Year 2 News- May 2025
Wow! What a busy start to our new, and very short, half term!
In English, we have been exploring a new text, The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward. This is the second text this year by this author and she is quickly becoming a firm favourite in year 2. Some of the children very cleverly spotted similarities in the illustrations of the two books, great reading detective work! We are currently writing a recount in the form of a diary entry as George who has to build the Dragon Machine to return his dragons to their homes. We have learned about a variety of tools to help make our work more exciting including adverbs and commas in a list to help us add descriptive language into our diaries. We are just adding the finishing touches to them before we move onto another exciting text next week! I can’t wait to read the finished result.
In maths, we have been looking at shape, measure and money. We have explored 3D shape families including pyramids and prisms and their properties using vocabulary such as faces, vertices and edges. We have used a ruler to draw straight lines to the nearest centimetre and we have been learning how to give change from £1. Some very challenging maths but as always, the children displayed some fabulous resilience in their maths lessons.
In Science, we have begun a new unit looking at how plants grow from both bulbs and seeds. This week we have an investigation to plan into how temperature effects growth and we all love an experiment in our class. We also received the results from our entries into the national engineering competition to design a new invention as part of our science week celebrations. It was wonderful to see so many of our class members receiving certificates for their designs. The results including several passes and merits and two distinctions. A special shout out to Sienna who managed to secure a Distinction Shortlist prize which means her entry (a bed maker) is off to a panel of VIP’s from the engineering world who will decide who will be the regional winner or if her entry is to be highly commended, the two highest outcomes of the competition. Her entry could even be displayed at Sunderland University! Sending Sienna all of the luck for this, how exciting!
In history, we have started our new topic ‘What is a Monarch?’. The children have enjoyed looking at the roles of our current monarch, King Charles III and re-enacting his coronation. We have also learned about William the Conqueror and how his role is different to that of the King today. The children were also amazed to find out that some of the castles built during the reign of William the Conqueror are still standing today, over 900 years later!
Last week, we enjoyed our VE day celebrations. We enjoyed some delicious fish and chips from Mrs Emery in our very own boxes with vinegar, tomato sauce and mushy peas! Then it was picnic time! It was so lovely to see so many parents enjoying the afternoon sunshine on the school field, as always thank you for your continued support!
I can’t quite believe that the next time we have a newsletter we will be in our last few weeks of this school year! I can’t wait to squeeze even more fun into the final few weeks of Year 2!