Spring - Core Subjects
Literacy
Spr 1: Tadpole's Promise
Our first class story this half term is called ‘Tadpole's Promise’ which is about a Tadpole who is unable to keep his promise to his beloved caterpillar. The story looks at animal changes and gives children the opportunity to learn about life cycles prior to our Science topic in Spring 2. During this story, children look at a variety of punctuation including the apostrophe and then go on to plan and write their own story.
Spr 2: Toys in Space
Our class story in the second half of the spring term is called ‘ Toys in Space’ which is a story about a group of toys who find themselves lost in space! The story links in beautifully to our Year Two Space Day which is a really enjoyable and memorable experience for the children. During this story, children look at the features of a diary and look at appropriate adjectives to describe aliens and toys for their own space adventure!
Phonics & Reading
Read Write Inc
We continue to follow the Read Write Inc reading scheme in the Spring term. The expectation is that the children will be increasingly confident in their phonic knowledge and far more fluent in their reading at this point of the year. The children will now spend time developing their comprehension skills alongside rehearsing their phonics. Through our RWI lessons, the children will learn skills such as predicting, summarising, retrieval and inference.
*You can find extra information on how to support your child with their comprehension skills here, including a free ebook library and lots of activities.
Numeracy
Money
Within our money topic, the children have the opportunity to apply their place value and addition and subtraction skills to a context. They start by learning to recognise different amounts of money and to count money using pence, pounds and notes. The children will build up to solving two-step problems involving money and finding change. Many of our Numeracy lessons during this topic are practical, whereby the children will be able to use money as a concrete resource to help them.
*As we are living in a digital world, children do not see coins and notes as often as they used to. If possible please familiarise the children with the different coins and notes at home.
Multiplication & Division
In Year 2, multiplication and division is taught in a very practical, visual way with lots of concrete resources for the children to manipulate. They will use lots of pictures and visual representations when learning how to multiply and divide such as arrays (which can be shown in the picture above). The children learn to make equal groups using two different methods - 'sharing' and 'grouping'. In Year 2 the children will also learn their 2, 5 and 10 times tables. They will also learn the related division facts for their 2, 5 and 10 times tables.
Measurement
There is a lot to cover in this topic where the children will learn about; length, height, mass, capacity and temperature. They will learn how to compare and order different units of measure. By the end of the topic the children will be solving measurement problems, using all four operations. This is a great opportunity for them to apply their previously learnt skills.
*A challenge of this topic can be the range of vocabulary to learn because of the many different units of measure. In Year 2, the children are expected to measure in metres and centimetres, grams, kilograms, millilitres, litres and degrees Celsius.
Here you can find ideas and activities to try at home to support their learning of measurement.
Times Tables Rock Stars!
Times Tables Rock Stars helps the children to develop their recall and fluency of times tables. In the Spring 2 term, TTRS gets unlocked for Y2 children so that they can practise their 2, 5 and 10 times tables.
*The children will use their same account login details for Numbots.
Religious Education
Books
Our first spring topic will be looking at the books used in church.
Through this topic the children will learn all about the importance of the Bible. They will learn about the Gospels within the Bible and how they are used during Mass by the parish family. They will understand the importance of books in helping us respond to different parts of the Mass.
During this topic, the children will learn that the Bible is split into the Old Testament and the New Testament. They will have the opportunity to role play and retell stories from the New Testament.
Thanksgiving
In our second topic, the children will learn that Mass is a special time to say thank you to God. It is a time to thank God for everything, especially Jesus.
This topic starts with the children making their Lenten promises and retelling the events of The Last Supper.
They then learn about the different parts of Mass, in particular the Eucharistic prayer and giving thanks during Holy Communion.
Throughout this topic, the children live out their Catholic Social Teaching as we explore lessons and resources provided by CAFOD. We look at how the children can live out their Catholic mission.
Opportunities
Through our Easter topic, the children will understand that Lent is a time to start anew in order to celebrate Jesus' new life.
The focus of this topic is learning about the different events during Holy Week. Each lesson, the children learn about a different day of Holy Week and its significance.
The children complete artwork, poetry, and written work based on the events that took place.
It is such a special time in the Churches calendar and there are wonderful celebrations taking place in school at this time.