Welcome to Life at KPS for Year 2

Mrs Kaur 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.

October 2022

Art

This term the artist that we have been looking at is Aubrey Williams, children have learnt about his background and are able to locate Guyana on the map. Year 2 children have been exposed to William’s art work and have been writing about their opinion on his art. Children have made some interesting reflections and have talked about the bold colours he uses and the fact that his paintings don’t resemble anything it just looks like lots of colours mixed up together. Children have found it interesting to look at an abstract artist as each child interprets his paintings in a different way.

English

We have been focusing on writing a recount of their trip to the Curve. We started the year off with a trip to the Curve in Slough so that children could learn about the history of our local area. In the Curve we went on a tour of the pods which taught us about the history of our local area and how Slough became the way it is. Children started their writing by completing a short burst of their trip. We have been learning about adjectives so that children could use 2A(adjective) sentences in their writing. We also focused on the first, second and third person so that children could understand how to write in first person. Children then learnt about expanded noun phrases and how they can write more interesting sentences using adjectives. As we completed each lesson on a specific academic skill, this drew us towards our final writing piece which was our recount of the trip.

Geography

This term we went on our first trip. We went to the Curve in Slough. Children were looking at their local area and trying to spot signs that they recognised on the way to the curve. Children were introduced to geographical language such as physical and human features and they were able to use these words in their conversations with one another. Children were talking about Slough being a man made place because before the town was built it used to be marshland and a resting place between Bath and London. In the Curve children learnt about Slough’s local history dating back to the 1930’s and explored maps and had the opportunity to visit various pods to see what life was like in the olden days.

Maths

Children have been focusing on place value. We started this topic by looking at tens and ones within 50, counting forwards and backwards using number lines, bead strings and various other equipment. Children then went on to compare numbers to see which numbers were more than, less than and equal to using the correct symbols to justify their reasoning. We played interactive games to further embed their mathematical learning. Once children became familiar with using the correct symbols we then introduced ordering numbers from biggest to smallest and vice versa. This month children have also started to learn how to read and write numbers up to 100 in numbers as well as words. Children have also learnt songs which help them to remember how to count in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s.

Panjabi

We have been learning 2 sets of Panjabi letters and their corresponding sounds. Children have been using these letters and their words beginning with these letters like (A AK, s syb h hQ …). Children are also beginning to make Mukta words with these letter sounds and know which words are called Mukta words. In this term we have also been learning the names of the body parts in Panjabi. To make our learning more interesting children have been using actions and flash cards to remember the names of their body parts in Panjabi.

PSHE

This month children have been learning about ‘being me’. We started the term off by identifying our hopes and fears for the year so that we could look back at these in the near future and see how we have progressed towards these.  We continued our being me topic by discussing our rights and responsibilities as a year 2 student and what it means to be part of a class/community. We played an interactive game which highlighted how it feels to be left out or to leave people out knowingly which children understood very easily. Children then learned about how different behaviours can result in rewards and consequences and how these can be perceived differently by those around them.

RE

We have been focusing on Christianity. We started the topic with a discussion around our enquiry question, ‘Is it possible to be kind to everyone all of the time?’ This led to some interesting conversation between children, they spoke about who they found it easy to be kind to and when they may have faced hardship and had to be kind to people that were perhaps unkind to them. We used a puppet scenario to role play situations where children would find it hard to be kind to each other. We included our Khalsa values and talked about showing compassion towards others. We looked at the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan and how Jesus heals a paralysed man. We used these stories to talk about Jesus’s kindness towards others and the reasons why he showed kindness towards everyone regardless of whether they were kind or unkind towards Him. Children were also introduced to the idea of ‘loving your neighbour as yourself’, showing kindness towards everyone.

Science

Children have been looking at healthy living and what it means to be healthy. Children have been introduced to the 5 foods groups and have used venn diagrams and carroll diagrams to sort food into the correct category. We have also discussed that living a healthy lifestyle involves drinking plenty of water as well as doing exercise daily. Children took part in an experiment, where they measured their heart beat before and after certain exercises. They were able to talk about their findings using their results recorded in their tables. Some children were able to explain that they felt hot after doing the exercise and others were saying they felt that their heart was about to ‘pop out’ of their chest, it was beating so fast. We also looked at how we can keep our bodies healthy and clean, children talked about the importance of personal hygiene. We also carried out an experiment to see how quickly germs could spread.

Sikh Studies

Children have been learning about Guru Nanak Dev Ji as part of a topic to learn the teachings of each of the Gurus. Pupils explored the life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji by watching a short-animated movie about Guru Ji and deriving facts from watching the short movie. After children discussed the life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji shown in the video and then they wrote the facts they learnt about the first Guru. Along with that they also wrote any story about Guru Nanak Dev Ji from the ones they saw in the animation.