Year 2
Welcome to Year 2, Summer Term 2021
Can you guess what our topic theme is this term?
Year 2 will be 'On the Farm', thinking about the journey of food from field to fork as we learn all about farming in the UK and overseas. We will explore the science of plants and grow our own vegetables - using them to design and make healthy meals. We will also examine food waste and hope to visit the city farm later in the term.
To find out more about the term ahead, please read the curriculum poster and letter below.
Congratulations to Eve who has been awarded the honour of Year 2 Star of the Year. In a class of superstars, this truly is an honour. Well done Eve!
It was a very special day in Year 2 today as the children were presented with their ties ready for their transition to KS2 in September. They are beaming with pride and are certainly ready for the next step in their St Andrew’s journey. Well done everyone!
Listen to our young author, Erin, as she confidently shares her story of The Guinea Pig that Laid Golden Hay!
Join Eve for story time as she reads her book “The Octopus Who Squirted Crabs”.
Have you ever seen a horse that can fly? Holly reads her book aloud. Enjoy!
KS1 Sports Day: we managed to have a fun afternoon of sport in our bubbles. This year each class took part in various relay challenges to earn point for their team. Congratulations to the YELLOW team who scored the most points overall!
Today we enjoyed the second of our book events funded by the National Literact Trust and British Land. We were lucky to have a virtual author visit with storyteller, Wendy Shearer and poet, Dominic Berry. They had very different styles, but as you can see from the children’s faces, they were captivated. What a beautiful way to encourage and inspire our children to read!
In D.T we have designed and made our own healthy sandwiches. The process has taken a few weeks - this is how we did it.
Step 1: We learned about health and safety rules when cooking, then we practised using tools carefully. We learned to slice, chop, grate and peel.
Step 2: We tasted different foods and designed our healthy sandwiches.
Step 3: We prepared our sandwiches using the skills we have learned.
Step 4: Finally we could eat our sandwiches! We had a picnic under the trees. Yummy! Now we will evaluate our sandwiches and think about what we could improve next time.
16.06.21: Inspired by the work of Van Gogh, Year 2 have started their own still life artwork of sunflowers. Here are some of our initial sketches. I’m sure you’ll agree that they are fabulous! Click on each image to enlarge it.
15.06.21: In English today, our focus was on reading with expression, using punctuation and context to change our voices and engage the listener. Here is just one short snippet from a class of very talented readers.
14.06.21: A BIG THANKYOU to the National Literacy Trust and British Land (Drake Circus) for helping us to foster a love of reading for pleasure. Today we had the first of three special events - a fun book character hunt. The children also spent time choosing their own brand new book to take home and read tonight. We feel very lucky!
08.06.21: After weeks of research, planning, editing and presenting, Year 2 have finished their healthy eating posters. Each one is unique and shows the children's own work. The enthusiasm they have shown in creating these has been exceptional. We'll be displaying these around school so that other children can learn about healthy eating.
The sunshine has arrived so today we celebrated a term of kindness with a little playtime treat. Yum!
26.05.21: Look at the variety of flowering plants we discovered in our school today ... we were surprised at how many we found, from the tiny Speedwell to the huge Euphorbia.
Ralphie and George work brilliantly together to show a seed being planted then growing into a plant and dying before the seed head explodes!
Aidan and Mrs Tamblyn use dance to show the lifecycle of a plant - their movements are so synchronised. Well done!
Vivian and Preston perform their dance, showing the life cycle of a plant. I love their seed dispersal!
13.05.21: We are creating posters to teach children at St Andrew’s about ‘Healthy Eating’. We’ve each written 4 key questions which will form the basis of our posters and today we started gathering information from books and film clips. Keep your eyes peeled for our finished work!
12.05.21: Today we started to explore the life and art of Vincent Van Gogh. We looked at some of his early paintings of farmers in Holland and compared them to his later work. We learned that he often painted outdoors and needed to work quickly, so he used quick strokes of the brush and thick paints to build create texture. We experimented with pastels, crayons and felt pens to create similar effects.
10.05.21: Farmyard fraction fun! We consolidated all our fractions work this morning with a fun maths challenge. We had to follow the instructions and used bar models or arrays to sort out the animals correctly. Here are just a couple of examples of our finished farms.
07.05.21: Raising money for the NSPCC while having fun with maths! We completed Buddy's Key Challenge, played 'Who Wants to be a Mathionaire?', discovered maths in our geography lesson and worked hard on some tricky coding. We even squeezed in a ukulele lesson with Miss Smith!
21.04.21: Today Year 2 became botanical illustrators, capturing the beauty of a range of plants from tulips and bluebells, to tree blossom and an exotic amaryllis. Their effort, care and attention to detail is plain to see. Well done everyone!
Welcome to Year 2, Spring Term 2021
It felt truly wonderful to be able to welcome the children back to school last week - we have all been smiling from ear to ear! Year 2 have quickly settled back into their daily routines and have been extremely happy to see their friends. We look forward to a few weeks of learning before the Easter break and will work hard to help the children make sense of the disruption they have faced over the last year.
Please email me on sapssenco@st-andrews.plymouth.sch.uk or call the school on 01752 201660 if you need to discuss anything.
Best wishes to you all.
Miss Lewis and the Year 2 team 
Happy Mother's Day to all our amazing Year 2 mums... you are everyday superheroes and we love you lots 
These quirky animals will make you smile. Year 2 created and described some rather unusual creatures as part of their independent English challenge this week.
Year 2 rocketed back to the early 1970s this week to explore toys inspired by the first moon walk in 1969. Look at the wonderful space themed toys they have created...
Open this link to see Aidan talk about the spacecraft he designed and built. Amazing oracy skills Aidan!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WfrrQ4IoZFxfv-xkPW8w178vT44DG6Sg/view?usp=sharing
Can you name all the 2D shapes in our Year 2 shape show?
This week we've enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year celebrations. Here is a selection of our work for you to enjoy as this special festival approaches.
Are you ready for the dragon dance?
Chinese Zodiac Riddles: Guess the animal!
This week we were inspired by Kit Wright's poem; The Magic Box. We designed magic boxes linked to our feelings and emotions and filled them with an incredible collection of thoughtful, imaginative and personal items. We hope you enjoy reading our finished poems (click on the image to enlarge it).
This week Year 2 have been expressing themselves as part of Children's Mental Health Awareness Week. We've explored yoga, mood music, mindfulness and poetry. We've made glitter jars, worry monsters and worry dolls and even written positive affirmations.
This week Year 2 have gone back in time to the 1950s to create some highly original 'Mr Potato Heads'! Some of you have also been busy bird watching for the RSPB. I'm so proud of all your hard work Year 2 - you are superstars! 🤩
Another busy week in Year 2! Thank you for sending in your photos. I am so very proud of all your hard work and I love to see what you've been doing.
Eve demonstrates how to play with a Victorian cup and ball toy. She makes it look easy!
Let's celebrate the work of some proud poets in Year 2! Click each image to enlarge the poems.
From Art, to Science, to cardboard box creations, here's a flavour of some of this week's amazing home learning!
Here's Fred's cardboard box creation!
08.01.21: Well done to everyone in Year 2 for all the effort you have put into Home Learning this week. Here are the first few completed poems based on Trevor Millum's poem 'What's in the Toybox?' I am so impressed with your imaginative ideas and the quality of your vocabulary. Great work!
Here's a treat... Fred reads aloud his completed poem. Click the link to watch.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CXZcz_79axLqy8bLbk3w_W6dAgno-UC_/view?usp=sharing
Welcome to Year 2, Autumn Term 2020
Our cross curricular topic this term is ‘Where We Live’ as detailed on the curriculum poster below. We will be exploring both the geography and history of our local area, and thinking about its location within the South West and United Kingdom. We plan to take the children on some trips, within the immediate vicinity of the Hoe and Barbican to support their learning in art, geography and science. We will teach them how to use simple maps and plans and see things from a ‘bird’s eye view’. We also want to develop the children’s sense of community and help them find ways to be good citizens.
Check this page regularly to see what we've been up to and to keep up to date with class news.
Merry Christmas from Year 2!
Click on the links below to enjoy our festive singing.
Away in a Manger
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RorOdFFrN1p9atU9WJ7KxGKazMDeQbFO/view?usp=sharing
It was on a Starry Night
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17zFU54WFtmJmGcMpv4IwLO6GRInjaAzk/view?usp=sharing
In Year 2 we are learning to choose the most efficient strategies when calculating. Here are the first of our addition ‘masterclasses’!
Olly shows us how to use a visual tens and units approach.
09.12.20: This afternoon we practised the skill of prediction in science. We predicted whether plasticine would sink or float, then tried to change its shape to make if float (we looked at the shape of Mr Grinling’s boat to help us!)
Here are Julia and Jasper’s results. You can really see the different shapes.
A few action shots from today’s basketball lesson...
Brooke and David worked really well in a team. Look how well they can dribble the basketball.
08.12.20: What a calm afternoon we had today, adding the final details to our paintings of Plymouth Hoe. The children showed incredible focus and great control when painting at such a small scale.
With the arrival of December and some suitably chilly weather, Year 2 have started to get festive...
Santa Claus is coming to town!
18.11.20: Science was great fun today! We were sending Mr Grinling’s lunch basket down a rope, but he was very hungry so we needed to help it travel faster. We thought about the variables we could change and decided to test 3 different ropes.
Watch the basket speed down the rope ...
11.11.20: We’ve all made a model lighthouse and in science today we thought about how we could make it light up. We were given a battery, two wires with crocodile clips and a bulb and had to find a way to light the bulb. It was very tricky, but eventually we did it! We learned lots of new words, like circuit, connect, bulb, battery.
11.11.20: We all made a poppy and created a beautiful wreath to commemorate Armistice Day.
Today we continued to develop our art skills, using the work of Brian Pollard to inspire us. Take a look at our drawings...
Meet our very proud Year 2 School Council representatives, Holly and Brodie. Following class presentations they received the most votes.
We’ve been exploring the work of local artist, Brian Pollard. Today we have been experimenting with different paints to try and replicate his bold, bright colours. We discovered that poster paints were the best and that we shouldn’t use too much water!
Although we couldn’t leave school to explore rock pools, we had a very exciting time discovering various plants and animals hidden within micro habitats in the school grounds.
