Maple Tree- Year 2 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Maple Tree Class!     

We hope you all had wonderful break with your friends and family, and are looking forward to our last term together. Below you will find some reminders and useful information to support your child throughout this term. We do try to stick to these weekly routines whenever possible and will always notify you if there are any changes to the schedule.

Please also use your log in to Google Classrooms and use the links to some of the games the children can play.

We also try hard to update our class Twitter feed regularly with photos and tweets of things we have been getting up to in class! Please follow us :  @MapleTree_GSP

If for whatever reason you have any questions or queries about the term ahead, then please do not hesitate to contact any of us through the school office or speak to us on the gate.

Mrs Williams, Mrs Franklin, Miss Ellis & Mrs Pearson

Curriculum Information                

Maths

Our Maths topics for the Summer Term include: Mass, Capacity & Temperature; Fractions; Time; Statistics and Position & Direction. The children will continue focusing upon improving their measurement skills at 

first, before using their knowledge and understanding of multiplication and division to recognise and calculate fractions. We will then be learning to tell the time to 5-minute intervals using analogue clocks, use pictograms to represent data and create patterns with shapes turning position.

English

Throughout the term in our English lessons, the children will explore a range of stimuli to inspire and engage their writing. They will start with 'The Last Wolf,' firstly, focusing on making predictions and drawing inferences, then as they progress, they will apply their knowledge of expanded noun phrases, adverbs, tenses, and conjunctions to create different types of writing. A key focus in this final term will be encouraging independent writing and self-editing, where children will review their drafts, correcting spelling and grammar mistakes and finding ways to improve their first drafts.

 Developing reading is a top priority in Year 2 and we aim to hear your child read individually and as a group. We also provide many other opportunities to read in school too. However, we also need your help! Please aim to listen to your child read at least three times a week and sign their journal every time they read. Please record comments on how well they have done or any questions you may have.  If your child reads at least three times a week, they will receive a raffle ticket and be entered into a prize draw to be our reading champion at the end of each term. Once the children have completed their reading book and the journal has been signed, the children can choose a new book to bring home. Children can therefore change their book regularly but it is up to them to go and get a new one!

Science

This term for Science, the children will be learning about ‘Living Things & Their Habitats’. This topic investigates food chains, local and micro-habitats and mini beasts. The children will continue to focus on developing their working scientifically skills alongside deepening their knowledge and understanding.

History

This term in History, we will explore the question: 'Why were Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong brave explorers?' The children will learn about these two important figures, their achievements, and the lasting impact their explorations have had on the world today.

Geography

Our last Geography unit is called: ‘Where can I go?’. The children will be discovering where the UK is within the world. They will be using maps, atlases and globes to locate the continents and oceans and some of the countries and landmarks that make them significant.

Useful Information

·   As before, homework will be set on a Friday and is to be returned to school by the following Wednesday. If you require any help or support with this, please just ask. 

·   Last term, we introduced TimesTables Rockstar to support the children’s learning and the children all have their own individual login, which can be found in the front of their school planners. We hope the children are enjoying playing the games at home to help conosoldiate their understandign and aid their speed recall of the 2s, 5s and 10s multiplication facts. Hit the Button is also aan online game we use in school: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

·   As you will know our school has also invested in Numbots, an app produced by the makers of Time Tables Rockstars. This app supports children’s quick recall of addition and subtraction facts and we are encouraging children to play this alongside Times Tables Rockstars.

·   Spellings will be uploaded to Google classroom on Fridays as usual. The children will then be tested on them the following Friday.As before, spellings will focus on either a particular spelling rule/pattern or will be taken from the Year 2 statutory word list.Please try to help your child to look at these words, pointing out any particular patterns that will help them to remember them. Many children find learning spellings very challenging so this should be low key and a fun few minutes.

·   This term, our PE is on a Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday is our outdoor session and Friday is our indoor session. As in previous years, children can come to school in their PE kits. Please ensure children are in their correct kit : a dark hoodie, their coloured t-shirt and dark leggings/joggers and they have their hair tied back and are wearing no jewellery.

Useful Links

Please find some useful links below.