Welcome to Year 2 and Silver Birch Class. We hope you have had a lovely Christmas and are excited to welcome you back to school.

Please make sure your child has the following things in school:

• an A4 plastic wallet for reading books/reading record
• a bookbag (please no rucksacks as our cloakrooms are small)
• a PE bag with black pumps inside (this will stay at school)
• a water bottle
• a fruit snack

Please can children come into school in their PE kits on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week. They will need a red PE top, blue tracksuit bottoms (not leggings) and trainers. We will be outside on Tuesdays so please ensure your child is layered up to keep warm.

Our classroom staff are:

Mrs Salkeld (class teacher)

Miss Taylor (class teaching assistant)

Mrs Houghton (class teacher for cover)

Mrs Foster (welfare assistant)

Things to do with your child

We are still working hard to ensure your child has a full understanding of key skills. You can help us by doing the following every week:

• reading at least 10 minutes, 5 times a week (this can be school reading books, online books on the e-reader or books at home, please log this in school reading record so your child can earn prizes and feel encouraged by the work they’re doing)
• practise and learn spellings
• complete and return homework tasks
• Practise 2, 5 and 10 times tables – this can be verbal, written or through games like hit the button - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

We will update this list throughout the year as more appropriate tasks become relevant.

Visit to local church - March

As part of our RE topic about Christianity and churches we walked to Christ Church and met with the Reverend. We looked for features that can be found in churches, learnt more about the Easter story and why it is important to Christians. 

Back at school, we made our own churches out of Lego including features we knew should be in there.

Check out the pictures of the church and our Lego builds below.

Our Spring Curriculum

We have lots of rewards available for children to earn for behaviour and effort as well as brilliant work!

English - Our first topic will be reading a variety of Jonny Duddle stories and write our own pirate stories. We will then use our knowledge about pirates to write a non-chronological report about them and a persuasive poster to encourage people to join our own pirate crew. After half term we will look at another narrative piece based on Lily Murray’s adaption of the Disney Classic Aladdin. Finally, we will end the term writing instructions based on our DT topic of healthy eating: salads.

Maths – This term we will be revisiting many key skills including place value, addition and subtraction. We will also be developing new skills about fractions, money, time, position and shape.

Science – In the first half term, we will be looking at materials and testing the best materials to use in different situations. After the half term break we will study plants and how they grow.

Topic – We start the year by studying Geography and learn about an area in Asia. We will create a link with a school in India and we will explore the area that school is in. We will then compare that area to what we learnt about our local area last term.

After half term, we will change to a History unit and learn about great explorers and how they changed the world. We will start by looking at Christopher Columbus, where he explored and the impact his voyage had. Following this we will learn about Neil Armstrong and where he explored.

Art – We will learn about how to create art on textiles and design our own pirate flag. We will use a variety of natural materials to dye and see what colours we can make. Next half term we will look at printing and create a piece of work based on Fiona Rae’s artwork.

Design and Technology – Towards the end of the term we will look at fresh food and how to safely prepare vegetables. The children will try a variety of salad items and then choose their favourite to make their own salad. We will then look at instruction writing as part of our English.

Music – This term we will start to learn how to play the recorder as a class. We will add information to the class website to support your child in what we are learning in class.

PSHE – This half term we will complete work from the SEAL topic Good to be Me where we will learn about ourselves and our mental and physical health. After the half term, we will continue you to work on these topics in our Health and Wellbeing topic.

RE – We are learning about the Islamic faith this half term and asking the focus question- Why do Muslims believe it is important to obey God? We will then look at the Christian faith and discuss what unites the Christian community.

Computing – We will be going to the computer suite once a week and learning key skills to use the computers easily. We will start by learning some basic programming on the scratch software. After half term we will learn how to take digital photographs and edit them.

Each half term we will have a week outside of the computer suite to learn about e-safety and how to be safe and look after each other while using the internet.

PE – In outdoor PE we will be looking at Teambuilding and how we work well together in sports. During indoor PE we will be developing our dance skills and learning a pirate dance.

Wellbeing week

22nd February

Today we have had a wellbeing day as part of wellbeing week. 

We did a yoga session this morning (see pictures below) and had a well-being carousel this afternoon including: making a hope cloud, mindful colouring and creating aboriginal artwork for our PSHE British Value Mutual Respect.

Friday 10th February - Year 2 Pirate Day!

We had lots of fun ending the half term with our pirate day. We did lots of activities including:

• dressing up as pirates
• making 'join my pirate crew' persuasive posters
• going on a treasure hunt with a map
• performing our pirate dance we've been learning
• making (and eating) a pirate snack

We had loads of fun - check out our pictures below.

Safer Internet Day - 7th February 2023

We read a great story about internet safety from Childnet called Hanni and the Magic Window. We talked about what had happened to Hanni and who we could talk to if we had something similar happen to us. It was interesting to see how the internet was like a magic window that we all have in our homes. It can show and teach us wonderful things from around the world but we need to be careful using it.

We then drew our own magic windows with what we love to use the internet for. Lastly we wrote the top 3 things we used the internet for. Many of us wrote about watching shows, playing games and talking to family members.

Forest School -January

We had a great time with Mrs Dykes and Mrs Houghton in our forest school. We did lots of exciting activities including:

• Looking at how the eco-garden had changed - we found some shoots as new flowers start to grow
• Den building
• Collecting items to make rafts with next time
• Bird watching
• Refilling the leaf compost pit
• Searching for mini-beasts

Although the weather turned cold we have a great time in the forest school area. We learnt a new game of hide and seek where the seeker stays still and the closest person hiding wins. Mrs Salkeld found it really difficult to spot us so she starting counting really fast as we had to hide in a new space.

The children were brilliant and spotted lots of new things - check out our pictures.

Forest School -December

We had a great time with Mrs Dykes and Mrs Houghton in our forest school. We did lots of exciting activities including:

• Looking at how the eco-garden had changed
• Watching Mrs Dykes build a fire
• Eating warm marshmallows
• Den building
• Creating winter art
• Bird watching
• Weeding the flowerbeds

We warmed ourselves around the fire and learned how to stay safe around our fire area. Mrs Houghton and Mrs Dykes cooked marshmallows and we enjoyed eating them.

As always the children were amazing and it was a lovely end to the year!

Forest School - November

We had a great time with Mrs Dykes and Mrs Houghton in our forest school. We did lots of exciting activities including:

• Looking at how the eco-garden had changed
• Finding hazards
• Den building
• Creating a leaf pit for compost

We remembered what sticky feet means and listened really carefully to instructions.

The children were amazing and the rain even held off for us. We all had our waterproof coats with us though just in case!

Forest School - October

We had a great time with Mrs Dykes and Mrs Houghton in our forest school. We did lots of exciting activities including:

• Finding hazards
• Den building
• Mini-beast hunting
• Identifying plants
• Bark rubbing
• Digging and clearing

We learned new terms like 'sticky feet' and what we need to do when a teacher says it.

The children were brilliant even though it was really windy. We realised that no matter the weather we'll always be able to be outside.