Learning

Autumn Learning: 

Download: Term 1 and 2 Maypole to North Pole

Our topic Maypole to North Pole has led us to learn about all things Autumn including reading and writing Autumn stories and non-chronological reports about animals. In maths, we have been learning to recognise and compare the place value of numbers, use tens and ones to add, and use arrays to multiply. Our Autumn learning continued in science as we have been learning about living things and their habitats including exploring microhabitats around our school and designing our very own bug hotel. In art, we have been inspired by Van Gogh to paint our own Autumn scenes. We loved exploring different brush strokes and stippling. In geography, we have been using map skills to learn about our local area of Kingswood and locate landmarks such as Hanham Mount and The Beacon. We used this to help us find out about the history of our school and local area and how it has changed over time. In PE, we practised different types of throws including under and over arm, and we have been skipping, jumping and turning to perform a whole class maypole dance. 

Year 2 continued their topic, Maypole to North Pole, in term 2 by developing their geography learning about the local area of Hanham and Kingswood and completing their field work trip to Hanham Mount. We have learnt about places within the Polar regions and compared this to where we live as well as located and named the continents and oceans. Within Science, we have been learning about animals including humans. We have learnt the names of animals’ offspring, what animals need to survive and how to keep healthy with a balanced diet, exercise and being hygienic. We also completed a fun ‘blubber investigation’ about animal adaptations. Our art this term has been about sculpture. We have enjoyed designing and making polar animal sculptures from clay. This term our computing topic has been digital photography where we have taken landscape and portrait photos and added effects to them. Our resilience and communication skills have been developed within our outdoor PE teamwork games whilst indoor PE has developed our balancing, travelling and jumps in gymnastics. As we have been learning about the Winter weather and Polar regions, our English work has been based on the book Winter’s Child. We have written our own stories and newspapers as well as written instructions after making a chocolate Yule Log. In Maths, we have developed our knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes and fractions. We have even managed to squeeze in a Christmas show; we loved performing and showing off our singing and acting skills

Spring Learning: 

Download: Term 3 – Shoot for the Moon

Year 2 had so much fun with their  Space topic this term. In history, we have researched famous astronauts and their race to space. In art, we have been inspired by the artist Peter Thorpe to create our own space paintings using contrasting colours. We enjoyed seeing everyone dressed up for Space Day and had great fun creating our NASA badges and making and eating space wraps. We have also helped NASA with their mission to grow plants on Mars using our knowledge of plant needs and investigation skills. At the end of term we celebrated Chinese New Year by participating in painting, writing and story workshops, and we joined in a dragon parade!

Download: Term 4 – Lost in the Toy Museum

Lots of our lessons have featured our very own action figure characters. We created them in English and used them to star in their very own adventure stories and adverts. In PE, we brought our action figures to life in a marching dance revolving around the toy escaping from their packaging and, in DT, we used the character to make our own slider mechanism toy. Science focussed on materials and their properties. We thought about the best materials to make a range of toys and other objects. This linked to our History lessons where we explored Victorian toys and compared them to those we play with today. Outside, we continued to consolidate our batting skills, building up to a game by the end of term. Computing used our maths knowledge as we made pictograms and tally charts using the iPads. In RE, we have been learning about the different spring celebrations of a range of religions, including Easter, Eid-al-Fitr and Passover.

Summer Learning: 

Download: Term 5 – The Great Fire of London

We have been learning all about The Great Fire of London! This term we have written stories, diary entries and reports all about the fire. The children have become great historians learning key facts about the event and the important people involved. They continued to build on this knowledge during DT where they learnt about the famous architect, Christopher Wren, and had fun building their own 1666 houses. At the end of term, we celebrated with a Great Fire of London day. We had fun going on treasure hunts, bread making, and recreating the fire by burning our houses!  In PE we have developed our tennis skills by practising the skill of serving over a net. Our computing linked back to our music lessons where we have been looking at digital media to create music with Chrome Music Lab. 

Download: Term 6 – Feathers and Festivals

Year 2 have had a fun term learning about festivals! The children created and practised a carnival dance during their PE sessions and performed this to parents during our own festival.  We also had a great time designing and creating headbands for the festival in DT.  In Geography, the children learnt about the location of festivals and human and physical features. They then applied their skills and knowledge by comparing Bristol to the city of Rio De Janeiro.  In English, we created festival posters and wrote and decorated brilliant non-chronological reports about exciting festivals around the world.  Our outdoor games focussed on running and jumping and we discovered that we have some very fast Year 2s!  We sampled a range of familiar and unfamiliar fruits in DT when we made our fruit kebabs, and had a lovely walk to the Church of the Ascension in RE when we created collages of the tale of ‘Jesus and the Storm’.