Welcome to Year 2
2022/2023
Year 2 are taught by Miss Corcoran, Mrs Du Prez and Miss Nash. They are supported by Mrs Brown, Mrs Evans, Mrs Sibley, Miss Robbins and Mrs Cox. Should you have any questions for the year 2 team please email school@beaconrise.org.uk
Days to Remember
Monday – PE kit can be worn to school
Thursday – PE kit can be worn to school
Friday – Homework due to be complete via Google Classroom. New weekly spellings set. New homework set on Google Classroom. Spelling test in school. Reading books reviewed or new reading text given. Weekly reading is counted so reading records should be brought to school.
Year 2 Texts
- Owl Babies – Martin Waddel
- Owl who was afraid of the dark – Jill Tominson
- Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl
- The Hodgeheg – Dick King-Smith
- Pumpkin Soup – Helen Cooper
- Winter’s Child – Angela McAllister
- A First Book of Nature – Nicola Davies
- Toys in Space- Mini Grey
- Man on the Moon – Simon Bartram
- The Way Back Home – Oliver Jeffers
- Lost in the Toy Museum – Davis Lucas
- Traction Man is here! – Mini Grey
- The Great Fire of London – Emma Adams
- Vlad and the Great Fire – Kate Cunningham
Learning
Autumn Learning:
What a great start we’ve had to Year 2! In English, we’ve read two lovely autumn books – ‘Pumpkin Soup’ and ‘The Fox and the Star’ – and written our own super autumn stories and poems. Continuing the seasonal theme, in art we’ve made Van Gogh-style pictures using leaf rubbing and careful stippling. In maths, we’ve started adding with exchanging, as well as counting on and multiplying with twos, fives and tens. We’ve used our PE lessons to dance around an invisible maypole and have competed in our houses to show off our new throwing and catching skills. In humanities, we’ve been learning all about Kingswood, past and present, and the history of Beacon Rise School. Did you know children used to have to wear a tie? Next term, we’re going to use our new-found knowledge to mount an expedition to the Beacon itself!
It’s been another exciting term in Year 2! In English, we’ve studied the suitably seasonal ‘Winter’s Child’, using it as the basis of descriptive stories and linking the snowy ideas to icy acrostics and even haiku. In maths we’ve been grappling with shapes – both 2D and 3D – and learning about fractions of shape and number. RE has seen us continue our study of Islam and, with PSHE, we have been considering the beauty in both the world and ourselves. In computing, we learnt how to best record this beauty by taking photos using different formats and angles. Our PE lessons focused on using our bodies to balance and in games we braved playground seas full of scary sharks (and terrifying teachers!), using co-operation and logic to get our teams from one shore to the other. To complete last term’s geography topic, the weather was finally dry enough for us to make our outing to Hanham Mount and to see the famous Beacon of Beacon Rise. This term’s geography focus has been the North Pole. We’ve been learning about the animals and people who live there and how their lives and environment differ from ours here in Kingswood. As part of our wintry theme, we’ve made super melted snowman biscuits in DT and sculpted Arctic and Antarctic animals out of clay. Hanham has suddenly become home to an array of furry polar bears and penguins, Arctic foxes and Arctic hares! This time the weather co-operated and our Pole to Pole Day took place in appropriately snowy surroundings!
Spring Learning:
Our Space Topic has made this a most memorable term! We have learnt about the history of the space race and how first the USSR put a man in space and then the USA succeeded in landing a man on the moon. We’ve used tints and tones to paint amazing space pictures and investigated the way different artists create their art. In English, we have written exciting space stories and recounted our own adventures on Space Day, when we held a fun fashion show, ate food upside down under our desks, produced individual NASA identity cards and made our very own paper aeroplane space craft. In maths, we have been learning about money – identifying the various British coins and notes and using them to make up different amounts. We’ll be continuing our work with money next term, too. Our indoor PE lessons have seen us balancing and moving in sequences and, outdoors, we have been using bats to hit beanbags and then tennis balls. Great practice for our summer sports later in the year! In science we have been studying the life-cycles of plants and have been growing cress seeds under a variety of conditions. Strangely, each class’s results varied quite widely, but we do know now that plants need water and sunlight to grow successfully. Our RE lessons have built on our knowledge of Islam and in PSHE we have been thinking about things we are proud of. Computing has been great fun as we have been programming our brand new Bee-Bots and sending them around a forest grid. Next term, our topic is Toys!
Year 1 have had an absolute blast this term with our Enchanted Forest topic! We have been looking at fairy tales in English lessons, even having our own chance to write Jack and the Beanstalk for ourselves. We have been going over multiplication and division in Maths. We have had such fun in Science this term particularly, because we got to learn about what plants need and grow our own broad beans! We have been learning about George Seurat and pointillism in Art, and got a chance to create our final project. We are looking forward to our Safari topic next term.
