Sycamore
Year 2
Mrs Taylor and Mrs Liddell
Miss Velzian
Welcome to the Sycamore class page! Here you will find lots of information about what we are doing this term as well as information about our routines, PE days and our weekly 'Star of the Week'! Firstly, let me give you some information about myself:
Teacher Bio
Mrs Taylor
I am now going into my 16th year of teaching and am very excited for the year ahead. I have three daughters, a husband and a guinea pig at home which keeps me quite busy! When I have a bit of time to myself, I love to visit my family, bake cakes or go running. I really appreciated some of you cheering me on when I ran the Bracknell half marathon recently. I have always loved reading. When I was younger my favourite author was Dick-King Smith and I really loved his 'Sophie' books.
Home Sweet Home!
This term we will be learning all about what it is like to live in Bracknell. We have already got started by looking at an aerial photograph of the school, then a plan perspective and then starting to create our own maps. We have had lots of fun making up maps of our dream schools!
Our Learning
Class Routines
School gates open at 8:40 and the day finishes at 3:10. Our main classroom door for the start and end of the school day is Sycamore class door, inside the KS1 outside area.
Our regular PE lessons are as follows: Tuesday
On these days, children should come to school wearing their PE kit. We will also be doing a daily run and engaging with outdoor play in our self-led learning. Please send in wellies for pupils to keep at school for outdoor learning.
We will change reading books on Mondays and Thursdays. Please make sure your child has their reading book in school every day.
Meet the Teacher Presentation
Home Sweet Home
English: In English, we will focussing on developing writing stamina. We will be using the story The Everywhere Bear to help with this. Later in the term, we will have a go at writing some letters.
Maths: We will be working on developing our knowledge of place value for numbers up to one hundred. We will also start working on addition and subtraction calculations.
Science: We will learn all about the properties of different materials and their everyday uses. We will consider what makes them suitable for the jobs they do.
Geography: We will learn how to read and how to create maps. We will carry out some geographical fieldwork to helps us think about ways to improve our local area.
History: We will find out about some of the key events in the history of Bracknell.
Art: We will revisit our self-portrait skills.
DT: We will learn some simple sewing techniques which we will use to create our own puppets.
PE: In our PE lessons with Mr O'Keefe we will be focusing on the skill of dodging.
PSHE: Our sessions this term will focus on developing good behaviours for learning.
Knowledge Organiser
Year 2 Common Exception Words
Homework
Our expectations for homework are as follows:
Weekly
Reading: Reading aloud with an adult progressing to more independent reading as often as possible.
Home Learning Activity: Complete the weekly Maths, Spelling and Reading activity. This will be handed out on a Friday and will be due the next Thursday.
The following link has videos which will help you to support your child with the maths tasks: https://whiteroseeducation.com/parent-pupil-resources/maths/home-learning?year=year-2-new
Half-Termly
Project: Each half term, children are expected to complete a project that is linked to their current topic.
End-of-Year
Spellings: Children should be able to spell all words on the Statutory Word Lists for year 1/2.
Times Tables: Children should be able to count in 2s, 5s, 10s, 3s. they will begin to learn 2, 5, 10x tables by heart.
Recommended Websites:
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button - quickfire number games to help children learn basic number facts
http://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/ - Number games to reinforce the concept of place value
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/ks1-collection/zbr4scw - Fun songs with actions to teach many learning concepts in English, Maths and other subjects. This is my new favourite resource!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ks1-english/z67ncqt - Loads of story telling, poetry and punctuation short films to watch.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ks1-maths/zhng7nb - Useful Maths short films to watch. Fractions and telling the time would be particularly good ones to try.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/addition-and-subtraction - Games from any of the Maths categories will really help your child practise skills they have learnt at school.
http://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/spookySpellings/index.html - great game for learning common exception words.