The Year 2 Team:

Mrs Webb, Mrs Sandiford

& Mrs Macdonald 

Routines:

P.E. - On a Tuesday we have JB Sports coaches come to teach our P.E lessons; on these days we come to school in our P.E kit. Our P.E kit should be:

• Plain white t-shirt
• Black/navy shorts.
• Trainers or Plimsolls can be worn for PE lessons.
• Black/Navy tracksuit bottoms for colder weather/outdoor PE.
• Black/Navy tracksuit top for colder weather/outdoor PE.
• No Football/Sports shirts

Spellings – As part of our new Active Spelling Scheme, spellings will no longer be sent home as we are not having weekly spelling tests. However if you would like to support your children's spelling at home please find an overview of the spellings we are learning each half term below. 

In addition to learning spelling rules through Active Spelling, your child is learning their Year 1 and Year 2 Common Exception Words, which are a statutory requirement and an important part of the spelling programme in Year 2. Your child will be given an individual list of CEW which they have regular opportunities to learn and practise in class but it would be advantageous to support your child with these at home too. These will change every half term and you will be sent a new set. 

At North Somercotes CE Primary we follow the Monster Phonics scheme to support the teaching of early reading.

What is Phonics?
The 26 letters of the alphabet and combinations of these letters make 44 speech
sounds in English. The 44 sounds (phonemes) are spelt by 144 different letter
combinations (graphemes). For example, the sound O is spelt 6 different ways: o
(no), o-e (home), oa (boat), ow (snow), oe (toe) and ou (though).
 

What is Monster Phonics?
Monster Phonics makes learning to read and spell through phonics easier, by
categorising the 44 sounds into 10 categories and each of these 10 categories are
represented by a Monster.  Each Monster is a different colour, and this colour
represents that way of spelling the sound.  This makes learning to read and spell
much easier and more fun.

Why does Monster Phonics improve learning?
The child learns through the assignment of colour and the linkage of the sound, as
well as seeing the colour, creating more ways of remembering the spelling.
The games, songs and activities within the programme continuously reflect this way
of learning, so that structure is constantly seen, heard and experienced by your child.
This consistency is critical in ensuring that a complicated language is learnt in the
most simplistic way. 

High-frequency words are learnt much faster with Monster Phonics. These words
make up 65% of the words used in reading.

1. Once colour-coded, high-frequency words can be taught in easy to learn sets
of similar words. This significantly improves spelling.

2. With colour-coding non-decodable words become decodable. Children are no
longer told that words like ‘they’ and ‘my’ are tricky as they can be decoded.

To find out more about how Monster Phonics works visit https://monsterphonics.com/how-it-works/

Reading

As part of our whole school phonics scheme, we will listen to each child read a Monster Phonics book in Guided Reading groups three times per week. On a Wednesday your child will bring the book home which has been read in their group for further fluency practise. A brief explanation of how to follow the activities is included in the books. Children will be able to feel confident about reading and will be able to read this book with fluency and speed. They will have a good understanding of this book and will be able to talk about it to an adult. Please record these readings in your child’s Reading Record. This book needs to be returned to school the following Monday.

For more information on how to support the reading of Monster Phonics books at home please go to: https://monsterphonics.com/guide-to-reading-monster-phonics-books/

In addition to this book, children will choose an independent reading book to take home as we encourage daily reading and reading for pleasure. This book is will be chosen by your child, they may require more or less support reading the book depending on which they have chosen. Please record your child’s reading in the Reading Record with any comments on understanding and fluency.

To encourage reading at home, each time your child reads their name is entered in a weekly draw where a small prize can be won. 

We are so excited in Year 2 to have begun our Numbots journey!

Numbots is a fun, interactive way for your child to practise a variety of maths skills learnt throughout KS1 through games and challenges. Each child has their own login which can be found in their reading record.

You can download the Numbots app or click here so your child can practise at home too!

Each Monday we will be giving out certificates for improved score and practise! 

"Let your light shine so others may see the good that you do."

"Your light is in your heart." - Esther, Year 2 (23-24)

Spring 1

This term we are shining light on Mary Seacole.

Mary Seacole, like Florence Nightingale was a nurse in the Crimean War. 

She funded her own journey and established the British Hotel which provided respite for sick and injured soldiers. The hotel was close the the front line and visited the front line herself to tend wounds. 

Spring 2

So far this term...

Maths -

In Maths we are continuing our learning of adding and subtracting 2 digit numbers. We are also looking measures. 

Power of Reading - 

This term, we have begun our "How to Find Gold" journey but discussing and debating what we think we think is essential to take along on a treasure hunting quest! 

History - 

In History we are looking at Florence Nightingale and her impact that she has had on our lives today. 

We have taken on the role of Historians, using sources including this painting, to draw ideas on who Florence Nightingale was, what she did and why she was important. 

We have learnt about primary and secondary sources of information. We have been sorting source into primary and secondary and have been discussing which of these is more reliable and why. 

This Year So Far...

Geography -

We have been looking at where we live in the world, our continent, country and county. From this we have been comparing our village of North Somercotes to the town of Louth. We have taken a trip to Louth, looking for human and physical geographical features and are going to use the findings of our fieldwork to compare Louth and North Somercotes. 

We have been learning about the 8 points of the compass and using these to give and follow directions. We also made compasses using needles, magnets and water. 

Science -

We have explored how living things change and evolve. We have looked at the life cycle of different animals including butterflies. 

We have been experimenting to see what we can do to keep our bodies healthy. We looked at the organs in our body and how exercise has an effect on our bodies. We have sorted healthy and unhealthy foods, learning about the Eatwell Plate and different food groups understanding how different foods give our bodies different things. We have also learnt about how it is important to our health to stay clean.

We had so much fun doing a hand washing experiment with special gel and UV light. We put special gel on our hands to represent germs, touched different objects within our classroom and looked under the UV light to see how the "germs" had transferred onto those objects. We then washed our hands and looked under the light to see if we had washed the germs away but our handwashing skills needed work! After washing them thoroughly with soap, our hands were clean again but we found if we touched the same objects again the "germs" would go back onto our hands! After that we decided the best thing to do would be to wash our hands and give the classroom a good clean! We then double checked with the UV to make sure the germs had gone. 

We have also looked at the different life stages of humans and at food chains. We have learnt about life processes and what living things need to survive. 

History - 

We have explored seaside holidays comparing modern activities to those enjoyed by Victorians on their seaside holidays. We have learnt lots about what Victorians used, wore and did at the beach. 

Art - 

We are colour mixing! We used experimenting with primary colours, back and white to see what secondary colours, tones and tints we could make. 

We have used our colour mixing skills to create pieces inspired by Kandinsky.

We then used our skills to create a landscape piece inspired by Lincolnshire. 

Design and Technology

In DT we have been learning to sew and have made some gorgeous Christmas decorations which have no gone home. We made these by evaluating some of Mrs Webb's Christmas tree decorations and creating a success criteria of what an effective decoration needs to be and have. We then practiced our sewing skills along with stapling and gluing skills and planned which we would use on our own decorations. We designed, produced and then evaluated our decorations, considering what we had done well and what we would change or alter.