Year 2

Topic related books you can read

Spring Term 1 Cracking

1) Traction Man- Mini Grey
2) Machine Poetry- Nick Sharratt & Jill Bennet
3) Traction man and Turbo Dog Comics
4) Toy Museum – David Lucas.

If you do not have these books at home, you can often find these stories free on YouTube

Contraptions
by typing the title into the book but please watch them through first. The ones with the
actual pages of words are best. Listen to them together and then play them on mute so
your child can practice their reading with expression.

Good year 2 books to read regularly to help your child work towards
the Y2 standard.
The Day the Crayons Quit.
Y2 Standard texts
How to hide a lion
A Squash and a Squeeze and other texts by Julia Donaldson. You can support your child by:
 Listening to your child read regularly.
Challenging Y2 texts  Completing some of the homework projects sent home.
 Asking them questions about what they have read and modelling full sentence answers.
Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
  Asking them what they think new words might mean in the sentence it is given in and finding out together if they Science – explore how materials can change shape. They will be finding out about the properties of different materials such as
are unsure. elasticity, strength, flexibility, rigidity, texture, transparency etc. You could explore whether you can change the shape of
 Playing spelling games to practice the common exception words for year 2. materials found around the house – e.g. by squashing, twisting, freezing, melting, bending, stretching, cooling, heating.)
 Practicing telling the time (to the quarter hour initially) as much as possible. Investing in a cheap watch can be a The children will discuss which materials are suitable and unsuitable for different purposes (e.g. glass is very good for windows
great way to get your child interested in the time. but not very good for making a football and metal is good for a spade but paper wouldn’t be. Look at their toys and the furniture
Curriculum Coverage around the house – What are things made of? Why? Which other materials would be suitable? Which materials would not be
English (Writing) suitable?
Over the term the children will write for a range of purposes – to describe, to advertise, to inform, to recount and to instruct.
These will all be based around the theme ‘Cracking Contraptions’ PE –learn new gymnastic skills. The children will learn how to carry out different kinds of rolls safely such as a forward roll, pencil
They will revisit… roll and teddy bear note. Children will learn a variety of balances and will learn to travel in different ways. Children will continue
 Letter formation, starting and finishing in the correct places in preparation for joining. to work on their swimming skills.
 Where letters sit on the line, which parts of some letters hang under the line and which letters stand up taller than
others. We will be looking out for a distinction between a n and a h and between capital letters and short lowercase
letters such as the vowels. Computing – We will be learning about algorithms and how they are used to make toys to move. We will be inputting algorithms
 Marking the start and end of sentences with a capital letter and a full stop. into a robot to make it move and debugging (editing and improving) them. Here are some algorithms that we use every day.
 Using th, f and v accurately when spelling words. Check out the make your child a robot activity on the website below. Create your own sets of instructions for a robot to teach
 Leaving finger spaces between their words. them how to make a sandwich, crossing the road, getting ready for bed, playing hide and seek, getting dressed, wash your hands,
 The different sentence types taught in Year 1. taking the pet out, deal cards, draw something, direct a toy to another location, get ready for swimming, build a snowman.
They will also learn how to…
 Join clauses/ ideas with a variety of conjunctions including and, or, that, when, if, because and but. https://www.theschoolrun.com/what-is-an-algorithm
 Choose interesting words to make their work more effective.
 Punctuate questions accurately.
 Use the possessive apostrophe for singular nouns e.g. The man’s hair is short and brown.
 Use the aprostrophe to mark contractions such as I’m, can’t, didn’t wouldn’t.
 Write commands using imperative verbs (bossy words) e.g. Push the enormous, red button.
 Spell some of the common exception words for Y2 and how to use other common spelling rules.
 Add the +ed suffix to put verbs in the past tense and the + ly suffix.

English (Reading)
 In guided reading, the children will practice using their phonics to decode the texts they read.
 They will practise reading the common exception words for Y2. These are the words that break the rules. (See
attached sheets) e.g. In the word ‘pretty’ the e makes an i sound. Children will also participate in an e-safety workshop at school with their class and later in the day there will be an additional e-
 They will practise reading words of 2 or more syllables. It would be helpful to clap the names of people in your safety workshop for parents.
family to work out how many syllables there are.
 The children will stop mid book to predict what might happen next before reading on. They need to think about History – We will be using photos and drama to ask questions and tell stories from the past. We will be looking at the toys
what has happened so far and use those clues to decide what is likely. people had in the past and toys we have now. We will be ordering toys in chronological order.
 The children will be thinking about how characters might be feeling even if it doesn’t say in the text. They need to
think about what has happened to the characters so far.
 Children will develop a toolkit with which to tackle reading comprehension activities. PSHE – We will be learning how to keep money safe and we will be thinking about spending money and saving money.
Maths
Over the term the children will be focussing on understanding number through addition and subtraction and place value.
They will also learn how to…
 Compare and order numbers from largest to smallest and smallest to largest.
 Work out the difference between 2 numbers by looking at how many more another number is than the other.
 Use these symbols + - x ÷
 Add and subtract numbers using concrete objects, pictorial representations, and mentally, including: a two-digit
number and ones; a two-digit number and tens; two two-digit numbers; adding three one-digit numbers
 Learn to interpret charts and graphs

When talking about numbers talk to your child about how many finished tens it is and how much extra is it . e.g. 52 is 5 finished
tens and 2 more ones.

Other Subjects - Children will