Our Autumn 1 Journey

Our big question is 'I wonder what makes a home?'  See what we will be learning this half-term in our curriculum web:

autumn 1curriculum web.pdf

 

 

 See our homework activities for this half-term. We hope the children will enjoy completing these activities and look forward to seeing the children's amazing work.

autumn 1 homework.pdf

 

 

 English

In English, we started with a exploring 'Charlie Cook's Favourite Book' and immersed ourselves in the text. We brought our most-loved characters to life using freeze framing to help us understand characters' thoughts and feelings and think about what we would do if we were in their shoes. This has been a great hook into helping us develop our love of reading and have a lot of fun!                               

     

                                                                           

Our key text for this half term is  'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark'.  We looked through a bag of mystery items to find clues to make predictions on what we thought the story would be about- it was very exciting!

We found a sock, some hot chocolate, an owl,  a pair of glasses, a saucepan and a cat!

                  

We love reading and our classroom is over flowing with so many wonderful books including fiction and non fiction. What ever you like to read, here in school we will have something for you!

Check us out - enjoying reading at every opportunity we have!

      

Phonics

Phonics will be taught daily for at least 20 minutes a day.  Your child will also have allocated time to visit our school library and will bring a library book home for you to share together.

READING PRACTICE BOOK: this has been carefully matched to your child's current reading level. If your child is reading it with little help, please do not worry that it's too easy - your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading. Listen to them read the book. Remember to give them lots of praise - celebrate their success! If they can't read a word, read it to them. After they have finished, talk about the book together.

SHARING BOOK: In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong learner, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. The sharing book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together. Please remember that you shouldn't expect them to read this on their own. Read it to or with them. Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for characters, explore the facts in the non-fiction books. The main thing is you have fun together!

For more information about your child's phonics, please follow the link:
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/ 

Maths

In Autumn 1, your child will learn to compare and order numbers from 1 to 100. They will recognise the place value of two-digit numbers, and will be able to use this to solve problems. They will also make more use of number lines and will be able to use less than (<), more than (>), and equals (=) symbols.

Use the websites below to support learning. 

• Revise your number bonds, times-tables, doubles and halves:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

• Addition and subtraction number fact families (0-100)

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/number-facts/number-fact-families

• Pick a skill you want to go practise: https://uk.ixl.com/math/year-2

       

         

 Geography

We begun our learning by discussing what makes a home and recapped our Y1 learning on where we live. We have been studying aerial maps of Riddlesden and identified places we are familiar with.  We then explored a giant map of the UK and found places some of us had visited in the holidays. 

        

Plop, the main character from The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark, was lost! We found him in our playground. He needed our help to get back to his family. We learnt how to use locational language to help him find his way back home.

    

   

 We have been learning about continents around the world, linking hot and cold places and making links to science. We recapped animals are suited to different habitats within Geography and explored our big question to dig deeper -  'I wonder what makes a home?'  

                  

We love singing and thoroughly enjoyed the seven continents song:

 

Enrichment

In Music Enrichment, we have been learning to play the glockenspiel and have started to use a metronome to ensure we are all playing in unison to a steady beat. We have been exploring using the scale and thinking about the sounds we can produce. Next, we will build on our skills and work together to produce call and response melodies in pairs.

        

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In Cooking Enrichment, we have been tasting different fruits and exploring where these come from. We've also enjoyed making our own pizzas and couldn't wait to practise our chopping skills. Some of us loved the hummus and some of us hated it!

In Sports Enrichment, we learnt how to play boccia and found out all about the paralympics. We know how to celebrate our differences and to keep using our learning powers to be the best we can be!   

Bikeability

 Year 2 have had the opportunity to practice their cycling skills.  We have worked so hard and so many of us want to continue cycling at home. We have been learning about safety and the importance of wearing helmets when cycling. 

                                                                                                      

 Science

In Science, we are learning about Living Things and Their Habitats and have had the absolute pleasure of being visited by Sean Radcliffe (Chair of the Bradford Ornithological Group) . We were amazed to hear about all the different types of birds Sean had spotted a stone throw away from our school. We spent time in the bird hide and eagerly spotted a variety of birds such as robins, grey tits, blue tits and house sparrows, blackbirds and two carrion crows, a cheeky-looking pigeon and a pheasant flew by! Watch this space to see how our bird feeder project develops.

In addition, we've linked in our Maths skills and identified and classified mini-beasts in our school grounds. We recorded how many we could find using a tally and then created graphs.

                               

We have been exploring the plants in our allotment and went on an Autumn colour matching walk. We have been identifying trees in our grounds from the shapes of the leaves and recapped Year 1 learning on seasons. A huge thank you to Joel for making our science lessons really fun and hands-on and helping us learn some poems!

We've also been pattern-seeking  - thinking about why animals are suited to their habitats. We built a choice chamber to see which conditions are preferred by wood lice. We almost had an escapee and Mr Dion was frantic trying to find it! We've had fun asking questions, comparing our homes to the homes of animals, using our observational skills and exploring our environment. 

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 PE

 This half term, we have been developing our gymnastics skills and are practising rolls, jumps and balances. We have been focusing on coordination and agility, building sequences using apparatus. 

    

 

         

 

       

 Music

 In Music, we have been exploring shadows and darkness, linked to our key text. We have appraised 'Night Ferry' and could imagine the ship crossing the stormy ocean. We took inspiration from Anna to create our own graphic scores to represent our music. We have been using musical vocabulary to appraise our pieces.

 

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 Art

 This half term, we have been learning about Henry Matisse, exploring woodland art. We have been inspired by his fauvist style and created our own artwork. Our families have loved the pieces and we were proud to show off our clay pots at the festival.