Welcome to Life at KPS for Year 2

Mrs Sandhu and Mrs Birring warmly welcome you to Year 2.

The aim of this page is to highlight some of the fantastic learning that has been happening in Year 2, this page will be updated monthly, with photographs and information about the learning we have completed during the month.

We hope you enjoy looking through these updates and do discuss your child’s learning with them to celebrate their success. We look forward to any suggestions you may have to make your child’s learning a pleasant experience.

January 2022

Art

Children in year 2 have been introduced to cubism and we have been looking at some work by Pablo Picasso. Children have enjoyed learning some facts about him and have found his styles of drawing and painting fascinating. Children have been using different sketching and drawing techniques to draw still life and other various objects. Children are beginning to explore techniques such as hatching, cross hatching and stippling. We have started looking at objects from different angles and children are beginning to move around the table to draw the same objects from different points of view.

English

In English we have moved onto learning about Famous People this term. To start the topic, the children have been introduced to Neil Armstrong – the famous American astronaut to land on the moon in 1969. In order to understand his life journey and how he was able to achieve such an amazing feat, the children sequenced his main events on a timeline. They then had the chance to act out the famous moon landing made by the team in their very own role-play area which has transformed into a spacecraft. Some children have been inspired to the point that they would like to grow up to be astronauts and perhaps travel to Mars.

Maths

Children have begun the term by interpreting arrays and exploring commutativity: ‘I see 4 groups of 5’ writing this as ‘5 + 5 + 5 + 5’ and ‘I see 5 groups of 4’ writing this as ‘4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4’ emphasising how ‘the whole is 20’ in both cases. They have also started making sense of the abstract multiplication symbol by first activating prior knowledge of repeated addition, to allow a meaningful introduction to ‘equal groups’. There have been opportunities for them to create both concrete and pictorial representations of arrays and make connections to ‘part-whole’ representations by modelling the associated language.

Music

The children have been linking their music learning to their topic of Neil Armstrong and Space.

They have learnt to sing the song about Neil Armstrong and have added actions to help them consolidate the lyrics and melody.

As well as singing they have listened to Mars and Venus from the Planet Suite composed by Gustav Holst

They have added an ostinato (repeated pattern) Mars by repeating the rhythm

‘Strawberry Jam and Chocolate cake’.

They have responded to tempo, dynamics, pitch and instrumentation of the music.

Panjabi

The main focus of this term has and will be on Guru Nanak Dev Ji because we are celebrated the Prakash Dehara of Dhan Dhan Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji. We have been learning the story of The True Bargain and following that the 3 golden rules of life given to us by Guru Nanak Dev Ji. After reading the story we discussed the plot and the lessons that can be learnt from the story. We then shared our learning with each other in the class by giving each other examples. To remember the order of story children were using the different pictures from the story and they were putting them in order and were saying a sentence in Panjabi. Children leant the one of the teaching of Guru Nanak Dev Ji (Wand ke shakna) from this story and took part in Langer sewa.

Physical Education

In PE, children in Y2 have been learning to play Dodgeball!  They have been practicing the skills needed to play the sport by taking part in target practice games and drills designed to improve awareness.

Dodgeball is a team sport in which you have to move out of the way of balls being thrown at you from the opposition team.  If a ball hits your body you are out and your team wins the game when all the players on the opposition team are out.

Children will be working on quick footwork skills and teamwork to improve on their game play.  These skills are transferable to many other team and individual sports and we will be discussing this in our lessons.

PSHE

Healthy eating is a big part of our everyday living and children in year 2 have been looking at the importance of having a healthy balanced lifestyle. Children have enjoyed talking about the different foods that they should eat on a daily basis and also some foods which they should eat as treats once in a while. It has been very interesting to hear how we can keep our bodies healthy not just by what we eat but also by the clothes we wear. Children have been discussing the importance of keeping our bodies warm in this cold weather and making sure we wear gloves and a scarf. However, some children have been talking about wearing sunscreen in the summer when the sun is out so that our skin doesn’t burn. In year 2 we have been talking about using kind words to make others feel happy and being resilient and not giving up.

Religious Education

Children in year 2 have started to learn about Judaism. We looked at various symbols in the environment and had a lengthy discussion about what symbols mean and represent. To develop children’s learning about Judaism we looked at significant symbols in the Jewish religion and what they signify. We looked at religious artefacts such as the ‘kippah’, which is the traditional skull cap worn by Jewish men and boys when they go to the synagogue to pray. Children enjoyed looking at the ‘Menorah’, which is an old traditional candlestick that represents the traditional story of Hannukah in the Jewish faith. Some children had some interesting discussions about the star of David and have linked it back to their own experiences talking about events when they have seen it on Synagogues’ and other places. Children have also been looking at synagogue’s and what things they may find inside, labelling the different parts.

Science

Having a balanced diet is very important to being healthy and fit. To start the term children enjoyed taking part in a science experiment, where we measured the speed of our heart when we were sitting down compared to when we did a bleep test outside and ran around the playground. Children has interesting conversations about whose heart was faster!

Children have been talking about healthy and unhealth food and have started to talk about the different food groups and the importance of not eating too much food from one group.

Sikh Studies

This term children having been learning about the story of Mai Bhago and the ‘Chali Mukhte’ (40 Liberated Ones). Children watched short scenes from the animated movie ‘Chaar Sahibzaade’ that relate to the ‘Chali Mukhte’ and then also a PowerPoint explaining the story in more detail. Children then completed a storyboard explaining the Sakhi in their own words using key vocabulary and pictures from the movie. The children learnt new Punjabi words from the story and also saw examples of real-life women today who are trying to be fit and strong like Mai Bhago was.