Year 2 Curriculum Overview

Spring

Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole

How parents can help:

Please help your child by hearing them read 3-4 times a week. To develop their

comprehension, they need to check that the text makes sense to them as they

read and correct any inaccurate reading, make inferences on the basis of what

is being said and done and answer and ask questions. Children should have their

reading book and record in school every day.

Please continue to support your child with completing the maths challenges on

Mathletics and learning their number stars.

Please help your child to learn their 2, 5 and 10 times tables off by heart.

The weekly spellings will be words based around their phonics. These will be

sent home on a Wednesday - please help your child to practise their words

ready for a test the following Tuesday.

Year 2 will be having P.E. on a Tuesday and a Friday.

Literacy

Writing

The children will:

Write information texts

Write about real events

Focus on different stories by the same author

Write fiction stories

Write instructions

Look at Non-Chronological report writing

Write poetry

Grammar

Children will focus on various aspects of grammar throughout the term.

They will learn to:

Use co-ordination – and, but, or

Write using alternative spelling patterns for some phonemes

Spell Year 1/2 common exception words

Past tense – adding ed and changing the y to i

Adjectives in a simple expanded noun phrase

Distinguish between homophones and near-homophones

Compound words

Apostrophes to mark where letters are missing in spelling

Apostrophes to mark singular possession

Suffixes - -er, -ness, -ment, -ly, -ful and –less

Plurals- add s to words ending in a vowel and y e.g. monkeys

Maths

Children will practise multiplication and division (number and problem solving),

statistics, fractions, measurement (mass, length/height) and time.

The children will be taught/taught to:

Recognise/make/add equal groups

Use arrays

Use the 2, 5 and 10 times table

Make tally charts, draw and interpret pictograms

Make equal parts

Find a half, a quarter, a third and three quarters

Know the equivalence of one half and two-quarters

Count in Fractions

Measure and compare lengths in cm and m

Measure and compare mass in g and kg

Measure and compare capacity ml and l

Measure temperature

Describe movement and turns

Make patterns with shapes

In addition to the above, the children will be practising skills already learnt in

order to consolidate their learning.

Science

‘Animals including humans’

Children will:

Notice that animals, including humans, have offspring, which grow into adults

Find out about and describe the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival (which are water, food

and air)

Describe the importance for humans of exercise, eating the right amounts of different types of food and

hygiene

Describe the life cycle of a bird (chicken)

Describe the life cycle of a butterfly

Describe the life cycle of a frog

Work scientifically:

Perform simple tests

Record data

Science

‘Living things and their habitats’

Children will:

Explore and compare the differences between things that are living, dead and things that have never been alive

Understand that there are some things which have never been alive

Identify that most living things live in habitats, to which they are suited

Describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants and how

they depend on one another

Identify and name a variety of plants and animals in their habitats

Describe how animals obtain their food from plants and other animals, using the idea of a simple food chain

Work scientifically:

Observe closely, using simple equipment

Ask and answer simple questions

Identify and classify

History

‘Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole’

Children will:

Order the important events in the life of Florence Nightingale

Discuss conditions of the hospitals in Scutari

Compare Florence Nightingale’s life to nursing and hospitals today

Look at the life of Mary Seacole and produce a fact file

Geography

Children will:

Name and locate the four countries of the United Kingdom and their capital cities

Learn some information about the four countries of the UK – flags, flowers, famous buildings etc

Name and locate the seas around the United Kingdom

Name and locate the continents on a world map

Name and locate the oceans on a world map

R.E.

Challenging attitude – ‘Why are some things special?’

Children will explore the following:

Understand that people have different belongings that are special to them

Know how to handle artefacts with care and respect

Consider how we look after special things

Consider how we should care for other people’s things

Consider how you treat your special belongings

Consider what is special to your friends and family

Know and reflect upon the key events of the Genesis Creation story

Celebrations - Easter

P.E.

Year 2 will be having P.E. on a Tuesday and a Friday.

Children should:

Become increasingly competent and confident in a variety of movement skills.

Extend their balance, co-ordination and agility.

Apply their balance, co-ordination and agility in a range of activities.

Computing

Children will:

Use programs to support literacy, grammar and topic work

Use ‘PurpleMash’ to develop some simple coding and computer programming

skills

Make an animation showing movement

Use the ‘Mashcams’ to write about a character

Research Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole

Art

Children will have the opportunity to explore a variety of creative techniques,

using a range of different media

Creative activities will include:

Jointed people (link with Science)

Bones and skeletons (link with Science)

Mothers’ Day cards

Easter cards