Autumn 1 Week 6: wb 05.10.26
What another fantastic week we have had in Year 2! We have been busy learning across the curriculum and have enjoyed lots of exciting opportunities to develop our skills, get creative and work together. Here is a little look at what we have been getting up to this week!

In Writing, we have continued our learning linked to our text, A River by Marc Martin. We have been working towards writing a warning letter to Tom, the boy travelling along the river, to warn him about the dangers he might encounter in the different settings. We began by looking at an example text and identifying the important features of a letter. We have also been learning how to use possessive apostrophes, command sentences and conjunctions, as well as writing in the first person. We have really enjoyed getting started with our letters and thinking carefully about the different dangers Tom might face on his journey. We have been working hard to include all the features we have learnt about and are becoming increasingly confident writers!

In Maths, we have been developing our addition and subtraction skills. We have been adding and subtracting ones and exploring how we can add by making ten. We have also been practising adding across tens by using our number bonds to help us find the next multiple of ten. We have used tens frames and a range of practical equipment to support our learning and help us understand how numbers can be partitioned and recombined. We have been working hard to explain our mathematical thinking and use what we already know to solve trickier calculations.

In Phonics, we have been exploring the different ways of making the ‘oi’ and ‘ow’ sounds. We have been looking carefully at how the same grapheme can sometimes make different sounds, including ‘ow’ as in ‘now’ and the alternative pronunciation as in ‘snow’. We have enjoyed spotting these different sounds in words and practising our reading and spelling.

In RE, we have been learning about the sacred book of Islam, the Qur’an. We discovered that Muslims believe the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Jibril (Gabriel). We explored what the Qur’an is and looked at some of its important features, learning more about why it is so special to Muslims and how it is treated with great respect.

In PSHE, we have been exploring bullying and thinking carefully about what bullying actually means. We discussed how bullying involves repeated behaviour that hurts or upsets someone and considered the different forms it can take. We also talked about what we should do if we see someone being bullied and how important it is to tell a trusted adult and support others. We have been thinking about how we can all help to make our classroom and school a kind, safe and happy place to be.

Our artists have had a very exciting week as we finally got to make our African-inspired tiles using clay! We loved exploring the clay and using the slip and score technique to join and shape our designs. We carefully created our patterns and textures, thinking about how we could bring our original designs to life. As we have used air-drying clay, our tiles are now drying and we can't wait to see how they look once they are ready!

In Science, we have been writing our conclusions for our investigation into whether plants need light to grow and germinate. We observed the plants we had placed in different conditions and were fascinated by what we discovered! We found that the seed in the dark cupboard was still able to germinate and grow, showing us that light is not essential for germination. However, the plant that had grown in the cupboard was very pale and yellow, and it was beginning to look unhealthy. Interestingly, it had grown taller than the plant on the windowsill, which made us wonder whether it had been growing towards the light! The plant that had been in the sunlight was lovely and green, with healthy stems, and was looking much stronger. We used our observations to help us write our conclusions and understand that although seeds can germinate without light, plants need light to grow healthily.

In Geography, we have been learning about the seas surrounding the United Kingdom. We practised naming and locating the different seas on a map and thought carefully about their positions around the UK. We found it fascinating to discover more about the geography of our own country and have been developing our map skills along the way.

We were very lucky this week as Year 4 had a workshop, which meant we got to enjoy a gymnastics session with Miss Winward! We absolutely loved the opportunity to try out some different movements and develop our gymnastic skills. In PE, we also got the apparatus out and enjoyed taking part in a large-scale sensory circuit. We had great fun exploring the different equipment, including the ropes, and challenging ourselves in lots of different ways!

With Mr Richards, we have continued our ukulele learning in Music. We are developing our confidence with our instruments and continuing to practise our musical skills.

In Computing, we have been exploring how to use a keyboard. We have been learning about the different keys and practising how to use them to support our work on the computer. We are becoming more confident using technology and developing our computing skills.

We also took part in Hello Yellow this week to mark World Mental Health Day. We enjoyed wearing yellow accessories and taking part in this special event to raise awareness of mental health. We talked about the importance of looking after our mental health, being kind to ourselves and others, and remembering that it is always okay to talk to someone if we need help or support.

What a wonderful week of learning we have had in Year 2! We have enjoyed getting creative with our writing and artwork, investigating plants, developing our mathematical skills and exploring lots of new ideas across the curriculum. We are so proud of everyone's enthusiasm, curiosity and hard work. Well done, Year 2 — keep up the fantastic work, and we look forward to another exciting week ahead!

Autumn 1 Week 5: wb- 28.09.26

What another fantastic week we have had in Year 2! We have been incredibly busy learning, exploring and having lots of fun across all areas of our curriculum. We have also had some very special visitors and experiences this week! Here is a little look at what we have been getting up to. In our class worship, we have been exploring our British Value of Tolerance and discussed equity. This led us onto a discussion about being visually impaired and some of the recent adaptations the children can see around school. Miss Bateson brought us the brailler and we enjoyed learning how to write our first initial. We also enjoyed feeling some braille too. 

In Writing, we have started our second outcome linked to our text, A River by Marc Martin. This time, we are going to be writing warning letters to Tom, the boy who travels along the river, warning him about the dangers he might encounter in the different settings. We have been exploring different vocabulary and thinking carefully about how we can up-level our word choices. We have learnt words such as ‘voyage’ and ‘vessel’ and have been using these to make our writing more interesting. We have also made lists of the different dangers Tom might encounter in each setting. Today, we have started writing sentences using subordinating conjunctions to explain why certain things might be dangerous. We are really enjoying developing our writing skills and becoming more adventurous with our vocabulary!

We have also had a very exciting week celebrating our love of books and poetry! We were incredibly lucky to visit Westholme School to meet the wonderful author Lauren Child. We were privileged to hear Lauren read her newest book and celebrate 25 years of Charlie and Lola. We all had a fantastic time and were inspired to become authors ourselves! We loved listening to Lauren and finding out more about her life as an author.

Thursday was also National Poetry Day, and we were very excited to be joined by poet Paul Jenkins. He led a hilarious assembly which had us all laughing before joining us for a class workshop. This year's theme is ‘I Wonder’, so we worked together to write our own I Wonder poems. We had some fantastic ideas and really enjoyed using our imaginations to create our own poetry. What a wonderful way to celebrate National Poetry Day!

In Maths, we have started our new unit on addition and subtraction. We have been revisiting our number bonds to 10 and using these to create fact families with addition and subtraction facts to 20. We have then explored related facts and thought carefully about how knowing one fact can help us work out another. For example, if we know that 16 + 4 = 20, we know that 4 + 16 = 20 because addition is commutative. We also know the related subtraction facts because subtraction is the inverse of addition. We have also started exploring number bonds to 100 in tens and have been thinking about how our number bonds to 10 can help us with these larger numbers.

In Phonics, we have been exploring the different ways we can make the /o/ sound, as in ‘snow’. We have been spotting these different sounds in words and practising reading and spelling them accurately. We have been working hard to apply our phonics knowledge when reading and writing.

In RE, we have been learning about the sacred book of Judaism, the Tanakh, also known as the Hebrew Bible. We have discovered that the first five books are called the Torah and have also learnt about the Sefer Torah. We explored how the Torah is celebrated and read in the synagogue and found out about the tradition of reading the entire Torah. We have enjoyed learning more about this important part of Jewish worship.

In PSHE, we have been thinking about what makes a good friend. We have discussed the qualities that make a good friendship and thought carefully about how we can show kindness, care and respect towards others.

Our artists have been designing their own African-inspired tiles this week. We have been looking carefully at African patterns and thinking about the shapes, lines and designs we would like to use in our own artwork. We are very excited to make our tiles next week and see our designs come to life!

In Geography, we have been continuing our learning about weather. We have been exploring how the weather can be different in different parts of the UK and have created our own weather reports for different locations. We chose the capital cities of each of the four UK countries, as well as Darwen. We watched different examples of weather reports, including a serious report, a funny report and even a very funny one featuring King Charles! We then used what we had learnt to create our own weather reports. We certainly have some budding weather presenters in Year 2!

With Mr Richards, we have continued our ukulele learning. 🎶 We have been practising our skills and building our confidence as musicians, and we are really enjoying learning how to play the ukulele.

In Computing, with Mrs Haddow and Mrs Vickers, we have been exploring some of the technology we have in our classrooms. We had the opportunity to look at the 3D printers and some of the other technology we use in school. We enjoyed finding out more about how these technologies work and how they can support our learning.

In Science, we have begun an exciting investigation to find out whether plants need light to grow and germinate. We have placed one plant in a dark cupboard and another on a bright windowsill, and we are going to carefully observe what happens to them over the coming days. Before beginning our investigation, we thought carefully about how to make it a fair test and identified the variables we need to keep the same. We can't wait to see what happens to our plants!

What a busy and exciting week of learning we have had! We are so proud of everyone's enthusiasm, curiosity, creativity and hard work. From meeting an author and celebrating 25 years of Charlie and Lola, to writing our own poetry and developing our learning across the curriculum, it has certainly been another wonderful week in Year 2. Keep up the fantastic work, Year 2 — we can't wait to see what next week brings! 🌟

Autumn 1 Week 4 - Wb: 21.09.26

We have been incredibly busy this week, learning, exploring and having lots of fun across all areas of our curriculum. Here is a little look at what we have been getting up to.

In Writing, we have written some absolutely amazing circular narratives linked to our text, A River. We have been working hard to turn the different settings from our book into exciting stories. We have used -er and -est suffixes, expanded noun phrases and conjunctions to describe our settings and link our ideas together. Mrs Harrison is incredibly proud of the fantastic writing we have produced!

We then completed an independent write, using different settings to create our own circular narratives. We are now busy copying up our work and producing our final drafts, ready to create a wonderful display at the back of our classroom. We are all very excited to see our finished stories on display!

In Maths, we have finished our place value unit. We have been ordering objects and numbers and developing our counting skills. We have practised counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, as well as counting in 3s. We have worked really hard to become more confident with numbers and are now looking forward to beginning our new unit on addition and subtraction next week.

In Phonics, we have been learning about vowel digraphs and alternative sounds. We have been spotting these different sounds in words and thinking carefully about which sound we need when reading and spelling. We have been working hard to apply our phonics knowledge independently.

In Reading, we have started exploring some different poems and learning more about what a poet is. We have been enjoying listening to and discussing poetry and are looking forward to celebrating National Poetry Day next week!

In RE, we have been learning more about the Bible. We have discovered that the Bible was originally written on scrollsand have explored some of its history. We also learnt about the discovery of ancient scrolls in a cave in Israel, which gave us lots to discuss and think about.

In PSHE, we have been thinking about happiness and wellbeing. We have talked about how we might not feel happy all the time, and that this is completely normal, but we can still find moments of happiness in our everyday lives. We have enjoyed sharing ideas about the things that make us feel happy and positive.

Our artists have been exploring African prints in preparation for creating our own African-inspired tiles. We have been looking carefully at patterns, shapes and designs and are very excited to put our ideas into practice.

In Geography, we have been exploring the four countries of the United Kingdom and their capital cities. We worked in groups of four and had to use the iPads to research different landmarks and clues. We then worked together to decide which country each landmark belonged to and sort them into the correct groups. It was a fantastic opportunity to develop our teamwork, research and problem-solving skills!

With Mr Richards, we have continued our ukulele learning. 🎶 We have been practising our skills and building our confidence as musicians, and we are really enjoying making music together.

In Computing, with Mrs Haddon and Miss Vickers, we have continued learning about technology. We have compared a desktop computer and an iPad, thinking about their similarities and differences and what they can be used for. We have also been logging into TT Rock Stars and making sure we know our own logins so that we can continue practising our times tables at home.

We have also been learning about online safety, particularly how we can keep our personal information safe when we are using technology. We have discussed the importance of being careful about what information we share online. It would be fantastic if parents could continue reinforcing these important messages at home too.

We have also had a wonderful Outdoor and Adventurous Learning session this week, where we combined our outdoor learning with our science knowledge. We explored the idea that not all seeds look the same and investigated different seeds and bulbs that we can find in our local area. We discovered garlic bulbs and lots of other examples before heading off on a seed hunt along the stream. We loved being outside, exploring our local environment and putting our scientific knowledge into practice.

And, of course, we had to finish our outdoor adventure with some absolutely delicious toasted marshmallows! 🔥

What another fantastic week of learning we have had! We are incredibly proud of everyone's hard work, curiosity, teamwork and enthusiasm. Keep up the fantastic work, Year 2 — we can't wait to see what next week brings! 🌟

Autumn 1 Week 3: wb 14.09.26

What another fantastic week we have had in Year 2! We have been busy learning, exploring and developing our skills across all areas of our curriculum. Here is a little look at what we have been getting up to this week.

In Writing, we have continued our exciting journey through our text A River. This week, we have been describing the dramatic storm and thinking carefully about how we can make our writing interesting and exciting. We have been focusing on using possessive apostrophes correctly and have also been using question marks to explore what the boy might be thinking to himself as the storm takes place and as he falls down the waterfall. We have discovered that the story is a circular narrative because the boy begins and ends in the same place. We have now started to plan our own version of the story, changing it from first person to third person. We carefully planned our circular narrative and have begun writing parts one and two, continuing to practise our use of possessive apostrophes and question marks. We have loved using our imaginations to bring our own versions of the story to life!

In Maths, we have been exploring number lines and developing our understanding of where numbers belong. We have been thinking carefully about where our tens take us to 100 and where the ones fit in between. We have also been investigating how number lines can have different intervals and different starting and ending points. We have had lots of fun estimating numbers on number lines, particularly when some of the intervals have not been marked. We have had to use our mathematical thinking to decide which number we think belongs in each position. We have also been comparing numbers and objects using the less than, more than and equals to signs and explaining how we know which is greater or smaller.

In Phonics, we have been exploring the different sounds that the 'oo' grapheme can make. We have been reading and spelling words containing these different sounds and have been working hard to apply our phonics knowledge when writing. We have also written some super sentences using our new learning!

In Reading, we have continued exploring A World Full of Animal Stories and Under the Sun. So far, we have found out lots of interesting information about gorillas and have enjoyed reading Incy Wincy Spider. We have been developing our comprehension skills by answering questions about what we have read and thinking carefully about the information we can find in the text.

In RE, we have been learning more about the Bible and have discovered that it is like a library of books, divided into the Old Testament and New Testament. We each chose our favourite Bible story, created a picture to represent it and then identified whether our chosen story is found in the Old or New Testament. We enjoyed sharing our favourite stories and learning where they can be found in the Bible.

In PSHE, we have been exploring different emotions and thinking about how our bodies might show how we are feeling. We discussed how people can experience emotions in different ways and thought carefully about how we might recognise different feelings in ourselves and others.

Our artists have continued their clay work this week! We have been creating our own pinch pots and have learnt how to use the slip, scratch and slip method to join pieces of clay securely to our pots. We have really enjoyed getting creative with the clay and have been very proud of our finished creations. We are especially excited to bring our pinch pots home!

In Science, we have been investigating seeds and bulbs. We have explored the differences between them and looked closely at the different parts of a seed. We have been developing our scientific vocabulary and thinking about how the different parts of a seed help a plant to grow.

In Geography, we have been learning about seasonal and daily weather patterns in the UK. We have been thinking about how the weather can change and have also been investigating the direction that the wind comes from. We made our own wind sticks and have been using these to help us identify whether the wind is coming from the north, south, east or west. We have enjoyed becoming weather detectives!

With Mr Richards, we have continued our ukulele learning. 🎶 We have been practising our skills and building our confidence as musicians. We are really enjoying learning how to play the ukulele and are looking forward to developing our skills even further!

In Computing, with Mrs Haddow, we have been exploring the different types of technology that are all around us. We have been thinking about the technology we see and use in our everyday lives and discussing how technology can be found in lots of different places.

What a busy and exciting week of learning we have had! We are so proud of the enthusiasm, curiosity and hard work everyone has shown. There has been lots of fantastic learning taking place across the classroom, and we are looking forward to seeing what next week brings! 

Autumn 1 Week 2: 07.09.26

What another fantastic week we have had in Year 2! We have been busy learning, exploring and having lots of fun across all areas of our curriculum. Here is a little look at what we have been getting up to this week.

In writing, we have continued our exciting journey through our book A River. This week, we have been developing our descriptive writing skills by exploring and describing a range of different settings. We have travelled from the busy city, to the peaceful countryside, through the lush jungle and out across the vast oceans!

We have been working hard to make our descriptions interesting and exciting by using expanded noun phrases. We have also been practising our -er and -s suffixes and using both coordinating and subordinating conjunctions to join our ideas together. We have loved using our imaginations to bring each setting to life! 

In maths, we have continued our learning about place value. We have been using place value charts to help us understand the value of each digit in a number. We have been partitioning numbers to 100 into tens and ones, writing numbers in numerals and words, and practising writing numbers in expanded form. We are becoming more confident at explaining what each digit represents and showing our understanding in different ways.

In phonics, we have been focusing on the alternative sounds for e and oo. We have been reading and spelling words containing these different sounds and thinking carefully about which sound we can hear in each word. We have been working hard to apply our phonics knowledge when reading and writing.

In RE, we have been learning about the Bible and why it is important to Christians. We have learnt that the Bible is the Christian holy book and that it tells God's story. We have enjoyed discussing what the Bible means to Christians and why it is such an important book.

Our artists have been getting creative with clay! We have been exploring clay and experimenting with different materials and tools that we can use to create interesting textures. We have enjoyed seeing how different objects can make different marks and patterns in the clay.

In science, we have been recapping our Year 1 learning all about plants. We have been seeing what we can remember about the different parts of a plant and have practised labelling them.

We also revisited our memories of the plants we discovered in our local area when we were in Year 1. It was fantastic to see how much we could remember and to talk about the different plants we had found!

In geography, we have been learning all about the four seasons. We have been describing the different seasons and thinking about the changes we see throughout the year.

We have also learnt why Earth has four different seasons and discussed how the Earth’s movement around the Sun helps to cause these seasonal changes. 🌍☀️🍂❄️

We were very excited to welcome the Life Education team to school this week! We had a wonderful visit from Gerald the Giraffe and Harold. 🦒

We learnt lots about our feelings and emotions, including how we might recognise different feelings and how we can talk about them. We really enjoyed our visit and learnt lots of important things about looking after ourselves and our wellbeing.

With Mr Richards, we have continued our ukulele learning. 🎶 We have been practising our skills and building our confidence as musicians. We are enjoying learning how to play the ukulele and are looking forward to developing our skills even further!

In computing, we have been learning about staying safe online. We have focused particularly on the importance of keeping our passwords private and never sharing them with other people. We are learning how to make safe and sensible choices when using technology.

In PE, we have been developing our fundamental movement skills. We have been practising throwing, catching and skipping through a variety of fun games and activities.

We have been working on our coordination, control and teamwork, while also having lots of fun being active.

What a busy and exciting week of learning we have had. We are so proud of the enthusiasm, curiosity and hard work everyone has shown. Keep up the fantastic work, Year 2 — we can't wait to see what next week brings! 

Autumn 1 Week 1: wb 01.09.25

What a fantastic first week we have had in Year 2 at Hoddlesden St Paul’s! It has been wonderful to welcome everyone back after the summer holidays, and the children have settled into Year 2 incredibly well. We have spent the first few days getting to know our new routines and expectations, and everyone has made a brilliant start.

In Writing, we have begun exploring our new text, A River by Marc Martin. We looked carefully at the illustrations and made some thoughtful predictions about what the book might be about. We are already very excited to find out more and see where our learning takes us!

In Maths, we have been exploring grouping and counting in tens. The children have been working practically to make groups and have been developing their understanding of how counting in tens can help us count larger quantities more efficiently.

In Geography, we have started our new unit all about weather. We began by becoming weather detectives and carefully observing the clouds. We discussed what we could see in the sky and started to think about how clouds can tell us about the weather.

Our PSHE learning has focused on our ideal classroom. We thought carefully about what would make our classroom a happy, safe and positive place to learn and then wrote our own pledges about how we can contribute to making our classroom the very best it can be.

In Art, we have begun our new sculpture unit. We explored the work of artist Ranti Bam and looked carefully at her sculptures, discussing their shapes, forms and textures. We are looking forward to experimenting with our own sculptural ideas over the coming weeks.

In Phonics, we have been exploring the different ways we can make the /ee/ sound. We have been spotting these sounds in words and practising reading and spelling them accurately.

We have also spent lots of time getting to know each other, establishing our classroom routines and reminding ourselves of our school rules and expectations. The children have shown fantastic enthusiasm, kindness and maturity throughout the week.

It has been a brilliant first few days in Year 2, and we are incredibly proud of how well everyone has settled in. Well done, Year 2 — what a wonderful start to the year! 🌟