classroom before we start work in the afternoon. The children are really enjoying this and look forward to the chill time. Actions include massage of the head, neck and shoulders and children always need to ask permission before they carry out any massage.
Thank you.
From the Year 2 team
October
We have settled in well to our new year group and have been working hard writing non-chronological reports about a meerkat. We have looked at the features of a report and know that they have headings or titles and then the information is organised into subheadings.
In maths, we have been continuing to extend our learning in place value and can partition numbers into tens and ones.
We are loving our geography work this term as we are using maps to look at the world. We have looked at where the continents are and what they are called, plus we are comparing hot and cold places in the world.
We had a great time watching a show called The Lightbulb Princess at Jarrow Library.
November
Welcome to a new half term in Year 2. We are working even harder (if that's even possible!) with our learning. In English, we have started a new book called Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett. We are using this to help us write lots of descriptive writing and using some really powerful vocabulary to describe the Kalahari Desert. We will also use this book as a stimulus for persuasive letter writing.
In maths, we're doing addition and subtraction and learning lots of new number bonds for rapid recall. We have been using lots of equipment we call manipulatives to help us with our number understanding.
Our Africa topic continues this half term and we are looking at the history of South Africa and how Nelson Mandela fought for freedom of everyone.
In RE, we are exploring the Jewish celebration, Hanukkah. We played a dreidel game and tasted some food cooked in oil such as potato cakes and donuts.
Our science lessons continue looking at animals in their habitats and we have just completed a lesson on dependence. e.g. how an oak tree depends on the squirrel to spread its acorns and how the squirrel depends on the oak tree for some of its food. We also looked at how foxes depend on the oak tree to provide food for their prey and how the oak tree depends on the fox to keep the number of squirrels down to stop them eating all of the acorns.
Phew! And the month is not over yet!
December
This month we have worked hard preparing for our Christmas show 'Snuggle Up Stable' but we managed to find some time to go see a pantomime at the Customs House. It was really good.
We have been very busy making Christmas cards and calendars for our family, wrote some poetry and a letter to Santa.
In RE, we have learnt about the importance of light at Christmas. We made our own Christingle and explored the parts used to make it and what they represent. Some of us lit them when we were at home to remember that Jesus is the light of the world. Merry Christmas everyone!
January
Happy New Year everyone!
We have started the year by finishing off our African topic learning about some African cultures and ways of living. We have explored the significance of tribal shields. We designed our own and used paints to create a fantastic vibrant look. We also made some African style jewellery which is on display in our classrooms.
In English, we have been improving our inference skills using the story of Anna Hibiscus who lives in near some shanty towns in Africa. We are working hard in maths, adding and subtracting two digit numbers and using various methods to solve problems.
Some of us attended a cheerleading festival at The Urban Factory this month. We had a great morning learning some routines and how to do a simple step up safely in a small cheer team.
Mr Nelson came into school to show us how to program a robot. We made the Vex robots move by coding instructions into a coding pad which were sent to the robot, this was brilliant!
In DT this term, we are learning how to sew a running stitch. We will be using this new skill to create a lovely gift for a special March celebration (shhh, don't tell Mum!).
February
Our book we're using in English is called Grandad's Secret Giant by David Litchfield. We're using it as a stimulus to write our own stories about difference, acceptance and kindness towards everyone. We love the pictures in this book and they also help us write descriptively.
In maths this month we're moving on to word problems for addition and subtraction and then we're looking at 2 and 3-D shapes and their properties.
In history, we are studying the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead. We had such fun with a history workshop with The History Guy' and used drama to help us understand what order things happened. From the first lick of flames in a warehouse to how it spread across the bridge and into Newcastle. It must have been scary!
In science, we have been looking at the size of feet and carrying out an investigation to answer the question... Do older people have bigger feet?
March
We are coming to the end of the 2nd term in Year 2 and our topic of the Victorians. But we will keep some of it going next term and watch out for dates for a concert! (More to follow on that)
We have been looking at the types of houses people lived in during the Victorian era. We looked at real life census data and had pictures of the streets and houses that these people lived in. We looked at the differences between rich and poor people and used our historical enquiry skills to try and work out what life would have been like for these people.
In English, we have a brilliant book called The Great Stink: How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London's Poop Pollution Problem which is by Colleen Paeff. It has lots of information about cholera and how many Victorians thought that bad odours called miasmas were responsible for spreading illness.
Maths is really good because it's all about money! We've used the play money in class to work out lots of addition and subtraction problems, plus counting how much money we have. We wished that it was real money!
April
Our final term in Year 2 and we don't know where the time has gone! Our topic for this term is Beside the Seaside.
In geography, we're looking at the coast and identifying features of the Jurassic Coast. We will be visiting the lighthouse at Souter Point this term - more details to follow on that.
We're reading another book by David Litchfield. This one is called Lights on Cotton Rock and involves ALIENS!! Luckily, it's a friendly alien and all is well. It's a great book and we have used it to write diaries as well as writing our own alien story.
Our maths this month is all about multiplying! We need to know our 2, 5 10 and 3 times table (That's the order we learn them in,) so get practising at home on Times Table Rockstars (TTR) and see if you can improve your rock star status. If you have forgotten your log in for home, please message your teacher on Dojo.
We have also written some amazing poetry. We used If You Were a Carrot by Berlie Doherty and wrote our own version.
Our art and design saw us using clay and learning about the various techniques that we can use to shape it. The pictures below are called 'pinch pots' as the technique involves pinching the clay between your thumb and forefingers from the bottom to stretch the clay to form the sides. Pinching from the bottom up helps to stop the edges from becoming too thin and would easily break after drying. We the used crosshatching and clay slip to join pieces to our pots to decorate them before finally painting them.
May
We're so excited for the end of the half term as it's our concert and a dressing up day - but only dress up if you want to.
We had a visit from Reverend Lesley to teach us some more about St Bede who we are learning about in or Religious Education lessons. She brought in some stones for us to decorate with a celtic cross and they will be used for an art project, along with decorated stones from some other schools.
June
We can't believe that we are in our final half term in year 2! What an amazing time we had at Souter Lighthouse. First we went on an amazing mini beast hunt and found lots of interesting bugs and beetles. After lunch, we visited the lighthouse and climbed to the very top! It was a brilliant day and we even got to play in the foghorn field!
Moving the light at the top of Souter Lighthouse
July
July is finally upon us and we are enjoying our last few weeks together in Year 2 before our summer holidays.
We have planted some sunflower seeds so we have something look after during the break, hopefully they grow well!
In English, we have been reading The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch. We are writing our own version of the story from the eyes of one of the greedy seagulls. The children have had great fun performing some drama in role of those 'pesky varmints'! We have made lighthouses to use as a cosy nightlight then wrote some instructions for how we did it.
We have been sharing some of our favourite memories of Year 2 and it has been lovely listening to what the children remember, we will miss the children so much and wish you all a lovely summer break.
