In Summer 1, the theme is ‘Scented Garden’. The children will be learning to write a set of instructions to plant a tomato seed. They will also be writing a non-chronological report about the venus flytrap. 

In Summer 2, the theme is ‘Rainforest’. They will study the poem ‘All the Wild Wonders’ by Elizabeth Honey before writing a poem about the rainforest. They will also write a recount about their trip to London Zoo and a description of each layer of the rainforest.

We begin ‘whole class reading’ sessions. We will be studying Hotel Flamingo by Alex Milway and the children will be developing the comprehension skills based on vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing. 

Year 2 Book Suggestions:

• The Big Book of Blooms by Yuval Zommer
• The extraordinary gardener by Sam Broughton
• The Great Kapok Tree by Lynn Cherry
• Where the forest meets the sea by Jeannie Baker
• One day on our blue planet in the rainforest by Ella Bailey
• Up in the canopy by Good wives and warriors and James Aldred
• Over and under the rainforest by Christopher Silas Neal and Kate Messner

Talk about our topic.  Any additional research will make them better writers!

Reading for at least 10 -15 minutes each day makes a huge difference!  Reading material can take the form of packets, magazines, signs and of course fiction, non-fiction and poetry books.  READ pictures too!

Take a trip to your local library and select a book related to our topics

Remember to keep reading to your child, as it should be an enjoyable experience – get cosy with a nice blanket!  Can they predict what may happen next?  Do they understand why certain events may have taken place?  Can they describe a character’s motivations?

Talk about new and interesting vocabulary that they come across and make sure they understand the meaning.

There is a spelling list of words that your child should be familiar with by the end of year 2 on the school website.  It is located under ‘parent zone’-‘home learning’.

It would be wonderful if they could read what they have written back to you to ensure it makes sense and includes a capital letter and full stop.

Remember if you would like to support your child with comprehensions you can get work booklets from any good book shop/Amazon.

Each week the children will revise 3-4 key common exception words. 

In summer 1 the words are:

Everybody, eye, fast, father, find, floor, gold, grass, great, half, hold, hour, improve kind, last, many, mind, money. 

In summer 2, the words are: 

Most, move, Mr, Mrs, old, only, parents, past, pass, path, people, plant, poor, pretty, prove, should, steak, sugar, sure, told, water, who, whole, wild, would. 

There are also specific spelling rules and patterns that the children will learn each week;

• adding es
• changing the y to an i before adding er
• homophones
• dropping the e before adding er
• drop the e add est
• double consonants before er, y or ing

In addition there is a dictation session at the end of the week.

The children will take part in spelling lessons based on the Supersonic Phonic Friends programme, an information sheet about this will come home with them each week to show what we have been learning.

We would appreciate your support with helping your child to identify and learn spelling patterns correctly.  

They also need to be secure with the year 2 word lists.

Find sounds that we have learnt in words in books, praise when they see sounds in menus and in signs.

Encourage your child to point use their robot arms or sound buttons when thinking about words.

When spelling – always encourage your child to break down words and listen out for the sounds in the words – especially the end sounds.

There is a spelling list of words that your child should be familiar with by the end of year 2 on the school website.  It is located under ‘parent zone’-> ‘home learning’.

The topics we will be covering this term are:

Summer 1 – Fraction and Time

• Finding and recognising halves, quarters, thirds and three quarters.
• unit and non-unit fractions
• Counting in fractions
• Reading and drawing hands on a clock (o’clock, half, past, quarter past, quarter to)
• Reading clocks to the nearest 5 minutes (past and to)
• Minutes in an hour and hours in a day

Summer 2- Statistics, position and direction, consolidation

• Tallies, tables and block diagrams
• Reading and interpreting pictograms
• Language of position
• Describing movement and turns
• Shape patterns with turns

Please visit the White Rose website, where you can find videos to recap their learning.

Where your child shows an interest in numbers at home encourage them to show you pictorial representations.

If the numbers are not correctly oriented, show them the correct formation and encourage them to have a go again. Could you engage in messy play – forming the numbers in cornflour and water?  How about using chalks in the back garden? Or even a hose?  If you’re not feeling adventurous a paint brush with water would also do!

When shopping encourage your child to look at the weights and prices of items.

Go to the park. Collect and count natural items.

Create a ‘copper jar’ at home and allow your child to count the amount – are they counting in 1ps or 2ps? Could you set up a little shop with a till?  Invite friends/family around for a shopping experience!

Chant in 2s, 5s and 10s.  Can you change your accent?  Can you raise or lower your voice?  Does your child also chant them backwards.

When counting forwards could you start at a number other than 0 or 1?

Engage in cooking experiences – your children become so much more confident when you believe that they can cook and bake.

Consider getting an analogue watch for your child.  Discuss when activities start/end and their duration. Some children can find time quite challenging, so any and all support in this area is most beneficial.

Play games likes snakes and ladders, as your child will be looking at numbers and they will become more fluent adding/subtracting small numbers from them.

Scented Garden

The children will be learning about germination and will be observing this process over time using bean plants placed in particular conditions. They will be planning and conducting an experiment using flowering plants to observe which conditions are required for plant growth. They will be studying plant adaptation in different habitats on the school ground. They will be having a DT week when they will spend the week making a bee hand puppet.

The Rainforest 

The children will be looking at the studying animals including humans and they will use their visit to London Zoo to help them embed their learning. They will create a food chain with consumers and a producer, describe conditions of a habitat and describe how animals survive by adapting to their habitat.

It would be beneficial for your child to visit a library. There is a great bank of books to support their research and learning.

The topics we will be covering this term are:

Money (financial transactions, planning and saving), Relationships and sex education (body parts) and Coping with Conflict (bullying, anti-social behaviours, discrimination, how to respond, friendships and transition to Year 3)

In Summer 1, children will be learning about what different religions and worldviews teach about what is real and what is not. They will be looking at and understanding a range of vocabulary such as real, faith, miracle, mystery, wonder and exist. 

With this they will be looking at different stories from religions that explore the idea of miracles.

Discuss at home stories that are important to you and your families and communities.  

Ask your child about the things they are learning in RE.

There are lots of good books about special people in the Religion section of your local library that are very child friendly at an age-appropriate level.

The children receive music lessons for half of each half term, with a specialist teacher.

Encourage your children to listen to a wide range of different music styles.

Ask your child about their learning.

This term the children will be learning Gymnastics and will be led by a specialist teacher.

PE lessons will usually take place on Tuesdays.

PE kit should be in school at all times and clearly labelled with your child’s name. For safety, long hair should be tied back for all sporting activities. Earrings will need to be removed during physical exercise; if ears have recently been pierced, they should be taped. Children who are well enough to be in school are expected to take part in PE activities.

In Summer 1 the children will be learning about digital media photography and in summer 2 they will be learning about making quizzes using scratch.

Children can explore using digital media to take and adapt photographs. They can explore ‘scratch’ online and practise using algorithms.

As well as reading independently for at least 15 minutes every day, as per our homework policy, children in year 2 will also be expected to spend at least 5 mins practising their knowledge of the 2x, 5x and 10x tables. Homework will consist of spelling/handwriting practise and some consolidation of maths concepts or other learning we have been doing in class. It may also involve comprehension activities such as reading and discussing a text. Children should take a book home every week to read for pleasure. Unless it is a longer book, this book should be changed weekly. Homework will continue to be set every Friday and should be returned on Wednesday. Please also note that guided reading books should also be returned every Wednesday along with homework.