Year 2 Curriculum News – Summer 2010
Global gardens
&
Dinosaurs
Mathematics – Our focus this term will be looking at numbers up to 100 and their place value. We will be completing number work on ordering, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions. Through shape, space and measures we will be covering time, 2D/3D shapes, right angles, rotation of shapes and measuring.
English – The focus for these lessons will consist of the well known children’s book ‘Harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs’. Work related to this will consist of character profiles, dialogue, story writing, comprehension and reading. Non-Fiction texts will be covered through reading and writing.
Another focus for this term will be the story ‘Global Gardens’ by Kate Perry. This will stimulate the children to make pop-up books, poetry and drafting information. Every week there will still be a focus on the skills of reading, spelling and writing.
Science – Our topics this term have a focus on plants and animals and the habitats they live in. We will be working with Heritage Coast to use their knowledge of the different creatures that live around our school. Plants and flowers will be discussed and what they need to survive and reproduce. Plants and animals from the rainforest will also be looked at.
Electricity will also be linked into our topic, as we are designing and making a garden with a light. Circuits, materials, buzzers, motors, batteries, cells etc will be discussed and this area will be very practical.
Religious Education – The focus for this term will be ‘Jesus and his friends’ and how Jesus is God’s son, how he is a good friend and how we say sorry when we have done something wrong. We will read the stories ‘Bartimaeus and Lazarus’, ‘The Lion and the Mouse’ and other Bible stories.
History – ‘Dinosaurs’ will form a big part of our History topic. We will also be focusing on Christopher Columbus and his voyages, Human Rights Act, the history of tea, cocoa beans and sugar canes.
Geography – We will be visiting the local garden centre to choose flowers for our mini gardens and looking at gardens from around the world. We will also look at the rainforest and it’s location on the globe. We will use atlases and we will also study the supermarket and where food comes from.
Art – We will be making flowers from a range of materials, flower and leaf pressing, painting in the style of Monet’s garden, observation sketches of a cactus, a rainforest collage and fruit and vegetable prints.
Design & Technology – Our design and technology project for the term will be designing and making a garden with a light. Other aspects of this subject will be cross –curricular such as making a pop-up book, making bread from corn and how it changes, making seed pod maracas and making homemade paper.
Physical Education – The children will be using the basic dance actions to complete a sequence with a partner and a group. The children will be practising for sports day on a weekly basis so the skills of running, egg and spoon and obstacle will be focused on. Summer games such as rounders and cricket will be played discussing rules and fair play.
ICT – ICT will be taught cross curricular looking at using the internet to research and using text ease and Microsoft word to format text and change font, size, colour etc. During ICT alive lessons we will be learning how to create and test instructions using a computer turtle, we will also be looking at graphs, branching databases and decision trees to discover the best way to answer simple questions.
TRIPS THIS TERM – I have arranged for us to visit Dan-yr-ogof on Thursday April 24th, we will also be visiting a local garden centre as part of our ‘Global Garden’ theme and Heritage Coast will be working with the class to group and classify plants and mini beasts in the local area.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
· Continue to read regularly with your child at home, using home readers, library books or magazines.
· Complete homework tasks on a weekly basis remembering that your child needs to bring it in on a Wednesday and it will be returned home on a Friday.
· PE kits can be left in school, but the children will now need to keep trainers in school or send a pair in every Wednesday and Friday as we will be working outside.
· If you have any books or resources related to our topic, please send them in so we can use them for research and display.