Year 2

During this unit we will be learning about how journey times have shortened and how transport vehicles have evolved. We will be learning about the Wright brothers and how they invented the early aircraft. We will be comparing current air travel to the past, culminating in a visit to Manchester Airport. We will be investigating local links to the great liner Titanic and learn about her tragic maiden voyage.

Through our science sessions we will be discussing the need for a healthy diet, exercise and a hygiene routine. We will be recording our pulse rates before and after exercise and investigating the effects that exercise has on our body. We will be sharing our “healthy food” message by helping to prepare salad and fruit to be served to the rest of the school during our lunchtimes. In our DT activities we will be experimenting with ways to prepare fruit and vegetables by peeling, grating and slicing. We will invent and make interesting fruit smoothies for our friends and staff to try! Through our PSHE we will be exploring ways to keep our bodies safe both indoors and outdoors.

In our RE activities we will be learning more about the Muslim faith as shown in the Shahadah and we will be hearing stories about Muhammad.

In this unit we will be recapping our previous UK learning by naming the countries and capital cities that form the UK. Next we will be discussing what features are and will spot them in our local area. We will be identifying and researching famous landmarks in the UK and our local area. We will be visiting our favourite places around the city of Stoke On Trent and explaining to others why they are so important to us. We will be looking beyond the UK by researching questions such as ‘Which is the tallest mountain in the world and the longest river?’ We will then compare the features in our localities to Cairo.

We will be using our class text “Tell me a Dragon” by Jackie Morris, to write a character description, story settings as well as other imaginative story writing. Our maths sessions will continue to embed our calculation skills and problem solving. We will be recapping time and measurement, to plan timetables for our minibus trips and mix magical potions for our dragons.

In PE we will be experimenting with our stretches and exploring ways to make shapes with our bodies. Through our Science questions, we will be investigating the basic needs of animals to survive and discovering which food groups provide the best nutrition. Food preparation will be explored through our Design and Technology sessions where we will be discussing what preparation is needed for fruit and vegetables before we eat them. We will also be having great fun preparing our own fruit and vegetable dishes! Spring is also an important time for Christians, so in RE we will be learning about the celebration of Easter and the events that lead up to it. As well as all of these exciting things we will be visiting Stanley Head Activity Centre where we will be participating in a variety of outdoor pursuits and having our first residential school visit experience!

This half term year 2 have finished their first geography topic ‘Does it always rain in Stoke on Trent?’ The children have loved looking into our local weather and comparing this to other areas within the UK. We created a rain gauge to measure the rain in Meir and put this into a bar chart.

Moving on from geography, we have just introduced our new history topic ‘Why has fire been important in history?’. We are currently learning all about the Great Fire of London and what this meant for the fire service and we will then move onto to learn all about the Gunpowder Plot. Our educational visit this half term is linked nicely to our new history topic where we will be visiting Ford Green Hall to look at the Tudor building and to learn about history in those times.

We are continuing our learning in Science to look at living things. We will be exploring where different animals/insects live and all about what we eat! In art we are going to be researching and learning about Monet! We will get the opportunity to experiment different techniques and explore what happens when paint is added to different surfaces. We will look into mixing colours on watercolour card to create a picture background in the style of Claude Monet.

In the run up to Christmas our R.E. lessons will have a focus on The Nativity. We will talk about the events of the nativity and how it guides the beliefs and actions of Christians at Christmas.

This half term we will be investigating the question “Does it always rain in Stoke On Trent?”. We will be observing and recording the weather and comparing our weather in Stoke to other cities around the UK. We will be learning about the changing seasons and exploring their differences. We will look at the changing signs of Autumn when we visit Tanglewood based at Cannock Chase. We will participate in workshops related to how wildlife adapts to each season. We will search for different habitats used by the forest animals. We will be exploring different animals; their food chains and how different animals obtain their food. In our English sessions we will be reading the text; The Tin Forest and exploring the thoughts, feelings and actions of the main character in the story. We will be focusing on descriptive, imaginative language that we will use to retell the story and describe the scenery in greater depth. The children will also be visiting The Crescent forest to draw comparisons to the book. We will continue to focus on learning new spelling patterns this half term. In Maths, we will be recapping the place value of numbers up to 1000 and beginning to add and subtract with larger numbers. We will also be looking at problem solving using a variety of manipulatives. In DT we will be investigating the purpose of axles, and using this knowledge we will explore the different ways we can attach axles to our own models.