Year Two weekly newsletter 16.3.25

This week my Year Two superstars have been wonderful writers, heartbeat detectives and science superstars.

In English this week, you started by analysing the story of Grandad's Island. Using highlighters, you carefully identified key writing features such as expanded noun phrases, -ly adverbs, past tense verbs, and prepositions. After completing your writer's knowledge to showcase the SPAG elements the author had used, you created a role on the wall for Syd, exploring his feelings and reactions when Grandad told him he was staying on the island. This thoughtful work supported you in writing a fantastic character description of Syd. By the end of the week, you had successfully planned and written the first two paragraphs of your very own return narrative—what an amazing effort!

In steps to read, you learnt all about gardening and read a non fiction piece of writing that told you what to do with your garden during all of the different seasons. You answered some comprehension questions about the piece of text each day. You have learnt so much about gardening!

In Maths this week, you successfully completed your multiplication and division unit. To finish the topic, you explored using bar models to help with division by both sharing and grouping. This visual method really helped you understand how division works in different ways. To wrap up your learning, you confidently completed your end of unit quiz, showing just how much progress you have made. You then started an exciting new topic on Length and Height. During your first two lessons, you learned how to accurately measure using both a ruler and a metre stick. You explored the differences between the two, understanding that rulers are perfect for measuring smaller objects, while metre sticks are better suited for longer distances or taller items. Your careful measuring skills are off to a fantastic start—well done!

In mastering number, you learnt all about adding near doubles up.

In DT this week, you continued to build on your knowledge of the different food groups and explored which foods belong to each category. Using this understanding, you designed your own balanced menus, carefully selecting a variety of foods to ensure they provided a healthy and nutritious meal. To bring your learning to life, you took part in some fantastic role play, acting out your very own restaurant scenes—from welcoming guests to taking orders and serving meals. It was wonderful to see you all so engaged and creative in your learning!

In Science this week, you explored the five essential human needs for survival: food, water, shelter, sleep, and air. Through thoughtful discussion, you reflected on how these vital needs are crucial for keeping us alive and healthy. You also considered the things we enjoy, like toys and games, and recognised that while they bring us happiness, they are not essential for our survival. This learning really helped you to understand the difference between our needs and wants—great work!

In Computing today, you combined outdoor exploration with data handling skills during a mini beast hunt. You ventured into the garden, carefully observing and recording the different creatures you spotted. As you found each mini beast, you kept a tally chart to track your findings. After gathering your data, you used it to create a pictogram, representing your results visually. This hands-on activity helped you develop both your observation and data-handling skills—well done, everyone!

In music this week we continued with our recorder playing. We recapped how to hold the recorder before moving on to think about how to blow into our recorder. Warm, slow air creates a nice sound, so we focused on playing like this. We had to think hard to remember the value of a crotchet note and a crotchet rest. This was previous learning for us. We reviewed the time signature meaning too. We learnt and played note B by following our note rap song. We used ‘my turn, your turn’ to begin with, before moving on to play the main sheet music.

Today year 2 have worked on their bowling skills, remembering that in cricket it's important to keep a straight arm. Our partners crouched like wicket keepers with their palms facing the bowler and fingertips on the ground. Once perfected, we learnt how to strike a ball with a cricket bat off a tee. In your second PE session, you concentrated on learning net ball. You learnt how to do a chest push pass. You had to let the ball bounce once before your partner caught it. You then had a target where you had to make sure the ball had enough power to bounce in the target and then your partner caught it.

In RE this week, you took part in a fun and thoughtful pass the parcel activity to explore the Easter story. Each time you unwrapped a layer, you revealed an important part of the story. Once all the layers had been unwrapped, you listened carefully to the full Easter story and worked together to put the events in the correct order. After that, you reflected deeply on which part of the story you felt was the most important. Some of you believed the Last Supper was significant because Jesus said goodbye to his friends. Others felt that Jesus' death was the most important moment because he saved us from our sins. Meanwhile, some of you chose the Resurrection as the most powerful part, showing Jesus' strength and how God was working through him. Your thoughtful ideas and meaningful reflections were fantastic—well done!

In your courageous advocacy work you listened to another story about Gracie. We found out that Gracie was getting very frustrated about tying her shoe laces but she had to keep persevering. Once she kept trying she then managed to learn how to do them and then she went onto teach others. We found out that she was then a leader of perseverance. We then had a game to see if we could find out what was perseverance language and what wasn’t. We decided we were all going to use perseverance language on each other.

In heart smart you completed your end of unit reflection on too much selfie isn’t healthy. We thought about how we are going to be more aware of others and their feelings.

In our Geography lesson this week, you explored the concept of landscape and what this term means. We began by discussing the landscape of Wybunbury, identifying features such as fields and brooks. You then looked closely at images of Kenya’s diverse landscapes, discovering how they can vary greatly depending on the region. You examined pictures of both the mountains and the savannah, noticing the significant differences between these environments. As a class, you shared ideas about what you might see, hear, and experience in each of these areas. Your thoughtful responses showed a great understanding of Kenya's unique and varied landscape—brilliant work!

In science week, we had a lovely visit from Nina’s mum in Y1 who is a midwife. She taught us all about the human body and where all of our organs are. She taught us that one of the aspects of her job is to measure the heartbeat of the mum and baby. She taught us that we do this through a doppler and a stethoscope. We all had the opportunity to dress up in midwifery clothes and measure each other’s heartbeat. What a fantastic opportunity. We would just like to say a huge thank you for all of the effort that Nina’s mum went to! It was such an inspiring lesson. We also completed our science week task. You completed an experiment where you got to test what materials break down in water. You tested toilet paper, napkins, wet wipes, kitchen roll and blue paper towels in a 2L bottle of water. You had to shake it for 15 seconds to see if your material broke down. You found out that only the toilet paper broke down in the water and how important it is to not put anything else down the toilet as it was cause giant fatbergs.

What a wonderful week you have had with lots of different learning opportunities. Thank you for being superstars as always!

See you on Monday,

Miss Haynes