Year 2

Teacher Miss C Smith & Mrs H Lyon

Current Topic - 'Who are We?' - Autumn Term 2

This term we will be writing autobiographies all about ourselves before learning about the life of a significant individual from the past, Nelson Mandela. We will learn all about South Africa and compare it to where we live, before learning about the significant impact of Mandela and the legacy he left behind. Our English work will centre around two texts, Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, The Long Walk to Freedom, and the Little People Big Dreams book about Mandela. We will use the Book Creator app to make leaflets all about life in South Africa during apartheid and the sacrifices that Mandela made for his country. In art we will be exploring primary and secondary colours, making different tints and tones by adding black and white to our paints. Using the varied shades, we will be painting our own African animal pictures.

Reminders and Routines:

Homework activities will be sent home every Friday, to be collected the following Friday.
We encourage daily reading. Please try to listen to your child read at least three times a week.
Once your child has shared their book at home, they can exchange it for a new one in class.
Please bring in a named water bottle and a named healthy snack.
Please remember to label all of your child's school uniform/belongings.

PE Days - Term 2

Children should come to school dressed in their PE kit on Monday and Friday. Children should come to school wearing their PE kits.

Reading In Year 2

Reading underpins all learning in Year 2 and is a running thread through all our lessons, from reading word problems in maths to instructions in DT.

Below is an overview of ways in which reading is taught more explicitly throughout our curriculum.

Whole Class Reading

Whole class reading is taught for 30 minutes each day and covers a range of reading skills necessary to ensure the children become confident readers.

In KS1 we focus our learning on:

Retrieval- the skill of finding the answer to a question within a text.

Summarising- the skill of succinctly retelling the main, important points of a text.

Predicting- making sensible and clear predictions about a character of a story based on what we already know about the book.

Clarifying- defining and understanding new, unfamiliar vocabulary.

Inferring- using details from a text to infer meaning, thoughts and feelings.

We read a range of vocabulary rich text types all linked to our current term’s learning. These texts will always be listed on our termly newsletter which you can find on our school website.

Individual Reading

In Year 2 we aim to hear each child read at least once a week, with some children being heard daily. This will be recorded in their yellow reading diary. Please ensure your child brings their reading book and their yellow diary to school everyday, regardless of whether they have read or not. If they do not have their book in school however, we will select another appropriately matched book for them to read to us in the meantime. Their books have been chosen according to the children’s fluency, comprehension and word recognition skills. We ask that you support us with your child’s reading by listening to them read at least 3 times per week at home, and recording it in their yellow diaries.

Library

All children visit the library once a week and are able to select a library book of their choice to bring home and share with their family. It is also a lovely opportunity for the children to find a cosy spot to share and enjoy a book with their friends.

Story Time

Story time is an integral part of developing a child's enjoyment and love of reading. At Glory Farm Primary School, we have daily story time where we can introduce children to vocabulary rich texts as well as re-reading some of our favourites too.

Reading Vending Machine

Each week children have the opportunity to gain a raffle ticket for reading 5 times at home. Twice per term, we draw a raffle ticket and the lucky winner gets to visit the reading vending machine and choose a book to keep. The more the children read at home, the more chances they have of having their ticket drawn. Please ensure you write in your child’s reading diary when they read at home - it doesn’t have to be their school reading book.