Welcome to Year 2!
Further to the welcome letter sent home at the end of term, we have tried to compile some further useful information for you. However, as we have said, if you do have any questions or anything you are not sure about, please do contact us at year2baw@welearn365.com. We hope your children enjoy their first half-term in Year 2.
Autumn 1 Topics
This year we begin with an introductory topic entitled “How do I feel?” The children will be encouraged to think about their own feelings and the feelings of those around them. This learning will be based on “The Zones of Regulation”. This is a framework used to teach children self-regulation and self-control. It aims to help children to categorise their feelings improving their ability to recognise and communicate how they're feeling in a safe, non-judgmental way. Emotions and feelings are grouped into four coloured zones categorising alertness and emotions. The framework emphasises the importance of letting the children know that it's fine to experience all of these emotions while they're at school. There is no bad zone, but that it is important to learn and use strategies that will help them get to their Green Zone. We will be teaching the children to use strategies or tools to help them move between zones.
During this unit of work we will also be delivering ‘The Taking Care Project’, Warwickshire’s protective behaviours scheme, details of which you will have received during your child’s time in their Reception class. We will also be thinking about online safety. This work will be based on Jessie & Friends, an animated series about online safety produced by Thinkuknow. Thinkuknow is the national education programme from NCA-CEOP at the National Crime Agency. NCA-CEOP works to keep children safe from sexual abuse and exploitation.
Much of our work will also be based on the books of Julia Donaldson including “The Gruffalo”, “Zog”, “The Smartest Giant in Town” and “Hamilton’s Hats”. We will look at the rhyming language and try out some “echo reading”.
We will be taking part in a Macmillan Party Day on Friday 18th September 2020. The children will be asked to come in non-uniform in exchange for a small donation for Macmillan Cancer Support. Our activities will be based around the Julia Donaldson book “Room on the Broom”.
We will then move on to our topic “Where did the Jolly Postman deliver his letters?”. This topic will begin with a mysterious parcel delivery!
As part of our topic we will be reading traditional stories such as “Hansel and Gretel”, “Goldilocks” and “Red Riding Hood” and “Jack and the Beanstalk”. The children will begin to write short paragraphs including character descriptions, wanted posters and letters. We will also be working on our phonics skills. You can support this work by logging into ‘Espresso’ and accessing “Scrap’s Phonics”, “Polly’s Phonics” and “Kim’s Phonics”.
We will also be making model vehicles with moving parts, designing a new uniform for the Jolly Postman and creating our own imaginary maps.
For further detail about this half-term’s topics, please see the topic overview also available on our website.
PE Day
Our PE day is a Wednesday. Please ensure your child wears sports kit to school on these days and that any earrings have been removed.
Shared Learning Books
Shared Learning is issued half-termly and can also be found on our website. We encourage the children to do a task a week at home however, these should not be handed in until Wednesday 21st October.
Year 2 Shared Learning
Reading
By the time children reach Year 2 most are fluent and accurate readers. The emphasis now changes to higher order skills talking about a text, using inference (hidden meaning and finding clues from the text) to answer questions about characters, settings or plots as well as discussing the authors choice and use of language.
The following questions may be useful when you are reading with your child, particularly if they are a fluent reader.
To deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from text
To identify and comment on what a text looks like(layout)
To explain writers use of language
As a reader what do you think about the story
How does the text relate to you?