Willow Tree Primary School

 Our Teaching Team

Mrs Bagdonavicius

Ms Cowley

Miss Topping

Mrs Wilson

Welcome back Year 2! Happy New Year! I hope you and your family have had a lovely Christmas break. 

Year 2 marks the last year of KS1 and it is a very fun, exciting and busy year. 

Children need to:

• come to school in their PE kits on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

• bring their reading book bags in every day. 

• read at least 3 times a week.

• learn their weekly spellings that are given out every Monday.

We provide a healthy snack and milk during the day. Water only can be kept in the classroom. No juice or fizzy drinks. Please remember to take your water bottles home daily to be cleaned. 

In Year 2 we strive to make all children feel safe, secure and confident both in their learning and in their school life. We want our children to leave Year 2 feeling independent, motivated and have high expectations. 

Our priority is your child's happiness and well-being. If you have any questions or concerns throughout the year, please don't hesitate to contact us. Every morning there will be a member of staff at the door to welcome your child into school, and will be available to answer any questions or queries. If you wish to make an appointment to discuss anything further, please contact the school office. 

Make sure to keep updated by checking Class Dojo and by following our school’s Facebook page.

We hope your child enjoys Year 2 as much as we will!

Mrs Bagdonavicius

Please find below information about what we will be learning this half term.

Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. Through our Read, Write, Inc. programme we will continue to support the children's phonic knowledge. Our phonics lessons are an hour every day. We mainly use Read Write Inc books to support reading because these match the children's phonics progress and are phonetically decodable.

If you would like to help your child to learn their speed sounds then you can download the set 2 and set 3 sounds below.

In our Steps to Read lessons, we will be exploring animals, habitats and plants through these amazing fiction, non-fiction and poetry books!

In our writing lessons, we will be exploring the book The Bog Baby. 

It is a magical story about two little girls who find a Bog Baby and take it home. The characters learn a valuable lesson about caring for creatures and the importance of leaving them in their natural habitats. Through exploring the detailed illustrations in the vehicle text, there are many opportunities for children to infer how the characters are feeling and use this information to write their own finding stories. Following the hands on experience of creating a habitat, children will be enthusiastic to write a set of instructions to tell others how to make it. 

Spelling

Please learn how to spell the common exception words below correctly. 

• Why don't you play a game of 'speed spelling'?
• Challenge your grown up to see who can spell more words in 1 minute! 
• Rainbow spelling - Write these words using as many different colours as you can!

In Maths, our topics are Money, Multiplication and Division and Measurements.  

Children in Year 2 we use the Numbots program to help embed the core maths skills of subitising, number bonds, addition and subtraction. We will also begin to use Times Table Rockstars to help us learn our 2, 5 and 10 times tables.

This term we are looking at living things and their habitats.

We will learn about the signs of life. You can use the acronym MRS GREN to help your remember them...

MRS GREN can help us classify objects as LIVING (do these things), DEAD (used to do these things) or NEVER ALIVE (could never do these things).

We are also learning about where living things actually live. This is called their habitat. We are looking at some of the following habitats...

* Woodland

* Pond

* Coastal

* Jungle

We are also learning about micro-habitats. This is a habitat within a habitat - such as the planters in the school garden. We can look in micro-habitats to complete insect surveys and produce tally and bar charts using what we found.

Movers and Shakers

Children will learn about historically significant people who have had a major impact on the world. They will learn to use timelines, stories and historical sources to find out about the people featured and use historical models to explore their significance.

Hinduism - How might people express their devotion?

This unit enables pupils to explore the purpose of and some of the practices associated with Hindu worship. The focus includes beliefs about Brahman, family, community and Worship.
Opportunities are provided for pupils to investigate ways that Hindus might express their devotion to God through worshipping the deities. They should know that Hindus believe in one God with many forms and so whichever deity is worshipped, it is ultimately a way of worshipping God.
They should have opportunities to discuss the concept of being devoted to something/someone – and the various ways in which human beings might show their devotion through clothing, special words or songs, rituals and actions.

Online Safety

This term the children will learn to stay safe online. They will learn about the risks of their online lives and to develop skills when using online services. 

PE will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please come to school in your PE kit and don't forget your water bottle! This term we will be developing our skills in invasion games like football and also our skills in dance.

Curriculum Overview

Below is our learning overview for the year.

Home Reading

Our home reading scheme is RWI Book Bag Books, Oxford Reading scheme and Oxford Owl online. This fabulous platform allows us to see how well you are reading at home and gives you a wide range of books that you can read again if you have enjoyed them! Please make sure you are reading every day and complete the quiz questions. 

Our Golden Promises

 Keep hands, feet and objects to yourself.

 Always tell the truth.

 Look after property.

 Use kind words to everyone.

 keep each other safe.