Year 2 - Elder class
Teachers - Mrs Bibby, Mrs Smith , Mrs Killy,
Please click here to see the Year 2 Curriculum map.
AUTUMN 2024
The children have settled in well to our Year 2 routines. We have found the Elder tree in the school playground, tasted some Elderflower Cordial and had lots of fun on our new playground equipment.
2022
Summer 1
An exciting half term with the sun beginning to shine and lots of Bank holidays to enjoy. The King's Coronation made for a fantastic Friday for Year 2 - Class assembly followed by crown making, other coronation activities, the Coronation Bake Off judging and of course eating! Thank you for all your contributions to the Coronation Bake Off - a great day was had by all!
We begun the term with our class worship - the children did a wonderful job learning lines, acting and singing as we focussed on Fruit of the Spirit Generosity. We presented our class worship to the whole school. The children's hard work really paid off as it was a wonderful assembly.
We have been concentrating on our topic of Plants this half term. We have planted hundreds of crocus bulbs in the garden - fingers crossed we see the fruits of our labour soon - as well as concentrated on comparing seeds to bulbs - understanding the lifecycle of a plant and all enjoyed learning about the various ways seeds are dispersed.
We planted our own sunflower seed ( hopefully these are now thriving at home! ) and kept in all the right conditions - we then did an experiment growing our sunflower seeds in various conditions to see the effects. Our sunflower that had warmth, water but no light thrived but unfortunately became long and spindly with yellow stems and leaves - we deduced that 'light' was a most important factor for healthy plant growth. All the seeds in our experiment that were given no water failed to grow. We realised all plants need air, water and nutrients and sugars in the soil and warmth.
Mr Ryall, Rose's dad and our plant expert , came into school and led a wonderful question and answer session about plants. It was brilliant with Mr Ryall managing to field questions such as ' What is the world's oldest plant? ' ' How many plants have you planted? ' What's inside a seed?' Great questions from the children and absolutely super answers from Mr Ryall!
We also concentrated on our class assembly which I hope was enjoyed by all. Thank you for learning lines at home with the children and coming in to support them and cheer them on! The children loved practising , singing and water squirting the audience! They all really enjoyed our Great Fire of London topic.
We are enjoying reading The Hodgeheg by Dick King-Smith in guided reading along with extracts from Carrie's War by Nina Bawden to aid our WW2 topic and writing in English. We have worked hard on analysing The Lord's Prayer in RE and understanding the meanings behind the words.
Spring 2
Another great half term in Year 2 - we have packed lots in!
Our trip to Pudding Lane was a great success - travelling by bus and underground made the day even more exciting. Our guide, Eileen, met us at Tower Hill tube station with her pet rat : Samuel Squeaks! We walked around the square mile of the City of London. We found the spot where Samuel Pepys house stood ( now a luxurious hotel!), we saw his bust and visited his local church. One of the churches we saw had no roof! It had been destroyed in the fire, rebuilt, then destroyed during WW2 and left as a ruin - it does today however make for a lovely garden and oasis of calm in the busy city. Our journey took us past Billingsgate - the old fish market, up very narrow lanes where we could imagine what it was like to be in London at the time of the great fire, past the monument, built to mark the great fire and celebrate the re-building of the city. We spent our afternoon in Bakers Hall writing with a quill pen and dressing up as Samuel Pepys or his maid. It was a great day that all the children seemed to enjoy. 
Our other trip, a little more local, to the church rounded off our RE Saints topic. It was lovely to spend time in The Lady Chapel of St Matthew's and learn about the wood carved depiction of many lady saints. We asked Mother Helen lots of questions and came the conclusion that Saints were people who believed in God and did wonderful and kind things throughout their lives.
In PE we have been lucky enough to have Rhian, a professional gymnast, to teach our class this half term. It has been brilliant to progress from the floor and equipment work we do in PE to more complicated gymnastic skills.
In science we have been using magnifying glasses to examine seeds, beans and bulbs. We have cut fruit to find seeds hidden within and made helicopters to mimic the ' helicopter ' shape seeds of the sycamore tree. The children have good knowledge on seed dispersal and especially enjoy animals eating seeds and excreting them elsewhere!
In guided reading we are enjoying ' The Great Fire - A city in Flames ' by Ann Turnball. The children are reading, inferring, predicting, learning new words , explaining, retrieving and summarising what they know, and think about the story.
Our topic work on The Great Fire of London saw the children making some super Tudor houses.
Lots to look forward next term, not least sports day!
Spring 1
In RE we have recently studied a unit on light. One thing that took the children's fancy was light in art work. We learnt that in Christian art, light is used to show holiness. Holiness means belonging to God. Jesus, disciples and Saints are often depicted with a halo - giving out light. Jesus' halo can be interpreted as Jesus being ' the light of the world' .
In science we have studied units on materials and animals. The children were expert sorters of recycling. Do get them helping at home putting the recycling in the right boxes! Our animal unit took us to London Zoo where a great day was had by all.
English covers many genres of writing in Year 2. A recent favourite has been instruction writing . We all read, made ate and eventually wrote our own instructions and evaluations for making a a jam sandwich.
We were lucky enough to join Years 3 and 4 for a quick trip to Wimbledon library to see an interactive take on Roald Dahl's Matilda. The children enjoyed our afternoon and marvelled at the super powers of Matilda!
