Year 2 - Anansi Spider & Huckleberry Finn
As readers
Our class book this half term is AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. We will be reading this classic children’s text as a class while using our comprehension skills to understand the consider the story.
Children who have graduated from the Read Write Inc. (RWi) scheme of reading will be continuing with whole class reading with their class teacher, reading and understanding a range of short texts around the subject of the monarchy of the UK. Those on the RWi scheme have been reassessed, and if necessary, will be settled into their new groups at the start of the new term. Parents should expect to receive a copy of the reading book the children are currently reading in their phonics groups, as well as a ‘Book Bag’ book.
As writers
Using our book, Winie the Pooh, we will be continuing to build on our descriptive skills ready for our ‘big write’ – What is a day in the life of Pooh like? We will be reading and dissecting the chapter where Eeyore loses his tail and then writing in the first person to use our descriptive skills to write a diary entry about Pooh’s day.
Key vocabulary: expanded noun phrases, past tense, suffixes, adverbs, first person, possessive apostrophes
As mathematicians
In maths, we will be starting our last topics of Year 2. We start with statistics, interpreting and gathering information for tally charts and tables, as well as pictograms.
To link with our science topic ‘Bees and our Bodies’, we will be looking at correlating shapes in nature and creating repeating patterns. We will also be getting outside for finding out about position and direction.
Key vocabulary: interpret, gather, collate, total, most, least, popular, left, right, forwards, backwards, turn, anti-clockwise, clockwise
In geography
Our new topic is Me and My World with a focus on Ecuador. We will learn about the equator and what countries this imaginary line runs through. We will also learn about volcanoes and the affect the equator has on them.
Key Vocabulary: climate. Geographical, vegetation, erupt
As scientists
In conjunction with English and design and technology, our new topic is Bees and out Bodies where we start but investigating what the food types are in our diet and what a healthy plate looks like. We go further by looking at how exercise keeps us well and mobile and the effects on our heart. We then find out how honey is made and the different types of bees we have in the United Kingdom. To assist in our design and technology lessons, we will find out how the shape of honeycomb is essential to the making and storing of honey.
Key vocabulary: honey, hexagon, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, exercise, heart muscle, heart rate, increase, decrease
As designers
Encompassing most of our subjects for this summer term, we will start by learning about the artist Matt Willey and his morals of bees to emphasise the plight of our bees and the effect their decline in population is having on humans and their food sources. Next, we examine the anatomy of a bee then learn how to illustrate one scientifically. The last few lessons of the term will focus on designing our bee t-shirt and practising repeating patterns to emulate the honeycomb. We will then practise drawing our bee. This will all be brought together in a transfer to be ironed on a t-shirt which your child will be able to take home and wear.
Key vocabulary: anatomy, scientific drawing, detail, media, transfer, heat, dotting
