Welcome back Y2 10.01.25

It has been a pleasure to welcome you back into school this week Year Two. I have loved hearing all about your Christmas adventures and what you have got up to with your family and friends. It sounds like you all had such a lovely time.

In English, we started our new story with an exciting hook. On Tuesday, you discovered a pond in our classroom with lily pads floating on it. Two mysterious signs read, “Shhh, it’s a secret” and “Come in if you can keep a secret.” This led to a discussion about what this magical place could be and the creature that might live there. You wrote predictions about the creature and described it using commas in a list to enhance your sentences.

The next day, we revealed that our story is The Bog Baby! You examined the front cover and used the illustration to create descriptive poems about the Bog Baby, capturing its unique appearance. On Thursday, we read the story together and discovered that the magical setting of our hook was Bluebell Woods. On Friday, you read the example text, which gave you a glimpse of what you'll be working on—writing a finding narrative just like The Bog Baby!

To prepare for this, you explored Bluebell Woods in more depth. You thought carefully about what you could smell, hear, taste, and see there, brainstorming sensory-rich details that will help you craft a vivid setting description of Bluebell Woods on Monday. What a magical start to your new unit!

In phonics this week you have been to your new groups and you have been reading your new stories. Each day you read a part of your book so you can build on your fluency and pace. In our reading out loud group, we have been thinking about the key elements that we need to remember when we are reading to somebody. We found out that it is important to have a clear voice, to use expression and to have a fluent pace.

In maths, we continued building on our shape unit from last term. This week, we explored 2D shapes, focusing on creating repeated patterns using these shapes. You had to extend patterns or figure out which part of the pattern repeated itself, showing off your problem-solving skills!We then delved into symmetry, discovering that a shape with a line of symmetry can be split into two equal parts. You practiced identifying symmetrical shapes and explored how symmetry works in different 2D shapes.Later in the week, you worked on sorting 2D shapes into groups based on their properties or determining the title of a group that had already been sorted. On Friday, we transitioned to 3D shapes, starting with naming the various 3D shapes. You then moved on to counting their faces, learning that a face is a flat surface on the shape. This has been a fantastic week of exploring and understanding both 2D and 3D shapes!

In History, we revealed our exciting new topic for this term: farming! To begin, we created a mind map to explore all your prior knowledge about farming, helping us uncover what you already know. We then travelled back in time to learn about the origins of farming. You discovered that farming first began during the Stone Age, marking a significant development in human history. To deepen your understanding, you created a timeline and found out that the Stone Age took place long before Jesus Christ was born. It has been fascinating to learn how farming has evolved since those early times!

We began our big art topic by exploring Stone Age farming tools. Together, we discovered the variety of tools they used and what materials they were made from. After examining these tools, you carefully sketched them in your art books, paying close attention to their shapes and details.

On Friday, we took our creativity a step further by using clay to recreate these tools in 3D. It was a wonderful opportunity to bring history to life through art, and your clay models turned out fantastic! We can’t wait to paint them next week.

In RE this week, we started our new unit, "Jesus," by exploring who Jesus was. You discovered that Jesus was a prophet—someone chosen to speak for the Lord and share his messages. We looked at the biblical quote ‘Surely the Lord does nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets” Amos 3:7. We revisited the five main world faiths and reminded ourselves of their key beliefs. You also learnt that Judaism and Islam have prophets too. For Jewish people, prophets include Abraham and Moses, while in Islam, Prophet Muhammad is highly significant. You thought deeply about the teachings and messages these prophets shared from the God of their faiths. To showcase your understanding, you created some fantastic work that beautifully demonstrated your knowledge—well done!

In our wellbeing lesson you thought carefully about ‘Which things that are important to you’ and you thought carefully about the wellbeing strategy of how you could write down how you feel during a rap/song/poem.

In our spiritual lesson you completed a ‘now’ activity. You had a moment of stillness as you carefully looked at the jar. As you shook it up the glitter was everywhere and swirling around the jar but after a while it calmed down and was very still in the jar. You thought carefully about the biblical quote “ Be still and know that I am God”. You had some lovely discussions in your groups about what this quote meant and why God wanted you to be still. For example Benji said ‘It is important to be calm and still as it helps you to think’.

In music, we began learning about what it’s like to be in a band. In this lesson, we learnt how important teamwork is when others rely on us. We need to communicate well, and make sure others are listened to. We practised these skills by ordering ourselves into height order as fast as we could. This was a bit tricky to do. This activity helped us to see how important kindness is when listening to the ideas of others. We listened to a song called ‘Be in a band.’ We are very excited to be creating our own bands! We voted to work in groups rather than as a whole class. We will begin our band work next week.

Year 2 have worked on their dodging and underarm throwing today. They considered which sports these skills were important for and thought about how we should move whilst dodging (they thought keeping quite low and staying on the balls of their feet would work) before playing some games to practice those skills.

What a fantastic and busy first week back superstars. You have worked so well and have settled straight into our rhythms and routines beautifully. Well done!

Have a lovely weekend and I will see you on Monday.

Miss Haynes.